I was very pleased this morning to find that four readers using my wordpress platform had delved into the website archive or used Google search to find my 2022 essay about the contents and relevance of a book of essays I published in 2010, Great Post Cold War American Thinkers on International Relations – the book which I mentioned in yesterday’s installment here.  It was still more pleasant to find on my daily Amazon account that one reader had just purchased a copy of that book after reading my remarks yesterday.

The link is here for those subscribers who have joined this community recently and would like to catch up: https://gilbertdoctorow.com/20203/28/great-post-cold-war-americanthinkers-on-international-relations/  

On my substack platform, one subscriber posted a comment on yesterday’s introduction to my ‘Dialogue Works’ interview suggesting I was possibly being too self-promoting. To this I replied that when you are publishing even a gentle critical comment on Messrs. Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer directly not to mention a harsher critique of Scott Ritter indirectly, you are by definition no ‘wilting violet.’

Indeed, I am today battle-scarred from the Information Wars.  Back in 2010, when I was a Visiting Fellow of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University, I delivered a book presentation of the newly released Great Post Cold War…Thinkers in a room of the Harriman Institute, which was then still a major center of Russian studies in U.S. higher education but is today a center of Ukrainian studies and of the ‘de-colonization’ of Russia. I was met by stony faces, since faculty had no idea that one might say anything other than complimentary if not adulatory when writing about the ‘greats’ of political science, namely Kissinger, Brzezinski, Huntington and Fukuyama, among others.

Then there was another communication yesterday from a reader with a properly inquisitive mind who asked for the link to my article written a decade or more ago which I mentioned in the chat with Nima Alkhorshid, the one dealing with Cheney’s gutting the Deep State, meaning here the State Department and the CIA along with other federal government intelligence groups. In that same article I spoke about why the Sovietologists were chased out and some Middle East and Islamist extremism experts were ushered in, plus the shift of a substantial part of the intelligence budget away from federal employees and towards commercial suppliers on short term contracts.  All of this, by the way, is why I believe that sanitizing the intelligence agencies will take a great deal more than replacement of the very top echelons there who may be yes-men to the White House.

Regrettably, in trying to respond to this request, I discovered that I had not included that very important essay in my several published collections of essays, and that I do not have the skills to locate it in the archive of either of my web platforms, though in principle it should be there from when I transferred the entire record of my essays published over the course of five or more years on the guest platform of the French-language Belgian daily Le Soir away from there to my then new wordpress website. Perhaps I will succeed in locating the article in question in one of my memory sticks or on now retired PCs. In that case I will republish it here.  But as a token indication of the sources I was using for my article I have cut and paste below the introductory pages of one of those key sources. Note that the information on outsourcing of intelligence work dates from 2006. I have not followed up this question recently and do not know the proportion of intelligence gathering done inside the federal agencies versus by contract to commercial service providers.

I was pleased to get this request, because we disseminators of commentary on current international events should, where possible, explain to readers and listeners what are our sources. 

In its own way, this nasty experience of trying and failing to locate an important article that I had written a decade or more ago is the very reason why I periodically publish collections of my essays as e-books or paperbacks. Websites come and go; books do not. However, it is always a challenge to know what to republish in a book and what to leave to the side because it does not appear to be germane to the central idea of the book.

Quote

ANALYSIS   03/12/2007

OUTSOURCING INTELLIGENCE:

THE EXAMPLE OF THE UNITED STATES

by Raphaël RAMOS, Research Associate

This past September, the polemic around Blackwater USA[1] illustrated the growing reliance of the American government on the private sector to carry out security missions that formerly were entrusted to the military. In Iraq, this practice has assumed unprecedented scope. According to the Washington Post, the number of armed persons working in Mesopotamia for companies under contract with the United States government has ranged between 20,000 and 30,000[2]. If we look beyond the area of security, the number of individuals present in Iraq on the basis of contracts signed by companies with the Pentagon or US State Department was estimated in July, 2007 to be more than 180,000[3]. Among these civilians employed by private companies, some work on behalf of intelligence agencies such as the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) or the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency).

Contrary to conventional wisdom, this practice of outsourcing intelligence is nothing new. In fact it goes back to the very beginning of the American nation. Due to a lack of money and of intelligence professionals, certain activities involving collecting and analysing data were entrusted to civilians who were engaged for brief periods of time. Thus, during the War of Independence, General George Washington made use of many networks of civilian spies. In the same way, during the 19^th century, the company of the well-known Allan Pinkerton conducted espionage on behalf of the American government. This process slowed down in the 20th century when intelligence became professional and specialised military agencies emerged. It reappeared in the 1990s and continued to develop, reaching a scale never seen before. According to internal sources within the American intelligence community, nearly seventy percent of its budget is spent via contracts with private companies[4].

While the ‘privatisation of security’ has been the subject of many articles and studies, the  process of outsourcing party of intelligence activities still remains largely ignored.  By taking the example of the United States, the leading country in this domain, it would seem interesting to go into the development of this phenomenon and examine its true extent, the reasons for its happening today and its limits.

1. A practice that is continuously expanding

Though, as we have seen, the use of private companies in the area of intelligence is nothing new, the extent of the phenomenon today is without precedent. It is still difficult to evaluate precisely, because of the secrecy inherent in the practice of intelligence and the polemics that have rendered this question very sensitive in the United States. Last April, Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), was supposed to present a report on the practice of outsourcing within the community he directs. This report was initially delayed and then was classified, thus rendering its publication impossible.[5]

At the same time, the press revealed that according to a presentation made within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the American intelligence community devotes nearly seventy percent of its budget to outsourcing part of its activities.  This is difficult to verify and has been challenged by certain officials in Mr. McConnell’s office[6], but the figure nonetheless confirms a tendency towards increased reliance of the federal intelligence agencies on subcontractors. Other sources revealed that for the year 2004, around half of the intelligence budget was used to obtain the services of private companies[7]. The explosion in the number of these specialised enterprises suggests there is a very lucrative market here being fed by the sixteen member bodies of the American intelligence community.[8]

               w The agencies and the activities concerned

Outsourcing is greatest among the agencies reporting to the Defense Department. The intelligence activities managed by the NSA (National Security Agency), the NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) and the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) are undeniably the most costly. In addition, their high technology nature makes it inevitable to go to actors in the private sector. Thus, ever since the summer of 2001, the NSA has had a signed contract worth more than two billion dollars subcontracting certain of its activities concerning Information Technologies and communications over a period lasting ten years.[9] Similarly, ever since its creation in 1995, the NGA has relied on the private sector to supply it with software and Information Systems. Today, out of the 14,000 persons working in NGA premises, nearly half are in reality employed by subcontractor companies.[10] All the same, one must note that the most ‘traditional’ activities such as human collecting of intelligence or analysis are also affected by this phenomenon.

---

[1] On September 16, 2007, some employees of Blackwater USA killed seventeen Iraqi civilians during a shooting under circumstances that remain hazy. Following this event, the Iraqi government asked the security company to leave Iraq.

[2] Steve Fainaru, Saad al-Izzi, ‘U.S. Security Contractors Open Fire in Baghdad,’ The Washington Post, May 27, 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/26/AR2007052601394.html

[3] T. Christian Miller, ‘Private Contractors Outnumber US Troops in Iraq,’ The Los Angeles Times,  July 4, 2007.

[4] Tim Shorrock, ‘The corporate takeover of U.S. intelligence ,’  Salon.com,  June 1, 2007. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/01/intel_contractors/

[5] Scott Shane, ‘ Government Keeps a Secret After Studying Spy Agencies ,’ The New York Times, April 26, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/washington/26contracting.html

[6] Shaun Waterman, ‘Analysis: Intel Spending and Contractors,’ UPI, June 27, 2007. http://www.upi.com/Security_Terrorism/Analysis/2007/06/27/analysis_intel_spending_and_contractors/3391/

[7] Major Glenn J. Voelz, USA, Managing the Private Spies: The Use of Commercial Augmentation for Intelligence Operations, Washington D.C., Center for Strategic Intelligence Research, Joint Military Intelligence College, June 2006, p. 12.

[8] Basing ourselves on the official figure of the intelligence budget, 43.5 billion dollars, as published by the American Administration, the intelligence outsourcing market would be more than 30 billion dollars for the year 2007.

[9] National Security Agency Outsources Areas of Non-Mission Information Technology to CSC-Led Alliance Team, NSA Press Release, July 31, 2001. http://www.nsa.gov/releases/relea00034.cfm

[10] Tim Shorrock, ‘The corporate takeover of U.S. intelligence,’ op. cit.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)Das Feedback von wissbegierigen Menschen ist die beste Bestätigung für diese Website

Ich habe mich heute Morgen sehr darüber gefreut, dass vier Leser, die meine WordPress-Plattform nutzen, im Website-Archiv gestöbert oder die Google-Suche verwendet haben, um meinen Aufsatz aus dem Jahr 2022 über den Inhalt und die Relevanz eines Aufsatzbandes zu finden, den ich 2010 veröffentlicht habe, Great Post Cold War American Thinkers on International Relations – das Buch, das ich in der gestrigen Folge hier erwähnt habe. Es war noch erfreulicher, auf meinem täglichen Amazon-Konto zu sehen, dass ein Leser gerade ein Exemplar dieses Buches gekauft hatte, nachdem er meine gestrigen Ausführungen gelesen hatte.

Für diejenigen Abonnenten, die dieser Community erst kürzlich beigetreten sind und sich auf den neuesten Stand bringen möchten, finden Sie hier den Link: https://gilbertdoctorow.com/20203/28/great-post-cold-war-americanthinkers-on-international-relations/  

Auf meiner Substack-Plattform hat ein Abonnent einen Kommentar zur gestrigen Ausgabe meines „Dialogue Works“-Interviews gepostet, in dem er mir vorwarf, ich würde mich möglicherweise zu sehr selbst bewerben. Darauf habe ich geantwortet, dass man per definitionem kein „zartes Pflänzchen“ istd, wenn man auch nur einen leicht kritischen Kommentar über die Herren Jeffrey Sachs und John Mearsheimer veröffentlicht, ganz zu schweigen von einer härteren Kritik an Scott Ritter.

Tatsächlich bin ich heute von den Informationskriegen gezeichnet. Damals im Jahr 2010, als ich Visiting Fellow am Harriman Institute der Columbia University war, hielt ich in einem Raum des Harriman Institute, das damals noch ein bedeutendes Zentrum für Russischstudien an US-amerikanischen Hochschulen war, heute jedoch ein Zentrum für Ukrainistik und die „Entkolonialisierung“ Russlands ist, eine Buchpräsentation des neu erschienenen Great Post Cold War… Thinkers. Ich stieß auf versteinerte Gesichter, da die Fakultät keine Ahnung hatte, dass man etwas anderes als Komplimente, wenn nicht gar Lobeshymnen, äußern würde, wenn man über die „Größen“ der Politikwissenschaft schreibt, nämlich Kissinger, Brzezinski, Huntington und Fukuyama, um nur einige zu nennen.

Dann gab es gestern eine weitere Nachricht von einem Leser mit einem wirklich wissbegierigen Verstand, der nach dem Link zu meinem Artikel fragte, den ich vor einem Jahrzehnt oder länger geschrieben hatte und den ich im Chat mit Nima Alkhorshid erwähnt habe. Es ging um den Artikel, in dem es darum ging, wie Cheney den „Deep State“ ausgeweidet hat, womit hier das Außenministerium und die CIA zusammen mit anderen Geheimdiensten der Bundesregierung gemeint sind. In demselben Artikel sprach ich darüber, warum die Sowjetologen hinausgeworfen und einige Nahost- und Islamismus-Experten hereingebeten wurden, sowie über die Verlagerung eines erheblichen Teils des Geheimdienstbudgets weg von Bundesangestellten und hin zu kommerziellen Anbietern mit kurzfristigen Verträgen. All dies ist übrigens der Grund, warum ich glaube, dass die Säuberung der Geheimdienste viel mehr erfordert als nur den Austausch der obersten Führungsriege, die möglicherweise Ja-Sager des Weißen Hauses sind.

Leider musste ich bei dem Versuch, dieser Bitte nachzukommen, feststellen, dass ich diesen sehr wichtigen Aufsatz nicht in meine verschiedenen veröffentlichten Aufsatzsammlungen aufgenommen hatte und dass ich nicht über die Fähigkeiten verfüge, ihn im Archiv einer meiner Webplattformen zu finden, obwohl er im Prinzip dort sein sollte, da ich die gesamten Aufzeichnungen meiner Essays, die ich im Laufe von fünf oder mehr Jahren veröffentlicht hatte, von dort auf meine damals neue WordPress-Website übertragen habe. Vielleicht gelingt es mir, den betreffenden Artikel auf einem meiner Memory Sticks oder auf inzwischen ausgemusterten PCs zu finden. In diesem Fall werde ich ihn hier erneut veröffentlichen. Als Hinweis auf die Quellen, die ich für meinen Artikel verwendet hatte, habe ich unten die einleitenden Seiten einer dieser Hauptquellen ausgeschnitten und eingefügt. Beachten Sie, dass die Informationen zur Auslagerung der Geheimdienstarbeit aus dem Jahr 2006 stammen. Ich habe diese Frage in letzter Zeit nicht weiterverfolgt und weiß nicht, in welchem Verhältnis die Datenerhebung innerhalb der Bundesbehörden und durch Verträge mit kommerziellen Dienstleistern erfolgt.

Ich habe mich über diese Anfrage gefreut, denn wir, die wir Kommentare zu aktuellen internationalen Ereignissen verbreiten, sollten unseren Lesern und Zuhörern nach Möglichkeit erklären, woher wir unsere Informationen beziehen.

Diese unangenehme Erfahrung, als ich einen wichtigen Artikel von mir von vor zehn oder mehr Jahren finden wollte, aber scheiterte, ist auf ihre eigene Art und Weise der Grund, warum ich regelmäßig Sammlungen meiner Essays als E-Books oder Taschenbücher veröffentliche. Websites kommen und gehen, Bücher nicht. Es ist jedoch immer eine Herausforderung zu wissen, was man in einem Buch erneut veröffentlichen und was man beiseitelassen sollte, weil es nicht mit der zentralen Idee des Buches in Zusammenhang zu stehen scheint.

Zitat

ANALYSE   03/12/2007

OUTSOURCING VON GEHEIMDIENSTINFORMATIONEN:

DAS BEISPIEL DER VEREINIGTEN STAATEN

von Raphaël RAMOS, Research Associate

Die Polemik um Blackwater USA[1] im vergangenen September veranschaulichte die wachsende Abhängigkeit der amerikanischen Regierung vom Privatsektor bei der Durchführung von Sicherheitsmissionen, die früher dem Militär anvertraut waren. Im Irak hat diese Praxis ein beispielloses Ausmaß angenommen. Laut der Washington Post liegt die Zahl der bewaffneten Personen, die in Mesopotamien für Unternehmen arbeiten, die mit der Regierung der Vereinigten Staaten unter Vertrag stehen, zwischen 20.000 und 30.000[2]. Wenn wir über den Bereich der Sicherheit hinausblicken, wurde die Zahl der Personen, die sich auf der Grundlage von Verträgen, die Unternehmen mit dem Pentagon oder dem US-Außenministerium abgeschlossen haben, im Irak aufhalten, im Juli 2007 auf mehr als 180.000 geschätzt[3]. Unter diesen von Privatunternehmen beschäftigten Zivilisten arbeiten einige im Auftrag von Geheimdiensten wie der CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) oder der DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency).

Entgegen der landläufigen Meinung ist diese Praxis des Outsourcings von Geheimdienstinformationen nichts Neues. Tatsächlich reicht sie bis in die Anfänge der amerikanischen Nation zurück. Aufgrund von Geldmangel und einem Mangel an Geheimdienstmitarbeitern wurden bestimmte Tätigkeiten im Zusammenhang mit der Datenerhebung und -analyse Zivilisten anvertraut, die für kurze Zeiträume engagiert wurden. So nutzte General George Washington während des Unabhängigkeitskrieges zahlreiche Netzwerke ziviler Spione. Auf die gleiche Weise führte die Firma des bekannten Allan Pinkerton im 19. Jahrhundert Spionage im Auftrag der amerikanischen Regierung durch. Dieser Prozess verlangsamte sich im 20. Jahrhundert, als die Geheimdienste professioneller wurden und spezialisierte Militärbehörden entstanden. In den 1990er Jahren tauchte er wieder auf und entwickelte sich weiter, wobei er ein nie dagewesenes Ausmaß erreichte. Laut internen Quellen innerhalb der amerikanischen Geheimdienste werden fast siebzig Prozent ihres Budgets über Verträge mit Privatunternehmen ausgegeben[4].

Während die „Privatisierung der Sicherheit“ Gegenstand zahlreicher Artikel und Studien war, wird der Prozess der Auslagerung eines Teils der Geheimdienstaktivitäten nach wie vor weitgehend ignoriert. Am Beispiel der Vereinigten Staaten, dem führenden Land in diesem Bereich, erscheint es interessant, die Entwicklung dieses Phänomens zu untersuchen und sein tatsächliches Ausmaß, die Gründe für sein heutiges Auftreten und seine Grenzen zu untersuchen.

1. Eine Praxis, die sich ständig erweitert

Obwohl der Einsatz privater Unternehmen im Bereich der Geheimdienste, wie wir gesehen haben, nichts Neues ist, ist das Ausmaß des Phänomens heute beispiellos. Eine genaue Bewertung ist aufgrund der Geheimhaltung, die der Geheimdienstpraxis innewohnt, und der Polemik, die diese Frage in den Vereinigten Staaten sehr heikel gemacht hat, nach wie vor schwierig. Im vergangenen April sollte Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence  (DNI), einen Bericht über die Outsourcing-Praxis innerhalb der von ihm geleiteten Gemeinschaft vorlegen. Dieser Bericht wurde zunächst verschoben und dann als Verschlusssache eingestuft, wodurch seine Veröffentlichung unmöglich wurde.[5]

Gleichzeitig wurde in der Presse bekannt, dass laut einer Präsentation im Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) die amerikanische Geheimdienstgemeinschaft fast siebzig Prozent ihres Budgets für die Auslagerung eines Teils ihrer Aktivitäten verwendet. Dies ist schwer zu überprüfen und wurde von einigen Beamten in Mr. McConnells Büro angezweifelt[6], aber die Zahl bestätigt dennoch eine Tendenz zu einer verstärkten Abhängigkeit der Bundesnachrichtendienste von Subunternehmern. Aus anderen Quellen geht hervor, dass im Jahr 2004 etwa die Hälfte des Geheimdienstbudgets für die Inanspruchnahme der Dienste privater Unternehmen verwendet wurde[7]. Die explosionsartige Zunahme dieser spezialisierten Unternehmen lässt darauf schließen, dass es hier einen sehr lukrativen Markt gibt, der von den sechzehn Mitgliedern der amerikanischen Geheimdienstgemeinschaft bedient wird.[8]

2. Die Agenturen und die betreffenden Aktivitäten

Am stärksten ist das Outsourcing bei den dem Verteidigungsministerium unterstellten Behörden. Die von der NSA (National Security Agency), der NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) und dem NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) verwalteten Geheimdienstaktivitäten sind unbestreitbar die kostspieligsten. Darüber hinaus macht es ihr hochtechnologischer Charakter unvermeidlich, auf Akteure des Privatsektors zurückzugreifen. So hat die NSA seit dem Sommer 2001 einen Vertrag über mehr als zwei Milliarden Dollar für die Vergabe bestimmter Tätigkeiten im Bereich Informationstechnologie und Kommunikation über einen Zeitraum von zehn Jahren abgeschlossen.[9] Ebenso ist die NGA seit ihrer Gründung im Jahr 1995 auf den Privatsektor angewiesen, um Software und Informationssysteme zu erhalten. Heute sind von den 14.000 Personen, die in den Räumlichkeiten der NGA arbeiten, fast die Hälfte in Wirklichkeit bei Subunternehmern beschäftigt.[10] Dennoch muss man feststellen, dass auch die „traditionellsten“ Tätigkeiten wie das Sammeln von Informationen oder die Analyse von Menschen betroffen sind.

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[1] Am 16. September 2007 töteten einige Mitarbeiter von Blackwater USA bei einer Schießerei unter noch ungeklärten Umständen siebzehn irakische Zivilisten. Nach diesem Vorfall forderte die irakische Regierung das Sicherheitsunternehmen auf, den Irak zu verlassen.

[2] Steve Fainaru, Saad al-Izzi, ‘U.S. Security Contractors Open Fire in Baghdad,’ The Washington Post, May 27, 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/26/AR2007052601394.html

[3] T. Christian Miller, ‘Private Contractors Outnumber US Troops in Iraq,’ The Los Angeles Times,  July 4, 2007.

[4] Tim Shorrock, ‘The corporate takeover of U.S. intelligence ,’  Salon.com,  June 1, 2007. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/01/intel_contractors/

[5] Scott Shane, ‘ Government Keeps a Secret After Studying Spy Agencies ,’ The New York Times, April 26, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/washington/26contracting.html

[6] Shaun Waterman, ‘Analysis: Intel Spending and Contractors,’ UPI, June 27, 2007. http://www.upi.com/Security_Terrorism/Analysis/2007/06/27/analysis_intel_spending_and_contractors/3391/

[7] Major Glenn J. Voelz, USA, Managing the Private Spies: The Use of Commercial Augmentation for Intelligence Operations, Washington D.C., Center for Strategic Intelligence Research, Joint Military Intelligence College, June 2006, p. 12.

[8] Ausgehend von der offiziellen Zahl des Geheimdienstbudgets, 43,5 Milliarden Dollar, wie von der amerikanischen Regierung veröffentlicht, würde der Markt für die Auslagerung von Geheimdiensten im Jahr 2007 mehr als 30 Milliarden Dollar betragen.

[9] National Security Agency Outsources Areas of Non-Mission Information Technology to CSC-Led Alliance Team, NSA Press Release, July 31, 2001. http://www.nsa.gov/releases/relea00034.cfm

[10] Tim Shorrock, ‘The corporate takeover of U.S. intelligence,’ op. cit.

I heartily recommend today’s discussion with host Nima Alkhorshid because of the variety of the subject matter. This included my critical view of what is being said by fellow alternative media experts in recent days and why our various differences in interpretation of current events must be aired without unnecessary deference to one another if you, the public, are to come to a sensible and well-founded understanding of what is going on in the world.

I have in mind in particular my remarks on what was missing from the otherwise excellent discussion of the Deep State in a chat between professors John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs on the All-in podcast that was put on line yesterday.  To my mind it is essential to mention that the Deep State, which, as these gentlemen say, is normally a force for continuity in the government of any of the Great Powers as they deal with the complexities of the world, lost all balance of skills and judgment back in 2002 when it was gutted by Vice President Dick Cheney. At that time, in the wake of 9/11 and in the midst of the War on Terror, Cheney carried out a purge of the State Department and of the intelligence services with a view to making them highly partisan, which is to say, bastions of Neocon thinking.

 At this same time, whatever objectivity in the CIA and similar that one might expect from lifelong bureaucrats, was destroyed when whole swathes of that bureaucracy were forcibly retired, ostensibly to replace now superfluous expertise (Sovietologists, Russianists) with much needed expertise on current threats (Middle East experts).  The situation was made still worse by the decision of Cheney and his colleagues to hasten the process of acquiring expert advice by outsourcing a large proportion of all intelligence work to commercial suppliers working from Open Sources and therefore needing no high- level security clearances. It is not that the new contractors lacked skills, because many of them actually had been Government employees before being made redundant. What matters is that the experts hired within the context of short-term contracts necessarily tailor their reports to the known desires of those signing their contracts in order to get extensions and new contracts. Net net: what they provide in their reports is what they know the Bosses want to hear, whether or not it is objectively correct.

As you will find viewing this interview, we talked about a great many topics of the day such as the latest assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I stand by my remark that would-be assassin Ryan Routh is probably not long for this world. I fully expect him to meet the fate of JFK’s assassin Oswald.

We also talked about the recent interest in Washington in negotiating a cease-fire and possibly a settlement for the Ukraine war. Then we moved on to the differences in approach to the way forward between the United States, which is now split 50-50 between Trump and Harras supporters, and the European Union where the split is 95-5, with only a couple of states, Hungary and Slovakia, voting against the overwhelming majority in favor of the war’s prosecution to a successful conclusion for Ukraine. I am especially satisfied with my likening the EU member states to the Бурлаки на Волге (Volga Boat Men) painting by Ilya Repin that hangs in the Russian Museum, St Petersburg.  They are bound together by rope as they pull the barge. Only their barge is headed downstream, not upstream, and they are walking on the banks of the Niagara river just before it hits the Falls.

I took pleasure in explaining my professional historian’s skepticism of the scientific nature of the discipline studied by most of the foreign policy experts in our media who were not students of some Journalism School. To my way of thinking, “political science” is a contradiction in terms.  Why I think so will be clear to any reader of my 2010 collection of essays in which I tried to get my mind around the writings of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, Noam Chomsky and two others: Great Post-Cold War American Thinkers on International Relations. Call it the revenge of an historian against those in the parallel profession who tend to raid history for “lessons” to support their latest theories. Notwithstanding the shortcomings of that book owing to its being my first self-published opus, I think it may still be the best I have written.

But for now, enjoy today’s show!

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus) followed by complete English transcript of the interview

„Dialogue Works“: Ausgabe vom 18. September 2024

Ich empfehle die heutige Diskussion mit Gastgeber Nima Alkhorshid aufgrund der Vielfalt der Themen von ganzem Herzen. Dazu gehörte auch meine kritische Sicht auf das, was von anderen Experten für alternative Medien in den letzten Tagen gesagt wurde, und warum unsere unterschiedlichen Interpretationen der aktuellen Ereignisse ohne unnötige Rücksichtnahme aufeinander geäußert werden müssen, wenn Sie, die Öffentlichkeit, zu einem vernünftigen und fundierten Verständnis dessen gelangen sollen, was in der Welt vor sich geht.

Ich denke dabei insbesondere an meine Bemerkungen darüber, was in der ansonsten ausgezeichneten Diskussion über den „Deep State“ in einem Chat zwischen den Professoren John Mearsheimer und Jeffrey Sachs im All-in-Podcast, der gestern online gestellt wurde, gefehlt hat. Meiner Meinung nach ist es wichtig zu erwähnen, dass der Deep State, der, wie diese Herren sagen, normalerweise eine Kraft für Kontinuität in der Regierung einer der Großmächte ist, wenn sie sich mit den Komplexitäten der Welt auseinandersetzen, bereits 2002 jegliches Gleichgewicht an Fähigkeiten und Urteilsvermögen verloren hat, als er von Vizepräsident Dick Cheney ausgeschaltet wurde. Zu dieser Zeit, nach dem 11. September und mitten im Krieg gegen den Terror, führte Cheney eine Säuberung des Außenministeriums und der Geheimdienste durch, um sie stark parteiisch zu machen, das heißt, zu Bastionen des Neokonservatismus.

Gleichzeitig wurde jegliche Objektivität in der CIA und ähnlichen Organisationen, die man von lebenslangen Bürokraten erwarten könnte, zunichte gemacht, als ganze Teile dieser Bürokratie zwangsweise in den Ruhestand versetzt wurden, angeblich um nun überflüssiges Fachwissen (Sowjetologen, Russisten) durch dringend benötigtes Fachwissen über aktuelle Bedrohungen (Nahostexperten) zu ersetzen. Die Situation wurde noch verschlimmert durch die Entscheidung Cheneys und seiner Kollegen, den Prozess der Einholung von Expertenrat zu beschleunigen, indem ein großer Teil der gesamten Geheimdienstarbeit an kommerzielle Anbieter ausgelagert wurde, die mit öffentlich zugänglichen Quellen arbeiteten und daher keine hohen Sicherheitsfreigaben benötigten. Es ist nicht so, dass es den neuen Auftragnehmern an Fähigkeiten mangelte, denn viele von ihnen waren zuvor Regierungsangestellte gewesen, bevor sie entlassen wurden. Entscheidend ist, dass die im Rahmen von Kurzzeitverträgen eingestellten Experten ihre Berichte notwendigerweise auf die bekannten Wünsche derjenigen zuschneiden, die ihre Verträge unterzeichnen, um Verlängerungen und neue Verträge zu erhalten. Unterm Strich: Was sie in ihren Berichten liefern, ist das, von dem sie wissen, dass die Chefs dies hören wollen, unabhängig davon, ob es objektiv korrekt ist oder nicht.

Wie Sie in diesem Interview sehen werden, haben wir über eine Vielzahl von aktuellen Themen gesprochen, wie z.B. über das jüngste Attentat auf Donald Trump. Ich bleibe bei meiner Bemerkung, dass der Möchtegern-Attentäter Ryan Routh wahrscheinlich nicht mehr lange auf dieser Welt sein wird. Ich gehe fest davon aus, dass ihm das gleiche Schicksal wie Oswald, dem Attentäter auf JFK, widerfahren wird.

Wir sprachen auch über das jüngste Interesse in Washington, einen Waffenstillstand und möglicherweise eine Einigung im Ukraine-Krieg auszuhandeln. Dann sprachen wir über die unterschiedlichen Herangehensweisen der Vereinigten Staaten, die nun zu 50 % aus Trump- und zu 50 % aus Harras-Anhängern bestehen, und der Europäischen Union, in der die Spaltung bei 95 % zu 5 % liegt, wobei nur ein paar Staaten, Ungarn und die Slowakei, gegen die überwältigende Mehrheit stimmten, die sich für die erfolgreiche Beendigung des Krieges zugunsten der Ukraine aussprach. Besonders zufrieden bin ich mit meinem Vergleich der EU-Mitgliedstaaten mit dem Gemälde „Бурлаки на Волге (Wolgaschlepper)“ von Ilja Repin, das im Russischen Museum in Sankt Petersburg hängt. Sie sind durch ein Seil miteinander verbunden, während sie den Lastkahn ziehen. Nur fährt ihr Lastkahn flussabwärts, nicht flussaufwärts, und sie gehen am Ufer des Niagara-Flusses spazieren, kurz bevor dieser in die Wasserfälle mündet.

Ich erklärte mit Vergnügen meine Skepsis als professioneller Historiker gegenüber der Wissenschaftlichkeit der Disziplin, die von den meisten außenpolitischen Experten in unseren Medien studiert wird, die keine Studenten einer Journalistenschule sind. Meiner Meinung nach ist „Politikwissenschaft“ ein Widerspruch in sich. Warum ich so denke, wird jedem Leser meiner Aufsatzsammlung aus dem Jahr 2010 klar werden, in der ich versucht habe, mich mit den Schriften von Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, Noam Chomsky und zwei weiteren auseinanderzusetzen: Great Post-Cold War American Thinkers on International Relations. Nennen wir es die Rache eines Historikers an denjenigen seines Berufsstands, die dazu neigen, die Geschichte nach „Lehren“ zu durchforsten, die ihre neuesten Theorien stützen. Ungeachtet der Mängel dieses Buches, die darauf zurückzuführen sind, dass es mein erstes im Selbstverlag veröffentlichtes Werk ist, denke ich, dass es immer noch das Beste ist, was ich geschrieben habe.

Aber jetzt genießen Sie erst einmal die heutige Sendung!

Transcript submitted by a reader

Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:03
So nice to have you back, Gilbert.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Alkhorshid:
Yeah. And let’s get started with what’s going on with Russia and NATO. And Putin was warning NATO not to send long-range missiles to Ukraine using them, because in his mind Ukraine is not capable of using these missiles without NATO getting involved and just running the show behind the scenes, or not behind the scenes. But how– on the other hand, we had Stoltenberg talking about that sending these long-range missiles to Ukraine would not escalate the situation. Because Putin, every time Putin is putting out a red line and we’re going to cross that nothing is going to happen. In an interview with the “Times”, he said that. And how serious was Putin’s warning?

Doctorow: 1:06
Well, Putin’s remarks were said in an offhand way, in a factual way, in an unemotional way, and he didn’t deliver this on a television address to the Russian nation, or address it specifically to the Americans and the Brits. It was– let’s remember the context. This was made between two meetings that he had at the, just on Palace Square in downtown Petersburg. He was preparing to speak or coming from the cultural forum and he was interviewed by a man who interviews him regularly, he’s always following two steps behind him. And this is the guy from Russia’s state news, Pavel Zarubin.

And he asked him, and Putin gave the answer that you just mentioned, that has been repeated, repeated, and repeated on all media, both mainstream and alternative, forever, since last Thursday, Friday. Now, this was not a specific threat. It was a statement of fact. And going from that statement of fact to the next stage in escalation is a big step. And I think that those of us who believe that you go directly from that to exchanging missiles carrying nuclear warheads, I think they’re exaggerating very greatly the timing of the threat. Not that we can’t reach that stage. Of course we can. But it’s not going to happen in one step. The means at the disposal of Russia to respond, to, shall we say, to retaliate for the United States, Britain, or others, giving the right to use their long-range missiles to attack the heartland of Russia– the distance traveled from that permission to a Russian retaliation of one kind to or another is all by itself a step.

3:16
The Russians have many, many things they can do. Then in the case of Britain, they don’t have to bomb London. They just have to cut the cables attaching Britain to the world and the British financial district will fold. There are a great many things, infrastructure damage, that Russia can do without anybody hardly noticing. So let’s look at what happened with Iran. Iran and retaliating for the murder in Tehran of an important ally, one of the leaders of Hamas. Did they expire next day? Did they set off a missile barrage or do anything really earth-shaking in the days that followed? Notwithstanding all the warnings coming out of the United States, nothing happened. But … but two days ago, the Houthis suddenly had hypersonic missiles. And the Houthis suddenly and inexplicably got through the Iron Dome, got through the American air defense systems on board or that whole flotilla of the Southeastern Mediterranean precisely to to prevent attacks on Israel, it got through it all.

4:33
And it hit target, which hasn’t been identified by the Israelis, I assume, because it would be too embarrassing. Was that pure Houthi development? It’s unthinkable. It had to have been Iranian missiles. I would add something that nobody’s talking about, but I’d like to hear it discussed. And how were those, how was that missile programmed? To my knowledge, the Iranians and the Houthis do not have satellites that are providing reconnaissance to program the missile. So I, as a guess, and I will say explicitly, this is my guess, the Russians did it. The Russians gave them the, again, a direct response to the use of American and West European satellites to program any missile that would be fired from Ukraine into Russia.

5:28
So two can play the game, two can play proxy war. And I don’t see the necessity for an instant move from proxy war to exchange of nuclear missiles. Fortunately for all of us, I think there’ll be a few steps along the way before we get, if we ever get to that stage. So these are issues I’d like to raise with respect to how the events of– how Putin’s warning has been interpreted here among the mainstream and among alternative. If I just take a second just to point out mainstream. Yesterday morning, yesterday morning, I listened to BBC morning news and they had a talking head, a university professor, Bristol, I don’t know where he was, somewhere in the UK, who astonishingly was saying, “Oh, there’s no reason to take these red lines seriously. Mr. Putin is just a bully, and bullies bluff.”

6:32
My goodness, this is, this is, this nonsense, this very dangerous, ignorant nonsense was yesterday morning being promoted from the state-controlled BBC. I emphasize this. Anyone who thinks that the BBC is an independent news source has not been applying their mind to the issue.

Alkhorshid: 6:57
The other thing that Stoltenberg raised in this article in the “Times” was that he supports the position of France together with the United Kingdom in using these long-range missiles. And do you understand the position of the United Kingdom right now, with the Labour Party? Because it seems that they’re the same as Sunak was. And there is nothing changed in the United Kingdom. Even it’s getting worse. How do you find it right now, considering that?

Doctorow:
Being worse than Boris is difficult. The Tory government was, and still, the man is still appearing before cameras. He was at this Yalta conference in Ukraine and he was saying the same old things. So the Tory government isn’t exactly a point of departure into new areas for Mr. Stormer’s government. He’s only continuing in an even slightly worse way under present conditions what Boris Johnson was doing in his time in office. But I think the reference has to be, speaking about labor, it has to be to the inventor of new labor. This goes back, well, two governments, three governments ago, to the period before the Iraq war, when Tony Blair was the lapdog, as he was, that’s what he was called in the States and elsewhere, the lapdog to Bush.

8:43
And he provided what Europe, in the person of France, Belgium, and Germany refused to provide, which was cover for the illegitimate, illegal war on Iraq, invasion, which killed maybe a million people. So Tony Blair was the enabler. He provided the bit of European sophistication to back up the rather crude and rude Mr. Bush Jr. and to give some oomph to this “alliance of the willing”.

Mr. Starmer, at New Labour today, is continuing the dog routine of Britain, but he’s not a lap dog. He’s a hunting dog. And he’s out two meters ahead of his boss in the White House. And he is really a dangerous personality. I haven’t studied his background; I’ve seen some brief information about his close tie-ins with American intelligence in the past. Let that be. I don’t want to look into his biography. I want to look into his present. And he’s getting terrible advice and he himself is pursuing a terrible policy. That can, that where Britain will be the, is the first country on this continent to have the Russian bullseye painted on it.

Alkhorshid: 10:15
Yeah, and there is an article in Politico talking about Zaluzhny was not in line with Zelensky, because earlier they had this thinking this type of thinking to attack the Kursk region. And Zaluzhny was not agreeing with them, and right now, with what has happened in the Kursk region, do you think, do you find it when you look at the whole conflict more than two years, do you think it was a very important turning point for the conflict, or it wasn’t that much important?

Doctorow;
No, it’s important. And those Western commentators who said it was a great embarrassment for Vladimir Putin are correct. Let’s not underestimate that. For Russians, for ordinary Russians, it is an enormous embarrassment and open question mark: how and why this could happen. Two and a half years into the war, and they’ve been invaded. Their borders were not adequately protected by this massive armed force that Russia has put in play against Ukraine. How could that have happened? I say the chips have not yet taken their proper place, fallen properly with respect to Gerasimov and the high command.

You can imagine well that Mr. Putin was furious, utterly furious over this humiliation and embarrassment. When they speak about humiliation in the West, they think it’s going to bring about regime change. That’s totally nonsense. The only humiliation that could bring about regime change is a total loss of the war. That would bring about regime change. In that sense, Washington is correct. What is wrong in Washington is they think that Russia can lose the war. That is dead wrong. There’s no way that Russia can, that you can defeat a nuclear power like Russia. It’s excluded. These are the, should be the most obvious things to any statesman, to any politician and decision maker in the West. You go back to basics about what nuclear powers are. You don’t, taunt you can taunt, but you don’t inflict a strategic defeat on them if you want to live to the next day.

Alkhorshid: 12:44
When you look at the behavior of the Americans right now, the Biden administration, and compare it to what’s going on in the European Union, do you think they’re totally in line? They’re thinking the same way, or there is a difference, or maybe significant difference between these two parties when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine right now?

Doctorow:
You know, this wonderful painting by Repin, that’s in the Russian Museum in Petersburg of the burlaki [boat men]. It’s the, those who are hauling barges up the Volga going against the current. And there they are, now 27 out of the 29 members of the EU out of 28 are those burlaki. They’re all pulling, they’re all tied to one another or chained to one another. And so, this operation in Europe is utterly bizarre. The 27 people, some of whom have a brain, I admit a few of them are brainless, but some do have a brain, they are as intelligent as all of us. And they’re going along with this in a mistaken belief that there is strength in unity, even if unity is pursuing a suicidal policy.

14:01
So, here in Europe, I think you can’t really compare it one-to-one with the States. The States might be split down the middle over these issues, as it is between Kamala and Trump in general. But here in Europe, it is 95 percent all pulling that cord towards the precipice. And this is not the Volga River; it’s Niagara Falls. And they’re not going against the stream, they’re going with the stream right off. So that is a situation here.

Alkhorshid: 14:41
Yeah, and did you watch these two Russian pranksters talking with Sikorski? Because I think the information coming out of this talk was so important in terms of how Poland feels about the conflict in Ukraine right now. He said that they’re not going to, NATO is not going to put troops on the ground in Ukraine officially, which I think, I found it so positive if that would be the official policy of NATO right now.

Doctorow:
Well I wouldn’t look to Mr. Sikorski for wisdom or for comfort. He has said in his long time in public service– I mean, this is not his first time at the national level government– he has said some outrageous things about the relationship with Poland and the United States. I won’t repeat them because as the Russians say in such instances, these are censored remarks. He said outrageous things about the relationship between Poland and the United States, and I don’t think he needed to have pranksters to say outrageous things in a microphone about the relationship between Poland and Ukraine.

16.02
And certainly he is on the side of those who say that Ukraine cannot be admitted into the EU, until it admits its guilt in the slaughter of Poles, of tens of thousands of Poles. And as in the pursuit of the Bandera nationalism, there are grievances on the Polish side, which Sikorski is now airing. That being said, at the same time as he may be making these remarks, which would seem to give us comfort over the restraint of Poland with respect to the Ukrainian cause, he’s the same as Sikorski who a week ago said that his country should be allowed to shoot down Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory because of the alleged threat that they posed to overreach and to hit Poland.

17:00
This man, I think is a little bit, is an Eastern version of Mr. Macron of doing anything to steal limelight and his self-promotion. So, and the ambivalence, flip-flopping, one day you think he’s your friend, the next day you think he’s your enemy. So, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to Mr. Sikorski. And keep in mind that he’s an American asset. Keep in mind who his wife is. Applebaum, the contributor, I think, to the Washington Post, one of the most rabid Russophobes. And I will say at the same time, an extremely intelligent lady who works hard. You have to know your enemy. You know that I was a close associate of Professor Stephen Cohen. I’m sure many in your audience know his name, know what he stood for.

And Cohen made the mistake, it was about two years before his death, of going into a debate in Canada, at a university in Canada, with Applebaum. And he believed, “Well, me, Professor Cohen, of course I know everything, it’s all at my fingertips. and then we got this nitwit Applebaum, whom I’m going to debate with.” She wiped the floor with him. She was prepared. He looked like a dinosaur. So you have to know your enemies. There’s a reason why Sikorski is powerful. He’s got good, he’s got very good contacts in Washington, thanks to his wife, and his wife is no fool.

Alkhorshid: 18:35
When this conflict started, if I were to pick the most radical country in the European Union against, toward this conflict in Ukraine, that would be Poland in those days. And right now I would pick the United Kingdom. Do you feel the same way or do you find it differently? Because right now I don’t see Poland that aggressive toward the conflict, toward what’s going on in Ukraine. It seems that they’re just coming down. They’re not having that sort of excitement they had when this conflict started.

Doctorow: 19:10
Well, the Poles have got the Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus just across the border. So, that could sober up their minds a little bit, despite all the rhetoric and everybody wanting to get into the newspapers. I think that may hold them back a little bit. It’s a real competition. Who is the bigger maniac in Europe? The Brits are, as you say, totally unreal, delusional in their behavior towards Russia. They think this is the Crimean War of the 1850s. They’re missing a beat here, but there are competitors in insanity. I think it’s very relevant to mention that the Estonian federal government, national government has been among the foremost crackpots in xenophobic statements. And it is very relevant to where we’re going now and to the nature of the head of the European Commission, von der Leyen, that she has appointed and is now promoting to the European Parliament for approval the outgoing Prime Minister of Estonia, Kallas, very pretty lady, by the way.

20:27
And I think the reason– but the same lady who about three weeks or four weeks ago said, “We have to bring Russia to its knees.” Well, there you have it. That means a total defeat, and that means World War III, and that means there you’ve got a timeline of a few days before we’re all ashes. Now, this lady, totally irresponsible, representing one million out of hundreds of millions — their population is 350-400 million, population of the EU member countries. You’ve got 1.2 million in Estonia, which frankly speaking, a hell of a lot are really Russians. Because you go to Tallinn and downtown Tallinn, not in the hotels, restaurants, but anywhere except street vendors who are speaking very Estonian. But normal people in stores are all speaking Russian. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. The point is that Estonia is one million, or a little over a million population. And they are wagging 350 or 400 million, I don’t have at my disposal at this minute the actual population of the EU. They’re wagging that body, that dog. And this lady has been appointed to be the Supreme Representative, to replace Borrell, the Supreme Representative, the top diplomat, and also, since it hasn’t been hived off yet, she’s responsible essentially for defense.

21:57
This is the lady whom von der Leyen has appointed and who will be receiving approval shortly, next week, as the cabinet or commissioners go before the European Parliament. This is, why did she appoint her? I think that van der Leyen, considering what a power that she only plays power groups, appointed her because she thought this nitwit would be easy to control. I think von der Layen has misjudged. I think this nitwit will not be controllable. She is a very determined lady, a very ambitious lady, and it doesn’t do Europe any credit this will be its face to the world.

Alkhorshid: 22:42
A foreign minister of Ukraine recently said that Europeans should feel that Ukraine is already part of the European Union, that’s why they have any sort of decision, they have to consider that. But when it comes to the European Union, do they really feel that Ukraine would be part of the European Union in the future? Or maybe now? Or maybe in two years, five years?

Doctorow:
I can’t answer that question for the European Union. I can only speak for what I hear about around me. These are privileged people around me, a social club that I belong to. And I don’t think that is on the radar screen. I don’t think it’s a matter of any interest to them whether Ukraine will be in the EU, except when it comes to the question of how much money they’re going to have to cough up in taxes to pay for all that, because Ukraine is a black hole financially and will remain so for a few decades to come. But this is not a subject of discussion among the, I say, the privileged people whom I know, whom I know socially in reading a French-speaking royal club here in Belgium.

23:53
And I take that as my guideline, but otherwise, I don’t pretend to take a reading of what the man in the street here thinks. Certainly, the guy who runs the grocery store down on the corner is not concerned by that issue of Ukraine’s joining or not joining. Again, turning to those people who are well-educated, professionally very successful, and who should be interested in these things. Their interest in Ukraine is like America’s, ideological. They are defending freedom, they’re defending democracy, they don’t have a clue as to how democratic or undemocratic Ukraine is. It is going by the generalities that they see in newspapers and on their television sets. But it is that Ukraine, an unreal Ukraine, a non-existent Ukraine that never existed, that they are motivated by, interested in, and considering as the underdog in this war with Russia.

Alkhorshid: 25:02
Yeah. And recently, we had two important talks with Stoltenberg and Lloyd Austin. Both of them were pointing out the way of getting out of this conflict would be a negotiating table, a political settlement. And if we assume that in any sort of political settlement, a new security treaty between the European Union and Russia, how do you see Ukraine in that type of talks? Because at the end of the day, we know how important Ukraine, whatever we call it Ukraine and after this conflict, is as a buffer zone. Because the whole situation that we’re witnessing right now is part of this concept of Ukraine being a buffer zone between NATO and Russia. And how do you find it right now? Do you think in that type of talks they’re going to consider Ukraine to be a buffer zone that Russia would help Ukraine to grow or help them to– help their economy, help their infrastructure, because they’re totally connected with the Russian type of life, the type of technology. And how do you see at the end of the day, they’re going to consider Ukraine, that Russia and European Union together with the United States would help to reconstruct its infrastructure, or are we going to see something different?

Doctorow: 25:41
That was not one question, it was about a dozen questions you posed. It’s a very complicated set of issues. You started out talking about Stoltenberg and Austin, and the notion that they are now turning towards the idea of a ceasefire or negotiated settlement to the conflict. I think that their notion, if they are indeed moving away from, settled on the battlefield to negotiated settlement, I think that what they’re really talking about is a frozen conflict and one which gives Ukraine, just like Minsk Two, a chance to recover and to be restored by NATO instructors and new mobilizations and so forth.

So that will be a formidable opponent to Russia that would prevent Russia’s ever touching it again. That of course is unworkable. The Russians in no way will accept that. Now I’ll go forward. I’ll bridge several questions to me and go straight to this question of, will the Russians support Ukraine should it become neutral? Will they give them assistance? I would say at this point, flatly no. I was listening to, to briefly to, to the Vladimir Solovyov show last night. They put up on screen a video clip of Zhirinovsky, the nationalist Russian leader of the, of the LDPR party, liberal, liberal party of Russia, who usually got between 5, 10, maybe 12% of popular vote in presidential elections, and who died very sadly for his many followers in Russia. He died of covid a couple of years ago.

28:36
Anyway, Zhirinovsky was saying that, hey, Ukraine is not a state, it’s a beggar, And they only, this is going back perhaps to 2016, 2017, and compare that with what the status of Ukraine is today, which is totally on life support from Western Europe and the United States to pay its pensions, to pay all these government expenses, not to mention to cover a war that it’s waging. So, he was saying back then, this was a beggar, and that this is, maybe it’s earlier that this took place, because– yes, it must have been in 2013-2014 that this centripetal thing took place, because he was discussing still, in the fall of 2013, Russia had offered $15 billion in aid to Ukraine, and that was mentioned by Zhirinovsky, to help weigh the decision that they had to make between the European Union’s offer of a comprehensive cooperation or partnership as the path to membership and Russia’s offer to continue the cooperation with Russia and and with ease.

30:05
So that was hanging the balance there. And he was saying, “Why in hell are we offering these beggars 15 billion dollars? It’s going to be money down the drain.” And I think that attitude would, is the answer to the question you said now, posed now. Russia will not put up money for Ukraine’s prosperity. And then what is left of Ukraine? The last figure I’ve heard, and this is on various YouTube interviews of the last week, is that the Ukrainian population– perhaps it was Larry Johnson, I don’t recall exactly who said it– that the Ukrainian population has dropped from 40 million before this to 20 million today. Well, I don’t know if that’s correct. It’s a bit lower than I understood. Nonetheless, population has diminished greatly, and even after peace is established, it is most improbable that those Ukrainians who have set themselves up in Germany or across the EU are going to rush back to their devastated country and to instant poverty, when it takes years to restore power, water, heat, everything.

31:19
So, let’s say that the Ukraine is a basket case, and it will remain a low population. Where its boundaries would be, well, that will depend on exactly when the Russians stop marching. I think the boundary would be at the Dnieper River, but I could be wrong. In any case, the notion of a prosperous Ukraine as a buffer zone, as you’re saying, that is not to be excluded. But before that can be negotiated and won, we need to have a change in the governments of most all of the European Union and of the United States. Before these governments change is inconceivable that Ukraine buffer state will be approved by the successors to Biden, the Democratic Party, Kamala and her curators if they come to power.

32:24
And it’s inconceivable. It would be acknowledging a vast defeat while standing behind the policy. So it means Trump could do that if he wins the enough of the Congress to be able to get through Congress what he wants to do. Here in Europe for this to happen, von der Leyen has to go or she has to have her powers trimmed by the European Parliament. There has to be a shift away from the European People’s party and the Social Democratic two-party domination of the parliament towards the group that Viktor Orban has put together within the parliament, which represents now about 30 percent of membership. There has to be a drift of power away from those who created this disastrous policy towards those who have criticized it. So that is not going to happen today and tomorrow, but it could happen within the foreseeable future. Yes.

Alkhorshid: 33:33
And one of the points that Putin was talking about when Joe Biden was running against Donald Trump was that Biden is predictable. And the question here is, in my opinion, he wasn’t that much predictable during this conflict. He was saying many things during this conflict about tanks, F-16s, cluster bombs, and he sent all of them to Ukraine. And we couldn’t predict that Biden would do that. And at the end of the day right now, “Le Monde” is talking about that Zelensky is hoping to be part of NATO before Biden leaving office in the United States. This, do you think that these long-range missiles, and maybe something like that, as “Le Monde” pointed out about Zelensky’s vision, do you feel that Biden would do something that much different? Because we can understand some sort of escalations on the battlefield. Because when it comes to this type of activity on their part, doing something substantial in order to facilitate Ukraine being part of NATO. I’m talking about this. Do you think that the Biden administration would do that before leaving the office?

Doctorow: 34:57
Well, let’s take it straight back to the issue we had at the beginning. And that was the threat posed by these new superweapons to Russia, which would induce Mr. Putin to see that they are in a state of war with the United States and its allies. I’d like to just highlight something that, again, people are not talking much about. What is this? What is the real possibility of those Storm Shadow missiles being launched against Russia? Even if permission is given, these missiles could only be launched from aircraft. The Russians have already destroyed almost everything that flies in the Ukrainian air force from the Soviet days, and the assumption has been that these missiles will be carried by F-16s.

35:48
Now, wait a minute, they’re taking possession of six, maybe those five of them are still capable of flying, being held in Romania or wherever else they’ve been held. One has already been shot down by an American Patriot system by accident. If these planes enter Ukraine airspace to launch missiles against Russia, how many minutes will it take before they’re shot down by the Russian S-500 or other, or by Russian jet fighters who take off precisely to destroy them.

So, I have a hard time seeing how this wunderwaffe is going to really threaten Russia in any way. As I understand the talking point, Mr. Putin cannot allow this to pass unchallenged and cannot have credibility with his own people, if he doesn’t say what he said late last week. But the reality is, how’s it going to happen? ATACMs could be used. ATACMs are the American missiles, which are ground-based. They don’t require a jet to be fired. And they have a 500-kilometer radius of action, which is pretty good, certainly good enough to cause havoc in Russian-controlled Crimea. But Biden has not allowed that to be used. I think it’s most improbable that he will before he goes out of office, because his advisors have said this will be war. And brain dead as he may be, I think there’s a residual intelligence that that is not going to be good for his children and grandchildren.

37:46
Therefore, it’s not going to happen. So, the cycle of big talk, I don’t think that the West is capable right now of striking deep into Russia unless it’s done with Western pilots from a NATO country and at the expense of triggering a Russian nuclear response.

Alkhorshid: 38:18
Yeah, and we had this new attempt to assassinate Donald Trump in the United States. And CNN wrote that Ryan Routh’s support for Ukraine is a propaganda win for Moscow at a very tricky time for Kiev. And I wouldn’t be surprised– and the other day, the next day they come with a title that Putin was behind this type of attack, which is– they do these things unbelievably. And you wrote a very good article about the misinformation and disinformation. How do you find these type of wars on the part of the media? Because it doesn’t seem that they’re getting anything truthful out of this article, but they’re trying to inject some sort of excitement in the society in order to achieve something. And what’s your understanding on this type of rhetoric?

Doctorow: 39:27
Well, we’re just at the very beginning of the investigation into it, and unlike the first assassin, would-be assassin, he survived and was captured. Unlike the first would-be assassin who would have been, or the investigation around him has all been at the federal level, the event we can anticipate an investigation at the state level in Florida. And I will be surprised if Mr. Routh survives. I would not be a least bit surprised if his fate is that of of Oswald, murdered on his way from one prison cell to another, because if he starts talking, it will get quite ugly. What he was doing in Ukraine, he was meeting with Afghan killers, which in a manner that could only be understood if he was being directed by the CIA, which wouldn’t surprise me and many other people in the slightest.

40:34
This takes us back to the whole question of why the JFK killing was kept secret. I don’t think they can keep this secret because of the political commotion, and precisely because of the interest in the governor of Florida to expose whatever it is to be exposed about this plot. And let’s call it a plot, not a madman or an effort by some character to wage a repeat performance, the copycat phenomenon. It’s very doubtful this was a copycat phenomenon. It’s much more probable that this was another inside job. And if this is investigated properly, as may well happen, there it will be a great embarrassment to the intelligence services or some part of them. There have been, there’s been a lot of discussion now about the deep state. There was a very interesting chat, I wouldn’t call it a debate, but it’s a roundtable discussion between Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer on just this headache, the deep state.

41:48
And deep states exist almost everywhere. They are the perpetual part of a government that serves, that’s supposed to serve the elected part of the government, the top bosses, but very often doesn’t serve them at all. And quite the contrary, pulls in the opposite direction. Deep states everywhere have a certain– their value is they continue state policy regardless of elections, to give some permits to policies. The negative is something I didn’t hear these two gentlemen talk about. The Americans, the deep state was cut to pieces by the Bush Jr. period and by none other than Dick Cheney. And this astonishes me that nobody mentioned it. Cheney purged the Deep State. Cheney purged the intelligence services.

We, I did an essay on this going back at 10, 12 years, based on some very interesting information that I found on the web pages of a French intelligence analyst. And the essence of it was that the American intelligence, after 2001, when it was clear that the only thing of interest to American security was the Muslims and the religious extremists in the Middle East, so the Russian assets that the CIA and other intelligence organizations the United States had were deemed to be irrelevant and expendable. And they were expended, they were fired. And a lot of the information that has informed, has advised the policy decisions of the State Department and elsewhere in the U.S. government have been done on a outsourced basis by commercial organizations using largely open sources.

44:03
Whether this is good or bad is something we can talk about for a long time. The point is, the United States deep state is not today what it was 30 years ago. It has been given a political direction precisely by Dick Cheney. And that is undeniable and it has made it very, especially difficult to uproot the neocons all around government. because the neocons are the deep state. So that is where we are today and I would hope that this enters into a bigger discourse that was partly raised by two very worthy gentlemen, by Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer, but I believe is missing an important dimension to what the deep state that is driving things like the assassination attempts on Trump is all about.

Alkhorshid: 45:03
And since you brought up this discussion between, this talk of Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer, one point that was so crucial in this talk, which they were not totally in line with each other, was what’s going on with China? And how do you find John Mearsheimer’s view toward China? Because it seems that the same kind of view that neocons have toward Russia and the main reason behind this disaster in Ukraine was this type of idea that we have to contain Russia. And it seems that John Mearsheimer is suggesting the same kind of policy when it comes to China. On the other hand, we had Jeffrey Sachs talking just vastly about how important the relationship between the United States, Russia, and China is for the future of the world, which I totally, I found it so much fascinating. It’s so much sane when you think how he’s putting out his mind and against what John Mearsheimer is suggesting.

Doctorow: 46:15
Well, let’s come back to basics. I have the highest respect for John Mearsheimer. I think he’s a real national hero in that he is saying what he’s saying, and saying things that are not conformist for a long time, at great jeopardy to his professional career, that he was co-author of the book exposing the Israeli lobbying effort, which almost cost him his professional reputation. It was remarkable. And so he has taken, since 2014, when he published his outstanding essay on who’s to blame for the conflict between Russia and the West in “Foreign Affairs” magazine, of all places, and did a video of that lecture, which I don’t know how many millions, 10 million people have seen it, more, I’ve lost track. So I have the highest respect for Mearsheimer.

47:14
But saying that, let’s come back to basics. I’m an historian, he’s a political scientist. Political scientists raid history to find lessons, and I don’t think John Mayersheim is any different. We historians have a professional bias, and I would say my bias is that political science is a misnomer. There is no science. It is, what they are doing is systematic, a great intellectual exercise to explain their own personal positions. And to say that this is an objective science is very often an exaggeration. John Mearsheimer has a lot of experience with China. He was invited as an honored guest there many times. But that does not mean that he is objective about China.

And I think when Jeffrey Sachs threw him a bouquet, this was an exchange they had a week ago, or maybe it was just Sachs speaking alone without Mearsheimer present. He was saying that he understood the sagacity of Mearsheimer because back in 2002 Mearsheimer said that inevitably there’s going to be a big conflict between the United States and China. and Jeffrey Sachs said, “I didn’t see that at all.” So he has the highest respect for Mearsheimer, given that Mearsheimer foresaw that this is the nature of nations and empires, that they they fight to the death to maintain their supremacy when they think it is threatened, or when they’re about to lose their top position.

48:59
Okay, good, I won’t take anything away from that operating assumption. Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s wrong. Maybe we’re condemned, and maybe we’re not. But without criticizing any individual, we all have our own perspectives based on our own experience and specific knowledge, and there’s no reason to expect they will all be saying the same thing. We can be aligned on the big issues of who are the angels and who are the devils. I think pretty much, we’re all pretty much aligned on that. We’re all in the– so many of us in the alternative media are so-called “fighters for peace”, just to enjoy that little contradiction. But having said that, there’s no reason for us to be totally aligned on every interpretation, including whether a conflict with China is inevitable or can be avoided, whether the destruction of Russia is necessary for the United States to sit at the Board of Directors’ table of world governance or not. So that is where we are. I don’t throw bouquets nor do I throw brickbats of any of these worthy experts.

Alkhorshid: 50:22
Thank you so much for being with us today. Great pleasure as always.

Doctorow:
Well, thanks for allowing me this non-conformist exposition.

Alkhorshid: 50:33
It’s my pleasure.

If the two-minute interview I had with Iran’s Press TV at noon Central European Time today is re-posted on the internet then, you will be able to hear my hearty approval of Scott Ritter’s one-paragraph comments on the latest developments in the United States’ war on RT which he has just disseminated.

Washington’s efforts to destroy RT’s ability to distribute its programs in the United States have been of long duration. What is changing now that makes this newsworthy is the decision by Mark Zuckerberg, the substantial owner and director of Meta, CEO of its Facebook and other platforms counting many millions of subscribers, to ban RT and several other Russian news purveyors from Meta’s global network.

Scott Ritter rightly denounced this U.S. government-inspired attack on RT as a war not on the Russian broadcaster but on the American people, whom it seeks to deprive of the right to decide for itself whom it watches, whom it listens to without U.S. government interference.  The intent of the latest decision by Meta, which bends to the policy dictated to it by Capitol Hill, is to cancel our freedoms. I said and repeat here: bravo to Scott Ritter for an eloquent and pithy statement.

So much for the ‘information’ aspect of this brief note.  Now let us move to ‘disinformation’ by the very same Scott Ritter within the past 24 hours:  namely what he is saying on ‘Judging Freedom’ and other authoritative internet channels about how we all narrowly escaped death this past weekend, because “back channel” communications from top Russian intelligence officials to their counterparts in Washington delivered a threatening and substantive message that scared the receiving party down its socks and led them to impose on Biden and Blinken to end all talk of allowing Kiev to send US and NATO long range missiles into the heartland of Russia.

I call this ‘disinformation’ because apart from Ritter, I have not seen or heard any credible accounts in major media, Russian as well as Western, even hinting that such a backchannel exists and was used. The last time we heard about a stern message being delivered by the Kremlin to Washington was several months ago when Russian Defense Minister Belousov picked up a telephone and called his American counterpart Secretary of Defense Austin to persuade the Americans to back down on the latest threat they were then making to Russian security.  Note that the intelligence services were never mentioned in that connection.  Nor does it make much sense now, given that the subject at hand – use of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles – would fall within the competence of the Pentagon, not the CIA, whose specialty is political assassinations and regime change.

However, the issue of who made and who received the phone call this time is not the main point in my objection. Rather, what I find incredible is the very notion that Putin, through his subordinates, would, as Scott Ritter is saying, read off a list of targets for immediate destruction by Russian hypersonic missiles like the Mach-20 Avangard and that this demonstration of advanced preparation for the Doomsday scenario and readiness to execute it would shake the Americans down to their socks.

Vladimir Putin is not given to drastic shifts in tone and intent such as Ritter is describing.  And there is absolutely no reason for him to risk everything on one throw of the dice, to risk a U.S. preemptive strike at once now that the scenario against them had been so neatly laid out.

First of all, even if permission were given by Washington for the British to send their Storm Shadows on their way to the Russian heartland under the flimsy cover of Ukrainian fingers on the button, where are the jets to carry those missiles aloft and fire them towards Russia from somewhere very close to the line of confrontation?  And if jets were taking off from Moldova or Romania for this purpose, the Russians could with full legal justification attack those same jets on the ground at the airports that harbor them whether in NATO or not – doing all of this without triggering any WWIII. 

Of course, this problem of a launch vehicle does not relate to ATACMS, which is a ground-to-ground missile. But the talks of British PM Starmer with Biden were said to be limited only to the British missiles, since Biden & Co. had in advance emphatically ruled out use of American missiles so as not to come between the Russian cross-hairs.

Still more, knowing Putin’s behavior in the past at moments of crisis in the relationship with the United States, I believe his first instinct would be to address the American people directly about his intentions and the reasons for them, rather than to confine the discussion to ‘back channels’ with the likes of Burns or Sullivan.

Ritter speaks about the decision in Washington to suspend any decision on long-range missiles as a big humiliation for Joe Biden and says this explains the President’s outburst in answer to a reporter’s question, saying that he does not think at all about Vladimir Putin. I have not seen any word in mainstream U.S. media suggesting that there was a humiliating climbdown. When Biden’s mental state is widely considered in the U.S. as a national humiliation, there is not much to say about any given decision by this senile creature.

I have in the past several days freely admitted that my ‘end is nigh’ remarks with respect to the risks of giving unrestricted rights to Kiev on the missiles, were exaggerated. But then I was measuring the countdown to Doomsday in weeks, in the worst scenario, not in hours or minutes as Scott Ritter has done.

We are not out of the woods yet, to be sure.  And the task before all ‘warriors for peace’ is not to celebrate our surviving this past weekend but to continue to spread the word in the broadest possible public arenas that our governments are pursuing utterly ignorant and reckless policies.  We need more street demonstrations and fewer popping of corks.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Information und Desinformation

Wenn das zweiminütige Interview, das ich heute um 12:00 Uhr mitteleuropäischer Zeit mit dem iranischen Press TV geführt habe, im Internet erneut veröffentlicht wird, können Sie meine uneingeschränkte Zustimmung zu Scott Ritters Ein-Absatz-Kommentar zu den neuesten Entwicklungen im Krieg der Vereinigten Staaten gegen RT hören, den er gerade verbreitet hat.

Washington bemüht sich schon seit Langem, RT daran zu hindern, seine Programme in den Vereinigten Staaten zu verbreiten. Was sich jetzt ändert und diese Nachricht berichtenswert macht, ist die Entscheidung von Mark Zuckerberg, dem Haupteigentümer und Geschäftsführer von Meta, CEO von Facebook und anderen Plattformen mit vielen Millionen Abonnenten, RT und mehrere andere russische Nachrichtenanbieter aus dem globalen Netzwerk von Meta zu verbannen.

Scott Ritter verurteilte diesen von der US-Regierung inspirierten Angriff auf RT zu Recht als einen Krieg nicht gegen den russischen Sender, sondern gegen das amerikanische Volk, dem das Recht genommen werden soll, selbst zu entscheiden, wen es sieht und wem es zuhört, ohne Einmischung der US-Regierung. Die Absicht der jüngsten Entscheidung von Meta, die sich der von Capitol Hill diktierten Politik beugt, ist es, unsere Freiheiten aufzuheben. Ich sage und wiederhole hier: Bravo an Scott Ritter für eine eloquente und prägnante Aussage.

So viel zum „Informations“-Aspekt dieser kurzen Notiz. Kommen wir nun zur „Desinformation“ durch denselben Scott Ritter innerhalb der letzten 24 Stunden: nämlich zu dem, was er auf „Judging Freedom“ und anderen maßgeblichen Internetkanälen darüber sagt, dass wir alle am vergangenen Wochenende nur knapp dem Tod entkommen sind, weil „Back-Channel“- von hochrangigen russischen Geheimdienstmitarbeitern an ihre Kollegen in Washington eine Drohbotschaft übermittelt wurde, die die Empfänger in Angst und Schrecken versetzte und sie dazu veranlasste, Biden und Blinken zu drängen, jegliche Gespräche über die Erlaubnis an Kiew, Langstreckenraketen der USA und der NATO ins Kernland Russlands zu schicken, zu beenden.

Ich nenne dies „Desinformation“, denn abgesehen von Ritter habe ich in den großen Medien, sowohl in russischen als auch in westlichen, keine glaubwürdigen Berichte gesehen oder gehört, die auch nur andeuten, dass es einen solchen inoffiziellen Kanal gibt und dass er genutzt wurde. Das letzte Mal, dass wir von einer strengen Botschaft hörten, die der Kreml an Washington gerichtet hat, war vor einigen Monaten, als der russische Verteidigungsminister Belousov zum Telefon griff und seinen amerikanischen Amtskollegen, Verteidigungsminister Austin, anrief, um die Amerikaner davon zu überzeugen, von der jüngsten Drohung, die sie damals gegen die russische Sicherheit ausgesprochen hatten, abzurücken. Beachten Sie, dass die Geheimdienste in diesem Zusammenhang nie erwähnt wurden. Es ergibt auch jetzt nicht viel Sinn, da das eigentliche Thema – der Einsatz von ATACMS- und Storm-Shadow-Raketen – in die Zuständigkeit des Pentagons und nicht der CIA fällt, deren Spezialgebiet politische Attentate und Regimewechsel sind.

Die Frage, wer den Anruf getätigt und wer ihn entgegengenommen hat, ist jedoch nicht der Hauptgrund für meinen Einwand. Was ich vielmehr unglaublich finde, ist die bloße Vorstellung, dass Putin, durch seine Untergebenen, wie Scott Ritter sagt, eine Liste von Zielen für die sofortige Zerstörung durch russische Hyperschall-Raketen wie die Mach-20 Avangard verlesen würde und dass diese Demonstration fortgeschrittener Vorbereitung auf das Doomsday-Szenario und die Bereitschaft, es auszuführen, die Amerikaner bis ins Mark erschüttern würde.

Wladimir Putin neigt nicht zu solch drastischen Änderungen in Ton und Absicht, wie sie Ritter beschreibt. Und es gibt absolut keinen Grund für ihn, alles auf eine Karte zu setzen und einen Präventivschlag der USA zu riskieren, jetzt, wo das Szenario gegen sie so klar auf dem Tisch liegt.

Zunächst einmal, selbst wenn Washington den Briten die Erlaubnis erteilen würde, ihre Storm Shadows unter dem fadenscheinigen Vorwand ukrainischer Finger am Abzug auf den Weg ins russische Kernland zu schicken, wo sind dann die Jets, die diese Raketen in die Luft befördern und sie von einem Ort in unmittelbarer Nähe der Konfrontationslinie aus auf Russland abfeuern? Und wenn zu diesem Zweck Flugzeuge von Moldawien oder Rumänien aus starten würden, könnten die Russen diese Flugzeuge mit voller rechtlicher Begründung am Boden auf den Flughäfen angreifen, die sie beherbergen, unabhängig davon, ob sie der NATO angehören oder nicht – und all dies tun, ohne einen Dritten Weltkrieg auszulösen.

Natürlich bezieht sich dieses Problem einer Trägerrakete nicht auf ATACMS, bei dem es sich um eine Boden-Boden-Rakete handelt. Aber die Gespräche des britischen Premierministers Starmer mit Biden sollen sich nur auf die britischen Raketen beschränkt haben, da Biden & Co. den Einsatz amerikanischer Raketen im Voraus nachdrücklich ausgeschlossen hatten, um nicht ins Fadenkreuz der Russen zu geraten.

Wenn man Putins Verhalten in der Vergangenheit in Krisenzeiten in den Beziehungen zu den Vereinigten Staaten kennt, glaube ich außerdem, dass sein erster Instinkt darin bestehen würde, das amerikanische Volk direkt über seine Absichten und die Gründe dafür zu informieren, anstatt die Diskussion auf „Schleichwege“ mit Leuten wie Burns oder Sullivan zu beschränken.

Ritter spricht über die Entscheidung in Washington, jegliche Entscheidung über Langstreckenraketen auszusetzen, als eine große Demütigung für Joe Biden und sagt, dies erkläre den Wutausbruch des Präsidenten als Antwort auf die Frage eines Reporters, dass er überhaupt nicht an Wladimir Putin denke. Ich habe in den Mainstream-Medien der USA kein Wort darüber gelesen, dass es einen demütigenden Rückzieher gegeben hat. Wenn Bidens Geisteszustand in den USA weithin als nationale Demütigung angesehen wird, gibt es nicht viel zu sagen über eine Entscheidung dieses senilen Wesens.

Ich habe in den letzten Tagen freimütig zugegeben, dass meine Bemerkungen über das „Ende ist nahe“ in Bezug auf die Risiken, Kiew uneingeschränkte Rechte an den Raketen zu gewähren, übertrieben waren. Aber damals habe ich den Countdown bis zum Jüngsten Tag in Wochen gemessen, im schlimmsten Fall, nicht in Stunden oder Minuten, wie Scott Ritter es getan hat.

Wir sind noch nicht über den Berg, das ist sicher. Und die Aufgabe aller „Krieger für den Frieden“ besteht nicht darin, unser Überleben am vergangenen Wochenende zu feiern, sondern weiterhin in möglichst breiten öffentlichen Bereichen zu verbreiten, dass unsere Regierungen eine völlig ignorante und rücksichtslose Politik verfolgen. Wir brauchen mehr Straßendemonstrationen und weniger Korkenknallen.

Early yesterday evening I participated in a 50 minute news analysis and interview program of the global broadcaster TNT News, which is Australia owned and operates the given show from the U.K.

I recommend this video to you as much or more for what the presenter Johnny Vedmore had to say and what his second interviewee Ned Ryan had to say in the 65% of air time that they spoke as I do for the 35% of time that was allocated to me.

Gilbert Doctorow & Ned Ryun on The Johnny Vedmore Show – 16 September 2024

Vedmore devoted his introductory remarks (minutes 1 -12) to present investigatory reporting on the would-be assassin of Donald Trump yesterday in Miami, Ryan Wesley Routh. His report is professional and well worth hearing.  For his part, interviewee Ned Ryun also provides value to viewers with his commentary on the U.S. political scene. Ryun is the son of a Republican Congressman who worked as a speechwriter for George W. Bush before moving on and eventually producing the book entitled American Leviathan which was released by his publisher yesterday.

I can say that my time on air from minute 12 to 33 was well guided by the host and avoided repetition of points I have made in other recent interviews. Much attention was directed at why Donald Trump’s first presidency was as disappointing as it was in the foreign policy domain and why a second term in office could be much more constructive, starting with an early end to the war in and about Ukraine.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus) followed by a transcription in English of the interview

Die Ausgabe der Johnny Vedmore Show vom 16. September, TNT News (UK)

Gestern Abend nahm ich an einer 50-minütigen Nachrichtenanalyse und einem Interviewprogramm des globalen Senders TNT News teil, der sich in australischem Besitz befindet und die Sendung vom Vereinigten Königreich aus betreibt.

Ich empfehle Ihnen dieses Video, und zwar genauso sehr oder noch mehr wegen dem, was der Moderator Johnny Vedmore zu sagen hatte und was sein zweiter Interviewpartner Ned Ryan in den 65 % der Sendezeit zu sagen hatte, die sie sprachen, wie ich es für die 35 % der Zeit tue, die mir zugewiesen wurde.

Vedmore widmete seine einleitenden Bemerkungen (Minuten 1–12) der Präsentation einer investigativen Berichterstattung über den mutmaßlichen Attentäter von Donald Trump gestern in Miami, Ryan Wesley Routh. Sein Bericht ist professionell und hörenswert. Auch der Befragte Ned Ryun bietet den Zuschauern mit seinen Kommentaren zur politischen Szene in den USA einen Mehrwert. Ryun ist der Sohn eines republikanischen Kongressabgeordneten, der als Redenschreiber für George W. Bush gearbeitet hat, bevor er sich schließlich dem Schreiben des Buches American Leviathan widmete, das gestern von seinem Verlag veröffentlicht wurde.

Ich kann sagen, dass ich während meiner Sendezeit von Minute 12 bis 33 gut vom Moderator geführt wurde und Wiederholungen von Punkten, die ich in anderen Interviews in letzter Zeit angesprochen hatte, vermieden wurden. Es wurde viel darüber gesprochen, warum Donald Trumps erste Präsidentschaft in der Außenpolitik so enttäuschend war und warum eine zweite Amtszeit viel konstruktiver sein könnte, beginnend mit einem baldigen Ende des Krieges in der und um die Ukraine.

Transcription below (Vedmore, Doctorow only)
submitted by a reader

TNT: 0:02
Cutting through the clutter, this is Jonny Vedmore on today’s News Talk, TNT.

Vedmore: 0:10
Welcome my friends to a new week, a new day on “The Johnny Vedmore Show”, on Today’s News Talk, TNT. It’s even a new hour, would you believe, yes. And … it’s happened again, as many of us expected, another assassination attempt on Donald J. Trump. Mark’s another Black Swan event. Many people have told me that the establishment are desperate to postpone the American elections. There would only be a few ways in which they could possibly happen, or that could possibly happen. And one of those ways includes the successful assassination of the veritable Teflon Don himself. And on this occasion, Trump was being targeted on home territory, yes, he was.

1:01
The Secret Service detail, which was following him around– give me just one sec there– the Secret Service detail had been enhanced since the previous assassination attempt. So they were ahead of the game on this occasion. To be precise, the Secret Service detail were one hole ahead of the game when they first encountered the shooter. They were checking out the next hole Donald Trump would be visiting on the golf course when there was a rustling in the bushes and a man running away. The would-be assassin is already in custody and was quickly announced as Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58-year-old man who was spotted by Secret Service agents near the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Routh was also discovered to have an AK-47, which early reports said included a tripod and a specialised scope, along with a GoPro camera and some other equipment.

2:05
The agents initially opened fire on Routh, who fled the scene and was later arrested on the I-95 by local Palm Beach police. So who is Ryan Wesley Routh? Ryan Routh was born on the 18th of February 1966 and is registered as living in Hawaii most recently, although he previously lived in Julian and Greensboro, North Carolina. Routh maintained relationships with many family members including Oran, Adam, Sarah, Daphne and Laura Routh. Ryan Wesley Routh was granted a marriage license in 1989 to wed Laura Frances Wilson. The following year he officially registered his company which was called Routh Roofing.

His marriage to Laura lasted almost 15 years. They filed for divorce on the 22nd of January 2003, with the divorce being granted a few months later on the 10th of March 2003. The year before Ruuth married– now this is very interesting– he was arrested. Now he had been arrested a fair few times for a litany of different crimes, but this time he was arrested for possession, this is in 2002, I think it’s April, possession of weapons of mass destruction. Although the United States were in a war which focused on the depletion of weapons of mass destruction during this period, Routh was given a probation, and the case didn’t even seem to be featured in the newspapers at the time. I’ve looked through all the newspaper archives; nothing is there now. I can tell you if my neighbor got caught with weapons of mass destruction, I’m pretty positive it would be all over the news. And this isn’t the first time that I’ve seen this during that period between 2002 and 2004.

4:09
Ryan Routh and his wife had been in business with Park H. Washburn before their divorce. After their divorce, they transferred property rights for 5311 Bowman Brook Drive in Clay over to Mr Washburn. Officially, according to Ryan Routh’s North Carolina voter registration record, he didn’t affiliate with any political party in particular. However, his most recent actions suggest he wasn’t intending to vote Republican. Most recently, Ryan Wesley Routh was based in Kaua, Hawaii, where he was the owner of Camp Box Honolulu, which basically was building, I would say, small one-bedroom shed-like properties in Hawaii. There is only evidence of one on any of the websites, and it doesn’t seem to be necessarily a successful business. Could have actually been a front.

5:17
Although Routh will probably not be returning to Hawaii any time soon. It’s very unlikely. Relatively recently, Ryan Wesley Routh gave an interview to “Newsweek Romania” from Ukraine, where he encouraged civilians to pick up the torch and make things happen. He talks about promoting projects which were about getting people to Kiev to fight against Russia. It all sounds very deep-state. In 2022, Ryan posted comments directed at Tulsi Gabbard stating, “You are an idiot. Why don’t you go and join Putin and Trump and be their third leg? Please leave my Hawaii. You embarrass me. Shut your stupid mouth. This a war where people are getting slaughtered for no reason. I am going to fight and die for Ukraine.”

6:18
In a previous tweet targeting Gabbard, Routh also stated, “That grey streak in your hair is so stupid. Grow up or go away.” On the 16th of July 2024, Ryan Routh posted on X stating, “Joe Biden, you should visit the victims in the hospital of Trump rally victims,” this is his own words, so I apologize for the grammar, “and attend the funeral of the fireman that died. Trump certainly never would. Show the world what real leaders do.”

6:55
He also posted the same idea the following day to Kamala Harris. Ian Carroll, the wonderful researcher on X, has also pointed out that the first person Routh followed on Twitter, and the first person to follow him, was a CIA agent with many connections to the deep state. The FBI, though, pulled down Routh’s social media accounts soon after his name went public, that including his Twitter. A few of us got in quickly and managed to screenshot a few of the tweets. Someone actually archived all of the tweets, I believe, which again Ian Carroll mentioned, but this is what happens. FBI come in and try and stop anybody from looking at the evidence for themselves, because how can you cover up a deep-state assassin, if everybody has all the information?

7:56
Ryan Routh appears to show total disdain for Donald Trump and clearly believed that he was on the righteous path, especially when it comes to Ukraine. Regardless, Routh was rumbled and later captured by local police. He appears to have all of the motives and reasoning to kill Donald Trump, and he also had military training. It is not a surprise that someone who was trained in Ukraine as a US civilian to fight alongside Ukrainians would use that training in an attempt to murder a US presidential candidate who is most likely going to end the Ukrainian conflict. The event should also raise the issue of American civilians who go off to fight in foreign wars and whether they should be arrested and questioned as de facto when they return to the United States.

8:57
RFK Jr’s son also has been stationed in Ukraine, which is of note, and there are many deep-state actors involved in that conflict. Ryan Wesley Routh is a perfect example of Western military asset in Ukraine. He believed that he knew best and that everyone should be preparing to fight Putin together. In many ways, Routh had clearly lost his grasp of reality and believed himself to be akin to a martyr, aiming to finish a job where Thomas Matthew Crooks previously failed. It’s hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone like Ryan Routh, partly because it would mean you’d need to leave reality behind, and become so swept up with the agenda that you’d be willing to die for another man’s war or another agency’s war or a neocon war, however you want to put it.

10:00
The Ukraine war is an extremely contrived affair, which has been decades in the making. Ryan Routh is now a good example of why Ukrainian war should come to an end. Special forces have been training up the likes of Routh, and in doing so they appear to have created a monster. Whether it was by accident or on purpose is not clear. However, Routh’s agenda to assassinate President Trump is not only of benefit to the deep state; it also serves the agenda of the Democrats, the military-industrial complex, and the neocons. Ryan Wesley Routh is not only a tool and an asset, he may also be something much worse than that, a Manchurian candidate of sorts.

10:52
Today, Ryan Routh will be staring at the walls of his prison cage, hoping that he has inspired someone else to fight for Ukraine or to assassinate Trump. He will believe himself to be a hero, but Routh is a despot, and while Routh is stuck inside a cell probably for the rest of his life, Donald J. Trump will continue to play golf, he’ll continue to campaign and he’ll continue to be the best hope to end the war in Ukraine. I think we can all agree that out of the two candidates, Donald Trump is likely to be the one who settles that conflict. But, remember, at TNT we never go home. We are committed to bringing you our take on the biggest topics of our time. We broadcast live 24-7, online, globally, no matter what. We got you covered on today’s News Talk TNT.

TNT:
TNT. Today’s News Talk. TNT.

Vedmoire: 11:52
Welcome back to the “Johnny Vedmore Show” on Today’s News Talk, TNT. Now, my next guest up today is a returner, is someone I’ve spoken to a few times now, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, who has authored five books of essays, participated in expert forums devoted to international affairs and appears in Russian domestic political talk shows on all national channels. He is a mind to explore, knows a lot about what’s going on in Ukraine and this war against Russia. Thanks for coming on the “Johnny Vedmore Show” again Gilbert. How are you today?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
I’m very well, thanks, and thanks for the invitation.

Vedmore: 12:33
I’m always happy to speak with you; you’re a man who understands a lot, you understand the game, you understand what’s being, what is, you know, on the table, what’s being played for. So, let’s start off. A lone assassin was planning to kill Donald Trump yesterday. It turned out that he had fought in Ukraine, recruited others to fight against Russia and had once been given probation for possessing weapons of mass destruction. Does this sound like the modus operandi for a deep state asset?

Doctorow:
Well, the group headed by Mr. Budanov in Kyiv certainly would like to murder Mr. Putin. But I think Mr. Putin is probably better guarded by his security detail than Donald Trump is. The elimination of Donald Trump would have the same positive effect for Kyiv, at least as viewed from Kyiv, as removing Mr. Putin. So if you can’t get Putin, then you certainly have a better chance of getting Trump. And I think that’s what this latest incident was all about.

Vedmore: 13:43
Do you think that, I mean, would that be even possible, trying to get Putin? I think it would be almost impossible, wouldn’t it? And what would happen to Russia if there was a successful assassination attempt on President Putin?

Doctorow:
Well, I don’t think we’d have much time to worry about it, because the people around Mr. Putin are certainly far quicker of a trigger than he is. And he’s a man of astonishing calm and self-collected and rational, who does not give in to pressure from outside and does not submit to his own emotions. The people around him are quite different. They’re more like the rest of us, who do submit to our emotions and who can be provoked. Therefore, the chances of the current situation taking a very nasty turn towards open warfare would be far higher if Mr. Putin is eliminated from the scene. But from the perspective of Zelensky, that isn’t an issue. They are looking for, Kiev is looking for any way possible to involve the West in a direct war with Russia, so that Kiev would not stand alone. Of course it wouldn’t stand alone, but we all would be going straight to the wall.

Vedmore: 15:09
Yeah, and it seems like, I’m surprised that there’s been no, with all of the bad mouthing of Putin and saying that he’s an evil man, I’m quite surprised there’s been no assassination attempt on Zelensky if those rumors are true. Do you think Zelensky is only protected while the war is happening? Do you think that if it enters into peace negotiations that he would start to sweat a little bit more?

Doctorow:
Well, I don’t think he’s in a position to enter into those negotiations. I think he would be best advised to take the first plane out if it came to that, because the people around him have said explicitly, and this is not conjecture, they have said for public consumption that he will not remain. I think what they mean is he will not be breathing if he dares to enter into negotiations. Today’s news, the tickers from Moscow, are saying that those around him, that the army has said, that there’ll be a coup d’etat against him if he enters into negotiations.

Vedmore: 16:20
That is, that must be, I mean, stuck between a rock and a hard place, but you kind of put yourself there, especially when you’re such an amazing actor and dancer as Zelensky is. Now, do you think they will actually allow Trump to run in the presidential election or will it be a case of third time lucky and he won’t make it that far?

Doctorow:
Well, nobody can say. But there are many people who have the backing of certain parts of the American security apparatus to remove Mr. Trump, who fear him, who detest him because he stands– at least his political statements, not his actions as president in the past, but his political statements– are such that one might expect him to destroy NATO, for example, certainly to undo American foreign policy. Well, we’ve been through this before. Back in 2016, these types of fears were raised by his talk, by what he was saying would be his policy if he became president. In point of fact, none of that was realized, very sadly, sadly for us, who are opposed to the current course of American foreign policy. Under Donald Trump, one, the relations with Russia went from bad to worse. The sanctions imposed on Russia became very, very cruel under Donald Trump. And so how do we view him today?

18:00
Well, today, of course, is a different situation, in that this is no longer what Washington does, to seize property of the Russian consulate or the summer resort of the Russian ambassador. These are not the issues of the day. The issues of the day are, will we be in direct war with Russia in the near future? So the situation is far more critical, far more dire for global survival than it was in 2016. But another aspect of it is that in 2016, Mr. Trump was more or less a man by himself. He had his family to fill in key slots in his support when he became president, but he didn’t have any particular allies of weight and of good sense to help him run the US government.

19:02
His own administrative experience until he became president was to run about 10 people in the Trump Organization. This was not a manufacturing corporation. It was a narrowly-held real estate operation. He had no real administrative experience that was worth anything. These are simply the facts. Now, US senators don’t have much administrative experience either. They come in with a secretary and a few boot lickers, but not with experience running a few hundred, a few thousand, a few hundred thousand federal employees. Nonetheless, those senators who can become president, they have fellow senators and people all through the federal government in its three branches, whom they know and whom they can rely on to assist them when they’re appointing cabinet members and other high positions for their administration.

20:01
Mr. Trump had none of that. He, for reasons that are quite obscure, he chose people to, I think– well, not so obscure. I think the reason is, he chose people whom he knew could pass through the Senate approval process. Regrettably, all of them were, all of those people he chose were standing against his policies. And so you had this peculiar situation where he appointed people who made a mockery of all of his political policy lines.

Vedmore: 20:38
Yeah, and when you… Go on. Sorry, go on. What were you saying?

Doctorow:
And Mr. Trump today has had four years to align himself, to find people who could, who have the quality, who have the experience, who have the recognition to serve his policy objectives faithfully and not to undermine and destroy his policies, which was the case in his first administration. Therefore, there is reason to hope, I can’t say to be certain, but at least to hope that he would succeed in his first and most important policy mission, which is to end the war.

Vedmore: 21:24
Yeah. Now, in that 2016 presidential run, he was successful; and like you say, he brought in a load of people who were against him, really, and he was very strict on Russia, as you say. Was he doing those things as a response to all of the criticism and smearing that was happening? We know the Steele dossier, you know, the infamous Christopher Steele or Trump-Russia dossier, which was a clear fabrication by UK intelligence, had come out and had been well publicized everywhere. Was Donald Trump actually reacting to that? And is that why his first administration was much tougher on Russia?

Doctorow: 22:16
Well, Trump, I think, his self-vision is that of a person with cold blood, sang-froid, who is good at negotiation and making deals. But that is really some image that he’s painted of himself. You cannot compare Mr. Trump with Mr. Putin in the sense of rational behavior and cool calculation of all of the possible results of any action he takes. I think he’s far more emotions-driven and, of course, he has far less depth to him than the Russian leader, and that remains the case. So, was he, as you suggest, influenced by all of these threats around him and did he feel that he had to make concessions to his enemies to keep his hold on power? It’s entirely possible. I think the scenario that you’ve drawn is correct.

Vedmore: 23:21
Yeah, it was very hard for him, that’s for sure. There’s a quick question from the chat from Dark Commission. He says, “I can’t see how a major war with Russia, possibly with nuclear weapons, could be at all compatible with the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset. A nuclear World War III would be the end of all globalist plans, wouldn’t it?”

Doctorow:
Well, there are certain assumptions that go behind and drive the risk-taking that we see in the in the Biden administration. I think the first element here is their appraisal of Mr. Putin as a leader and as a decision maker and as somebody who will respond appropriately to defend his country if it’s under attack. And the assumption is that he won’t. The assumption of people like Jake Sullivan, who are the masters of the universe and who do not allow others to have similar decisiveness. They believe that American first strike on Russia is feasible, a disarming strike that would knock out the Russian land-based missiles and essentially disarm, decapitate the country, leave it in chaos because it’s only ruled by one person, as they think.

24:47
And you remove that one person, and Russia is at a loss. This is their understanding, and this understanding is based on their own reflections without any interest in the reality of Russia. They don’t study it. They only, or the people they listen to. are also echo- chamber people, people who were brought on board as supposed Russian experts, and they’re saying what they know their bosses want to hear. In this case, the decision makers, such as they are like Jake Sullivan, are ultimately making decisions in total ignorance of the opposite side.

Vedmore: 25:27
Yeah. There’s a lot of big trouble at the moment all around the world, isn’t there, and everybody is working on these stereotypes and caricatures, but the reality is, people are a lot more complex than that, leaders especially. We’re going to take a quick break for the news. You’re listening to Today’s News Talk, TNT.

TNT:
CO2 sustains all life on earth, but now it’s in long-term decline. We face the return of an ice age. We mandate that the truth be told, on Today’s News Talk, TNT.

Vedmore: 26:02
Welcome back to “The Johnny Vedmore Show” on Today’s News Talk, TNT. I’m here with Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, who is a fantastically interesting man who’s got such a fantastic knowledge of Russia and the Ukraine conflict. Gilbert, can you tell me why people with your sort of knowledge and your sort of ability to rationalize, reason and understand the players involved are not more central in the modern media sphere?

Doctorow:
Well, the modern media sphere is very subordinate to the powers that be. There are many reasons for that, and I don’t want to bore the audience with ticking them off. But that is the fact, the bottom-line fact. And they toe the line, and they get along, and they get invited to press conferences. They don’t toe the line, they don’t get invited to press conferences, and their ratings fall. So, the ability of Mr. Kirby and Jake Sullivan and other people who speak for the administration or are insiders of the administration to control the press is unfortunately all too simple.

27:17
The other factor is that the media, journalism in general, has a collective memory going back two weeks. And so even in the best of circumstances, people are unfortunately ill-prepared to put what we see in front of us in a perspective that is relevant. I don’t mean a 200-year perspective. A 10-year perspective is a good start, to see how we got where we are and where we may end up. That is unfortunately not the case.

Vedmore: 27:51
Yeah, and that’s interesting. Dark Commissioner again comes up with a question, says, “So we are looking at then the ultimate Peter Principle. The world is run by people who have been promoted to a level of incompetence.” Would you agree?

Doctorow:
I would agree, yes. And that’s very regrettable. The people in the highest offices in this administration, and Mr. Biden, are really beyond their depth. Everybody’s looking for something. I don’t mean to say that these are worthless people, but they’re not in the right slots and certainly not at the administrative level where they should be of decision makers.

Vedmore: 28:28
No, they’re in the slots where nodding dogs are best put, I think, for these people. So going back, the military-industrial complex, is that who is currently– and the security services– is that who’s currently really panicking about Trump ending the war in Ukraine? Is this just a money game, really, at the end of the day? Does it really matter about the policy? Is it just all about them, the military industrial complex, making money?

Doctorow:
Well, that is a raw fact, and it’s an indisputable fact, that the people who make money off of the war are a factor, because they make very big contributions to the whole of Congress, and so they cannot be ignored. But I think something else cannot be ignored, And that’s that our politicians do have agency. They are not simply puppets of this military-industrial complex. And they are subject to another set of considerations, which is pure power. I mean, these are the big factors that always drive the world, money and power. And the power side is the American domination of the world. It’s the belief that it is– about the leaders in Congress– that the United States is the global leader, and that without its leadership the world will fall into chaos. That is their justification, which is quite separate from and in parallel to what you were describing.

Vedmore: 29:56
Yeah, yeah, most definitely. Now, do you think that before a potential Trump presidency is possible, is allowed, shall we say, Russia will make another major military push into Ukraine?

Doctorow:
There is such a conjecture, and it has substance to it, yes. However, it’s not obligatory. Mr. Putin does not want to sacrifice the lives of his soldiers unnecessarily, to meet a given deadline. And so I would be very cautious in agreeing with you on that, if it’s before November 5th. After November 5th, I don’t think that Mr. Putin as yet sees a reason to hasten the move toward the Dnieper River. And that also assumes that reaching the Dnieper will be the end of the war. And that is, I think, a false assumption, because there still is the rest of Ukraine. And what will happen to that? Will the country give up because they retreated to the Dnieper? That is possible, but not necessary.

31:01
So where we are right now, after the exchange of courtesies between Mr. Putin and the Biden administration, Thursday and Friday, when Putin said openly that allowing the use of these American and European missiles against the heartland of Russia would essentially mean that countries are at war with Russia and that his country would respond appropriately. And then the next day, we find that the White House is saying, “Oh, no, no, no, no, we haven’t changed our position, no use of our weapons in the heartland of Russia.” This is even before Mr. Starmer, the British Prime Minister, touched down in Washington for what was highlighted to the press as a meeting to get the approval of the United States on his plans to use his missiles, the Storm Shadow, that way.

32:02
Well, we had a quiet weekend. And it’s still, my colleagues, even today listening to them on YouTube interviews, like my colleagues in the American intelligence community, are still fairly satisfied that the issue has been resolved in a favorable way for the US Pentagon, which has some reason left to it, versus the US State Department, which is delusional and has no reason. Nonetheless, I can tell you that last night’s main news program of the week on state television in Russia, Dmitry Kiselyov’s “News of the Week”, was speaking as if nothing had happened to change the US determination to use the missiles. So the Russian official position, if I can say that state television represents that, is that these missiles are still slated to be used against the Russian heartland. We’ll see where we are.

Vedmore: 32:59
We’re still heading towards it. You don’t think that Western nations will be forced to take a step back now and re-evaluate their efforts after Putin’s very clear drawing of a red line in the sand? You don’t think that they will be the ones to re-evaluate?

Doctorow:
I was listening to the BBC this morning, and they had one of the talking heads at the university in Britain who was saying the Washington line, that Putin is just a bully and it’s all a bluff.

Vedmore: 33:31
That’s it. That’s it. That’s it. They really are just playing the same old game. It’s like the Cold War never ended, it just went digital. Well Gilbert, thank you very much again for coming on the show. I really appreciate your expertise in this field, and keep up the sterling work and the amazing commentary. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Doctorow:
Thanks again to you. A pleasure.

Vedmore: 33:56
Excellent. You’re listening to Today’s News Talk, TNT.

For those who want a recapitulation of the warning given in St Petersburg on Thursday and its consequences in Washington on Friday, here is a six minute summary which I provided to Iran’s English-language global broadcaster Press TV yesterday:

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/130785

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus) of text and transcription followed by a transcription of the interview in English

Press TV, Iran: Eine sechsminütige Zusammenfassung von Wladimir Putins Warnung an die NATO und ihre Folgen

Für diejenigen, die eine Zusammenfassung der Warnung vom Donnerstag in St. Petersburg und ihrer Folgen am Freitag in Washington wünschen, habe ich gestern eine sechsminütige Zusammenfassung für den englischsprachigen globalen Sender Press TV des Iran präsentiert:

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/130785

PressTV: 0:00
Nun, wir sind jetzt mit dem unabhängigen internationalen Analysten Gilbert Doctorow verbunden, der sich uns aus Brüssel anschließt. Herr Doctorow, willkommen in der Sendung. Zunächst einmal, erläutern Sie uns doch bitte die erneute Warnung Russlands an die USA und ihre NATO-Verbündeten. Und was erwarten Sie? Welche Art von Reaktion erwarten Sie von Moskau?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:24
Moskau gab seine Warnung heraus, oder genauer gesagt, Präsident Putin stellte Bemerkungen zusammen, die in den letzten Wochen von seinen Untergebenen gemacht worden waren. Nun übernahm er die Verantwortung dafür, als er am Donnerstag zu mehreren Treffen in St. Petersburg war und einem der führenden Moderatoren des staatlichen Fernsehens ein Interview gab, und zwar in einer Sendung mit dem Titel „Moskau, Kreml, Putin“.

In dieser fünfminütigen Frage-Antwort-Sequenz sagte er sehr ruhig, sehr überzeugend und ohne jegliche Emotionen, welche Position Russland zu einer möglichen Erlaubnis der USA und der NATO für den Einsatz von Langstrecken-Präzisionsraketen einnimmt, die der Westen der Ukraine im Krieg der Ukraine geliefert hat. Selenskyj beabsichtigt, diese für Langstreckenangriffe im Landesinneren, in Zentralrussland, einzusetzen.

1:32
Was Herr Putin sagte, war zunächst eine Erklärung dessen, was wir in der Vergangenheit gehört haben. Die russische Position ist, dass es nicht um eine Frage der Erlaubnis geht, sondern um den tatsächlichen Einsatz dieser Raketen durch die NATO-Staaten, die sie geliefert haben, was sie zu Mitschuldigen macht oder sie eindeutig zu Kriegsteilnehmern gegen Russland macht, wenn diese Praxis zur offenen Politik der Vereinigten Staaten und ihrer Verbündeten gemacht wird. Ich sage, wenn dies zur offenen Politik gemacht wird, denn de facto wurden die fraglichen Raketen, die in den USA hergestellten ATACMS und die in Großbritannien hergestellten Storm Shadow, von der Ukraine tatsächlich eingesetzt, um innerhalb der russischen Grenzen zuzuschlagen.

2:19
Sie sind auf der Krim eingeschlagen, die Russland als zu Russland gehörig betrachtet, und sie sind in den letzten Monaten in Gebieten nahe der Grenze zwischen der Ukraine und der Russischen Föderation eingeschlagen. Beide Raketentypen sind den Russen inzwischen wohlbekannt, und sie haben sie erfolgreich zerstört, entweder durch Abfangen oder durch elektronische Kriegsführung. Dennoch stellen sie eine erhebliche Bedrohung dar. Eine hundertprozentige Luftverteidigung gibt es nicht.

Und wenn Storm Shadow beispielsweise auf die Kertsch-Brücke gerichtet wäre – was durchaus denkbar ist, da die Briten dahinterstecken und wenn die Briten versuchen sollten, diese symbolische und mit enormen Investitionen der Russischen Föderation erstellte Brücke zu zerstören, die das russische Festland mit der Halbinsel Krim verbindet – wenn das passieren würde, dann hätte das verheerende Auswirkungen auf die Moral und das Selbstbewusstsein der Russen und auf die russische Öffentlichkeit, die die Fähigkeit der Regierung, sie zu verteidigen, in Frage stellen würde.

3:25
Es geht hier also nicht so sehr um die militärische Wirkung der jeweiligen Waffensysteme, sondern um den Versuch, das politische System des Landes zu destabilisieren, worum es dem Westen von Beginn des Konflikts Russlands und des Westens über die Ukraine an ging. Die Absicht der Vereinigten Staaten und ihrer Verbündeten, Russland eine demütigende Niederlage zuzufügen, sollte, wie es bei solchen Niederlagen immer der Fall ist, eine politische Wirkung haben, die Instabilität schafft und eine bestehende Regierung stürzt.

4:01
Nun sagte Herr Putin nicht nur, dass diese Raketen von den NATO-Lieferanten kontrolliert werden würden, da die Ukraine nicht in der Lage sei, sie zu warten, selbst die Ziele zu programmieren und auf die Aufklärung durch Satelliten angewiesen sei, die von den Vereinigten Staaten und ihren Verbündeten bereitgestellt werden, sowie auf Techniker vor Ort in der Ukraine, die eigentlich alles tun, außer den Knopf für den Abschuss zu drücken. Das ist Punkt eins.

4:34
Punkt zwei ist, dass Russland dies so auffasst, dass die Lieferanten dieser Raketen de facto als Mit-Kriegsbeteiligte zu betrachten sind, dass sie sich an einem Krieg gegen Russland beteiligen und dass Russland dementsprechend Maßnahmen ergreifen muss, je nachdem, wie gross die Bedrohung durch diese Angriffe eingeschätzt wird. Das ist eine sehr klare Botschaft – an Großbritannien, das als erstes vorgeschlagen hat, der Ukraine seine „Storm Shadow“-Raketen für Angriffe überall im Kernland Russlands zur Verfügung zu stellen, und an die Vereinigten Staaten für ihre ATACMS-Raketen, die, wie gesagt, bereits eingesetzt wurden und möglicherweise auf die gleiche Weise eingesetzt werden könnten, um 500 Kilometer tief in die Russische Föderation einzudringen.

5:27
Die Auswirkungen dessen waren im Westen unmittelbar spürbar, obwohl man das aus keiner Erklärung der US-Regierung und der Mainstream-Medien entnehmen kann. Die US-Regierung wird in keiner Weise zugeben, dass Herr Putin von ihrer Führung ernst genommen werden könnte, de facto wurde er es aber. Das erste, was innerhalb weniger Stunden nach Putins Demarche geschah, war, dass das Weiße Haus – noch vor der Ankunft des britischen Premierministers Keir Starmer, um genau diese Frage der Raketen in der Ukraine zu besprechen – erklärte, dass es keine Änderung der Politik gebe. Das bedeutet, dass es den Einsatz seiner Waffen in der Ukraine für Angriffe im russischen Landesinneren nicht zulässt.

PressTV: 6:21
Richtig. Vielen Dank. Der unabhängige Analyst für internationale Angelegenheiten Gilbert Doctorow, der aus Brüssel zugeschaltet ist.

Transcription in English below submitted by a reader

PressTV: 0:00
Well, we’re now joined by independent international affairs analyst Gilbert Doctorow, who’s joining us from Brussels. Mr. Doctorow, welcome to the program. First of all, walk us through Russia’s warning yet again to the US and its NATO allies at this point. And what are you expecting? What kind of a response are you expecting to see from Moscow?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:24
Moscow issued its warning, or to be precise, President Putin put together remarks that had appeared in the last several weeks made by his subordinates. Now, it was he who took charge of this, when he was in St. Petersburg for several meetings on Thursday and gave an interview to one of state television’s leading hosts, one on a program that’s called “Moscow, Kremlin, Putin.”

In this five-minute question-answer, he said very calmly, very cogently, and without any sense of emotion, what Russia’s position is on the possible US and NATO permission for use of long-range precision missiles supplied by the West to Ukraine in Ukraine’s war, the intention of Zelensky being to use these for long-range strikes inside the interior, central Russia.

1:32
What Mr. Putin said was first explaining what we’ve heard in the past. The Russian position is that it is not an issue of permission, it is an issue of actual operation of those missiles by NATO countries that supplied them, which makes them co-belligions, or makes them clearly waging a war on Russia, if this practice is made the open policy of the United States and its allies. I say if it’s made the open policy, because de facto the missiles that are in question right now, the American-made ATACMSs and the British-made Storm Shadow, have in fact been used by Ukraine to strike within Russian borders.

2:19
They struck in Crimea, which Russia considers to be its own, and they have struck in areas near the border between Ukraine and the Russian Federation over the past several months. Both of these missiles are well known now to Russians, who have successfully destroyed them, either by interception or by electronic warfare means. Nonetheless, they pose a significant threat. You never can have 100% air defense.

And if, for example, Storm Shadow were directed at the Kerch Bridge– which is entirely thinkable, since the British are behind this and the British have been seeking to destroy that symbolic and enormous investment of Russian Federation in a bridge that connects mainland Russia to the Crimean Peninsula– if that were to happen, then it would have a devastating effect on Russian morale, Russian self-confidence, and on the Russian public, who would question the ability of the government to defend them.

3:25
So there is in question here not so much a military impact of the given weapon systems, but an attempt to destabilize the country’s political system, which from the very beginning of the conflict between Russia and the West over Ukraine has been about that. The intention of the United States and its allies to deal a humiliating defeat on Russia has, as is always the case in such defeats, a political impact to create instability and overthrow an existing government.

4:01
Now, Mr. Putin said not only that these missiles were going to be controlled by the NATO suppliers, because the Ukraine has no ability to maintain them, to target them on its own, and is dependent on reconnaissance from satellites supplied by the United States and its allies, and on technicians on the ground in Ukraine, who actually do everything except push the button for them to be fired. That is point one.

4:34
Point two is that Russia considers this to mean that the suppliers of these missiles are de facto co-belligerents, that they are engaging in a war on Russia and that Russia must take steps accordingly, depending on the level of threat that it perceives by these strikes. Now this is a very clear message. to Britain, who are foremost in proposing that their storm shadow be available to Ukraine for striking anywhere in the heartland of Russia, and to the United States for its ATACMSs, which, as I say, have already been used and could potentially be used in the same way, to attack 500 kilometers into the Russian Federation.

5:27
The impact of this in the West was immediate, although you will not know that from any statement by the US government and from mainstream media. who will in no way, shape or form admit that Mr. Putin could be taken seriously by their leadership, de facto he was. The first thing that happened within hours of Mr. Putin’s demarche is that the White House– ahead of the arrival of the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, to discuss precisely this question of missiles to Ukraine– the White House stated that there is no change in policy. which is not allowing use of its weapons in Ukraine for striking the interior.

PressTV: 6:21
Right. Thanks a lot. Independent international affairs
analyst Gilbert Doctorow, joining us from Brussels.

I have not seen any comments on what I am about to describe in alternative media recently, not to mention in mainstream, which by definition only takes an interest in Vladimir Putin and could not care less about who is who in the Kremlin line-up below Number One. So much the worse for mainstream, because watching the musical chairs in Moscow is no less valuable open source intelligence on where policy is headed than it would be with respect to leading politicians and statesmen in London or Washington or Berlin.

As we all know, Sergei Shoigu, who is as close a friend to Vladimir Putin as anyone in Russia may be said to be, was this past spring unceremoniously removed from his position as Defense Minister, which he occupied for more than a decade, and was made Secretary of the Security Council; which took him out of the line of command and entrusted him with unclear responsibilities of an advisory nature. The reasons for his removal were fairly clear, namely a number of corruption scandals among his direct subordinates, which suggested that it was high time for cleaning house. Moreover, no one had forgotten how Shoigu and the head of the Russian general staff General Gerasimov had been denounced publicly for incompetence and corruption by head of the Wagner Group Pavel Prigozhin in the months before Prigozhin staged his insurrection.

In the intervening period, I would say not so much that Shoigu’s star has risen on its own as that the luster of his successor, Andrei Belousov, and of the aforementioned Valery Gerasimov has been tarnished by the stunning failure of the Russian military leadership to anticipate and prevent the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk Oblast, which has been a big embarrassment for the Putin government even if it is ending badly for Kiev. It should never have happened.

Now in the past several days we have seen proof positive that wind is once again in the sails of Mr. Shoigu. He was present, as a silent witness, to be sure, but present nonetheless as the senior representative of Russia’s siloviki (security and defense apparatus) when Putin received the directors of national security from the BRICS countries at the Konstantinovsky Palace outside Petersburg on Thursday. He was present at the sidelines meeting there of Putin and the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Presumably Belousov was not there because he was busy managing Russia’s largest global naval exercise in 30 years, Ocean 2024, with large scale Chinese naval participation and a great many foreign observers.

Now today’s news indicates that Mr Shoigu is in Pyongyang negotiating directly with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. This can only be about the most serious defense issues, including further shipments of armaments to Moscow.

All of these moves of personnel on the chessboard are yet further proof of Vladimir Putin’s remarkable skills in Human Resources. He never completely discards any of his underperforming subordinates. They are not simply ‘fired’ in the spirit of Donald Trump. No they are held close to him so that their talents may be used at some future point as needed for the country’s greater benefit. And if I may be allowed a side glance at what The Donald was saying in his debate with Kamala, none of those removed from high positions is given the opportunity or the incentive to write a denunciation of The Boss.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Schoigu feiert ein Comeback

Ich habe in letzter Zeit keine Kommentare zu dem, was ich gleich beschreiben werde, in den alternativen Medien gesehen, ganz zu schweigen in den Mainstream-Medien, die sich per definitionem nur für Wladimir Putin interessieren und denen es völlig egal sein könnte, wer in der Kreml-Besetzung unter der Nummer Eins wer ist. Umso schlimmer für die Mainstream-Medien, denn das Beobachten der musikalischen Stühle in Moskau ist nicht weniger wertvolle Open-Source-Aufklärung darüber, wohin die Politik steuert, als es in Bezug auf führende Politiker und Staatsmänner in London, Washington oder Berlin der Fall wäre.

Wie wir alle wissen, wurde Sergei Schoigu, der Wladimir Putin so nahesteht wie kaum ein anderer in Russland, im vergangenen Frühjahr kurzerhand von seinem Posten als Verteidigungsminister, den er mehr als ein Jahrzehnt lang innehatte, entfernt und zum Sekretär des Sicherheitsrates ernannt, wodurch er aus der Befehlskette herausgenommen und mit unklaren Verantwortlichkeiten beratender Art betraut wurde. Die Gründe für seine Entlassung waren ziemlich klar, nämlich eine Reihe von Korruptionsskandalen unter seinen direkten Untergebenen, die darauf hindeuteten, dass es höchste Zeit für eine Säuberungsaktion war. Darüber hinaus hatte niemand vergessen, wie Schoigu und der Chef des russischen Generalstabs, General Gerassimow, in den Monaten vor Prigoschins Aufstand vom Chef der Wagner-Gruppe, Pavel Prigozhin, öffentlich wegen Inkompetenz und Korruption angeprangert worden waren.

In der Zwischenzeit würde ich nicht sagen, dass Schoigus Stern von selbst aufgegangen ist, sondern dass der Glanz seines Nachfolgers, Andrei Belousov, und des bereits erwähnten Valery Gerasimov durch das eklatante Versagen der russischen Militärführung, die Invasion der Ukraine in der Oblast Kursk vorherzusehen und zu verhindern, getrübt wurde. Dies war eine große Blamage für die Regierung Putin, auch wenn sie für Kiew schlecht ausgeht. Das hätte nie passieren dürfen.

In den letzten Tagen haben wir nun den eindeutigen Beweis dafür gesehen, dass Herr Schoigu wieder Rückenwind hat. Er war zwar als stiller Zeuge anwesend, aber dennoch als ranghöchster Vertreter der russischen Silowiki (Sicherheits- und Verteidigungsapparat) zugegen, als Putin am Donnerstag im Konstantinowski-Palast außerhalb von Petersburg die Leiter der nationalen Sicherheit der BRICS-Staaten empfing. Er war bei dem dortigen Treffen am Rande der Veranstaltung von Putin und dem chinesischen Außenminister Wang Yi anwesend. Vermutlich war Belousov nicht dort, weil er mit der Leitung der größten globalen Marineübung Russlands seit 30 Jahren, Ocean 2024, beschäftigt war, an der eine große Abteilung der chinesischen Marine und zahlreiche ausländische Beobachter teilnahmen.

Die heutigen Nachrichten besagen, dass Herr Schoigu in Pjöngjang ist und direkt mit dem nordkoreanischen Staatschef Kim Jong Un verhandelt. Dabei kann es sich nur um die schwerwiegendsten Verteidigungsfragen handeln, einschließlich weiterer Waffenlieferungen nach Moskau.

All diese Personalbewegungen auf dem Schachbrett sind ein weiterer Beweis für Wladimir Putins bemerkenswerte Fähigkeiten im Personalwesen. Er entlässt nie einen seiner leistungsschwachen Untergebenen vollständig. Sie werden nicht einfach im Geiste Donald Trumps „gefeuert“. Nein, sie werden in seiner Nähe gehalten, damit ihre Talente zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt zum Wohle des Landes eingesetzt werden können. Und wenn ich einen Seitenblick auf das werfen darf, was „The Donald“ in seiner Debatte mit Kamala gesagt hat, wird keiner derjenigen, die aus hohen Positionen entfernt wurden, die Möglichkeit oder den Anreiz erhalten, eine Denunziation über den Boss zu schreiben.

As those of you who have read these pages for some time know, I appeared not long ago on the Johnny Vedmore show of the TNT global broadcasting network that is Australian owned and operates from Britain. On that program I was interviewed by Johnny in a 10 minute slot. Yesterday we were both panelists responding to questions posed by a moderator. The shows are aired live and then released on a number of internet platforms. On Monday I am scheduled to participate in another of their programs hosted by the former British MP James Freeman.

The tone of these programs is lively and always topical. Yesterday’s opened with discussion of the latest Russian expulsion of six British diplomats on spying charges. As I remarked, the Brits may look upon this as a down payment on possible severing of diplomatic relations that Russian Duma member Lugovoy called for a day ago on the Vladimir Solovyov talk show. Why? The answer lies in the aggressively hostile disposition of the recently installed New Labour government and its guiding role in the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk oblast. As we know, the preceding Tory government of Boris Johnson was responsible for the cancellation of the Russian-Ukrainian peace agreement initialed by both sides in March 2022 as well as for several high visibility terrorist attacks within Russia. I am pleased to have given the time to explain that severing diplomatic relations often is a precursor to the declaration of war.

Among other topics of the day, we also talked about Putin’s remark during his visit to Petersburg on Thursday that NATO members which end restrictions on Kiev’s use of the offensive weapons they have supplied for attacks on Russia’s heartland will be considered to have become co-belligerents.

I

I am hopeful that our three-way discussion with the moderator will be as interesting and informative for viewers as it was stimulating for me as panelist.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus) followed by full transcription in English)

Podiumsdiskussion von TNT Muckrakers: Russland weist britische Diplomaten aus, Putin und der Krieg mit der NATO, Starmer besucht Washington und gibt es ein Happy End im Ukraine-Krieg?

Wie diejenigen von Ihnen, die diese Seiten schon länger lesen, wissen, bin ich vor nicht allzu langer Zeit in der Johnny Vedmore Show des globalen Senders TNT aufgetreten, der sich in australischem Besitz befindet und von Großbritannien aus operiert. In dieser Sendung wurde ich von Johnny in einem 10-minütigen Slot interviewt. Gestern waren wir beide Diskussionsteilnehmer und beantworteten Fragen eines Moderators. Die Sendungen werden live ausgestrahlt und dann auf verschiedenen Internetplattformen veröffentlicht. Am Montag soll ich an einer weiteren Sendung teilnehmen, die vom ehemaligen britischen Europaabgeordneten James Freeman moderiert wird.

Der Ton dieser Programme ist lebhaft und immer aktuell. Gestern wurde die Sendung mit einer Diskussion über die jüngste Ausweisung von sechs britischen Diplomaten aus Russland wegen Spionagevorwürfen eröffnet. Wie ich bemerkte, könnten die Briten dies als Anzahlung für eine mögliche Abkoppelung der diplomatischen Beziehungen betrachten, die der russische Duma-Abgeordnete Lugowoi am Tag zuvor in der Talkshow von Wladimir Solowjow gefordert hatte. Warum? Die Antwort liegt in der aggressiven feindlichen Gesinnung der kürzlich eingesetzten New Labour-Regierung und ihrer führenden Rolle bei der Invasion der Ukraine in der Oblast Kursk. Wie wir wissen, war die vorherige Tory-Regierung unter Boris Johnson für die Aufhebung des von beiden Seiten im März 2022 paraphierten russisch-ukrainischen Friedensabkommens sowie für mehrere öffentlichkeitswirksame Terroranschläge in Russland verantwortlich. Ich freue mich, dass ich die Zeit gefunden habe, zu erklären, dass die Unterbrechung diplomatischer Beziehungen oft ein Vorläufer der Kriegserklärung ist.

Neben anderen Themen des Tages sprachen wir auch über Putins Bemerkung während seines Besuchs in Petersburg am Donnerstag, dass NATO-Mitglieder, die die Beschränkungen für den Einsatz der von ihnen gelieferten Angriffswaffen durch Kiew für Angriffe auf das Kernland Russlands aufheben, als Kriegsteilnehmer betrachtet werden.

Ich hoffe, dass unsere Dreierdiskussion mit dem Moderator für die Zuschauer genauso interessant und informativ sein wird, wie sie für mich als Diskussionsteilnehmer anregend war.

Transcription below by a reader

Andrew Eborn: 0:11
Well, it’s just gone 12 noon in London, 7 AM in Philadelphia; and around the world, It’s time for “The Muckrakers” with me, Andrew Eborn. And here on “The Muckrakers”, we pledge to continue tackling the most controversial and pressing news issues of our time. Our mission is to provide more light and less heat in our unwavering quest to uncover the truth and to inform, educate and entertain, all with dignity and respect.

And today we’re going to discuss Putin’s latest warning to NATO, the end game in the Ukraine conflict and the risk of thermonuclear war. And I’m delighted to be joined by TNT titan Johnny Vedmore and Dr Gilbert Doctorow, who joins us all the way– where are you based, Dr Gilbert? Where are you based?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Brussels, Belgium.

Eborn:
Brussels in Belgium, oh, we love it over there. For those of you who don’t know, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow holds a PhD in Russian history from Columbia University and is a fluent Russian speaker. He spent most of his professional life in corporate business with a focus on Russia. He has authored five books of essays. He also posted his space in expert forums devoted to international affairs and appeared in Russian domestic political talk shows on all national channels. A very warm welcome to you both, gentlemen.

Doctorow;
Thank you.

Johnny Vedmore:
Thank you.

Eborn: 1:31
Let me deal with this sort of breaking news which has happened in the last few minutes about Russia has expelled British diplomats. Basically, the Russia’s FSB security service has revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow, accusing them of spying and sabotage. The UK government called the spy accusations baseless and stated it is unapologetic about protecting its national interest. Let me get your reaction on that first of all, Gilbert.

Doctorow: 2:00
Well, I think this is a down payment on a much bigger set of problems that are about to appear in British-Russian relations. What I mean is, it’s entirely possible in the next few weeks that the Russians will cut diplomatic relations Britain. This was called for yesterday by a gentleman who many in your audience will find familiar by name, Mr. Lugavoy, who was held to be responsible for a rather high-visability political murder in Britain several years ago. Lugavoy is a deputy of the state Duma, and he called precisely to cut relations.

And why is that? It’s because of what Mr. Keir Starmer is doing as the new Labour government repeats the policies of the first new Labour government of Tony Blair and moves to be a reliable partner of the United States in the capacity of a dog. In the case of Mr. Blair, Prime Minister Blair was denounced by many in the opposition in the United States as being a lapdog of Bush. In the case of Mr. Stammer, I’d say he’s the hunting dog of the present administration, because he is one step ahead of the United States, not two steps behind like Mr. Blair. And he is bringing down on Britain the risk of being the first target for a Russian retaliation. So long as it remains in a diplomatic domain, the cutting of relations is the first step. Usually the cutting of relations is the first step before declaration of war. And that’s exactly the sense in which it has to be understood. So the expulsion of these six diplomats is only a foretaste of what is to come.

Eborn: 3:55
Right, Johnny?

Vedmore;
Yeah, Keir Starmer, I’ll echo Gilbert there, Keir Starmer and David Lammy are one step ahead of the agenda, partially because the agenda is being created behind closed doors, and they have always been part of that deep-state infrastructure. We know that Keir Starmer, while he was in the administration under Corbyn, was actually joining the Trilateral Commission in secret, and he’s got a lot of secretive background. He seems like a deep-state actor, he seems like this is the perfect time for him come to power. The fact that the spies have been kicked out, it suggests there’s a new reset in the relationship in what’s about to happen.

4:43
This happened when Putin first got in as well, about ’99, 2000. You saw a load of spies, people being outed as spies in a leak by a former British intelligence agent who put out a load of names and that started another, you could say, exodus of spies, including some that were working in the Estonian embassy. One of them was a guy called Pablo Miller, whose handler was the infamous Christopher Steele of the Trump-Russia dossier, and who also handled Sergei Skripal. So you can see there’s, you know, there’s a web of spies always on the periphery of Russian borders, always working hard, some inside. This seems like a reset and there’s a big change coming.

Eborn: 5:37
Yeah, it is. I mean, you’ve called them spies. Many times they deny being spies. Basically, Russia claims that the British Foreign Office was coordinating efforts to escalate the political and military situation in Ukraine, aiming for Russia’s strategic defeat. And Russian state television, they had named and showed photographs of the six expelled diplomats, with the FSB warning the UK to stop intelligence activities. Gilbert, you mentioned this is basically the precursor for war; can you elaborate?

Doctorow: 6:06
Well, Mr Putin at the St Petersburg Cultural Forum, or on the sidelines of the Forum, was asked a question by a certain Pavel Zarubin, who is a journalist who runs a program called “Moscow, the Kremlin, Putin” on Sunday evenings. And he is a, he shadows Mr. Putin wherever he goes. And he was at the Forum yesterday. And in between meetings, he asked Mr. Putin a question that’s on the minds of most every Russian and on a lot of us here in the West. That is, how he will respond, how Russia will respond to the likely granting of permission by the United States and Britain to Kiev, to use whatever military hardware, particularly long-range missiles that they are given by the West to attack deep into Russian territory.

6:55
Mr. Putin opened his remarks. He was– this is a subject which you would think would generate a lot of heat. And I can say by contrast what I mean by heat. The Russian talk shows last night were showing images of Chancellor Scholz in a very heated discussion before a public in which he was making fist-like gestures and they showed on the side of the screen Hitler making the same fist-like gestures. So the heated discussions that are considered acceptable in German culture before audiences are not acceptable before Russian audiences. And Mr. Putin was very calm and reserved in his response. Obviously this was well prepared in advance, because he had a full day’s agenda, and you don’t just take up questions as deep and important as that on a moment’s notice.

7:44
His answer to Zarubin began with the explanation we’ve heard in the past few weeks from various sources, but here it was hearing, we heard it from the number one in Russia. From the standpoint of military expertise, Russia believes that it’s impossible for Ukraine alone to carry out, to use these missiles effectively against itself. That means they do not have the possibility absent the daily and I should say minute-by-minute provision of satellite reconnaissance to Ukraine officers to enable them, or to directly program missiles for targeting purposes.

But that’s not all. The second factor and the more important factor is that maintenance and ready preparedness of these weapons requires a great deal of skill, a great deal of education and knowledge of the sophisticated systems that are there, which nobody can impart in two or three weeks’ training. In short, only with the assistance and the presence of NATO officers in Ukraine can these weapons systems be used offensively against the Russian Federation. Accordingly, drawing the dots, Mr. Putin is saying that we view, we, Russia, view any attacks coming from Ukraine of these missiles, and particularly we’re talking about the British Missiles Storm Shadow, because the United States, to our best knowledge, is withholding permission to use its missiles, ATACMSs, for reasons that are very important to you, Britain in particular. But I will get to that, I hope, later in this discussion, how the United States is using Britain as another sacrifice, fighting Russians to the last Briton.

9:34
The point is that from the standpoint of Russia, the launch of such missiles against targets within the Russian Federation is the equivalent of NATO countries firing those missiles, meaning in short, at the end, his conclusion that the nature of this war changes with that permission to Ukraine, from a proxy war to a direct war that NATO countries are waging on his country; and that Russia will respond appropriately to the level, or calibrate it to the level of threat that it sees in these incoming missiles.

Eborn: 10:17
Yeah, and we’ve seen– and language is so important in this, isn’t it? We say “responding appropriately”. What does that mean in practice?

Doctorow:
It means that he is not being aggressive, belligerent, bellicose, which is– the “aggressive” word was in today’s “Financial Times” review of just what we’re talking about. He was being factual and matter-of-fact. [“You do this, and we will do that. And I’m not telling you what we will do, but it will be calibrated to the level of danger that you’re imposing on us.”]

Eborn:
You mentioned rather– I’m sorry, Gilbert. Carry on, yes.

Doctorow:
It was intentionally vague, and it was to encourage Britain, the United States and others not to allow, for example, Ukraine to use those missiles to attack the Kursk nuclear power plant. If we do that, as I have written earlier today, it will be a memorable event But I doubt that any of us present will be around to remember it.

Eborn: 11:09
Right. Chilling stuff. Johnny.

Vedmore:
Yeah, I think, you know, they’ve been pushing the buttons for a long time. The West have been seeing how far they can get in to Russia, basically: how much they can disturb the Russian State, the people. They want Russia to be broken down. And that’s what they really want to happen. And they’ve done this through a lot of other mechanisms, aside from warfare, actual warfare. So a lot of the runup to this has been neocon NGO kind of cold war, where lots of actions are taken to put pressure on the countries surrounding Russia to turn against Russia.

12:10
Now, we’ve reached the point where Putin has finally said, and Russia finally said, “This is it. You step over this line and it is war.” And we all knew that it was coming. We all knew that eventually, the more they push, the more they swamp the intelligence infrastructure into countries surrounding Russia, that this was going to lead to a state of war. And this is, this is the closest we’ve ever been within our lifetimes to something that is equal, if not even more severe than World War II. And that’s saying something. I just don’t– I think a lot of the British people are sleepwalking, and the Americans, all of the West, are sleepwalking into this. The actual citizens don’t realise the dangers and don’t realise that we’re the ones, we are the aggressors. We are the ones who are constantly pushing the button. We have swallowed our own propaganda, partially because after World War II, the Western powers had to adopt Soviet-style Leninist propaganda to compete, to really, really fight back against the narrative.

13:22
And what’s happened now is it’s flipped, it’s almost flipped completely. Russia has become kind of like the West once saw itself as, and the West have become this aggressive power that looks to push all of the buttons. And I hope it’s happy now. I hope they’re happy. They’ve pushed all of the buttons. And now we’re at the state where Putin’s saying, “If you keep going now, we this is the last straw. We will push the button back.” And that means something extreme, especially for the people of Britain, like Gilbert says, you know, we are now on the front line, as always. And you know one spark and this powder keg goes up.

Eborn: 14:05
Yeah, chilling stuff as I say. We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, we’re going to be doing a deeper dive into how we got here and is there a way out of it. Don’t touch that dial.

TNT: 14:18
Critically analyzing global affairs. The Muckrakers on today’s news talk TNT.

Eborn: 14:25
Well welcome back to “The Muckrakers”, with me, Andrew Eborn. And if you’re interested in news for the Middle East, do check out Levantis.me which brings down all the main stories into plain English and presents you with just what you need to know each day for news, comments and analysis and a really fresh non-partisan take on news for the Middle East. And of course for what’s really going on in Gaza, try Levantis.me, which you can also find on X as Levantis underscore ME. And it’s a run and a big editor over there is our regular here on “The Muckrakers”, Martin J., who will be watching and listening to every word to make sure I plug his sites relentlessly, which I’ll continue to do.

15:07
Just before the break, I said we were going to unpack some of the history, so everything can be put into context. And how did we get here, Gilbert?

Doctorow:
Well, I have to say my background, my professional training, you mentioned my PhD in history, and I think I’m virtually the only historian who’s the kind of commentator on programs like your own these days; that my peers, my colleagues, I think are all hiding under their desks because if they said anything like what I’m saying, they’d be fired the next day. But I have the benefit of being a bit older and not subject to firing. I speak as an historian. You asked for the background, and historians pay attention to the starting date.

We have different disciplines, some are journalists. Journalists usually have a starting date that goes back two weeks. Talking heads and pundits have a starting date that may go back 10 years. That’s already great. Historians, of course, can bore the public by going back centuries. I won’t do that. But I’ll say that a 20 year back look in the rear view mirror is appropriate to the situation that we’re now undergoing. And this is where I look at the statement of the head of MI6 at the “Financial Times” global meeting last weekend as being typical of the problem that we are all facing when we look at the Ukraine war. He takes it back no further than February of 2022. That’s when the Russians waged their, entered upon their war of aggression in Ukraine. And that’s the whole prehistory to where we are today in 2024.

16:52
Regrettably, when you start in February of 2022, you have already ruled out any understanding of what we’re facing. You have to go back at least to the, what’s called the coup d’etat in February of 2014 when the Americans effectively, Victoria Nuland, installed a nationalist government, overthrew the elected prime minister of Ukraine, sent him fleeing for his life to Russia, and installed a nationalist government in Ukraine, which remains with us today, one which is viciously anti-Russian for its own citizens who happen to be Russian speakers, and which has viscerally hatred for the Russian Federation and is very willing to allow itself to be used by the United States and NATO for their purposes, in the mistaken belief that their purposes and its purposes are the same: that is, the recovery of lands that Ukraine has lost to the Russian Federation over the last 10 years.

18:02
Well, if you go back to 2014, and you see that this government was installed for the purpose of buildup of an anti-Russian force, a NATO base, which NATO had been inviting the Ukraine and Georgia to join, or at least the Americans within NATO were doing that back to 2008 when it was resisted by some of their colleagues, and so it wasn’t approved formally by NATO back then. But it was already on the table that the United States was pushing for this NATO entry of Ukraine for the purpose that we now know, purposes which have been aired by various personalities in the military and political life in the States in the last couple of years: to bring Russia to its knees and to inflict a humiliating defeat, a strategic defeat on Russia.

19:00
And here I come to the point of Johnny a few minutes ago, the idea of causing great pain to Russia. The disruption of political life in Russia was the objective. When you inflict a great military defeat on a country, it is not unusual for there to be a revolution in that country or in some way, or coup d’etat, or in some way for the government to be overthrown. And that has been the objective of the United States and some of its allies in NATO going back two decades. And this has been a guiding light to all efforts in Ukraine by NATO and its allies. So that is what brought about the moment of truth in in December 2021, when Mr. Putin, and particularly in the words of the Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov, put terms of a settlement for a new architecture of security in Europe to NATO and to the United States.

20:06
These were peremptorally dismissed, and Russia decided that it had no recourse but to go to war. And so the so-called “unprovoked aggression” was, in fact, something that had taken a long time to build up, and it was the United States’ disparagement of Russia, United States’ interest in overturning the political order in Russia that was behind this whole development.

Eborn: 20:34
Right. And it is interesting, a lot of people have said strategically, I mean, Ukraine is basically the breadbasket of the world, and a lot of people said that a lot of property and the debt that they have, a lot of the land there, I think somebody even said as much as 30 percent, has already been taken by some of the people who are lending these huge sums of money. Can you shed any light on that?

Doctorow: 20:59
It was true that Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Ukraine had black earth. This is the kind of soil in which you plant a broomstick and the next day you’ve got a tree. It is very fertile land. It was more than a meter, I think, maybe three meters thick. It’s now down to less than one meter because of depletion, abuse, abusive agricultural practices. Nonetheless, it is still some of the most fertile land in Europe and it can, under proper conditions and proper investments, proper agricultural techniques, be really, as you say, a breadbasket.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s for specific cultures, specific crops, not for all crops. Ukraine was the biggest producer in the world for sunflowers and sunflower oil. As an example, for this look at grains or corn, as you call it in Britain, the issue is a bit more complex. In point of fact, Russia, which was, which suffered famines in the late 19th century, Russia, which had a tremendous shortage of grain production in the years of Brezhnev and had to sign, to its great embarrassment, long-term procurement contracts with the United States for grain to feed its cattle, Russia has become a much bigger producer, a much bigger supply of agricultural products to the world at large. And if you have the proper management, proper investment and the proper personnel, they have done wonders with lands which were largely wasted during the Soviet period.

22:46
So to speak of Ukraine as a unique granary of the world is, I think, to mistake the agricultural balances as they are today. Nonetheless, it remains true that land in Ukraine is highly valuable, and as you say, a large, 30, I’ve even heard higher percentages of the land have been bought up on the cheap by international agricultural combines.

Eborn: 23:12
Johnny.

Vedmore:
I would go back with history. I would go back to about 1989 to see the current modern development of how we got here. But that was spurred on by a lot of the philosophy, the ideas that came out of America, Harvard, places like that during the late 50s and through the 60s where they were deciding globalism is going to be the way of the future. And for that, we can expect multi-polls of globalism to appear, and one of those polls of globalism would be America, Britain and Europe united. And so that automatically then puts forward the enemy, doesn’t it? It says, if we’re going to be united, then who are we going to be united against? And that’s sort of the thinking.

Now over the years, the West developed leadership programs that we all know about, that we’ve all heard about, from a post-war period, started about 1950, with Kissinger’s International Seminar forming and training world leaders to put into power. And eventually in around 1989, you start to see the first colour revolution. And these colour revolutions were then weaponized in a way that allowed the West to take advantage and put pressure on the Soviet Union so it would fall, and then install their own leaders in. And we’ve seen this slow crunch since the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, this slow crunch, country after country, falling under some sort of Western influence.

24:54
We’ve reached a point now where the neocon agenda scares most of the people in the region. The Western world looks like a hellscape to the people who are very traditional in values and still hold religion and traditional values as in high regard in the East and in Russia. And so they don’t want to end up with the type of immigration that we’ve got over here, the type of society that we’re creating over here, the woke culture. They’re not interested in that at all. So there’s a breaking point now. And I think that’s why this is happening now. There’s two things, is that if you want to create globalism– whether you’re the West or the East, and if you want to implement an agenda which is extremely well mapped out, I don’t think people realize how well mapped out this is by public policy institutes such as the World Economic Forum– if you want to institute this, you need to destroy a lot of what is currently here.

25:54
And I think that we’re coming up to a point where a lot of these guys are saying, well, you know, we followed this neocon agenda through to the point where now we’re at breaking point. Ukraine, where I mean, in 2004, you had by the German Marshall Fund figures, you had roughly 30,000 NGOs working, Western NGOs working in Ukraine to destabilize the country. And you saw how that worked. But that was during relatively peacetime. Now we’ve reached a point where we see where that’s led. It’s led to a war. It’s led to a point where, you know, recently the Slovakian leader who had an assassination attempt soon afterwards was saying, “Hey, you know, we’re starting to look back towards the East, because we don’t like what’s going on in the West.” And I think that– they know in the West that that’s going to keep happening.

26:49
So the only way is to create something new and to have some form of reset. And the best way to reset is war. And I think when the greatest reset was announced by the World Economic Forum, I think that was really the start to say, “We are changing things within society, so much so that we need to completely and utterly start afresh and anew.” And like I say, the best way to do that is war for these people. That’s what they think. So be wary of the people you vote for. Be wary of the agenda you follow. Look at what’s going on behind the scenes because it’s been going on for donkey’s years, and it’s now reached a point where there’s a crescendo.

27:29
And at this moment today, on Friday the 13th, this is when Putin says, “No more” to the crescendo. “We’re now at the breaking point. You make your decision on what comes next.” So we’re at the end now; we’re at the end of this road. This is a new era of history.

Eborn: 27:46
Yeah. And as I say, very, very chilling stuff. Friday the 13th indeed. And we talked about this earlier, about some of the weapons and various things that have been used. We talked about the F-16 aircraft, we often reference that here on “The Muckrakers”, and actually pointing out: to learn to fly those F-16s actually takes months, if not years. So they’ve been basically having, NATO allies have already been helping on that sort of basis, haven’t they Gilbert?

Doctorow: 28:14
Well the Wunderwaffe, the wonder arms, have been a talking point over the last couple of years, and each time the suggestion was made that one or another of these wonderful sophisticated weapons or weapon systems would change the course of the war. But I’d just like to, that same idea, I’d like to build a couple of points that my fellow panelist just made. And indeed, starting point, why exactly did this break out in February 2022? Why not earlier? Why not later? It’s called a window of opportunity. And the window of opportunity precisely is around weapon systems.

In 2018, Mr. Putin, in his pre-election state-of-the-nation speech, about one month before they had the presidential elections, he said that, he unrolled before the public what his government had done in the period since the United States pulled out of the ABM treaty, the anti-ballistic missile treaty, to save themselves. And they invented, for the first time in Russia’s history, ancient or modern history, Russia had prepared weapon systems that are a generation ahead of anything in the West. They always were playing catch-up. In the nuclear age, they were rushing like hell to catch up first with the atomic weapons than the thermonuclear weapons developed in the United States.

29:49
This time, they declared they were a generation, they were at least 10 years ahead of the United States, and hypersonic missiles were the leading edge of this. There are other weapons systems too, but let’s leave it at that. We’ve seen what hypersonic missiles do in the last week in the attacks on Poltava with an Iskandar that is Mach 6 and with a Kinzhal or dagger missile that is Mach 10. The Mach 10 weapon hit Lviv, getting through the Patriot and three other air defense systems from Western Europe that were supposedly protecting Lviv. This is what Mr. Putin had announced in 2018, and it was realized and used effectively in front of the whole world in the past week.

But in 2022, Mr. Putin decided it was time to use or lose this window of opportunity. And if Russia was going to pressure NATO and the United States to redraw the rules of European defense, European security, this was the time. Also on the point that Johnny made, a very good point about America’s preparation of world leaders, I would add one point: weaponizing wives. It is noteworthy that people like Saakashvili has an American wife, that Mr. Radek Sikorski, who is the foreign minister of Poland today, has been a leading voice in pro-American and anti-Russian policies in Poland for the last decade. He has an American wife, Applebaum, who was a leading propagandist for neocon views.

31:35
So the United States played its role in precipitating what’s come, and the timing on the Russian side was, as I said, led by their advantage as they saw it in strategic weapon systems.

Eborn: 31:50
Albert Einstein said that “I know not with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.” I mean, chilling stuff again. What would war look like?

Doctorow:
No one can say. I don’t pretend to have an insider knowledge here. But I think when Mr. Putin said that he will respond in an appropriate manner according to the level of threat, I can think of many things that would not look like thermonuclear bombs dropping on anybody. He could, for example– what has been rumoured, what has been discussed, as an idle topic of discussion, perhaps among the financial circles in Britain– is to cut the cables to Britain. I think your financial system and your economy would go down the next day without a person dying. So there are many things that can be done. They can attack the United States military bases around the world, and they can provide the Houthis with the Kinzhal, which is an aircraft carrier-capable missile.

They just don’t have to blow up New York or London, although that’s also available. Let’s face it, about six months ago, the Russians announced that one Sarmat missile, which is the updated most recent acquisition of the Russian military, one Sarmat missile can destroy the whole of Britain. How can it do that? It carries maybe a dozen avant-garde missiles or warheads. These are Mach 20, Mach 20, unstoppable, each carrying nuclear weapons. Britain would sink. So that dire scenario exists, but I think it’s very improbable that things will ever get to that point. And I think even when we’re hearing… Yeah, okay.

Eborn: 33:41
Johnny.

Vedmore:
I was just going to say, on that point about, before we get into the break, about that point about Albert Einstein, he did not really understand what artificial intelligence was, what it would look like and what would happen. We had a pandemic that was purposely blown up out of all proportions so that they could introduce mRNA technology and leave back the chemistry of the past for making compounds that were meant to be for medicines. Now we are going to have World War III to introduce AI technology, AI weapons systems, and a world which has been mapped out by the same people who have been taking us to conflict against Russia. What people don’t realize is that those sticks and stones that Einstein talked about will be all that’s left when the robots are in charge because the world is seriously turning into a dark dystopian place with AI technology. And this is part, I think, why warfare is making those in power drool because they know that they get to test out weapons systems and technologies that are well beyond anything we’ve seen before.

Eborn: 34:56
We’re going to take another break. When we come back, we’re going to be pressing Dr Gilbert on his suggestion that we’re being used here in Britain by the United States. We’re also going to finish, we’ve promised, on a positive note to what peace might look like. Don’t touch that dial.

TNT:
From national security to global corruption, this is “The Muckrakers” on Today’s News Talk, TNT.

Eborn:
Well, a very warm welcome back to “The Mudcrackers” with me, Andrew Eborn, joined by Johnny Vedmore and also Dr. Gilbert Doctorow. And the US and the UK are close to allowing Ukraine to use Western missiles to strike inside Russia. This is going to be discussed at a White House summit between President Biden and UK PM Starmer. Gilbert, you were saying, [three seconds sound loss] –tion, can you elaborate?

Doctorow: 35:48
Yes. First of all, although Mr. Putin’s remarks yesterday about Russian reaction were taken to be aggressive and sort of … to have, to be nothing more than a reiteration of Russian saber-rattling of the past months, in fact, they’ve had an impact. If you just look, I think that Britain and the United States are wobbling right now. The more that comes out, the more I understand that they are hesitant. Certainly the United States is said, from back channels, to rule out the use of its own ATACMS missiles in the heartland of Russia. And those would be, frankly speaking, the most effective missiles to be used, because they are ground-launched missiles, whereas the British Storm Shadow or the French equivalent, Scalp, they are aircraft-launched missiles. They would be ideally on F-16s.

36:52
Wait a minute, the Ukrainians don’t have F-16s. The one thing, out of six of them that were delivered already has been shot down. So that is really a theoretical threat for Russia rather than a practical threat at this moment, whereas the ATACMSs would be a very real threat since, as I said, they are ground-launched. Nonetheless, the United States, it clearly is moving its feet towards the obvious. It does not allow its weapons to be used. And what does that mean? Why would it say to the British, “Hey, you go ahead, that’s great, you support Ukraine and protect them and so forth”? Well, it is setting up Britain to suffer the same fate as Ukraine has, to be used as a weapon against Russia at its own risk and suffering, while the United States, by the same logic, thinks that it can get away scot-free.

37:56
So Britain would go down. France would go down if its Scalps were involved. They would be subject to Russian retaliation that could be as severe as the threat to Russia had been the damage to Russia had been from the use of these missiles against the Russian heartland. This is not exactly a repeat of the Iraq War, where Mr. Tony Blair was sitting in the sunshine. He was the fair-haired boy of the United States. And he had enabled and legitimized American military action. Here, Britain will be at least to the Americans’ thinking the first and the only victim of this brave assistance to Ukraine. I’d just like to add a correction here. That’s dead wrong. I think it’s perfectly clear from what Mr. Putin was saying that Russia will go after the United States, whether they are ATACMSs or not ATACMSs, that are used to inflict damage on the Russian heartland.

39:02
Mr. Putin did not say this will be a war by Britain against Russia, or a war of France against Russia, or Germany against Russia. It is a war of NATO against Russia. And we all know who runs NATO. So this– if it is any comfort to British citizens, to listeners of this show. It is not Britain alone that would be subject to a Russian retaliation, should the Ukrainians use Storm Shadow to inflict grievous damage and loss of civilian life in the Russian heartland.

Eborn: 39:37
Right. I’m not sure what comfort that would necessarily give people, other than “we’re not alone in this”. I mean, you mentioned previously, Gilbert, that a lot of your contemporaries are too scared to speak out because they feel they might get sacked. Can you elaborate on that?

Doctorow:
No, I know that there are some. Look, I’m in an awkward situation. My talking point is I’m fluent in Russian and watching the talk shows because Russia, I maintain, is a fairly open society despite all the prejudices against that position in the West, a fairly open society and open sources can provide a great deal of information which I use in what I write and what I say on air. Nonetheless, there are hundreds of specialists as well experienced with the Russian language as I am, and some of them still have their wits about them, and know which is up and which is down, which is to say that they are closet … thinkers, with the same view of the present situation as I have. If they were to dare to speak out, they would be fired peremptorally, and I have that on good information from people who should know that, because they are leading academics in the States.

40:56
In this sense, I use this moment to express my great appreciation for Professor Meersheimer at the University of Chicago and Professor Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia University, who suffer the slings and arrows from their colleagues at the university administration, when you consider that maybe 95 percent of staff come out against Russia and with unqualified support for the Washington narrative. That is the situation.

Eborn: 41:27
Yeah, it is. We always say here on “The Muckrakers” and TNT generally is that this is the home of free speech. We’re not trying to take sides. We’re just trying to look for the truth. And I think it’s jaw, jaw, not war, war. And I do want to finish on what peace might look like. We promise people that there is a shining ray of hope somewhere. But first of all, Johnny, just give me your reaction to what Gilbert said, and then we’re going to look at this positive side.

Vedmore: 41:56
Yeah … one of the things I really want to put forward is that, you know, if you study what a black swan event is, an event that is so massive in magnitude, but is relatively unexpected, but when you look back at everything that’s happened, it makes sense that we should have expected it. That’s a black swan event, and we’ve been saying, you know, there’s going to be some form of black swan event before election time, that will change the course of election. So in a sense, you could say this is an amazing moment. Again, a moment of opportunity, a window of opportunity to meddle in the elections, in a sense. The Russians have done the ultimate meddling. They’ve said, look, this is what we’re gonna do and we’re gonna go into all-out war If you continue along that path, and it’s a month and a half, two months till the election, and what’s going to happen? What are the American people going to do? They’re going to look for a peacemaker. They’re going to look for someone who can say, “Calm this down.” Someone who said over and over again, “Let’s stop this from happening. Let’s not go into World War iii.” We saw in debate the other night between Trump and Harris, Trump say, [“They want to lead us into World War Three. They want to lead us into what would be basically a nuclear apocalypse.”]

43:24
And this is what we’re seeing. And so Russia are taking this opportunity and this can be seen what Putin has said. And this threat should be seen as a black swan event, which can change the course of history. You know, it can change the direction we’re going. And now the Americans are going to be the ones who have a choice. Either they’re going to choose to continue on their current path where neocons are supported to undermine the stability of world peace, or they can choose another option where for at least a small amount of time sticking plasters are put over the wounds and we try and get towards something where we can develop some form of world peace that is stable.

44:12
I think that the American people, regardless of the propaganda, will end up voting in Trump based on something along these lines, based on fear for their livelihoods, fear for their societies. I think we’re approaching something which is a very, this is the most opportune moment for Putin to say what he said and do what he’s done, because America is watching now intently and they are going to say, “What are our options?” and look around. And whether you like him or not, whether you agree with him or not, there’s only one person who’s talking about making peace with Russia. There’s only one person.

44:53
It is interes– you raise the US Presidential debate where Harris, I think, surprised people, surprised a lot of people She performed a lot better than people thought. I had Errol Musk on the program again yesterday. He was saying she was wearing these wonderful earrings which could be used for communicating and people might have been feeding stuff into her ear. You can check that out yourself. But Harris warned that Trump would give up Ukraine to Russia while Trump avoided siding with either country, calling for an end to the war. What was your take on the debate, Gilbert?

Doctorow: 45:26
Well, unfortunately, the debate was hijacked by issues that are quite irrelevant to our survival. Whether or not illegal immigrants are eating dogs on the front lawns of peace-abiding citizens in the suburb here or there. There were many issues that were totally spurious and unfortunately are part of Mr. Trump’s electoral baggage. There were other issues which are not spurious, which are very much in the foreground in American political life, whether it’s green agendas or whether it’s reproductive rights of women. But the real problem is that people do not follow, to my knowledge, they don’t have top of mind, as Johnny just expected, that they are concerned about life and death. I think that most people in the States would, listening to this program, would think that this is, that we are speaking of something highly exaggerated and improbable.

46:34
Regretably, that’s not true. Regretbly, the United States administration, at least on the side of the State Department, is following insane policies and insane priorities. I’m very glad that Johnny mentioned the November election date, and that is really a key issue. One can interpret the behavior of the administration now as trying to bait the Russians to get them to do something explosive, something dramatic, something that would bring down on them the ire of the Global South, and could justify a massive– sorry, a massive American attack on Russia before the elections, while thereby pushing over the top Kamala Harris, absurd as that kind of thinking may be, insane as it may be.

47:29
I think it cannot be excluded from the game plan of somebody like Jake Sullivan or these other shallow, very shallow individuals like Tony Blinken. So the American public doesn’t quite get it. They don’t see this, but I agree with the overall idea of Johnny that the only thing that could save us, or the main thing that could save us, not the only, but the most visible thing that could save us all would be a Trump victory on November 5th. And I think that is the understanding of Mr. Putin as well. Therefore, should there be any strike on Russian Federation heartland using these missiles in the period between now and November 5th, I think it is improbable that Putin will go for that bait. He will hold off until the die is cast on November 5th, and it’s clear whom he’ll be dealing with.

48:28
If Trump wins, then I think the Russians will back off, however grievous harm done to them by these missiles will be, in the expectation that Trump will do– let’s face it, what Harris said, that he will instantly stop supplying weapons to Ukraine and the country will fall in a couple of weeks. That is a scenario that gives peace to the world. There are moved out other scenarios.

Eborn: 48:58
Yes. You mentioned, Gilbert, at the beginning that we would finish on a positive note. Is that your positive note, a Trump victory?

Doctorow:
It’s not the only one. As I said, there are other things that the Russians could do that would not be the level of tactical or strategic nuclear weapons. If, let’s be honest, if the Russians were to cut all of your undersea cables, that would be enormous damage to Britain and it might sober people up. So I think there are these various solutions that are non-fatal that would bring to the attention of broad publics in Britain, in the United States, that they are not invulnerable, that Russians are capable of causing them enormous damage if they continue with their warmongering.

Eborn: 49:53
Right. The final word then is the– one minute left to us. The leaders around the world may well be watching “The Muckrakers”. Some do. It’s surprising what quarters, especially if they don’t get to hear this narrative elsewhere. What would you like to say to them?

Doctorow:
To think about their own people and to put aside ideological prejudices that they are, they were elected by their nation, and they should be serving their nation, and at present that is not happening. The pragmatism that was once the common sense guiding American policy for decades, if not for centuries, has been overturned by ideologists who have caused havoc in the world and who do not look in a rear-view mirror, and have faced no consequences for the millions of deaths they have caused in a whole sweeping series of countries.

50:52
So if they were to consider for a moment what are the true interests of their peoples in economic welfare, and in collective approach with those Russians as well, to the major global challenges we have, then I think they would turn away from the present course that’s leading us to a nuclear war.

Eborn: 51:17
We can only hope that sense does prevail and that people heed those very chilling words if sense doesn’t prevail. Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, thank you so much for joining us here on “The Muckrakers”. Jonny Vedmore, it’s always a pleasure to see you. I hope that the rest of you, in spite of the chilling news that’s going on, have an enjoyable weekend. I’ll be back with you next week. Errol Musk, the father of Elon, will be joining me yet again, together with another galaxy of stars. I hope you join me then. But for me, Andrew Eborn, thanks very much for joining me, and I will see you next time.

TNT: 52:27
If you missed this hour, simply go to episodes@TNTradio.live.

Starmer backpedals on permission to Kiev on use of Storm Shadow in Russia

On this afternoon’s edition of The Great Game, host Vyacheslav Nikonov made use of a cleverly rhyming Russian expression for today’s backpedaling by the British Prime Minister on his bold and, shall we say rather stupid, assertions of late that Britain is ready to allow unrestricted use of its precision long range Storm Shadow missiles against the Russian heartland:

To wit: ‘ Я не трус но я боюсь’ This translates into non-rhyming English as ‘I am no coward, but I am afraid.’

The point is the apparent salutary effect of Vladimir Putin’s clear statement yesterday that such ‘permission’ is considered by Russia to place NATO in the position of co-belligerent with Ukraine in its war on Russia. Under these conditions, the Russian president will retaliate in accordance with the level of threat he perceives in any Ukrainian strikes on his country. What this means was left to the imagination of those it was addressed to, namely Joe Biden and Keir Starmer.

We already knew that in advance of Starmer’s arrival in Washington, Biden had reiterated the American prohibition on Kiev’s using its high precision offensive weapons inside Russia until further notice but that he is amenable to the British doing so. Now Starmer seems to have done the arithmetic and understood that the Americans were playing him for a fool. So he, too, seems to be backing off from his would-be solidarity with Kiev,

This, of course, cannot be taken to be a definitive decision by the Brits and Americans, but it is a move in the right direction that should cheer all those of us who would like to survive at least to year’s end so that we may celebrate St. Sylvester in peace. Of course there may still be some new convulsion of Russia hatred that prompts these actors to flip flop yet again. And in the meantime it is possible that they will back a planned appeal by Zelensky to the UN General Assembly during its September session to vote a resolution endorsing Ukraine’s use of such weapons against Russia as it continues its war of self-defense. Such a resolution, if passed, would have no legal weight but would be just the sort of Public Relations coup that is mistaken for a foreign policy and also for a military victory by the shallow personalities who populate the State Department.

Time will tell…

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Starmer rudert bei Erlaubnis an Kiew zur Nutzung von Storm Shadow in Russland zurück

In der heutigen Nachmittagsausgabe von Das grosse Spiel verwendete Moderator Vyacheslav Nikonov einen geschickt gereimten russischen Ausdruck für das heutige Zurückrudern des britischen Premierministers bei seinen kühnen und, sagen wir, eher dummen Behauptungen der letzten Zeit, dass Großbritannien bereit sei, den uneingeschränkten Einsatz seiner präzisen Langstrecken-Storm-Shadow-Raketen gegen das russische Kernland zuzulassen:

Wörtlich: „Я не трус но я боюсь“ (Ich bin kein Feigling, aber ich habe Angst). Dies lässt sich ins Englische übertragen, reimt sich aber nicht: „I am no coward, but I am afraid.“

Der Punkt ist die offensichtlich heilsame Wirkung von Wladimir Putins gestriger klarer Aussage, dass eine solche „Erlaubnis“ von Russland als eine Positionierung der NATO als Mitstreiter der Ukraine in ihrem Krieg gegen Russland angesehen wird. Unter diesen Bedingungen wird der russische Präsident entsprechend der von ihm wahrgenommenen Bedrohung durch ukrainische Angriffe auf sein Land Vergeltung üben. Was dies bedeutet, wurde der Vorstellungskraft derjenigen überlassen, an die es gerichtet war, nämlich Joe Biden und Keir Starmer.

Wir wussten bereits vor Starmer’s Ankunft in Washington, dass Biden das amerikanische Verbot, dass Kiew seine hochpräzisen Offensivwaffen in Russland einsetzt, bis auf weiteres bekräftigt hat, aber dass er nichts dagegen hat, wenn die Briten vorhaben, dies zu tun. Jetzt scheint Starmer die Rechnung gemacht zu haben und verstanden zu haben, dass die Amerikaner ihn zum Narren gehalten haben. Auch er scheint also von seiner vermeintlichen Solidarität mit Kiew abzurücken.

Dies kann natürlich nicht als endgültige Entscheidung der Briten und Amerikaner angesehen werden, aber es ist ein Schritt in die richtige Richtung, der all diejenigen von uns erfreuen sollte, die zumindest bis zum Jahresende überleben möchten, damit wir Silvester in Frieden feiern können. Natürlich kann es immer noch zu neuen Erschütterungen des Russlandhasses kommen, die diese Akteure dazu veranlassen, erneut umzuschwenken. Und in der Zwischenzeit ist es möglich, dass sie einen geplanten Appell von Selenskyj an die UN-Generalversammlung während ihrer Sitzung im September unterstützen, um eine Resolution zu verabschieden, die den Einsatz solcher Waffen durch die Ukraine gegen Russland im Rahmen ihres Selbstverteidigungskrieges befürwortet. Eine solche Resolution hätte, falls sie verabschiedet würde, zwar keinerlei rechtliche Wirkung, wäre aber genau die Art von PR-Coup, der von den oberflächlichen Persönlichkeiten, die das Außenministerium bevölkern, fälschlicherweise für eine Außenpolitik und auch für einen militärischen Sieg gehalten wird.

Wir werden sehen …

Yesterday Putin had a very full day in St Petersburg as reported extensively on Russian state television news programs.

In the morning, at the Konstantinovsky Palace on the shores of the Gulf of Finland, he met in the round with the national security directors of the BRICS countries to discuss preparations for the October summit in Kazan. At this group session, Putin announced that the summit is expected to approve a new category of relationship designated as ‘partnership’ with those 34 countries which have expressed an interest in joining the club. This session was followed by side meetings with the representatives from India, Iran and China.

With India the chief topic was the planned one-on-one with Prime Minister Modi in Kazan to review the implementation of mutual undertakings they had agreed during Modi’s visit to Moscow a couple of months ago. With Iran, Putin heard reassurances that the policy of former prime minister Raisi is continuing in full under his successor, Masoud Pezeshkian. They surely discussed the planned signing in Kazan of a comprehensive agreement on strategic partnership. China was represented by their Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, who assured Putin that President Xi will be coming to Kazan and looks forward to side meetings there with ‘his good friend’ Vladimir Vladimirovich. Yi reported to Putin on his recent trip to Kiev and talks with Zelensky.

The Russian president next was busy with Russian Orthodox church matters. He joined Patriarch Kirill at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra (monastery) to light a candle at the tomb of the legendary medieval prince who defended the Rus’ from German invaders as a warrior and who by his diplomatic talents established an acceptable modus vivendi with the Mongol conquerors of that age. Yesterday was the day commemorating Alexander Nevsky in the city for whom he is the patron saint. A well attended and colorful march of clergy and laymen started from the Lavra and proceeded down the city’s principal thoroughfare, Nevsky Prospekt.

Putin’s afternoon was then spent at the opening ceremony of this year’s Cultural Forum which is always a big event in St Petersburg of national and international importance, combining both musical and other performances for the general public and dozens if not hundreds of separate themed talks and seminars by experts on topics relating to the year’s central theme.

This year, as in the past several years, the central venue for the Forum is the former General Staff building of tsarist Russia, now part of the Hermitage art museum complex. The grand staircase inside is occasionally, like yesterday fitted with cushions directly on the stairs, creating an august three story high open space that seats several hundred.

The theme of the Forum this year is United Cultures and in his lengthy address to participants, among whom were many foreign invitees, Putin spoke of culture in terms of the new multipolar world that is open to diverse national cultural traditions and in which no one country or group of countries impose their ‘values’ on others. Yes, Russia’s ideological battle against the U.S. global hegemony is being fought on many fronts, including Soft Power.

In between these various activities, all of which demanded great concentration, the Russian president found the time to give an interview, on the fly, so to speak. He was standing just outside the General Staff building on a side street where it joins Palace Square, on the other side of which stands the main body of the Hermitage in the former Winter Palace of the tsars. Pavel Zarubin, a journalist who seems to follow Vladimir Vladimirovich everywhere to gather material for his weekly Sunday evening show ‘Moscow, the Kremlin, Putin’ put to him the question that is as much on the minds of Russians as it is on the mind of us here in the West: how will Russia respond to the expected American and British go-ahead to Zelensky for use of their missiles to attack the heartland of Russia. Putin gave his answer speaking in a calm and deliberate tone. What he said has been picked up by global media, many of which have presented it to world audiences as being bellicose. It was not bellicose but it was open to various interpretations because its essence is that Russia’s response will be calibrated to the level of threat to itself that it sees in any coming attacks from Ukraine.

But before getting to the ‘punch line’ that everyone awaited, President Putin explained Russia’s understanding that what is at issue goes far beyond mere permission for Ukraine to use Western supplied long-range offensive weapons as it sees fit. Per Russian military evaluation, Ukraine by itself does not possess the satellite reconnaissance capability necessary to program the NATO-supplied missiles to target. For this it is totally dependent on NATO countries. More important still, Ukraine does not have the training, the skills to maintain and launch these missiles on its own. Two or three weeks training is utterly inadequate to manage these highly sophisticated weapons systems. Accordingly all of those functions must necessarily be carried out by technical people from the NATO country manufacturers of the weapons. For these reasons, Russia concludes that the missiles effectively represent NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict. The status of the conflict moves on from a proxy war to a full-blown war by NATO countries on Russia. That change in the nature of the war requires a change in the way Russia conducts itself. As Putin said, Russia will calibrate its response to any attack to the level of threat it perceives. Period.

I add to this briefing what Russian talk shows on state television were saying last night about this whole question of the level of threat posed by Zelensky’s right to use the missiles as he sees fit. The fact is that Russia is mentally prepared for anything that the West can throw at it today via Ukraine, up to and including, for example, a missile attack on the Kursk nuclear power plant. Due to its unprotected outer structure, a strike there could result in a leakage of radioactivity similar to the Chernobyl catastrophe. We should not doubt that a Russian response to such an incident will be memorable if any of us survives it.

Accordingly, we must hope that Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and other demented leading personalities in the Biden administration will be shunted aside by Pentagon generals who necessarily have a more sober understanding of the means of retaliation at Moscow’s disposal today.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Putin zu Reporter Pavel Zarubin: „Die NATO wird dann mit uns im Krieg sein…

Wie in den Nachrichtensendungen des russischen Staatsfernsehens ausführlich berichtet wurde, hatte Putin gestern einen sehr erfüllten Tag in St. Petersburg.

Am Vormittag traf er im Konstantinowski-Palast am Finnischen Meerbusen mit den nationalen Sicherheitsdirektoren der BRICS-Länder zusammen, um die Vorbereitungen für den Oktober-Gipfel in Kasan zu besprechen. Auf dieser Gruppensitzung kündigte Putin an, dass auf dem Gipfel eine neue Kategorie von Beziehungen mit den 34 Ländern, die ihr Interesse an einem Beitritt zum Club bekundet haben, beschlossen werden soll, die als „Partnerschaft“ bezeichnet wird. Im Anschluss an diese Sitzung fanden Nebengespräche mit Vertretern aus Indien, Iran und China statt.

Mit Indien war das Hauptthema das geplante Einzelgespräch mit Premierminister Modi in Kasan, bei dem die Umsetzung der bei Modis Besuch in Moskau vor einigen Monaten vereinbarten gegenseitigen Verpflichtungen überprüft werden soll. Im Hinblick auf den Iran wurde Putin versichert, dass die Politik des früheren Premierministers Raisi auch unter seinem Nachfolger Masoud Pezeshkian in vollem Umfang fortgesetzt wird. Sie besprachen sicherlich die geplante Unterzeichnung eines umfassenden Abkommens über eine strategische Partnerschaft in Kasan. China war durch seinen Außenminister Wang Yi vertreten, der Putin versicherte, dass Präsident Xi nach Kasan kommen werde und sich dort auf ein Treffen mit „seinem guten Freund“ Wladimir Wladimirowitsch freue. Yi berichtete Putin von seiner jüngsten Reise nach Kiew und den Gesprächen mit Zelenski.

Der russische Präsident war anschließend mit Angelegenheiten der russisch-orthodoxen Kirche beschäftigt. Gemeinsam mit Patriarch Kirill entzündete er in der Alexander-Newski-Klosteranlage eine Kerze am Grab des legendären mittelalterlichen Fürsten, der als Krieger die Rus’ gegen deutsche Invasoren verteidigte und durch sein diplomatisches Geschick einen akzeptablen Modus vivendi mit den damaligen mongolischen Eroberern erreichte. Gestern war der Tag des Gedenkens an Alexander Newski in der Stadt, deren Schutzpatron er ist. Ein gut besuchter und farbenfroher Marsch von Geistlichen und Laien begann an der Lawra und führte über die Hauptstraße der Stadt, den Newski-Prospekt.

Am Nachmittag nahm Putin dann an der Eröffnungszeremonie des diesjährigen Kulturforums teil, das in St. Petersburg stets ein Großereignis von nationaler und internationaler Bedeutung ist, bei dem sowohl musikalische und andere Darbietungen für die breite Öffentlichkeit als auch Dutzende, wenn nicht Hunderte von Vorträgen und Seminaren von Experten zu Themen im Zusammenhang mit dem zentralen Thema des Jahres stattfinden.

Wie in den vergangenen Jahren ist auch in diesem Jahr der zentrale Veranstaltungsort des Forums das ehemalige Generalstabsgebäude des zaristischen Russlands, das heute Teil des Kunstmuseumskomplexes Eremitage ist. Die große Treppe im Inneren ist gelegentlich, wie gestern, mit Kissen direkt auf der Treppe ausgestattet, so dass ein erhabener, drei Stockwerke hoher offener Raum entsteht, in dem mehrere hundert Personen Platz finden.

Das Thema des diesjährigen Forums lautet „Vereinigung der Kulturen“, und in seiner langen Ansprache an die Teilnehmer, unter denen sich auch viele ausländische Gäste befanden, sprach Putin von Kultur im Sinne einer neuen multipolaren Welt, die offen ist für unterschiedliche nationale kulturelle Traditionen und in der kein Land oder keine Gruppe von Ländern anderen ihre „Werte“ aufzwingt. Ja, Russlands ideologischer Kampf gegen die globale Hegemonie der USA wird an vielen Fronten ausgetragen, auch im Bereich der Soft Power.

Zwischen diesen verschiedenen Aktivitäten, die allesamt hohe Konzentration erfordern, fand der russische Präsident die Zeit für ein Interview, sozusagen „spontan“. Er stand direkt vor dem Gebäude des Generalstabs in einer Seitenstraße, die auf den Palastplatz führt, auf dessen anderer Seite der Hauptteil der Eremitage im ehemaligen Winterpalast der Zaren steht. Pavel Zarubin, ein Journalist, der Wladimir Wladimirowitsch überallhin zu folgen scheint, um Material für seine wöchentliche Sonntagabendsendung „Moskau, der Kreml, Putin“ zu sammeln, stellte ihm die Frage, die die Russen ebenso beschäftigt wie uns hier im Westen: Wie wird Russland auf die erwartete amerikanische und britische Genehmigung für den Einsatz ihrer Raketen zum Angriff auf das russische Kernland reagieren? Putin gab seine Antwort in einem ruhigen und bedächtigen Ton. Was er sagte, wurde von den internationalen Medien aufgegriffen, von denen viele es dem Weltpublikum als kriegerisch darstellten. Sie war nicht kriegerisch, aber sie war offen für verschiedene Interpretationen, weil sie im Wesentlichen besagt, dass Russlands Reaktion auf das Ausmaß der Bedrohung abgestimmt sein wird, die es in den kommenden Angriffen aus der Ukraine für sich sieht.

Doch bevor er zu der von allen erwarteten „Pointe“ kam, erklärte Präsident Putin, dass Russland davon ausgeht, dass es weit über die bloße Erlaubnis für die Ukraine hinausgeht, vom Westen gelieferte offensive Langstreckenwaffen nach eigenem Gutdünken einzusetzen. Nach russischer militärischer Einschätzung verfügt die Ukraine selbst nicht über die Fähigkeit zur Satellitenaufklärung, die notwendig ist, um die von der NATO gelieferten Raketen auf ein Ziel zu programmieren. In dieser Hinsicht ist sie völlig von den NATO-Ländern abhängig. Noch wichtiger ist, dass die Ukraine nicht über die Ausbildung und die Fähigkeiten verfügt, um diese Raketen selbst zu warten und zu starten. Eine zwei- oder dreiwöchige Schulung ist völlig unzureichend, um diese hochentwickelten Waffensysteme zu bedienen. Folglich müssen alle diese Aufgaben zwangsläufig von Fachleuten aus den NATO-Ländern, die die Waffen herstellen, übernommen werden. Aus diesen Gründen kommt Russland zu dem Schluss, dass die Raketen tatsächlich die direkte Beteiligung der NATO an dem Konflikt darstellen. Der Status des Konflikts entwickelt sich von einem Stellvertreterkrieg zu einem vollwertigen Krieg der NATO-Staaten gegen Russland. Diese Änderung der Art des Krieges erfordert eine Änderung des russischen Verhaltens. Wie Putin sagte, wird Russland seine Reaktion auf jeden Angriff auf den Grad der Bedrohung abstimmen, den es wahrnimmt. Punkt.

Ich füge diesem Briefing hinzu, was russische Talkshows im Staatsfernsehen gestern Abend zu dieser ganzen Frage des Grades der Bedrohung durch Zelenskys Recht, die Raketen nach eigenem Gutdünken einzusetzen, gesagt haben. Tatsache ist, dass Russland mental auf alles vorbereitet ist, was der Westen ihm heute über die Ukraine entgegenwerfen kann, bis hin zu einem Raketenangriff auf das Atomkraftwerk Kursk. Aufgrund seiner ungeschützten Außenstruktur könnte ein Angriff dort zu einem Austritt von Radioaktivität führen, ähnlich wie bei der Katastrophe von Tschernobyl. Wir sollten nicht daran zweifeln, dass eine russische Reaktion auf einen solchen Vorfall denkwürdig sein wird, wenn einer von uns ihn überlebt.

Dementsprechend müssen wir hoffen, dass Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan und andere demente Führungspersönlichkeiten in der Biden-Administration von Pentagon-Generälen beiseite geschoben werden, die notwendigerweise ein nüchterneres Verständnis für die Vergeltungsmöglichkeiten haben, die Moskau heute zur Verfügung stehen.

This was a remarkable discussion with Judge Andrew Napolitano which covered a broad array of latest developments from and about Ukraine’s war with Russia. To be sure, the visit of Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary Lammy to Kiev yesterday, together with the forthcoming meeting of British Prime Minister Starmer and Joe Biden in the White House were central to our chat: the removal of all restrictions on Kiev’s use of the long-range offensive weapons supplied to them by U.S., British and other NATO countries crosses a well-defined Russian red line and may set in train a rapid escalation to nuclear war.

We both commented on the sang froid of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his discourse before the assembled Russian ambassadors this morning even as he set out the Kremlin’s take on the crossing of those red lines. All of which induced me to mention on air my latest exchange of views on this same issue with Ray McGovern and his insistence that Putin’s full response to any attack on his country using Western supplied missiles will come only after the American elections on 5 November, not in the days just before us, as I had been saying as recently as yesterday. On reconsideration, I join Ray on this point and advise subscribers not to cancel luncheon dates in October now in their agendas, nor to practice ducking under their work desks when sirens go off just yet.

Putin and his advisers see the trap being set for them by Washington as well as we do, namely that responding in a violent way to such an attack would give the Americans a pretext for opening a full-blown war for the sake of assuring Kamela Harris’s electoral victory through the rally round the flag phenomenon in wartime. Such a ‘trap’ might seem to be insane, but unfortunately it reflects the mindset of those in the Biden administration who are setting policy. Shall we say, planning is all very short term.

So how might Putin respond to a Storm Shadow attack now that causes great physical damage to civilian infrastructure in the Russian Federation proper such as the Kerch (Crimea) bridge? Perhaps by pursuing the supply of advanced weaponry to Washington’s enemies in the Middle East as Russia intimated it would do a couple of months ago. We might just see a suggestion that this is coming in what happened in Syria a couple of days ago when it was reported that Bashar Assad’s military shot down an Israeli military jet that violated Syrian air space. That is the first incident of its kind and surely it was achieved using Russian air defense equipment that either did not exist previously or was not allowed by the Russians to be used so casually. Surely the Houthis or Hezbollah would know how to put to good use any Russian Iskanders or Kinzhals that may come their way.

One particularly interesting item in today’s chat with Judge Napolitano concerned a video clip he put up on the screen showing U.S. Defense Secretary Austin responding a week ago to a reporter’s question about why the U.S. was not yet granting Kiev the right to use its missiles as it sees fit. I will not spoil your enjoyment of the interview but let you savor our remarks at your leisure.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Transcript of interview submitted by a reader, followed by a translation into German below (Andreas Mylaeus)

Judge Andrew Napolitano: 0:33
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Thursday, September 12th, 2024. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us from Brussels. Professor Doctorow, always a pleasure, my dear friend, and thank you very much for your time and for the privilege of being able to pick your brain for our audience. I generally want to speak to you about Russian politics, Kremlin attitude towards recent events in the Russian-Ukraine conflict, but I’d like to build up to that by asking you about some specific issues. What is your understanding of the current state of affairs in Kursk? Are the Ukrainian invaders surrounded? Are they being mowed down? Are they just occupying and not moving?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:32
Well, my understanding is that surrounded, yes, of course they are surrounded. They were surrounded on three sides when they went in. But the fourth side was a critical one. Do they have– in answer to a question you asked me from the very beginning: whether or not they’re being resupplied. And did the Russians have first– paid greatest attention to destroying the supply route rotation, possibilities, relief, additional soldiers, they’ve destroyed that by concentrating their attacks, both air attack and artillery attack, on the frontier itself, the border from which they entered, they entered Kursk. And so they’ve been pummeling that and making it impossible for the Ukrainians to maintain a satisfactory level of support. But otherwise, you’re speaking about a thousand square kilometers, which is a reasonable amount of space for the number of soldiers engaged there, who are broken up by intention into small units, I don’t know, perhaps a level of platoons, simply to avoid being devastated by one or another of these glider bombs that can wipe out a platoon in one blow.

2:44
So they are spread out. They have ample cover in forests, and the Russians are slowly flushing them out. But it’s a complicated task, and in some places there is ferocious fighting. So let us not pretend that this is, again, a walk in the rose garden. It isn’t. The Russians are taking their time, because these chaps simply run short of supplies, and time is on the side of the Russians. Nonetheless, the figures of those killed or taken out of action with serious injuries are well over 10,000, according to Russian figures. And if we consider that perhaps there were 12,000 to begin with, maybe as many as 20,000, this is a very substantial blow that the Ukrainians have experienced in Kursk.

Napolitano: 3:34
Over the last weekend, the “Financial Times” held a very unusual public gathering in London, which featured on a stage exposed to public questions and on international television, the head of the CIA and the head of MI6, Bill Burns and Sir Peter Moore. And one of the questions put to the two of them was: what are your opinions about Kursk? Their opinions are decidedly different from yours, if one is to believe them, but I’d like you to listen to what the two of them had to say. This is September 7th, so it’s just this past weekend. Cut number nine, Chris.

Sir Peter Moore: 4:22
Typically audacious and bold on the part of the Ukrainians to try and change the game in the way. And I think they have to a degree changed the narrative around it.

William Burns:
The Kursk offensive is a significant tactical achievement. It’s not only been a, you know, boost in Ukrainian morale, it has exposed some of the vulnerabilities of Putin’s Russia and of his military.

Napolitano:
Is any of this worthy of belief, Professor Doctorow?

Doctorow:
I think Moore qualified his answer better than Burns did. It may be. It wasn’t that it may be in Mr. Burns’ remarks, and I think they are really disgraceful. When Burns came in, there were many people in the center of American politics, or leaning slightly to the Democratic side, who were very much encouraged, that a person with this experience, with this intelligence, who knew Russia as an ambassador, who had the courage to send back to Washington the bad news that “nyet is nyet”, and extension of NATO into Georgia was a red line, or Ukraine, were red lines the Russians intended to defend. He spoke that. This is a man who today is lying through his teeth and who is being a good, loyal servant of the Biden administration, at the expense of his own credibility and his own sense of honour.

Napolitano: 5:50
How about Sir Peter Moore? And actually, before you reply on the question from Sir Peter — I don’t know, is that the way to address him? But whatever, I respect his title. Look at something, listen to something else he said. Chris, cut number 10.

Moore:
And it’s important to remember how this started. It started in this phase with Putin mounting a war of aggression in February 2022. And two and a half years later, that failed. It continues to fail. The Ukrainians will continue to fight. We will continue to help them to fight. And it’s difficult.

Napolitano: 6:29
This is really hogwash that he’s preaching from London and international television.

Doctorow:
Well, it’s hogwash, which has a very widespread family of disseminators in almost all of mainstream journalists and talking heads. What I mean is, I bring to this discussion the professional experience or bias of a historian, and historians are always looking at when did it start. Because the whole narrative in most cases of any incident in history depends on when did it start. If you start in February 2022, then it’s a war of aggression. If you take it back to 2014, you can take it back still further to 2008, then it’s anything but a war of aggression, it’s anything but unprovoked. So I leave it at that. Within the limits of this prejudicial approach to the question at hand, when did it start? He was saying the truth, but that is a truth that is limited by those conditions. If you want to look at the greater truth, you put it in proper historical perspective. I don’t mean going back 200 years. I mean just go back 10, 20 years. You understand that everything he’s saying is outrageously false.

Napolitano 7:54
Sergey Lavrov referred to 2014 as a coup d’etat. And probably Victoria Nuland in her private moments would agree with him.

Doctorow:
Yes. Of course, Lavrov, I might say, has been very much before the microphone these days, including earlier today when he was delivering a lengthy speech to the gathered Russian ambassadors in Moscow from the field, discussing with them the Ukraine situation. And I think– I just want to mention one little note here because it pairs on our further discussion today. He was very calm. He was very restrained, although he was outlining all of the policies by the United States which Russians object to and find at the root of all evil today in international relations. Despite that, he was speaking about this question of releasing Ukraine from any constraints on use of the weapons systems that have been delivered till now. And he spoke about it in a very matter-of-fact way, not jumping up and down, not threatening anything whatsoever, but simply to remind the gathered ambassadors that these are the issues under discussion as the Kremlin formulates its response.

09:16
So I was impressed, because in the background of what we know is going on with Mr. Blinken’s visit with Lammy to Kiev, and with the pending joint meeting they have with Biden on Friday, which is all about releasing the constraints on Ukrainian use of these arms, which the Russians made clear is a red line. Notwithstanding all of that, his voice remained factual and unemotional.

Napolitano:
Before we get to Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lammy in Kiev, we have a nice clip for you of Foreign Minister Lavrov from the speech I believe to which you’re referring, Chris, cut number two.

Lavrov: 10:12 [English translation, voice over]
But international law does not stipulate only that territorial integrity is ensured only for those states whose governments represent all the people residing at a certain territory. That was unanimous decision by the General Assembly. And the fact that the Nazis did not represent anyone in the eastern part of Ukraine and Novorossiya and in Crimea, of course, I don’t think I need to prove that to anyone. But more importantly, the UN Charter required to respect the human rights. Any– of anyone, regardless of race, gender, language, and religion, this is the gist of the conflict in Ukraine. Because human rights, after the coup d’etat, the rights of those people who were part of Russian culture, it was eradicated. Now Russian language is banned in all the fields of human activity, in education, in media, in art, in culture and even in everyday life.

Napolitano: 11:20
I think that’s what you were talking about, rational, calm, sensible, and expressing the Russian understanding of why their troops are in eastern Ukraine.

Doctorow:
That is correct. It is indeed the speech, and his remarks address to the attempts by Zelensky and his gang to suppress the Russian language, Russian culture, Russian identity of any of the Ukrainian citizens is the point he was making to his audience. Nonetheless, I want to put this in a broader context.

Napolitano:
Please.

Doctorow:
The question of these human rights is relevant to all of the EU, including right here in Belgium where I’m speaking to you from. We know that exactly the same issue, suppressing language use, making it impossible to teach in Russian in the 40% of the Latvian population that is Russian speaking. Throughout the Baltics, this was an issue when they first joined in 2004, that they rode roughshod over the minority rights, including particularly the language rights of substantial percentages of the population who were Russian-speaking.

12:49
But looking farther afield within the EU, here in Belgium we have on the outskirts of Brussels 200,000 French speakers who are living in Flemish territory where only Flemish language is allowed, not just in the court of law, but even in shops, even in the street markets, not to mention the schools, and this impinges on voting rights also, because you have to vote in Flemish. This issue of 200,000, what is it all about? It’s about people who moved from the city center to the suburbs. They were Brussels residents who, like in most big cities, wanted to find green fields for their children in the countryside. So they moved to the countryside. But here in Belgium, the language is attached to the land, it is not attached to the man. And that rule was investigated. We had, of all people, a Serbian who was a member of a delegation by the Venice Commission, sent to Belgium to investigate the abuse of the language laws to disenfranchise and to discriminate against French speakers right in the outskirts of Brussels. So this issue is a live one, a hot wire for the EU in general, and not only for the Ukrainians.

Napolitano: 14:06
Switching to a very recent event: the Ukrainians sent a hundred and forty drones over Moscow four days ago. A hundred and thirty-nine were shot down or destroyed before they reached their targets. One reached its target. It was a residential building where a woman was killed, a civilian woman, and six civilians were injured in a suburb of Moscow. How does this play in the Kremlin? How does this play on the streets in Moscow?

Doctorow: 14:38
Well, I think that the overriding generalization we can make about the Kremlin is sang-froid, cool minds, just as we saw a moment ago with Mr. Lavrov. Of course they are bitter over this, but the bigger issue for the Kremlin and for Russian elites, is that in a war, well, in a war there are incidents and they’re inescapable. We will mitigate them to the extent of our abilities, and we will hasten our offensive to crush all those who now have still the possibility to execute such terrorist attacks, which have only one intention, and that is to create the terror, horror, chaos in the civilian population, and to turn them against the government. That is the intent. They understand that perfectly in Moscow.

Napolitano: 15:34
Is there– well, yesterday the British Foreign Minister and Secretary Blinken spent nearly a full day in Kiev. They may still be there today, I don’t know. Maybe they’re headed back to the US because I believe, as you alluded earlier, Sir Keir Stormer, the British Prime Minister, is coming here tomorrow, and he may be on his way over now.

However, they were there with him all day yesterday. Secretary Blinken addressed the press at the end of the day. “The Wall Street Journal” and others in the West this morning, reading between the lines, believe that among their conversations was President Zelensky, former President Zelensky’s insistence that he be able to use British and American long-range missiles to attack deep inside of Russia, which would mean Moscow and St. Petersburg. Is there a concern? Is there a fear that Blinken might have given him or might soon give him the green light?

Doctorow: 16:49
Well, let’s look at the range of missiles and which missiles we’re talking about. To the best of my knowledge, there has been no agreement in the US to make accessible to Kiev the long-range missiles, the really long-range missiles, the 1,500 or 1,800-kilometer range missiles, which are JASSM, that is the acronym in the United States, which have the peculiarity that they are stealth missiles and that they have not yet been introduced into the war theatre, and so Russians have no experience dealing with them. And from the Russian standpoint, that is very big negative, because they could reach, as you say, very sensitive parts of Russia, including the capitals, and it takes time before you learn how to shoot them down.

17:39
The Russians have some experience shooting down ATACMSs, which are among the missiles that now will be released for general use by the Ukrainians. And of course, they have experience, some of it very successful, in shooting down the stealth, the Storm Shadow, the British; and the French version of Scalp. The range of the last two, which is certainly what will be announced on Friday or soon thereafter, as having been agreed in Washington between the British and the Americans, was 500 kilometers as far as I know.

Napolitano:
I’m going to stop you, Professor. Did you say you expect an announcement out of Washington tomorrow that the British and the Americans will authorize the Ukrainians to strike deeper into Russia using British and American weaponry?

Doctorow: 18:35
No, I think that will happen on Friday, but it could be postponed a bit. Nonetheless, the Russians have already, including Mr. Lavrov earlier in the speech that you showed today, made reference to their interpretation of what is going on in Kiev and in Washington on Friday. And their interpretation is that the Americans have given this permission. But which missiles are we talking about, and how far will they reach, and how would they be used? The missiles we’re talking about are certainly these two, which all, or three, with which the Russians have experience shooting them down or using electronic warfare to disable them. And that is the Storm Shadow and the Scalp. They have a range, to my knowledge, of 500 kilometers. The original versions that were delivered to Ukraine, I think, had a more limited 300 kilometer range. But let’s assume it’s 500. You can’t reach Moscow with 500 kilometers. However, you can with the JASSM, which is what the Americans have not yet put into play, although probably has been shipped to Ukraine already. That could redo exactly what you were saying, touch Moscow and anywhere and St. Petersburg. Yes, that is the case.

Napolitano: 19:52
From your understanding of the Kremlin’s attitude about all of this and your ability to read the tea leaves, would the Kremlin view such an event, the use of these long-term offensive weapons, the permission to use these long-term offensive weapons and their probable use, since some of them can only be operated by American technicians, would the Kremlin view this as the United States and Great Britain waging war on Russia?

Doctorow; 20:26
Well, Mr. Lavrov more or less said that earlier today, and it wasn’t a new thing. They’ve been hinting at this for the last week or so. I’ve written about this question, and I’d like to backtrack a little bit on what I was saying, because I was predicting a very early apocalypse. I think we may have a little bit more time to enjoy ourselves at the dinner table before we have to hide under the desk. And why I say that: I had a very interesting exchange of emails with Ray McGovern yesterday in which he insisted that Mr. Putin is not going to react in a dramatic way or in a manner that could cause a further escalation before November 5th. And on reflection, I think Ray is right.

What we have been saying among ourselves– the Americans are trying to bait the Russians and to get them to do something drastic and dire that would justify an American counterattack of devastating nature against Russia before the elections, or that would effectively have a war going before the elections to make sure that Kamala gets over the top and wins– I think the Russians have equally capable analysts who are saying the same thing, and for that very reason will not carry out their attack on the United States or Western Europe before November 5th.

Napolitano: 21:53
After Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lammy finished their all-afternoon and into the evening meeting yesterday with former President Zelensky. I mean, am I being snarky by calling him former president? I mean, he’s no longer the president, even though he’s acting with that power.

Doctorow;
You’re being formally very correct.

Napolitano;
OK, thank you. Secretary Blinken made the, I think, audacious statement that no matter the outcome of the war, Ukraine will join NATO. Please listen to this and tell me your reaction and what you think the Kremlin’s reaction is. Cut number 22.

Blinken:
It’s important that the Ukrainian people continue to hear directly from us. We remain fully committed to Ukraine’s victory; to not only ensuring that Ukraine can defend itself today, but can stand on its own feet strongly militarily, economically, democratically for many many days ahead, to securing the path the Ukrainian people have chosen toward greater integration in the Euro-Atlantic community including the European Union and NATO.

Napolitano: 23:08
What do you, I mean, what do you think of this? What, what is the value of America’s chief diplomat poking the bear with a statement like that?

Doctorow:
Well, I think it would be very kind, very kind to Mr. Blinken to say he’s delusional.

Napolitano:
All right, be a little, be a little unkind. Let’s hear it.

Doctorow:
Downright stupid. He doesn’t get it. And again, I want to emphasize what I mean by stupid. People with very high IQs can be dramatically stupid. And he is a case. Surely, he did very well on his SATs and performed very well in his college years and the rest of it. It’s irrelevant. His level of judgment is so far off base that it is astonishing that this man occupies the position that he does.

Napolitano: 23:59
What would the Kremlin reaction be, not publicly, but internally? What do you think a foreign minister Lavrov said to president Putin when they heard a statement like this?

Doctorow:
Well, the Russian elites– and I think the occupant of the Kremlin is among the Russian elites– they have a very low regard for their counterparts in Washington, the intellectual level, the educational level, the experiential level, they discount it very highly. They see a degradation in American political culture, which comes out in talk shows, but it certainly is a common currency among the Russian elites. And what do they expect from Kamala Harris assuming that she takes the White House? They see her as Annalena Baerbock 2.0.

Napolitano:
What do you mean by that?

Doctorow: 25:04
An empty vessel.

Napolitano:
Mmm. Over the weekend, last subject with you, Professor, Victoria Nuland, the notorious neocon in American foreign policy, she advised everybody from Dick Cheney to Barack Obama, the person perceived to have orchestrated the coup in Ukraine in 2014, who mysteriously resigned her high-level position in the Department of State and joined her friend, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her other non-friend Jeffrey Sachs– you can’t make this up!– on the Columbia University faculty … admitted, admitted, that Kiev and Moscow had an agreement in Istanbul in 2022, and that she orchestrated the disruption of that agreement.

26:04
The instrument of the disruption was then- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. President Putin in his interview with my friend and former colleague, Tucker Carlson, showed his fingers apart an inch and a half to show that the agreement was an inch and a half thick, and every page had been initialed by the negotiators. And she revealed the reason for the disruption of this negotiation. It was that it would have prohibited the United States from placing offensive weaponry in Ukraine. What is the reaction to this in the Kremlin?

Doctorow: 26:51
Well, I don’t think there’s any sense of surprise. They knew who Victoria Nuland is from years ago. She’s been in this game for a long time. What I would just like to add as a comment on this whole situation is that Nuland being in Columbia University as she is, and her fellow faculty member, Madam Clinton, they are a demonstration that in the United States there are no consequences. This was the one good area of the debates that we had a couple of days ago that when Trump said that he fired people who didn’t perform.

27:38
But firing is one thing. The greater issue is that no one has been fired, no one has paid any consequences in the neocon camp that has dominated Washington for the last 30 years for the series of disasters that they engendered, that they supervised, and she is one of those people. She and her husband, who was the cheerleader for all the neocon programs from the start of the Iraq war, they never have paid a– they never have been called to justice. And that is why we have this continuing disastrous foreign policy in the States. Nobody paid for their errors, which cost the lives of millions.

Napolitano: 28:19
In response to that, let me run a clip for you, which is Secretary Austin from six days ago, when a reporter asks him why the US has not yet given the go-ahead for Ukraine to use long-range offensive weaponry reaching deep into Russia. Cut number four, Chris.

Questioner:
President Zelensky has repeatedly requested these long-range attacks inside Russia. Even allies agree. So what is stopping the United States from giving the go ahead?

Austin:
I don’t believe– what is stopping the United States? I don’t believe one specific capability will be decisive. And, you know, I stand by that comment. I think Ukraine has a pretty significant capability of its own to address targets that are well beyond the range of ATACMSs, or even Storm Shadow for that matter. And as we look at the battlefield currently, we know that the Russians have actually move their aircraft that are using the glide bombers beyond the range of ATACMSs. So this is an interesting argument, but again, I think for the foreseeable future, we’re going to make sure that we remain focused on helping them do those things, enable them to be effective in defending their sovereign territory.

Napolitano: 30:00
In his youth, he was an accomplished dancer. I mean, that’s not much of an answer, is it?

Doctorow:
No, I think I give him credit for a better response and a more cynical, of course, response than I would have expected in my remarks on him two days ago. I’m very glad to have heard this. It’s not just the Russians who are saying what he was saying about the withdrawal of their aircraft beyond the reach of the offensive weapons now in the hands of the Ukraine. However, the reason for this original position and the reason for the change in the position has nothing whatever to do with what he was saying in his answer.

It has everything to do with the dramatic showing of the Russians, both on the front line in Donbass in the last week or two, and still more, their achievement in Poltava, and in still more in the other towns, in Lvov in particular, where they brought their missiles, in this case it was a Kinzhal, directly through the American Patriot air defense system and three other European-provided defense systems, and they smashed up Lvov. They smashed up the train carrying all this equipment that had just arrived from Poland.

31:27
This, and the demonstration in Poltava, where 700 officers and advanced technicians in the use of electronic warfare and reconnaissance drones [that saw chop?] executives for that division were killed in this attack. I think this elicited a change in US policy. Again, it was a Russian response to an American escalation. And now that the Russians have done what they’ve done, missed the change in position with respect to use of these offensive missile systems within the Russian Federation, that is strictly another American escalation in response to the last Russian escalation. So they keep on mounting the ladder, but it had nothing whatever to do with what Mr. Zelensky wanted for the sake of Ukraine, just as all American provisions to Ukraine have had nothing to do with the welfare of Ukraine.

Napolitano: 32:31
This is such deep and profound analysis. One last question. Has any of this, any of the threats and obfuscations of Secretaries, Blinken and Austin, diminished by one iota, the slow, steady, inexorable march of the Russian military westward into Ukraine?

Doctorow:
Oh, not at all. All eyes are on Prokrovsk. And the most remarkable thing about Prokrovsk, this is a city maybe 20, 30 kilometers from the front line today, but it is a transportation nexus. And it is a critical point, rail and otherwise, for supplying the whole Ukrainian front lines in Donbass. When the Russians conquer that, the Ukrainian hold Donbass will be destroyed. Therefore, it is remarkable that after maybe a year and a half, almost close to two years, where all Western media were disparaging every bit, sign of progress that the Russians were making. [“And this town, which they took and ruined in a meat-grinder offensive that cost them dearly, had no real value.”]

33:50
Well, that’s what they were saying about a succession of cities that were taken by the Russian forces. The Bakhmut was the last of them. However, what we’re about to witness has been already described by Western media as being of decisive importance. And we all know that the Russians are going to take it.

Napolitano:
Professor Gilbert Doctorow, a true pleasure and a privilege to be able to pick your brain on all these topics. Much appreciated by the audience and by me, and I hope you’ll come back again with us next week.

Doctorow:
Well, thanks so much for the opportunity to discuss, shall we say a nonconformist view?

Napolitano:
Thank you, Professor, all the best to you.

Doctorow:
Right, bye-bye.

Napolitano:
Sure. Coming up later today at noon Eastern, Ambassador Charles Freeman. At three o’clock Eastern, Professor John Mearsheimer. At four o’clock Eastern, the always worth waiting for Max Blumenthal. Please remember to like and subscribe. Go to JudgeNap.com. Sign up there if you can. Help us to spread the word that alternative media is telling the truth.

35:02
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

Judging Freedom, Ausgabe vom 12. September

Dies war eine bemerkenswerte Diskussion mit Judge Andrew Napolitano, in der es um ein breites Spektrum aktueller Entwicklungen in und um den Krieg der Ukraine mit Russland ging. Der gestrige Besuch von Antony Blinken und des britischen Außenministers Lammy in Kiew sowie das bevorstehende Treffen des britischen Premierministers Starmer mit Joe Biden im Weißen Haus standen natürlich im Mittelpunkt unseres Gesprächs: Die Aufhebung aller Beschränkungen für den Einsatz der von den USA, Großbritannien und anderen NATO-Ländern gelieferten Langstrecken-Offensivwaffen durch Kiew überschreitet eine klar definierte rote Linie Russlands und könnte eine rasche Eskalation bis hin zum Atomkrieg auslösen.

Wir beide kommentierten die Gelassenheit des russischen Außenministers Sergej Lawrow in seiner Rede vor den versammelten russischen Botschaftern heute Morgen, als er den Standpunkt des Kremls zur Überschreitung dieser roten Linien darlegte. All dies hat mich dazu veranlasst, in der Sendung meinen jüngsten Meinungsaustausch mit Ray McGovern zu diesem Thema zu erwähnen, in dem er darauf bestand, dass Putins umfassende Antwort auf einen Angriff auf sein Land mit vom Westen gelieferten Raketen erst nach den amerikanischen Wahlen am 5. November erfolgen wird und nicht in den Tagen, die noch vor uns liegen, wie ich erst gestern gesagt hatte. Nach nochmaliger Überlegung schließe ich mich Ray in diesem Punkt an und rate den Abonnenten, die Termine für das Mittagessen im Oktober nicht zu streichen und sich nicht unter ihrem Schreibtisch zu verstecken, wenn die Sirenen losgehen.

Putin und seine Berater erkennen die Falle, die ihnen Washington gestellt hat, genauso gut wie wir, nämlich dass eine gewaltsame Reaktion auf einen solchen Angriff den Amerikanern einen Vorwand für die Eröffnung eines ausgewachsenen Krieges liefern würde, um Kamela Harris’ Wahlsieg durch das Phänomen des „rally around the flag“ in Kriegszeiten zu sichern. Eine solche „Falle“ mag unsinnig erscheinen, aber sie spiegelt leider die Denkweise derjenigen wider, die in der Regierung Biden die Politik bestimmen. Sagen wir mal so: Die Planung ist sehr kurzfristig.

Wie also könnte Putin jetzt auf einen Storm-Shadow-Angriff reagieren, der große physische Schäden an der zivilen Infrastruktur in der Russischen Föderation selbst verursacht, wie z.B. an der Brücke von Kertsch (Krim)? Vielleicht, indem er die Lieferung moderner Waffen an Washingtons Feinde im Nahen Osten fortsetzt, wie es Russland vor ein paar Monaten angedeutet hat. Ein Hinweis darauf könnten die Ereignisse in Syrien vor ein paar Tagen sein, als berichtet wurde, dass das Militär von Bashar Assad einen israelischen Militärjet abgeschossen hat, der in den syrischen Luftraum eingedrungen war. Das ist der erste Vorfall dieser Art, und sicherlich wurde dabei russische Luftabwehrtechnik eingesetzt, die es vorher entweder dort nicht gab oder deren Einsatz von den Russen nicht so leicht zugelassen wurde. Sicherlich wissen die Houthis oder die Hisbollah, wie sie russische Iskander oder Kinzhals, die ihnen über den Weg laufen könnten, sinnvoll einsetzen können.

Ein besonders interessanter Punkt in der heutigen Unterhaltung mit Judge Napolitano betraf einen Videoclip, den er auf den Bildschirm brachte und der zeigt, wie US-Verteidigungsminister Austin vor einer Woche auf die Frage eines Reporters antwortete, warum die USA Kiew noch nicht das Recht zugestehen, seine Raketen nach eigenem Ermessen einzusetzen. Ich möchte Ihnen das Vergnügen an dem Interview nicht verderben, sondern Sie sollen unsere Stellungnahmen in Ruhe genießen können.