1 September 2025
Transcript submitted by a reader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgEZmp-sBk8
Diesen: 0:00
Hi everyone, and welcome back. We are joined again by Gilbert Doktorow, an historian, international affairs analyst, and author of “War Diaries, the Russia-Ukraine War”. So welcome back to the program.
Doctorow;
Well, it’s my pleasure.
Diesen:
So we now see that– we’re watching the SCO meeting in China. That is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And of all the members attending, I think the most important aspect of this meeting is now India, China and Russia coming together, these three Eurasian giants. Indeed, we have now all these pictures and videos of Modi, Xi and Putin looking extremely friendly. And I know optics isn’t everything, but Modi of course is traveling to China for the first time in seven years. And we have pictures of Modi hugging Putin, reassuring each other that this is an enduring partnership between India and Russia. They’re not going to walk it back. If anything is underutilized, they have to build on it further.
1:09
We also see Modi shaking hands with Xi after all these tensions over the past years, both calling for improving China in their relations as these two Eurasian giants. So recognizing that they should perhaps sort out their relationship. Now this, well, to me seems very historic. I was wondering, what do you make of this huge meeting?
Doctorow: 1:37
The meeting was historic, I agree completely. And I find that perhaps some observers in India, and not only in the West, are missing that point. I have been under siege, in fact, as you probably picked up the recording of this telephone call that was coming in, because I have received multiple phone calls starting at 6 A.M. This morning from different Indian broadcasters. And I have participated in their programs.
It was one thing to talk, it’s another thing to listen. And I was listening to what _they_ are saying, because these were not just one-on-one interviews, but they were panel discussions with various prominent Indians in the country and outside and Western experts invited to speak. And what I heard was a bit surprising, a bit disappointing, because I don’t think that they, India, of all places, that their experts are fully appreciating what’s happened in the past two days. I believe that Mr. Modi has, and if he has, then he will be regretting that he is not going to be at the Beijing military parade on Wednesday.
2:41
But what is, to answer your question directly, what I think we are witnessing is the rise of India. The Indians themselves are exulting over what they see as the humiliation of Pakistan in one of the points in the joint declaration adopted by the SCO at its closing, that point being the condemnation of cross-border terrorism and the attack on India. Well, we know where the cross-border came from. It came from Pakistan. And so the Indians are celebrating that as the, can you imagine the SCO has just put Pakistan in its place.
That is exaggerated. Let us remember that Pakistan is a protege of China and this slap on the wrist for Pakistan could not have been proved without Xi approving it. Furthermore, the situation overall is much more complicated than these several Indian journalists would have us believe. After all, Pakistan is a close supporter of Iran. Iran is an important transit country for the North-South Corridor, which India wants very much, because it would give India access to the whole of Central Asia, which under the present conditions where everybody is scrambling to find new markets, is all the more important to India’s economic future.
4:17
So there are complications here of many [coms]. I hope we can get into some of them because, astonishingly, they haven’t been brought to light. And one of them, which I’ll just mention here, to seed our discussion, is the presence of the Prime Minister of – my goodness, I’m speaking now about Pashinyan, Armenia, and his warm discussion, tete-a-tete, unforeseen in the program, with Vladimir Putin, which was featured on yesterday’s wrap-up of the week’s news hosted by Mr. Kiselyov. I hope we get to that because it shows how all of these countries, that are members or observers or guests of the SCO, have interests that are intertwined, and some of them are conflicting.
5:16
When you have 25, 26 countries, it’s not surprising that there will also be conflicting interests. And there you have a summit like the one of the last two days, which provides a platform, a venue for these various parties to get together in quick sequence so that discussions between two could then be extended to their circle. And that is what’s happened in the last two days. I believe that, for example, that Armenia was roped into this, probably by the Indians or by Xi. As you may be aware, Mr. Macron in France has done his best to ruin relations between Russia and Armenia.
6:03
And what you had and was shown on Russian television yesterday was the two of them, Putin and Pashinyan, sitting next to one another, Pashinyan said, “Oh yes, Vladimir Vldimirovich, you are my good friend.” And well, this of course was lapped up by the Russian news commentators. But there are all these little details. And they tell you the part that is visible. I have to tell you that a lot is going on that is invisible.
But coming back to the question of India, and coming back to what the SCO stands for, because there’s a lot of confusion in the broad public. How is this different from BRICS? And well, BRICS is a global organization, and it has in its membership key founding members, countries like Brazil or South Africa, which are not terribly interested in issues that move Russia and China, for example. And they hold up progress in the integration of BRICS because they have their own concerns about relations with the United States and whether or not they’re tipping too far against the United States and so forth.
7:13
The ISHOR, as the Russians call it, or SCO, it was founded about 30 years ago and had at its job description, as its mission, to bring security to that East Asian region. It was founded by Russia and China, primarily, first of all, to moderate their competition for the Central Asian countries and also for the two of them to coordinate actions to keep the United States and other interlopers out of the region. Officially its task was to combat terrorism and to combat narcotrafficking.
Now what we saw in the last two days is a vast expansion of its remit, of its self-definition. It is taking on features of BRICS that is an economic dimension. Mr. Xi rolled out the plans, or the announced plans, to create a CSO, sorry, SCO bank, a bank for development. This is remarkable. We have, we see, oh my goodness, the friends are back.
8:39
We see the attempt to integrate this vast region financially and economically, recalling that its global contribution of GDP is 24 trillion dollars. Now, it does not do away with the importance of the United States as a global trade influencer, But it is very significant. The concentration is on Eurasia. There are the margins Belarus, Mr. Lukashenko was there and was warmly greeted. There is the entrance of the Middle Eastern countries, and that is Perseio, the United Arab Emirates. I think they fit into the financial dimension as possible supporters, backers, of this new bank that is planned for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
9:56
The… Now, what about the languages? Well, the working languages of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are Russian and Mandarin. That tells you who runs the show. This is a point that somehow commentators in the West just don’t talk about. They talk about 25 countries are there, la, la, la, but who was running the show? It is Russia and China.
I think for India, judging by the body language between Xi, Putin, and Modi in the final hours when they’re all together, and they were conferring together, we see the prospect or the invitation for India to rise as one of the governing countries of the SCO. And that is, if that is fulfilled, it’s dramatic change.
10:52
At the same time, coming into this, I think Mr. Modi missed opportunities. I think his stopping in Japan was a mistake. Obviously, it was a message. He was giving a message to the Chinese that “Don’t think that we’re going to fall into bed with you tomorrow, but we have our own options.” And his decision not to participate in the or not to witness the military parade in Beijing, I think that was a bad decision. After all, the parade is celebrating the end of the war in the Pacific. India was not a country in 1945, but there were a lot of Indian soldiers who fought the Japanese in the Pacific as soldiers in the British Empire.
11:43
The Indians in both fronts, both in Europe and in Asia, lost one and a half million soldiers in World War II. And I think it was a mistake for Modi not to honor the memory of those compatriots who died putting an end to World War II in the Pacific. By the same token, I think it is very sad that Donald Trump will not be there, because of course the Americans had a decisive role also in liberation of island after island of occupied territory from the Japanese, and he’s not going to be there. The United States will not be represented at the proper level at this landmark event. The Chinese, since nobody talks about it much, they have very few military parades. They are not like the Russians, every year. And this is a big deal. And so for Modi not to be there, for Trump not to be there, I think is a big mistake.
Diesen: 12:48
You mentioned the SCO developing and yeah, because originally it was intended as focusing on security, that is terrorism and such, but [was] managing Russia and China so they wouldn’t have the security competition and the power competition in Central Asia. But once they began to take on economic competencies, they also, that would mean to hand over some of the leading role from Russia to China.
So when they brought in all these other large powers, be it India or let’s extend Pakistan, but Iran, then I think the Russians became more comfortable, because the Chinese would still be the leading one, but they wouldn’t be in a dominating position with all these other giants.
13:32
But that being said, it seems often that when, when I read the Western commentary on the SCO, it’s often focused on, “Well, look at all this competing interests they have. They’re not aligned.” But again, this is a very different form of organizing security though. It’s not the alliance system where you have a group of countries working together for security against an external non-member of the bloc. Instead you’re having security arrangements where you seek security with other members of the grouping. I mean, China, India, Pakistan, there are tensions behind this country.
But the whole point is that if they’re able to solve the political differences, then they can have some mutual economic benefits. It just seems that often in the West, we tend to assess everything based on how, if the interests are completely aligned. But often this means, you know, the way we often achieve it in the West is by framing everything in the language of ideology, which often results in countries not being able to pursue their national interests, as we see in Europe. But if you have all these countries with competing national interests, all pursuing their national interests, which at times is in competition, the goal surely isn’t some utopia where everyone agrees on everything, is it?
Doctorow:
No, it isn’t and can’t be. These countries have their diverse interests and some of them, visitors of course, understand this as solitude and are unwilling to compromise on it. As India is shown by its refusal to follow the dictat of Donald Trump respecting their trade in Russian petroleum. And this subject has been much in discussion among the commentators on the Indian broadcasters. And these are NewsX, NewsX World– they are two different companies– CNN 18; and they are talking about what Trump has done only in the terms of what is obvious and evident, that they are being treated in a discriminatory manner, that China buys more oil than Russia does and is not being penalized, that this is double standards and so on.
16:02
They are not looking at what was in the last paragraph of the “Financial Times”‘s discussion of the impact of the tariffs on US-Indian relations a couple of days ago. They were talking about the impact on the Indian economy. In point of fact, the impact is on manufactured goods and precisely textiles. And textiles for export mostly to the States has two percent of the Indian workforce, as I understand.
That’s not a great number, but considering the size of India, still it has to be said. Now, the… what… This is quite distracting. I regret it.
[ringing telephone not heard on recording]
But you see the insistence of the Indian broadcasters. I am now losing my train of thought. So let’s go back to your question, if we may.
Diesen: 17:23
Well, it’s to what extent the SCO arrangements and the cooperation between India and China and Russia should be assessed based on the extent to which competing interests are eliminated or simply how the differences are addressed.
Because it has a very different system than this assumption we have in the West that everything has to fit in this alliance system. But as we know from political realists, I guess permanent peacetime alliances is not very attractive always, because it locks in countries and prevents them from pursuing national interest. John Hertz even wrote in 1950 that these peacetime alliances, it removes the right to make war and replaces it [with] a responsibility to make war. So this is why the Chinese don’t want alliance systems essentially. They want to be in a more loose organization where they don’t have to push national interests aside in order to align policies.
18:39
Well, now I understand why I was jumping to the following issue, of where Mr. Trump stands on this. And this was something which I expressed with several of the broadcasters to their enormous surprise. I hope it gives them reason to reflect. They were all focusing on the superficial side of what Trump has done, just as the “Financial Times” in its article on the Indian relations with United States focused on the economic side of the tariffs, what this means to their trade after all, it is only on manufacturers, particularly textiles, doesn’t affect the very big and important $80 billion trade in IT, where India is a major supplier of programming and business intelligence to American corporations or the pharmaceutical industry.
19:31
So it affects a lot of people. It has a political impact because these are textile workers, after all, and they are going to lose their jobs. But if the very last paragraph, the “Financial Times” said, [“And by the way, this is going to really damage the quadrilateral arrangements that the United States has constructed carefully over the last 25 years to bring India into containment policy and directed against what’s said to be China’s aggressive ambitions and expansion, destroyed in several weeks.”]
And my point is this was not an accidental consequence. It was the _reason_ for the tariffs to be imposed, because the tariffs are illogical. Everyone knows that. And they are discriminative. And why India is being hit and China isn’t, it was precisely, I believe, because Mr. Trump in his, insofar as he has a foreign policy and concept, this is exactly what you’re describing.
20:39
And he didn’t think it up. He got it from Henry Kissinger, who was closely advising him during his presidential campaign in 2016, and whose ideas were reflected in Trump’s first national security strategy papers in December of 2017. And this is relationships between competitors and not adversaries. It rejects completely the fundamental principles of neoconservatism. And people who think that Trump doesn’t have an idea in his head had better reread Kissinger, 1994, “Diplomacy” and reread the 2017 American National Security strategy papers.
21:34
It’s one and the same idea. The idea that Kissinger was promoting in ’94 and had to move away from when he did his “World Order” in 2014, was a world of pre-World War I nature, of several major powers who were competitors, but no bloc. But, well, I say you go earlier, still earlier, because by the 1890s, there were blocs, of course.
But earlier than that, and certainly going back to the period that Kissinger loved most, 1815, the concert of powers, the balance of powers notions that predominated at least until 1870. That is the vision that Kissinger had in 1994 when people like him were making roadmaps for the post-Cold War period, and that was his vision. And I believe it’s a vision that he passed along to Donald Trump, who is trying his best within the limited possibilities he has, to break up the blocs.
Diesen: 22:42
Well, this, yeah, ’94 book on world order, though, it’s, he always made the point that world order, if it’s going to be stable and sustainable, it needs to balance just both the power and legitimacy. And I guess this was always the problem of unipolarity. It’s not durable in terms of the distribution of power and it’s not going to have the legitimacy of one center ruling. And also in order to have this he also recognized you need the balance of having this what Chinese call civilizational diversity and also agreeing on some key principles. But you know so how do you, yeah some ways we will always be different, the nationalist idea, and then some principles we need to have the same.
23:25
I think under the liberal hegemony, we tilted too much to the idea that everything has to be shared principles and we forgot about the cultural distinctiveness, which kind of lays the foundation for sovereignty. And from my perspective, it also builds in a bit to Trump’s perhaps domestic ideas, because he sees that this liberal hegemony is eating up some of the values in terms of America’s own civilizational distinctiveness and turning into this, what he would consider liberal blob, I guess. But do you think he’s still working according to the Kissinger’s manual? I know they did speak ahead of his, you know, after he won the election. But how much do you think he’s influenced by these ideas?
Doctorow: 24:14
Well, you can ask the Kissinger to follow his own recommendations of ’94. Of course not. There is a big change in Kissinger between what he wrote in “Diplomacy” and what he wrote in “World Order”. And that was that he got beaten up over his vision of ’94 by the neocons, for being an unforgiving realist who was discarding values. And of course, Americans make a great deal out of values to drive foreign policy.
So in the end, in 2014, after saying that the foreign policy would be interest-based, he threw a bouquet to his opponents and said, yes, and of course there also should be democracy values uniting some parts of the world community. But that is not such a big concession, when you consider going back to his dissertation work on 1815, it all ended. Yes, there was a realist approach, but it was all framed by monarchical principles, and so these– which were the values of the time. These ideas, which are in competition, did not completely rule out the other side of the story. The question is where is the basic thrust?
25:50
And the basic thrust of Kissinger’s thinking was realism and eschewing all ideology; and I believe that Donald Trump remains in that camp. And people who say “Oh, he surrounded himself with Rubios.” Well, if you’re going to look for people who share that view, you wouldn’t have anybody around him. There are very few realists in high position, or with recent government experience, whom he could have as counselors and implementers. So he engages, as I’ve said, in double talk, and he does within the limits that one man can do when he is in a power situation surrounded by many other forces. After all, there are limitations on the president’s power, however much “New York Times” would like to say he’s overriding it all.
26:44
And he pursues a destruction of blocs. NATO is hard to get rid of. To really get rid of it, he needs two-thirds of the Senate backing him, which is not available. The quadrilateral arrangement never received that kind of formation, formal formation, where it cannot be undone. He’s undoing it. So I firmly believe that Trump has an idea or two in his head, And I believe that the ideas that he holds closest to his heart, as he has a heart also, are coming from Kissinger. I remember that Kissinger was very, very pleased to have the ear of Donald Trump, because for the first time in 30 years, he was not admitted by Obama to the Oval Office, who didn’t, who simply despised Kissinger and didn’t want to hear his advice.
27:45
Whereas Trump was very glad to take his advice. Of course, the role of Kissinger lasted almost a year. I wouldn’t say long. That’s understandable. There were many other competitors for Donald Trump’s ear. But I don’t believe that he has forgotten those lessons from Kissinger and that he is, I believe that he’s trying to implement them within his powers.
Diesen: 28:13
But on the topic of Kissinger though, one of the great achievements in the geopolitics was in the 1970s, splitting the Soviets from the Chinese. The general Machinder idea that you shouldn’t allow two Eurasian giants to get too close. Same with Germany and Russia. But the key criticism of Trump was always of Biden that the hostility towards Russia meant that the Russians were pushed into the arms of the Chinese.
But these recent pressures from Trump against India or his administration in terms of the tariffs and also the threats of a– pressuring of India not to trade with Russia, it appears to now be pushing India also towards the arms of China. Again, despite, I accept the premise, this idea that Trump is very hostile to all these alliance systems as a way of locking in America, preventing the reforms it needs. However, from every aspect, this seems to have been a colossal mistake, because America needs India if they want to have some balance against the Chinese or just some good relations in the East. This just seems like a disaster though, isn’t it?
29:44
I think it’s a temporary situation. I think this was a body blow intended to end India’s involvement in the containment policy against China and the formation of a new military bloc in Asia. The situation between Russia and China and India and China cannot be compared. India and China do not have the common economic interests that Russia and China have.
As the Indians say openly, what do we have to sell to the Chinese? Nothing. All we can do is buy from the Chinese. So that is not a prospect to be compared with the Russian situation. This was mentioned yesterday on Russian state television as they were discussing these various relationships. Russia is probably the only major country that has a proficit, not a deficit, in its trade relations with China.
30:51
And it is not just that they are supplying hydrocarbons and also more recently, a lot of agricultural commodities. They also are about to supply the jet engines for China’s newest middle-range passenger airliner, which is left engineless because of sanctions by the United States. Yes, as they said yesterday, you can count the world’s producers of advanced jet engines for passenger airliners on one hand, and Russia is one of them. And this is now being finalized. So the Russians are not just selling commodities, they’re also selling some high-tech and some pharmaceuticals. The Russians’ pharmaceuticals are now entering the Chinese market.
31:52
Nothing like this, not of this scale, can be anticipated for India with respect to China. What is in prospect is not a full unlimited friendship or partnership, but an end to enmity, an end to these border skirmishes, and cooperation on a common development of economic and securityinterests in Eurasia.
Diesen:
Well, that in itself seems quite important, because whenever you have two great powers, of course, if you choose to put India in that category or at least an aspiring great power, once they have some tensions between them, these tensions or conflicts can be exploited by external parties who want to get some concessions from one or balance, contain the other.
32:51
But I guess, yes, the last question going back to the beginning. How much do you think this is, if not a change in the world order or development or shift away from the unipolar system, how significant should we interpret the direction we’re going now? Because I see the lack of trade compatibility between India and China. I don’t expect any alliance systems from come out of this, but the ability to deal with the competing or political conflicts, it’s quite significant in order to, I guess, organize an alternative international economic architecture, given that there’s less trust in both the ability of the United States to hold this role. I mean, even the US now seems to be recognizing that the dollar, it can’t be the only reserve currency. It will surely have a very leading role, but alternatives have to come in place to actually reflect the distribution of power as it is.
Doctorow: 34:02
There is an acceleration in the movement towards a multipolar world. And what we saw in these last two days are a significant landmark in that trail. So it is, we should not exaggerate, as you’re saying, we should not exaggerate the prospects for rapprochement or warming between China and India. But what comes out of this, as I was just hinting a moment ago, is the, raising the flag of sovereignty. India did that by its refusal to take phone calls from Donald Trump and demonstration in every which way that is not going to submit to the American efforts to break its reliance on Russian hydrocarbons, in fact, intending to increase by at least 10 percent its import of Russian hydrocarbons in the coming month.
35:00
This is a declaration of sovereignty. The Russians were talking sovereignty a year ago. And I was saying that this is the word of the year. But I think now we’re witnessing it spreading to other major powers. Sovereignty dictates against participation in a military alliance or bloc.
The Chinese were the first to realize that and to practice it. Going back, and just to take one comment on your remark with respect to Kissinger and the cleavage that America drove between Russia and China for its own benefit, I think you’re being unkind to Richard Nixon.
Diesen:
I’m unkind to…?
Doctorow:
Being unkind to Richard Nixon.
Diesen:
Oh yeah.
Doctorow:
I believe that was _his_ idea and that Kissinger was the implementer. Of course, Kissinger would not bring that fact out in his memoirs. Who can blame him. But Nixon was no fool. And from the perspective of today, the Nixon that was the nasty man who was unpleasant with the press, well, he looks like a gentleman, a dignified man. By accident, on YouTube I saw a year ago, the Kennedy-Nixon debates. Remarkable. These people were civilized. It’s been a descent from civilization ever since.
36:41
So Nixon looks a lot better in that optic, and he was smart enough to see that opportunity and to have a very good implementer in the person of Henry Kissinger.
Diesen:
Yeah, the decline in decency. It’s quite remarkable if you go back a few decades and look at those presidential debates. Hopefully we reach the bottom of the barrel and there will be some improvements coming. But no, it is interesting, because when I saw Peter Navarro making these comments, that is the adviser to Trump, that, you know, “India is the largest democracy, how can you cozy up with the Chinese? You should be loyal to us.”
In other words, “bend to our pressure.” I think it exposes how much of the world actually sees it whenever someone refers to liberal democracy. It’s often translated almost always into sovereign inequality, which means in the name of liberal democracy, you should not pursue your national interest. But India keeps saying, well, our national interest has to come first.
37:54
And that means they’re taking into consideration the neighborhood they live in also, of course, and not cutting themselves off from very vital partnerships. So no, this could be a huge shift. I’m just curious if it’s going to change American policies, because so far the US appears to be doubling down on this, that “How dare China go continue along this path? They should fall in line. Maybe the problem is we haven’t put enough tariffs on them.”
38:27
This is kind of the logic, what else can be done, as opposed to reflecting a bit on what the actual Indian position is, that they see this being an issue of sovereignty. And it pains me to say this as a European, but if you look towards the ones who are bending too much to fall in line and compromising on their national interests, it’s the Europeans. Whenever the Europeans bow to daddy and do as they’re told, every time you ignore your national interest, you’re going to come out in a weaker position. So it doesn’t seem like a model that Indians would like to emulate.
39:11
Sorry, that was just my last question. Do you see any changes coming from the US position now, given the pictures coming out of China of Modi, Xi and Putin essentially being defiant and not responding in terms of allowing divisions, but instead further decoupling and diversifying their ties?
Doctorow:
I think we have to give this a bit of time. As I’ve said, I don’t think that Donald Trump has any intention of severing commercial ties with India or maintaining his present punitive tariffs for long. I believe that he is fully expectant that Putin will destroy Ukraine in the coming weeks to months, and therefore these punitive tariffs will not go on all that long. This is a message to break up the quadrilateral NATO information in the Indo-Pacific.
40:17
And Russia– as for China, of course, they read the Riot Act to the Americans. They explained how they will destroy American industry by cutting off rare earth metals and other vital supplies to American industry. And that is what caused the drawback from imposition of punitive tariffs on China and delaying it and it’s moving along with horizon on when they will be imposed. So let’s give this a bit of time. Let’s look beyond the two weeks or three weeks.
I believe that relations will foot back. The Indians are very keen to maintain relations with the United States, because as we just said, China is not a replacement for the American market, and there is no replacement for India in the immediate-, even in the medium-term future, for the American market. So of course they’ll find the competition. But that will be after the Americans drop their belligerency over whom India trades with.
Diesen:
Yeah, and I think that’s the main point, that the Indians don’t want to join a Eastern bloc against America. They literally just want to be non-aligned and diversify their trade. And no, which is why I think if United States walked us back and not– doesn’t tell India what to do, I think India’s greatest interest would be to also trade, have close relations with the US. Indeed, I would put Russia in the same category. They always saw this as a balance of dependence. That is yes, China might be the most important, but you have to balance out and diversify, so trading with the Europeans and Americans will always be important. Which is why I think they’re putting so much efforts to restoring bilateral ties with the United States. It’s just they’re not going to be lured into an anti-Chinese camp. And I think that dream has to be dropped with the Indians as well.
42:24
But yes, thank you so much. This is fascinating times. And indeed, the weakening, if not the sabotage of these alliance systems altogether is quite revolutionary in terms of changing the international system. So thanks again.
Doctorow: 42:46
Yeah, my pleasure.
Gilbert Doctorow 