This is the unregistered podcast and I’m thus Russell this is a show about ideas people and behaviors that are considered inappropriate out of bounds or Beyond The Pale the things you’re not supposed to talk about if you’re a school teacher a college professor a businessman a
Politician a parent a neighbor or even a podcast host these are the things you’re not supposed to say or even think if you’re a good liberal a good conservative or a good citizen each week I’ll interview a person who has something bad to say they might be a journalist or a professor
They might be a porn star or a drug dealer they might just be an ordinary person with an ordinary job who doesn’t care about the rules of polite Society I’m not interested in breaking the rules just to be a troublemaker I’m interested in people who break the rules
Of conventional thought and who EXP expand the scope of what is possible to say in our society I’m interested in people who make me think my guest this week argues that not only has Ukraine lost the war but the United States has lost the world this is my interview with Glenn
Dies I am joined from Norway by Glenn Dies who was on the show I think about a year ago um to talk about your I think absolutely essential book on and you’ve written what is it 10 now or 11 but this the one that we talked about then was Russ on
Russophobia which to me and I said this to you at the time I mean I think that is the principle issue driving the war um is the russophobia of especially Americans and sort of a passive ignorant russophobia but and you’d I mean it’s the only place I’ve seen where there’s
Just a it’s a you just Chronicle take down debunk debunk debunk I have referenced that book almost every day since I talked to you about it um every time I hear the word scet Paul or navali I mean the um yeah all the all the poisonings all
This all the stuff but um and the history of russophobia so anyway that’s we’re certainly going to talk about that that now but you have a new book because you’re incredibly prolific um even though you have three children and are doing lots of podcasts and most notably
On the Duran but your new book is called the Ukraine war and the Asian World Order um and that title right there in itself should be shocking and terrifying to anybody who runs foreign policy in a western country if if they believe it at all right because what you’re saying is
You’re chart the sort of history of world orders um you talk about the West Filan order um and then what came in the modern era and then sort of the American liberal hegemony order of our times but you’re saying in the book and you say in the title essentially that that that the
Order we’ve lived under since 1945 is either ending or already has ended in fact what is your it’s a little unclear to me are you which is which is the position you’re taking is this is the liberal American hegemonic World Order is that over now or is it just beginning its
Demise no I I argue it’s uh it’s already come to an end uh but the New Order hasn’t really established itself and this is part of the crisis we’re in because it’s in a vacuum we we left the form order but we haven’t really cemented the new one so uh in in
Addition uh the United States attempts to pull the world order back towards unipolarity and uh well most of the rest of the world would seek uh to move towards multi multipolarity so when you said world order I I wouldn’t say since 1945 because World Order often tends to
Contrast heon versus other centers so for example when the Roman Empire Holy Roman Empire collapsed at the piece of asalan 1648 we got a new system based on a balance of power between many centers of power so this not a Hedon and since then you know this is a simple way of
Contrasting and what happened after the Cold War was quite quite unique the Cold War was two poles of power which was also a bit unusual but um but after the Cold War there was one cent of power uh you know Americana one uh one dominant State and this is quite unique world
Order that means you know polls are often used bit abstract but if one cent of power means you have one military power dominating you have one economic power dominating one set of leading Technologies industrial capacity one power controlling the transportation corridors one having the dominant Banks the dominant currency controlling the
Payment system leading the main institutions dominant ating the information space uh and also having some ability to make up or interpret international law in its own interest usually in the form of a sovereign inequality so equal sovereignty for itself but not others so this was kind
Of the unipolar moment uh the order what we see now is the distribution has already shifted towards multipolarity and this is part of the problem we can either try to adjust to it or uh try to restore un polarity but uh this is the yeah the source of most of our conflict
If if we had if we were living in a unipolar world still um as of February 2022 uh Russia could not have won the war it couldn’t possibly right I mean in the reason they won the war principally is that they had their own resources and they had other countries
To trade with and borrow from and all the rest of it and big countries with big economies that could ship them large amounts of stuff and buy large amounts of stuff as well in a in a truly unipolar World dominated by the United States that never could have happened
And so are you Sugg are you saying maybe I’m saying that the course of the Ukraine war which I think we all in this sphere um believe has been essentially won by Russia I mean do you think that is evidence or proof of the end of the liberal World
Order well uh well that’s what the current well the order that last for about 30 years uh stood for it’s I refer it as liberal hedge money because hedge money because you have one Center of power but liberal is that’s the justification for for having hedge money and also it’s authentic well genuine
There’s many in the US who had this genine belief that if there’s only one Center of power you can prevent uh great power rivalry because you know the international Anarchy is kind of over you have only you know the us as a policeman and with that one Center of
Power it can all also elevate the role of liberal values so democracy human rights which pacifies furthermore the International System so this was the idea behind P Perpetual peace but uh yeah for a variety of reasons this is not how it works so as many predicted
Already in the early 90s over time in order to perpetuate liberal hedgemon after a while the us would have to weaken all other Rising Powers because if if it allows them to rise they wouldn’t be a hedgemon and also liberalism would be then to the extent uh well to use a
Popular phrase weaponized because uh um you know for example applying liberal ideals selectively according to power interests which is why the for example Iranian human rights abuses uh demand all the sanctions in the world while Saudi no not that they not that important uh so it’s again one can say
Hypocritical but yeah but this is the nature of State they you know they look for their power interest first so yeah um yeah so I’ve been literally since I was born I have marched in the streets against every war by the United States I have been an Anti-Imperialist my entire
Life I have changed politics various times but that has stayed constant I have in many ways worked toward this moment I suppose my entire life um I’m not sure that moment’s entirely here but um this is bricks the AR the um rising of bricks uh the course of the Ukraine war
The success of Russia against United States and the West um this is a new place we’re living in what I want a new world we’re living in what I want is to be able to tell people quickly and easily what the evidence of is of that I me I can say
Well there’s bricks and there’s five countries and they have their own thing going on but it’s not a military Alliance um we have several un votes that show that the vast majority of the world’s country governments disagree with the with the US Empire um the unipolar world they want the done with
Um so I have that I do what I don’t know and I I don’t know if you can even answer this but I don’t know what Ordinary People in Pakistan and Iran and even Russia and the rest of it think of it I know what their governments think
And then that makes me worried that this is simply a power play and some new governor government will come up like China or Russia and will seek to dominate we can get into that later but I mean how how isolated are we in the west and especially United States in this I mean
With Israel and Gaza it’s become very clear but I think even in Ukraine and NATO and and Russia I think even there the rest of the world seems to be against us but is that how true is that well uh on on the first question I guess how would you quickly explain uh
What evidence of multipolarity is well you can go through the the different categories if you look at military power obviously the inability to to to defeat key Rivals be it Russia China but also now this recognition that we can’t let the Middle East get out of control
Because this a day that one can defeat Iran uh you know if you run the military exercise or scenarios it shows it can’t really be done that they’re getting too powerful the relative power of the US is not is still leading but it’s not as dominant as it was before and also you
In the tech sphere uh once the when the US was D or when the US was dominant it was comfortable with a liberal International economic system because it would naturally lead uh but that’s not the case anymore look at a tech area there’s a need to sabotage the Chinese
You know cut cut off their access to chips uh try convince the Europeans not to buy 5G we see the industrial power also weakening we see Transportation corridors the Chinese coming with this belt and Road initiative that’s to ensure that Americans can’t dominate on these Transportation networks uh Banks
Uh much of the world don’t want to use be reliant on American Banks only and uh you know and also International lenders like the IMF or World Bank where the US dominates they don’t want to use Swift anymore the whole world is starting to look for their own Alternatives which is
The payment system which everything has to be cleared through the United States in which it it’s an important instrument to impose unilateral sanctions also they want to dollarize uh even you know friends and allies of the United States from India turkey Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates Arab Emirates they all
Looking to diversify not as an anti-American move but just to diversify so it won’t be so aligned sure so that’s just economic and then they have the institutions as you suggested uh we have new institutions like bricks the Shanghai cooperation organization and a multitude of others also reflecting multipolarity and of course the
Information space this really began more the mid 2000s with you know the Al jaas and RTS and a good good evidence that the US isn’t really adjusting to this uh losing the dominance over information space is obvious if you go to press tv.com for example it’s the Iranian main Iranian English news
Channel you’ll come up a big uh it’s s what is it called the emblem from the United States because the US sees their entire website because they don’t they don’t approve of their of their news agency and of course it’s the same with Russia all the Russian channels are
Banned look at aange uh you know he about to probably be sentenced for quite some time uh for you know spilling secrets and furthermore only a few years ago censorship in America was uh you know it’s not for Americans this is you know over there you have supposed to
Have stronger press freedom and uh the freedom of expression but you know not anymore now censorship is across the West becoming more and more accepted as long as you call something propaganda which is usually the information of other states and then you can look at other variables like international law
Um when uh when there’s a when there’s unipolarity kind of the rest of the world has to accept this notion that there’s sovereignty for us but not for others so we come up with principles like democracy promotion U humanitarian intervention effectively allowing uh de demoting the sovereignty of other states
But it’s not that much approval for it anymore and uh so when the US for example so back back the coup in Ukraine or have these forever Wars IL legally occupying Syria and Iraq you know bombing Yemen or supporting a genocide in Gaza this is all now becoming U you
Know the rest of the world isn’t accepting this uh right and responsibility if you will of the United States to to essentially yeah be the global policeman as you suggested politically as well becoming more and more isolated not just the US by the way the all the native countries are kind of
Isolating themselves right so that’s why it’s not easy to a Qui quick quick evidence but there’s obviously the 90s are over I think this was quite evident and I think if you want to see what most of the world what they think uh there’s an interesting interview by Kish um
Maani he’s the he’s a a poran Diplomat he’s also the former president of the United Nations security Council and you know he was asked interviewed about the war in Ukraine and he said you know like most of the world outside of NATO that is they don’t support the invasion of
Ukraine but they also don’t want to join in of the sanction or condemnation of Russia and the reason as well is they don’t want to see Russia defeated because uh it’s not that they want to see Ukraine defeated but they don’t want to see NATO defeat Russia and the reason
Is this is largely they wor about world order if if NATO can break Russia they will also weaken China and in his words that world be would be intolerable the the entire world doesn’t want to live in under unipolarity anymore and he said imagine if the West would win this and
They would now have this uh being Bolden to continue to to restore unipolarity it would be a horrible World they don’t want to live in this so so so the a lot of the world sees this as an issue of world order the West sees it Russia sees
It and yeah most of the world so I thought that’s why it was a good way of framing it in this way okay well I mean that’s an impressive array of evidence for the world changing outside the United States and outside of Western Europe um a lot has happened already I
Mean it’s revolutionary in for many people around the world but a change in attitude in particular around the world here’s the problem Glen dies it’s the my neighbors over here and it’s my neighbors over there my neighbors be It’s All American am an have not gotten the news um they still are spectacularly
Ignorant about Foreign Affairs about other countries about they don’t know anything about us foreign policy they know that Putin is a dictator and is a super bad guy and that’s the end of it um and they know that Hamas is Super Evil and maybe other islamists are super
And that’s it and we are going to have these wars and there will be continued seemingly fights for unipolarity so long as my goddamn fellow Americans um just are it’s just there seem impenetrable they just will not change I mean there’s a handful of us of course
In America who watch the Duran and listen to you and read your stuff but you know that is less than 1% of the population um and of course the political class here is even worse I mean almost unanimously supported the Ukraine war almost unanimously supported
Israel um and I know that you’re not a specialist on us culture um but to me that is the reason people are dying in Ukraine and in Gaza and around the world is simply because of American ignorance and if they if half of or more Americans
Read your books and listen to you and I mean I think the whole thing would change overnight but we are so far from that that I’m see I’m afraid that his Grim prediction about what will happen if the United States continues to dig in it continues to try to reestablish its
Dominance um is going to happen and I don’t know I just don’t know how to get into the heads of Americans other than doing a podcast and having you on you know um so I don’t know what you have to say to that but that’s to me that’s the
That’s the heart of the issue right I mean well I think people have to learn about the main issues because well you and I we spoke before about political propaganda and uh the reason why it really be became a demand for it especially over a century ago because you know the
World was becoming very very complex and uh how is everyone you know in the United States most people become more concerned about domestic policies but how would they know everything about foreign policy for example in all the continents of the world it’s a bit too much to demand from everyone so and and
This enables uh political leaders to essentially you know HT the group not hurt but heard and and the way they use it through heris stics you know it’s they can’t learn about well not just Americans the whole world not everyone can learn about everything so you provide people with simple filters to to
To interpret the world so you so you say you know the all the world is divided between good guys and bad guys or as we say between liberal democracies and authoritarian States so you know why are we bombing Yemen it’s like well just well you have radical Muslims and
Freedom lovers okay and then you can filter through this and you know this is all you need and you ask you know you said Putin is the you know dictator but this is also why every time we go after a new enemy you know can be Yugoslavia Iraq Syria you know China
Russia Iran it doesn’t really matter every time it they refer to us a new Hitler so Hitler’s reincarnated pretty much in every war and it’s um and you know we’re always living in the 1930s and it’s a powerful way to look at the world because what you’re saying is the
World is divided we’re good guys they’re bad guys we there can only be peace in the world if we def defeat the bad guys if you try to make peace with them well we learn from Hit Hitler that’s a peac me so they can be no negotiations they
Have to be defeated so you kind of have this um you know Playbook which you just can do over and over again and uh yeah it’s uh it becomes quite dangerous after after a while because um there’s no rational debate all the complexities of the world can’t be you know dumbed down
To this now as often make the point this idea that uh you know if we just you know we have conflict now because the other country has a really bad guy as a leader if you can just kill him or get rid of him you know we’ll go back to
Everything being normal and nice again you know this is how he would explain politics to a child it’s uh it’s it’s not serious but but this is uh again you I’m not going to pick on the us alone because we do the same here in Europe so
It’s um it’s uh it’s not a good way take away from it that’s my point no for sure I mean but again I’m going to stay on this because I’m pretty convinced that us really culture is at the heart of this it’s really the I think it’s the origin of all those dead
Bodies in the fields in abiva right now I do because you have this profoundly ignorant population that does almost nothing about any the world outside its borders um and then but then you have a political class in this country since the founding they’ve all spoken this way
Um that believes that we are obligated by God to go out and save the world um not just be the world’s policeman but be the world’s social worker be the world’s protector be the you know the political class and the people who’ have actually made the decisions in the United States
Around foreign policy the major decisions have been like a couple hundred people I mean it’s been a tiny little class now called The Blob they call themselves that um the foreign policy establishment is what I’m talking about they and every president and every Senator since the beginning has had this
Idea uh basically sort of an Evangelical universalism that is that is just only America this is I mean you see a little bit of this in Rome a little bit of this universalism talk in Rome but not really um a little bit with the Brits but not
Like the not like us we we just went Whole Hog on this Christian idea about going going out and converting all nations um and we just the political class won’t let it go now I watch KLA Harris talk say the words and it’s obvious she doesn’t even care or know what she’s
Talking about so I don’t know if that idea which has guided American politics and it has shaped the entire world that idea of American exceptionalism um I hope that that will fade but I haven’t seen any evidence of it um except maybe the the insincere m
Things of the vice president but I mean generally speaking the whole political class in this country if you ask them about Russia they will just say Putin’s a dictator I mean and they’ll go to war so again this is not your specialty but like I I just think that’s the problem
Um well there there was an argument I remember in um in the early 2000s that the that the Democracy doesn’t work if people are uninformed they they’re Soo stupid and the main the main the people pointed to a poll because on the Eve I think of the US invasion of Iraq there was
Uh I’m not sure if it was a majority or it was I think it was a majority who believed that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 911 and um right and it was it was interesting because if you remember back in those days uh bush had a tendency whenever we talked about
911 he he he he connected the sentence to Iraq he never made the accusation I think explicitly because there was no evidence and also it would have been stupid uh to s just the Iraq or Sadam even had contact with Al-Qaeda I mean they hated each other quite fiercely but
But as long as you put those two next to each other the whole time after a while you know the way the human mind works it’s human beings we we conflate the familiar with the known so if we hear something over and over again then we
You know it sounds true to us that’s just how we work and but one has to ask himself the question as well with with Ukraine for example when Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago uh you know the vast majority you know couldn’t pick it on the map they didn’t know the history
But yet everyone was 100% certain in the morality of this this was you know Russians trying to crush the freedom so you had the bad Russian and they had the poor Freedom seeking Ukraine and then you had you know America and NATO and you know the the the what do you
Call KN in shining armor who came to save you know the innocent from the wicked and you know so the story was made and everyone suddenly was 100% sure exactly what the story was about even though they knew nothing about the country or any of the history if you’re
This certain and you know nothing perhaps someone is uh you know manipulating you and uh but I think you’re right as well with you you mentioned two words this responsibility and then talk about the universal Mission and this is why I think it’s uh that’s why I also wanted to look at
World Order because I think we we we already done a lot of this in the 19th century at this point the the the British had the same they were they had a they were developing liberal Empire and they said well liberalism is a universal value so once something is
Universal that means no more to accommodate for cultural and civilizational differences that means we can impose it on others because uh if all of all the world have to follow the same development model and we’re the champions of it it’s not just our right to lead the rest of the world it’s our
Responsibility yep so you know we’re like the teacher and we look at the bad students yes we punish them sometimes but it’s because we want the best for them and this is kind of the mentality that uh that ran the British you know they call it liberal Empire America
Calls liberal hemony but it’s surprisingly similar the ideas when you have hemony matched with universal values even though it’s best intentions it ends up uh yeah where we are now it’s it’s deeply paternalistic and it’s it’s a view of the world that I find just absolutely bizarre because it is so arrogant
Um and Americans who know next to nothing about the world will proceed to vote for a war in some part of the world because of this um but I want to stay here on this question of on this issue about universalism um because I think I
Was listening to you when this sort of occurred to me that that might be the fundamental difference between the current leaders of the multi-polar world whatever you want to call it the bricks countries and America um they don’t seem to be and I’m talking about the Russians and the
Chinese in particular the governments there I have not seen any evidence of any of that kind of thinking they don’t seem to feel like they have any responsibilities for me or anywhere else in the rest of the world um and they also don’t seem to feel like they have
The right to intervene to help other people uh to save other countries Etc is that right and if that’s true God gosh I mean that’s a that’s a much better world I think um in which no State thinks that it’s my dad yeah that’s what the United States
Is right they think they’re your dad I mean well well that’s why I think the the the rhetoric often suggests listen we have to support you know the US Global dominance otherwise it’s going to be China but I think this is a a false um or a wrong argument to make because
The US hemony won’t be replaced by a Chinese hedony for the F first of all it’s when there multipolarity other countries wouldn’t want it if even Russia which is the best or most important Ally of Russia of China they wouldn’t want to stay with the Chinese
If they went for hedony uh because that would demand that they seek that CH Russia cut its ties with other Central well or key PS of power now so what what makes me optimistic about China is not only that they they seem to accommodate economic diversification that is uh they when
They trade with Russia they’re more economically powerful than Russia obviously but they don’t mind they they know that the Russians don’t want to be too dependent on only one actor because if you have too much dependent on an asymmetrical relationship when then of course the Russia would begin to become
Excessively Reliant and have to seed some political influence to the Chinese so that the Russians want to diversify also go with India you know Iran Japan Korea just just to make sure that they don’t put all their eggs in one basket now and the Chinese are okay with this
They’re saying well listen we don’t want hon we’re in for multipolarity and of course they can say this while they build up economic strength but at the same time they’re also denouncing Universal values now if you’re aspiring hedgemon you want to come up with universalism you will talk about the
Liberal democracy or Marxism something yeah this is a this is a universal value when everyone’s on the same path of development we’re more advanced than you so now we assert leadership over you they’re not doing this and even the key program they have to which they try to
Shape relations with other state they call it the global um the what’s it called the uh Global civilizational initiative or something along those lines anyways the the main idea is that all the major civilizations they’re rather different they have different geography different history and so it’s natural to have different paths to
Development so the main idea is we reject the universal claim that one civilization should tell another one how to develop uh each civilization will go its own way to find out how to develop it’s not for us to dictate what other wants so for me this is very reassuring
Because if you have a Growing Power who doesn’t claim to represent Universal values then um yeah they seem to follow both an IDE or ideology about multipolarity while embracing multipolarity so uh again I’m sure there’s counterarguments but you know these are the discussions we should be having not whether or not you
Know we have to fight China I think this is uh a bit too premature to this should be the last option not the first but yeah I mean what I see there is actually a cultural relativism right in in the so far in the governments of China and
Russia I don’t they don’t make claims about other cultures being inferior or Superior or in need of development or saving and I’m wondering it’s and also this thing about um treating each civilization sort of with respect essentially um each National culture with respect that’s um I don’t know
Where this comes from in the East um I like it it sounds like Dugan it sounds like Alexander Dugan’s theories um and I don’t know do you know where this came from because in the United States it’s just an alien idea right we know that these other cultures are bad and we know
That we need to go raise them up is this like a is this sort of an intellectual movement that’s sort of emerged in these countries or is it just the current leaders think this way um I don’t know you can probably argue it has some Roots uh from you know
Chinese confusion ISM and all but I’m um I have to think about this for a while yeah because sure good that’s a good a good question where comes from because often realists get cynical they suggest that the the international distribution of power which kind of um decides which
Ideas should be elevated in other words if all power would be concentrated in China much like it was in the United States in the 90s uh realist Scholars would assume that then China would start to develop values and ideologies uh that Embrace Universal ideals so they would
Uh effectively be able to create an international system based on Sovereign inequality where you know they have full sovereignty no one interferes with us but we can interfere everywhere because we’re the you know we’re the leader now but but of course I there are cultural differences in to to to to countries so
Um I don’t know that’s why I also refer to it as a Iran West fallan State because if you see the UK and United States when they each of them respectively dominated the world uh they did so as Maritime powers that means uh they yeah they controlled from the sea
Effectively and in order to dominate they meant in Europe the British and then Americans always realized okay we have to keep the Germans and the and the Russians apart because if they come together they will be too powerful they will form a center of power which which
Can threaten us so you just keep the main power divided this is again it’s not a big sec secret this comes up in U yeah through history in all the documents but U but but but for a huge Eurasian power like China if they want
To into if they want to grow and be dominant they’re not primarily Maritime power they’re Iration land power they’re GNA have to learn how to you know harmonize with other states so my point for example if you compare Russia and China they have different formats for EUR integration how to
Integrate this whole continent from you know the Pacific to the Atlantic but they’re different formats but they can’t do it without the other if the Chinese would start to undermine the Russians the Russians can create a horrible horrible time for the Chinese so they have to find a way of accommodating each
Other and this was also the idea of Russian tionist in the 1920s the ones who fled when the Soviets or the biks took power they effectively had this Vision wait we we can be natural Anti-Imperialist because uh you know in in Iran we we can’t lead unless we harmonize our
Interest with other people so there it is yeah I mean that’s what I’m saying it could be it could be something yeah yeah yeah yeah because that sounds I think that’s Dugan I mean I think he comes out of that eurasianist tradition yeah very much yeah that’s to
Me that’s the heart of it that’s the heart of it um that’s that’s explains everything and it’s the solution to everything too um once Americans just need to get over their Evangelical um impulses yeah but you mentioned that paternalism before as well and that’s I think that’s one of the reason why most
Of the world doesn’t want unipolarity anymore because if you have many centers of power what is the role for example of diplomacy it’s for countries to harmonize you know we have competing interests we have to you know put ourselves in each other’s shoes and then
We have to try to reach a compromise so we can harmonize interest this is what diplomats should do but not in the unipolar order because in this system uh there is no compromise necessarily then the dominant state which which believes it’s advancing Universal ideals is not making compromises you don’t compromise
With someone inferior that you know this is not the way to go then you socialize other states so the leading state is the teacher the rest are students and your objective is to socialize them and you don’t put yourself in their shoes you don’t make you know you don’t meet them
Halfway um so the so diplomacy to a large extent becomes about uh um how you can um uh yeah create incentives for them to change their internal governance uh you know if if they or for example NATO experience with the Russians if they do well if they do as they’re told then
They can attend our meetings uh so we have this Russia NATO Council and there was Russians could never negotiate anything on the agenda but and as soon as there was any conflicts we wouldn’t use those institutions to resolve them like we had in conflict with in Over
Georgia in 2008 Instead at those times we just spend uh cooperation those institutions because we want to punish them that’s another thing if the student behaves badly they have to be punished if they behave well they’re rewarded and we use the institutions to punish or reward but we don’t use them to what
What diplomacy is supposed to be all about so I think most of a lot of the world is has grown very tired of this which is why you see you know even American Allies in the Arab worlds or India and all it’s very hard to convince
Them that they should sign up for this unipolar order is pretty much just the Europeans who signed up yeah okay I want to um kind of finish uh talking about liberalism um and I want to talk about the content of liberalism and whether there’s a crisis in liberalism in what’s
Going on um and then we want I want to talk about naal and specifically Russian liberalism because you have a you have a an argument about that that I think is totally essential and I want people to hear it um so you know we’ve been calling it it has
Been called the liberal World Order liberal H I don’t know what what’s your favorite term but it’s you know it’s at least professed liberal values and has preached liberal values and has promised to deliver liberalism to other countries right now what is the content of that
What has it been I mean it’s been called democracy it’s been called you know the the the rights that we have in the Bill of Rights um but I mean obviously it’s been a sham for the most part we know this I mean no democracy was brought to Iraq or
Anywhere else really um and lots of killing instead but but I do believe that American leaders have basically believed that nonetheless I think they’ve been true believers um that’s been the problem in fact they’ve been willing to kill hundreds of millions of people for it um but is is the multi-polar world the
Multi-polar movement is it rejecting liberalism or is it just just rejecting Uncle Sam being the boss right I mean are the values of liberalism at stake here being contested or not well it’s a lot of things to unpack there I think um um oh what’s the first aspect was um
What’s the content of the the liberalism that’s being spread well well first you mentioned the many genuinely believe it and I think this was one of the problems uh in in the 1990s you had some people wanted just we this is our chance to have World dominance you know we had the
Cold War we won now we’re going to have dominance and then you had those who wanted a different world where humanitarian values should be elevated so you had this you know the liberal ideas as well as their very much uh more harder realist thinking and it’s it was
Kind of like a marriage of convenience between the Liberals and the and the imperialists if you will and you know they kind of had the same goals if you think if you think the hedge money will deliver liberalism uh I think that the world has rejected for two main reasons one is
That liberalism applied within the United States and within the West hasn’t really been working the way it was supposed to because uh uh you know you can look at political liberalism or economic liberalism in political liberalism uh yeah the individual comes first uh it’s based on reason um and we
Again this also based to a large extent on the slogans of you know the French Revolution you know Liberty equality and fraternity uh however liberalism has to be always balanced you know human beings are a social animal so in the French Revolution they had this three phrases fraternity or Brotherhood that was the
Last one we we tend to leave that one out because um you you can’t just have radical individualism because that dissolves effectively the group uh and um it can create um uh yeah unravel a lot of the societal structure but I guess yeah but in terms of economic liberalism this has also
Been um right a difficult aspect I mean these days we kind of reinvented ideas of Adam Smith suggesting you know that the government had to get out of the way but this was more of a neoliberal IDE ideas which really emerged in the 1970s because um uh traditionally economic liberalism it
Needs some some intervention at some point because over time uh there will be a concentration of wealth even even the foremost spokes per people of economic liberalism if you have uh David Ricardo and others other they also recognize over time there will be more and more concentration of wealth and you’re not
Going to be able to have democracy so at some point you have to uh have some uh distribution of wealth as well but uh it kind of goes without saying if the US has this powerful oligarchs people are not saying oh Zuckerberg is trying to undermine democracy but our other
Oligarchs like Elon Musk he’s saving it if this is what democracy depends on which oligarchs are in control uh you know it’s not going to be a very stable or good future so I think um the excesses of liberalism I think has been turned off by much of the world but in
Terms of embracing individualism and yeah uh and Recon I think I think much of the world has become very liberal so I wouldn’t dismiss what the you know the French Revolution American Revolution contributed to to in terms of delivering on political realism but in terms of ruling the world I think
Uh um yeah you use the both phrase liberal hedgemon yes that’s a hedgemon advancing liberalism but the liberal or the rules based International order this is something that much of the world despises and we don’t always understand it in the west because you know when we say rules based International order we
Use it as a synonym for international law but these are two very different things after World War II this is when we got the UN Charter which represents International laws based on the idea of sovereign equality Mutual constraint after the Cold War uh that’s when we began to advance these ideas of
Rules-based international order which affectively means you’re adding humanitarian values on top of it but then you create contradictory uh possible policies for example let’s say well a common example is Kosovo what happened there we said well Kosovo has to be able to embrace self-determination so they have to break apart from Serbia
So self-determination comes at expense of territorial Integrity well how about Crimea no no no that’s we can’t have self-determination there there we need to keep territorial Integrity of Ukraine so and we see this over and over again the the principle chosen are always rooted in power politics but we created
A dual system sometimes we ignore s sovereignty sometimes it’s the most important thing and uh who gets to the side well the US and his allies and this is why the rest of the world says well what are these rules in the rules based International order and they effectively
Yeah began to reject it because there is no room book yeah um so I’m guessing that in Russia for many maybe most Russians and certainly the government in Russia they view liberalism as um a subversive movement led by the West I mean that’s it’s like a it’s I mean
Seems to me they see it primarily and this is I think quite rational they see it primarily simply as just an attack on their sovereignty you know that’s Li what they what the West says is liberalism is really just the CIA trying to take us down um and this is you know
This came up with the death of Nal um which um I mean I just I don’t understand how people can view the way I don’t understand how damn near everybody in the west sees it the way that they do because if um a some American guy was working with the
Russian government inside the United States trying to win elective office try to become mayor of New York City and then president of the United States and was getting money and support and funds and and agents and to help him I mean we might not kill him but he sure as hell
Would be in prison forever so it’s just baffling to me but you made a really important argument um about the nature of the movement naalii LED in Russia sort of the the I don’t know liberal opposition which kind of had a brief moment there and ENT
Ially has died but you know 10 15 years ago navali was getting some numbers there was like a significant maybe 10 to 20% of Moscow population was kind of pro-liberal um Pro West um but what what is the nature of liberalism in Russia and should the would should the state be
Concerned about it or should it you know because we’re saying here oh he’s just a li he’s just talking about freedom of speech uh we would never harm him that is no threat to America we we tolerate ideas navali wasn’t just speaking about ideas right and the liberal the liberal
Movement in Russia was not just about Freedom was it no uh well the liberalism and Nal well those well there is overlapping but of course not the completely same but Russia’s always it’s it’s always when when it’s moved towards liberalism it’s always had to take a step back when ends up in a
War or conflict with with the West now even you know Katherine the Great you know she was very much Pro well eager in terms of implementing French liberalism uh until the French Revolution when you saw when you know began becoming revolutionary cutting people head off these kind of things
That’s when she turned a bit cold on it h but but overall I think was um the way it was introduced in Russia because after the after the defeated Napoleon it was those soldier who had been exposed to it if you will as they took Paris who
Came back who staged attempted to Stage a coup in the decemberist revolution in 1825 so they was introduced in Russia almost yeah in terms of regime change not gradual reforms but regime change and this kind of became the Legacy because if you saw ever since um the
Liberals were kind of often seen as uh some traitors and for a good reason actually because they often favored willing to sell out their own Country and this has been one of the challenges of Russia have they need liberal Patriots and interestingly over the past 10 years this is something that’s
Emerged and this isn’t this is rather new but I don’t want to throw that term around without substantiating it because this is this has always been the issue uh you know some Russians said you know nap polean should invaded we would have been a better country this is kind of
Been a theme for some so it’s very you know it’s a bit wrong uh but also during when when they had a war with Japan in 190 five this was also when some liberals would write to the emperor in in Japan and wish him good luck invading Russia you know so they
Did this kind of stuff there was very very treasonous but also they led to bad things because keep in mind that before the Bolshevik Revolution you had the the Democratic revolution in which uh in 1905 as well when they kind of sweeped uh away a lot of the old uh
System without having something solid in place and this opened the door for the the bul revolutions uh well shortly thereafter and uh so you often see liberals behaving quite weird so just one example the foreign minister of of Boris yelen Andre kosev uh do you know where he lives now the foreign
Minister Russia oh he moved to America he took American citizenship now he lives in Miami if you go to his if you go to his Twitter profile this is a foreign minister Russia he spends most of his time tweeting about how America should send more weapons and missiles to
Kill Russians this was a foreign minister very liberal and this is kind of the problem they imagine an American foreign minister moving to Russia or China calling for killing Americans it would be obscene but this is kind of the direction they go and so this has been a
Key issue and of course whenever there’s someone they can sell as a liberal to destabilize Russia uh the West often jumps on it because you know we don’t want of course we would like Russia to democratize more but but we also want to destabilize it and weaken it so we have
A conflicting interest and this is the deal with Naval as well he’s uh he’s been he was reinvented as a very liberal person but this is also the guy who called all the Muslims in Russia cockroaches and you know extremely ethn nationalist um and again this is not the you know
One doesn’t want to speak ill of the dead it’s very it’s it’s often a tragedy and I also make the point that Russians should ask very critical questions if a if a political leader if you will was um dies in prison uh but that being said his popularity in Russia came often from
Um from um he he did the he did investigation of corruption and he was a blogger this made him very popular well with that popularity he got political aspiration uh political aspirations and if you read the paper such as the the Rand paper for uh what’s
It called uh um Iran paper it’s pretty much a intelligence agency think tanks in America and they wrote a report for for the US Army yeah ran the they wrote aort exhausting Russia or no extending Russ extending Russia they even mentioned naal by name many times the report is mainly about how to
Destabilize Russian borders but it’s also how to destabilize internally and they write about having to finding someone who can be popular ideally fighting corruption someone like naal but we can’t work directly with him someone like naal and his name keeps popping up because that will discredit
Him so it’s just um it was very much in face so as as when he took political aspirations and kind of the West began to reinvent him as this wonderful Democrat uh he yeah he he lost a lot of the popularity which is why I find her OB
Seene now watching you know Michael McFall for example the former American ambassador to Moscow saying that he was the main opposition leader like no he was not this is just is is factually wrong he had like one or two% approval uh the main opposition party is the
Communist party you know I’m not a Marxist I don’t want the Communist to come to party but I should to power but I still you still have to relate to objective reality they are the main opposition then you have many other political parties naal is not on this
List and just one last funny thing because I saw it in the media today uh the because now as soon as he died in prison all Western leaders said Putin killed him Putin killed him a lot of this sanctions today uh in the Ukrainian media budanov which is the head of
Ukrainian intelligence Services he wrote well he said in an interview that no I’m sorry to disappoint you but uh from what we understand he died of a blood what do you call blood clot yeah so he did not he was not killed by Putin and this is this is the
Ukrainian head of the intelligence so this is uh you know I’m not saying he’s he’s he’s correct you know like yeah yeah I’m not sure why he’s saying it but but anyways it just is it just shows people shouldn’t get carried away too fast you know ask for evidence if oh
Yeah if you know if we’re still looking for who killed Epstein but we knew the second Nal died who did it perhaps you know it’s a narrative and not reality that’s my point yeah I mean I’m not even talking about who killed him I’m just talking about his General persecution by
The Russian government so the typical and this gets to the heart of the problem it kind of circles back which is good um you know Americans look at this and they hear oh naali was he was a traitor against a but against an authoritarian corrupt government and he
Wanted to bring some Western liberal values and freedoms to Russia and he was persecuted prosecuted and possibly killed by the government for that I mean they’re going to say oh well we should support that guy and we should support people like him and we should maybe send
Even guns to them if they want right so what’s because there’s nothing there’s nothing but virtue in that story on his part so why why would a realist like you or me or whoever take a different position and what is the position what would you say to an American like
That well I I think it’s a it’s uh if if you want to develop to allow Russia to improve its democracy because they have a lot of flaws in the Democracy uh let let the Russians do it I mean because every time we there’s a someone on the
Liberal side coming up immediately we we throw our weight behind it but we have a very you know sneaky motivations I mean this is what happened with uh you know W guo in in Venezuela you know we name our own favorite opposition and then use it to weaken Venezuela also in bellarus uh
I also forget her last name sitlana Sova something along those lines anyways she she’s she’s um you know the the naval if you will of uh of Belarus but she’s praded around Western capitals like the the real leader of Belarus and meanwhile she’s standing there going to all these military conferences calling
For sanctions on her own country and it’s it’s just um this is not the they they should let these countries develop uh on on their own and if you look at Russia’s history experience with liberalism you know it’s especially through the 19th century and well you see that they’re making
Progress and then they end up in a tensions and conflict with the west and then they have to scale it all back so just um you know the one has to the Russians came with this Prince concept of sovereign democracy which is you can’t be a democracy unless you’re Sovereign so all
This American state financed NOS who are pushed in we call them ngos but they’re that stands for non-governmental but they’re all 100% funded by the US government when they come in uh to organize the Civil Society of other countries uh it’s it’s it’s not it can’t be democracy if you have U other
Countries trying to elect your leaders this is something India is also pushing back against they don’t want all of this so they they they see it as a Corruption of their democracy and uh I think it goes a little bit back to what you said is a paternal idea that the only way
Other countries can develop democracy is if we do it for them I think it’s uh undermining Democratic development and um it’s a yeah it’s a great shame yeah it’s one thing to give your vocal support to someone like navali in another country but to have your government assist him materially in
Leading I think you’ve called it a revolution a revolutionary movement liberalism in Russia certainly takes that yeah I think that’s what the Russian government was more worried about because he not um he’s not able to get any votes but the ability to you know organ riots create a maidan like
The regime operation in Ukraine I think this is the problem and also when new columnist great the de Democrat we don’t show the videos on because he’s been caught his his right hand I forgot his name aradi something he he was caught on a tape in Moscow where he’s he’s effectively talking to
The to to a British official Russia said it was FSB but anyways where then the right hand of Naval is trying to ask for money hey give us milon and give us some intelligence you have that can be used against the government we this is good investment we
Can weaken you know this government uh destabilize the country for you so you know these are Imagine remember in the United States when there was false allegation that Trump had colluded with Russia how everyone lost their mind yeah you know that was a fake story all of
These stories are real this is the United States corrupting and interfering in its Democratic process this is uh what have to appreciate put yourself in the shoes of the other side how how would the United States react you know this is um but again you’re not allowed to
Critic come with objective facts because then say oh he’s degrading naal you know no I don’t stepping on anyone’s uh grave or anything I’m just saying this is you you have to be able to yeah State what’s objectively true right and it’s what and it’s it’s got him imprisoned and maybe
Killed was his relationship with the United States and the and the British I mean so if we had stayed out of it he probably would have lived actually if he had just led a liberal movement in Russia I know a lot of Putin haters will not believe this but I think it’s true
Um if he had if he had gained a mass following there might have been some crackdowns for sure but at this point with you know five percent or less there I’m sure they would let him go if he’s truly just a Russian um individual right so well because I I think he had
Important societal function if he was exposing corruption among the government you know Wonderful corruption is not good for Russia it’s not good for the country yeah the it’s good that it’s emerging but if you see someone popping up in Russia becoming popular because exposing democracy and he first thought
Is wow I can use this guy to to weaken the government and challenge its legitimacy you you’re you’re weaponizing the opposition you’re not allowing political pluralism to manifest itself in a in a peace way and this is uh so this is my this is my main concern and
Uh again usually I’m opposed by people who call themselves you know Democrats the ones who wants to advance democracy yet they’re the ones stepping all over it I we have this same in this country in Norway we have whenever you have protesters in Russia begin throwing
Stuff at cops or something it’s like yay I support those guys but we would never approve of that in our country so why why are we advocating violence against police officers it’s just right and then of course Russians seiz the news they see our political leaders chairing on
The people are committing violence and illegal acts so it’s just no it’s um we’re not helping anyone that’s my point okay last question um and neither one of us is in the business of making predictions and maybe we shouldn’t but I I do think those of us who study this stuff I
Do think we should be offering some some looks ahead for what we might expect I mean I unfortunately I’m quite pessimistic I mean I do see I see the multi-polar world eventually winning I do see United States ending its position as the hedgemon I don’t know when how
Long that’ll take um but what I’m growing increasingly sure of and this is it’s even hard to say because it’s so terrifying I mean they’re not giving up the political class is not giving up its Mission um and in this country and as I said the Americans are so ignorant no
One’s going to stop them they’re not going down out without a fight that seems very clear to me um and I just see lots more war um as this new order emerges to replace the old one what do you think well that’s the point we’re at
This is why this point in history is so so very dangerous because the US has effectively two options it can either help to facilitate the multipolar world and take a you know try to take a key role in this to be the first among equals if you will or he can try to
Oppose this but that would put them in direct conflict not just with Russia but now Iran and possibly China as well and this is seemingly the the direction they’re going because you know planning Wars against everyone now and uh again I think this is why because so much at
Stake um you know choosing the entire world order we’re going to live all under restore unipolarity under us leadership or go to multipolarity given there’s so much at stake at stake this is why they’re willing to risk so much uh you know we could be at the brink of
Nuclear war and we still don’t yeah seem to be taking very crazy risks for example uh you know a year ago or so uh Biden he made this point that oh we can’t send f-16s because that would trigger World War III and now uh a week
Or ago ago you had the NATO Secretary General Yan Stenberg stoltenberg not only sending f-16s but he said we’ve greenlighted that this can be used to deep inside Russia so now we might have American f-16s you know bombing Russian cities we already had American cluster ammunition illegal ammunition being used
Against civilian targets against Russian cities and um you know when people they they they brush this off and they say well you know it’s just uh we’re just supplying weapons to them to defend themselves but what if what if the Russians or Chinese gave weapons to to Venezuela to strike deep inside Russian
American territory and furthermore there was an article yesterday in the New York Times I’m not sure if you saw it this is a it’s about how the CIA helped Ukraine and they point out on the eve of the of the of the coup in Ukraine that is on the 24th of of February
2014 that’s when interesting date it’s the same date that Russian eight years later but anyways this was after the American uh and the many of the European countries had supported the coup uh on the same day the new government which you know through Le phone calls we know
Was uh uh largely installed by the United States they picked who should be in the government and who shouldn’t anyways on the same day yanukovich had to flee the country uh the new government has a the post government has a new security Chief intelligence Chief and he comes into the building on the
First day of the coup and uh yeah the New York po New York Times right the first thing he did was that to call uh the CIA and MI6 and suggest a trilateral agreement uh in which they all work together and after this the United States began to develop secret CIA began
To develop the secret bases all along the Russian uh border where they began to intercept all the communication they went in and captured drones uh to reverse engineer it and effectively beginning the war right after the coup uh and but still uh how how how did it
Go this far I mean it’s this is my point I think all rules have been thrown out the window because there’s so much at stake and now we are you know the United States is providing the intelligence the weapons uh the targeting everything it’s pretty much War now fought between us and
Russia but you know fighting with ukrainians it’s um you know a lot can go wrong anytime so and this is just the US we’re doing going the same direction now in the Middle East Iran will be a horrible mess and China I mean the idea
Of going to war with China the fact that we’ve been talking about this is is a huge mistake the Chinese are not preparing because we’re talking very openly about going to war against them we see what uh NATO has done with Russia and they know that they would be next on
The Chopping Block if Russia Falls so it’s um it’s a it’s a terrible mess we got oursel into and I’m not sure how to get out of this so no no no good recommendations I’m afraid except perhaps uh people you come to some common sense and stop treating diplomacy
And negotiations as naughty words if it was up to me I would have some diplomats fly to Moscow and say you know let’s talk about neutrality for Ukraine you know it’s not about giving Ukraine over to Russia it’s you know people say Ukraine show freedom to what it wants to
Do but I say you know Ukraine needs to have the same freedoms as Mexico Mexico can partners with whomever it wants but Mexico does not have the freedom to join uh Chinese or mil or Russian military Alliance and put its bases on America’s borders he doesn’t have that freedom and
Uh you know it’s quite reasonable to give these basic security guarantees to the Russians if that could be done I think the Russians would uh you know be able to compromise on much other things but neutrality is the one thing we’ll never negotiate on because the can’t you
Know live the way they lived the last 10 years yep so much is at stake I mean I’m really fearing that we’re entering a new a new era that might look like the middle of the 20th century um but maybe not um because you’re writing books and you’re on podcasts and you’re speaking
And there’s other people doing it too and I noticed I mean I think your audience is growing I’ve noticed more and more people I think are watching your videos and I I don’t know about your books but you know it’s this is really there is a change to some degree
In the the way people are thinking among some people and we might become a significant enough minority to actually change some minds and maybe bring a little World Peace So Glenn De thank you very very much for all the work you do and thank you for coming on this
Show thank you so much and uh yeah just like say I agree with your sentiment I think uh what people should start to question the people perhaps the people who say you know uh yeah weapons are the only path to peace negotiations and diplomacy is dangerous and you know censor everyone
Who disagrees with us maybe these are not the good guys with the moral High Ground right that would be my advice so anyways thank you so much again I appreciate having me thank you this is the unregistered podcast and I’m Thaddius Russell to become a patron
Of the show and have access to bonus episodes amas and the unreported News analysis show go to patreon.com unregister thanks for listening B
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