Making Sense - Sam Harris - #275 — The Russian War in Ukraine

Today's episode is a conversation first had on Zoom for podcast subscribers with chess grandmaster, former chess player, and current advocate for democracy and Western liberal values, Gary Kasparov. We discuss the legacy of Vladimir Putin, the role of China in the Ukraine conflict, and the larger implications for the defense of the Western liberal order in a useful and all too timely conversation and I think you'll find the conversation useful. If you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming a patron of the project, which is made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. We don't run ads on the podcast and therefore, therefore, it's made possible by the support from our subscribers, we can't run the podcast without their support. To access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at makingsense.org, where you'll get access to all kinds of premium premium features, including ad-free premium features and special features, and access to our most up-to-date news and features. You'll also get the latest in our most popular podcasts, including our most listened-to episodes of Making Sense, wherever you get your news and information. The Making Sense podcast. Thanks for listening to the podcast, and remember that you're listening to Making Sense. Sincerely, Sam Harris. Make sense. -- Jon Jon Parris . Music: "Make Sense" by Ian Dorsch "Goodbye Outer Space Traveler" by Sullivans "Space Traveler (featuring: The Lonely Planet) -- "The Lonely Planet" by John McDart "Outro" by Fountains "Outer Space" by Ferell "The Good Fight" by Pylawn "Space Junk" by The Good Fight by Svetsky "Space Truck" by Cairo Bronson "Good Morning America" by Kuznet by Joseph McDart "AstroTurk" by Jeff Perla "The Badger" by Ayn Rand & "Mr. by Pynchon is out there's a song written by Robert Fjell "A Good Morning by John Singleton "The Best Thing" by Robert Baden "The Great War" by Billie by Ian McKee (feat. ) - , on Epitaph

00:00:00.000 welcome to the making sense podcast this is sam harris just a note to say that if you're hearing

00:00:12.500 this you are not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing the first part

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00:00:36.540 what we're doing here please consider becoming one no housekeeping today we will jump right into it

00:00:49.380 today's episode is a conversation first had on zoom for podcast subscribers

00:00:56.440 with gary kasparov who perhaps needs no introduction he's been on the podcast before

00:01:04.460 one of the greatest chess players of all time world champion for many years but in his more

00:01:11.000 recent incarnation he has been a tireless advocate for democracy and western liberal values in his

00:01:19.420 home country of russia and as you might imagine he now has much to say about putin's war of aggression

00:01:25.600 in ukraine so we really cover the whole topic we talk about how we got here what the perception of

00:01:34.400 the war is inside of russia the allegation that u.s and eu foreign policy is to blame that nato

00:01:41.500 expansion has been too threatening we talk about the perception of american weakness and how that might

00:01:48.960 have provoked putin we notice in passing the otherwise unimaginable republican support for putin

00:01:56.900 we talk about the sanctions regime and how effective that may be the extent to which putin miscalculated

00:02:07.060 in this war whether he might be the victim of a popular uprising whether the u.s and the eu should impose

00:02:15.620 a no-fly zone over ukraine or insist upon regime change in russia and if we do either or both of those things

00:02:24.720 how we can avoid world war three we talk about the role of china in all this and discuss the larger implications

00:02:33.540 for the defense of the western liberal order anyway a useful and all too timely conversation i think i may do some

00:02:41.120 more of these live on zoom because you all seem to like that and i hope you find the conversation useful

00:02:46.840 and now i bring you gary kasparov

00:02:50.260 all right uh well just to remind everybody this is a uh a live recording of a podcast so this is

00:03:02.940 an opportunity for all of you to just uh watch us record a podcast and and i'm very happy that you're

00:03:08.480 joining us uh and i'm especially thankful to you gary for taking the time to uh have this conversation

00:03:15.080 with us because i know you're inundated with um demands on your time here it's um you know many

00:03:21.000 people know you as the um one of the greatest chess grandmasters who's ever lived and um it's always

00:03:28.760 fun to talk about that but we've got um other priorities now maybe remind us how you come to

00:03:35.280 have such strong opinions on the topic we're going to touch today i mean you've for years have been

00:03:40.620 politically active in and outside of russia and a great advocate for democracy and and western

00:03:47.020 liberal values and you're working now with the renewed democracy initiative and and other orgs

00:03:52.600 just tell us what you're doing on this front i grew up in the soviet union and i had my own experience

00:03:58.980 living in an unfree country and uh dealing with kgb that's as every other soviet citizen and of course 0.98

00:04:07.160 as uh being a chess prodigy and uh and a top grandmaster and eventually world champion so i was

00:04:14.720 under very um special attention of party officials and and kgb operatives and when i saw vladimir putin

00:04:24.800 taking over at the end of 99 year 99 so uh i i have to say i was stunned because during these glorious

00:04:35.860 days of august revolution in the soviet union august 1991 when the jubilant crowds toppled the statue of

00:04:45.340 the kgb founder felix derzhinsky at lubanka square in moscow i don't believe anybody could bet

00:04:51.400 one to million that in less than nine years kgb lieutenant colonel would be in charge of russian affairs

00:04:59.860 again and it was not just about a kgb officer vladimir putin was quite frank explaining his views of the

00:05:10.320 world even before he became president of russia being a prime minister and as an apparent heir apparent

00:05:19.620 of boris yeltsin he spoke uh at the gathering of kgb officers in the headquarters which was

00:05:27.560 televised and he said there were no former kgb officers one kgb always kgb he never tried to hide his

00:05:39.600 uh uh sympathies uh for the soviet union it's his famous phrase repeated many times the collapse of the

00:05:47.060 soviet union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of 20th century the first thing he did as a president of 0.98

00:05:52.760 russia it's a restoration of soviet national anthem and of course the war in chechnya uh carpet bombing of

00:06:00.560 grozdy and other chechen towns and villages uh very mysterious explosions of apartment blocks in moscow and

00:06:08.120 other uh russian cities as a pretext for the for this war i didn't know what could have happened

00:06:14.620 but i knew that the guy could be a great danger for the world if given the chance and every time you know

00:06:22.340 he did something that you know was a warning signal to me i tried to communicate my my concern

00:06:28.760 to the rest of the world and uh i think that's it's it was it was it was more than enough to listen

00:06:37.580 to vladimir putin in person if nobody cared what gary kasparov or boris nemtsov said about putin

00:06:45.000 and repeatedly said putin was our problem but at one point it would be everybody's problem but putin

00:06:50.800 himself at certain point decided that he could express his views about the future of our planet

00:06:57.320 in public 15 years ago in munich at security conference in europe he talked openly to the

00:07:03.600 world leaders about what he called spheres of influence returning to not even the 20th century

00:07:10.980 to the 19th century where the big countries big guys as he said would be in charge of all affairs

00:07:18.420 and will dictate uh to smaller countries how to behave and he believed that russia

00:07:26.740 under his command was entitled to control not just former soviet union but eastern europe it was

00:07:33.920 within russia's heritage rights and every time that he did something to materialize his views like

00:07:42.160 attacking the republic of georgia in 2008 or annexing crimea in 2014 i thought that the world would wake

00:07:49.300 up because he did it and unfortunately nothing happened so basically we are now in this in this

00:07:56.320 tragic situation uh and ukrainians are paying with their blood every every not day every second as we 0.94

00:08:03.480 speak it's because for so many years nobody wanted to take this threat seriously we read history books

00:08:11.200 about 1930s and many of us i guess as myself were surprised how come that nobody could see the danger

00:08:18.080 coming from hitler because in 1933 was one story 34 is another story 35 36 37 but when i mentioned

00:08:26.340 hitler or just german berlin olympic games in 1936 compare them to 2014 sochi games i was ostracized by

00:08:35.740 international media saying how could you compare anyone to adult hitler and i said look right hitler

00:08:41.340 hitler is a monster with no comparison but it's hitler of 1941 42 and onward but in 1936 just read your

00:08:49.040 newspapers american canadian german french british and he was treated differently so again dictators never

00:08:57.880 ask why so is why not and putin attacked ukraine now because he believed that he could get away

00:09:04.960 with this crime as he did many times in the past and vis-a-vis ukraine putin said many times also we

00:09:12.160 just you know again you don't have to uh take my word ukraine was not a real state according to

00:09:17.500 he believed that ukraine basically belonged to russia and could be split between russia maybe poland

00:09:23.600 hungary and ukraine for him was something like poland for stalin an obstacle on the way for their

00:09:31.780 geopolitical plans so what do you say to people who you you hear from now both on the left and the

00:09:39.400 right in in certainly in american politics that there's been something provocative about

00:09:44.500 u.s and eu foreign policy that nato expansion is really the reason why putin has done this that

00:09:52.620 there's you have to sort of see it from his side and and sympathize with his security concerns

00:09:58.040 uh we're hearing a fair amount about this and there are other i guess you might even just run

00:10:03.740 through some recent presidents and just how their dithering has enabled putin's sense that he could

00:10:11.780 do this right i mean there's been something provocative about american weakness too so i wonder

00:10:17.660 i guess i've asked you two questions there i mean what's the role played by nato and nato expansion

00:10:22.980 and what's the role played by just the perception of american and european weakness and internal

00:10:29.300 division i think we're dealing with two separate questions so one is more strategic one is more

00:10:36.340 tactical so i use the chess metaphors so i'm always reluctant to use chess metaphors discussing

00:10:42.120 putin i prefer poker but in this case let's start with this the argument about nato expansion and

00:10:48.680 the provocative foreign policy of nato you didn't you said did i hear you say eu european union

00:10:54.720 provocative politics right it's the it's a it's a toothless organization that you know just that's

00:11:00.740 they buy a lot of gas shadow but it's this uh but it's good because that's that's that's the way

00:11:05.760 that this that's it's everything's been mixed it's like a salad oh it's nato eu i mean all sorts of

00:11:12.160 the guys that are trying to attack mother russia that's that's a classical russian propaganda

00:11:16.300 unfortunately parroted by people on the right and on the left yeah some of them are on the payroll 0.99

00:11:21.520 some of them are useful idiots but these arguments you know this could be discussed before putin's 0.98

00:11:26.640 invasion of ukraine now looking at the war crimes on an industrial scale i hope some of these people 0.99

00:11:34.120 should now recognize that they were not just wrong they were dead wrong and by and and their

00:11:39.240 their attempts maybe genuine attempts to spread the blame it emboldened putin to to move beyond

00:11:49.980 imaginable because so many times we heard no putin would never do that the long of the list of things

00:11:55.840 that putin would never done because it's so bad i mean it's too long and uh now i think everybody

00:12:02.900 recognizes that the man cannot be stopped until he's stopped and uh same people who said he would

00:12:09.720 never do that now they are seriously disgusting whether you can use nukes now speaking about this

00:12:14.840 so-called concerns i don't think we can blame paul's or lithuanians or estonians or latvians

00:12:22.380 who rushed to nato because they had an experience a genetic memory of being occupied the price they paid

00:12:30.620 for soviet occupation was too high i mean just to blame them or for their desire to join nato

00:12:39.680 and to hide under under american nuclear umbrella now speaking about threat to russia estonia latvia

00:12:48.060 lithuania the three baltic states they joined nato officially in 2003 the distance between estonia and

00:12:54.660 st petersburg is about 150 miles i never heard about any threat coming from estonia or latvia

00:13:00.100 or lithuania or even poland to russia it's about russia it's about russian aggressive wars

00:13:06.800 and and open threats to to the neighboring countries that we we reached the the this is this climax

00:13:13.900 now speaking about american aggressive policy they clinton bush bush bush 43 obama trump biden i'm not

00:13:25.580 here just debating their the political views but until very recently it was concession after concession

00:13:31.720 and i think that's if we if we try to understand putin's rationale if you may call it rationale for

00:13:40.400 attacking ukraine it's not nato strengths but it's a weakness it's it's lack of american leadership

00:13:48.400 and his belief that he could get away with direct assault on ukraine de facto if not the uri liquidation

00:13:56.420 of an independent nation and um in installment of a puppet government and continuation of his uh imperial

00:14:05.380 policy policies beyond russian border or even beyond former soviet union let's not forget you know this

00:14:12.180 says putin had other call it foreign adventures what about syria so this is i don't think there's the

00:14:17.840 there's any any argument about syrian rebels threatening russia but russian planes carpet bombed aleppo

00:14:25.680 gary do you share the view that putin significantly miscalculated how the west would respond and just how world

00:14:34.300 opinion would turn against this war so quickly uh yes and no i mean it's he made mistakes in his

00:14:40.660 calculations but it's it's probably not so much about western response immediate response because

00:14:47.000 he had a simple plan the way i see it and what i read from russian propaganda machine and putin by the

00:14:52.820 way he has been building his military presence around ukraine for quite a while unlike the dictators

00:14:59.500 of the past that tried to hide their plans putin was quite open about it he even brought part of his

00:15:06.640 pacific fleet to the black sea last time i looked at the map it's quite a distance and he surrounded

00:15:12.300 ukraine from east russia south crimea and also from belarus from the north so the ukraine was surrounded

00:15:21.260 and he had russian fleet in the black sea ready to to to shell ukrainian ukrainian infrastructure

00:15:28.320 and last year there was an argument that putin did it all for blackmail he wanted to squeeze

00:15:37.000 concessions out of ukraine maybe but i think that is just you know after he met president biden in

00:15:43.000 geneva we all remember the summit and the summit was according to american administration all about

00:15:48.680 ukraine and and biden and his team said that they looked at putin put straight in putin's eyes and said

00:15:55.940 forget about it if you do it will impose sanctions just that's beyond your imagination i don't think

00:16:02.680 putin believed him it's just you know there was um as we were told some decrease of the tension

00:16:08.720 around around ukraine but putin hasn't removed his troops so he looked around so just and and then he

00:16:16.160 continued his buildup then it was a one call between biden and putin same result then the third call

00:16:22.540 i think that is this is what putin read putin's reading of his calls was america was not ready

00:16:28.780 was not ready to oppose him uh decisively and also while american intelligence it's not me and it's u.s

00:16:38.100 intelligence and biden is not trump trump didn't trust american intelligence biden did

00:16:42.200 kept repeating over few last few months attack was imminent the question is why if attack was imminent

00:16:49.620 ukraine received no military support that could inflict great much greater damages to to russian troops

00:16:57.780 especially to russian warships and russian plates so um why do you think that is what why didn't we

00:17:04.260 support them earlier i i think that because uh biden administration played a game again either we say

00:17:12.600 on many chess boards or on or if we use poker analogy on many tables united states uh viewed russia as a

00:17:19.380 partner in climate change talks you have to listen to john carey who even mentioned the climate change

00:17:24.880 change uh change talks after putin's attack on ukraine but more importantly on iran i think it's it's it's

00:17:32.940 some sort of the cognitive dissonance to to have russia as a part of the iranian deal which is as we

00:17:39.480 are being as we're being told to prevent iran from getting nuclear and russia has to stockpile

00:17:45.300 enriched uranium from iran and and and russia today is is is is a country that is openly threatening to 0.82

00:17:53.900 use nukes in in conventional conflict so yeah i think that's the u.s administration tried to

00:18:01.260 separate these issues and putin saw nothing but weakness so he could downplay americans warnings about

00:18:09.060 ukraine because he could always negotiate and he's quite good give him credit he's very good in

00:18:13.660 negotiating and uh shifting these bargaining chips on the on the on this table of geopolitical casino

00:18:19.620 it's poker he's a he's a great poker player who used to bluff and to win because even if he had a

00:18:25.620 weak hand he raised the stake so high that opponents always folded the cards can you generalize about the

00:18:32.000 perception of the war inside of russia or is that is it just i mean i guess the question is how effective

00:18:38.520 do you think the propaganda is domestically in russia oh uh it's a question it's not just about

00:18:46.360 information that's available or not available in russia because putin now is closing every

00:18:52.080 every hole that you know that's that's we could use to to send messages to to russian people the

00:18:58.660 internet is still functioning there but you know facebook is now is is is a band twitter now youtube is

00:19:05.300 just you know it's slowing down so there are very few channels left for information to travel

00:19:10.060 back to russia because the the the pictures from ukraine they are very different from what what

00:19:16.600 was expected and i think now this is talking about information war so the putin is losing it because

00:19:23.160 his main plan to take over ukraine failed miserably no doubt that he wanted to and he believed he could

00:19:30.800 to take over kiev within next within two three days after beginning of of his advance since the the

00:19:39.980 distance to kiev from belarus was very uh it's much shorter than from from russia and he thought that

00:19:46.260 the moment he takes over kiev zelensky is on the run ukrainian government is paralyzed or just you

00:19:51.180 know it's it's it's it's gone the infrastructure is is military infrastructure is is broken and

00:19:58.580 his puppet is sitting in kiev as the newly um proclaimed leader of ukraine maybe victor yanukovych

00:20:07.560 the deposed president who was hiding in russia after he was kicked out from ukraine in 2014

00:20:12.380 and he expected and not without a reason that the free world would be talking to him and we'll hear

00:20:18.900 so many pragmatists saying oh it's a new geopolitical reality the same way they told us about this after

00:20:25.140 crimea oh it was it was just you know it was bad but we had now a new choice but to accommodate

00:20:31.980 putin because what else we can do so this is classic you know this nothing is being done and

00:20:37.760 eventually say it's it's too late for anything so nothing can be done now and the failure to take

00:20:43.080 over kiev and to break stiff ukraine resistance in kiev and kharkiv and other other major cities

00:20:49.600 i think led to the change of the strategy and and bombardment of ukrainian cities in the first three

00:20:54.780 days they tried to avoid direct hits the campaign was very different they it's obviously they they

00:21:01.060 hit occasionally few buildings but it was very clear that they they had an order to avoid civilian 0.97

00:21:06.100 casualties because putin wanted to present the story of liberation of ukraine only when he failed in

00:21:11.120 kiev they changed it and now this is they they try to bombard ukraine into submission same way they did 0.80

00:21:16.620 in grozny in 2000 or in aleppo in 2015 and i think the information actually is is is traveling to

00:21:22.940 russia even even through this putin's information bubble one of the reasons massive russian losses

00:21:30.060 massive losses i think we can trust ukrainian sources because they they they count it's it's head it's

00:21:36.920 good headcount there are more than 11 000 soldiers being killed uh we don't know how many wounded the

00:21:41.940 reports that are finding its way through the censorship in crimea telling us about the

00:21:48.340 hospitals they are all overcrowded with russian was wounded sick and wounded so it seems that you know

00:21:54.760 the from again from various sources that i think we can trust with you know some level of confidence

00:22:03.220 that public opinion russia is is slowly shifting because you you can't deceive people all the time

00:22:12.100 it's already it's nearly two weeks we are at war and by the way now the word war is banned in russia

00:22:18.840 so this is this the new laws that have been adopted by russian puppet parliament now if you are uh

00:22:25.700 protesting is the war if you are standing in the streets of russia with with with with a poster note

00:22:31.140 note war three years in jail if you try to tell russian people using your social media account

00:22:40.400 in russia about russian losses in ukraine and about just tell anything that contradicts official version

00:22:45.800 of of events in ukraine which is called special operational war up to 15 years in prison so that

00:22:52.520 tells you that the truce is is is a mortal enemy for putin's propaganda it's this they are afraid of it

00:23:00.660 as much as vampires are are scared of of daylight and on that point do you think putin is vulnerable to

00:23:08.680 some domestic uprising at this point i mean whether it's coming from the top from oligarchs or or it's

00:23:15.300 coming from an anti-war movement lower down is what what's the prospect that we could see putin

00:23:21.760 actually unseated by this and see a complete reset of of the russian government i mean navalny coming out

00:23:29.080 of prison and etc no as for alexi i i've been saying that alexi got life in prison putin's life as long

00:23:39.000 as putin is is in kremlin alexi will be in prison the moment putin is out alexi is also out and i'm

00:23:45.020 sure you'll if he survives i mean god forbid anything horrible happens to him in putin's jail

00:23:51.480 so he will definitely play a role in very important role in in uh the future of my country but analyzing

00:23:59.220 the the probabilities of some sort of uprising and you put together all all these ingredients

00:24:05.340 oligarchs uh police army security apparatus popular uprising and political and and socio-economic

00:24:13.860 protest i think what we're seeing now it's it's quite a significant political protest when i say

00:24:21.160 significant it's it it is quite amazing and i'm i'm i'm i was very proud for tens of thousands of

00:24:29.460 people who made it to the streets of russia you say oh country of 145 million and you have what

00:24:35.360 20 30 40 000 people protesting is the war but that's not demonstration in new york or in san francisco or

00:24:41.940 in berlin or london you go to the streets protesting as a war almost guaranteed beaten arrested detained

00:24:49.540 and then you can end up in jail for many years so for people of different ages you can look at them

00:24:56.920 this is demographics is it's it's very broad to take this risk just to defend i don't know whether

00:25:03.360 they think about owner of the country or about their own feelings i i feel a shame i'm a russian citizen

00:25:09.500 when i just talk to ukrainian journalists and i do it every day i know it's tough because it's being

00:25:16.520 done it's not on my behalf i'm one of the staunchest opponents of putin from day one in his day one in

00:25:22.500 office but still it's it's russia that brought death and destruction to ukrainian soil and many 0.98

00:25:28.940 people i think you know feel the same and they just believe that they have no other choice even with a

00:25:33.620 huge risk but to show up on the streets they don't nobody's going to defend them nobody's nobody

00:25:39.340 knows their names but it's it's it's it's very personal choice but that's not something that can

00:25:44.640 shatter putin's dictatorship but if sanctions are working and i say real sanctions sanctions that

00:25:53.860 will throw russia back to the technological stone age sanctions that will be will include financial

00:26:02.120 economic technological measures also total isolation and eventual military defeat in ukraine

00:26:11.000 this combination could create an explosive mixture that could lead to a social economic protest and

00:26:20.500 that's a revolt that will bring millions of people to the streets and if putin is running out of cash

00:26:26.200 and it looks now that he is no longer in charge of the greatest fortune in the history of of of humanity

00:26:33.780 because most of the assets are frozen so how he's going to pay for his military police and propaganda

00:26:39.480 so that's why i think the chances for for massive revolt against putin within next months or two

00:26:48.040 if situation doesn't change on the ground and and the war continues more losses and the free world

00:26:55.180 stands firm united against putin might lead to internal conflict because loyalty you don't see a

00:27:04.200 possible backlash against the sanctions i mean could if the sanctions are really biting the people of

00:27:10.420 russia could they be perceived through a russian nationalist lens basically confirming that the

00:27:17.740 west is the enemy of russia and that you know putin is right to view it i hear this argument all the time

00:27:22.660 i think it's just it's it's not realistic yeah for maybe for a day maybe for a week for two weeks

00:27:28.540 they can blame the west at the end of the day you have to feed your family and and it's putin who

00:27:33.480 started the war and uh it's people have to find solution and uh free world is far away the west is far

00:27:41.560 away putin and putin's cronies are just nearby so i don't think that you know we should now worry about

00:27:48.340 about the hard economic hardship i sympathize with these people but but please don't tell me about that

00:27:55.340 when ukraine is being killed it's not about economic hardship it's it's people women children

00:28:01.460 elderly being killed as we speak now so it's time for russians to make a choice and i i wish you know

00:28:08.760 they could rise earlier and it will influence people around putin his henchmen his cronies because

00:28:16.620 they're loyal to him not because of ideology great ideas communism imperialism russian nationalism

00:28:24.280 it's a mafia state every state has its mafia but in russia mafia has its state and putin is is is

00:28:33.220 a mafia boss cabo de tutti copy and he again give him credit he built this very sophisticated system

00:28:40.560 where loyalty is just it's being changed for personal gains but people who always show loyalty to him

00:28:48.360 for personal gains for benefits i don't think they're willing to die for him whether they are just

00:28:53.740 he's you know he's from his government security apparatus or this is military that's why i'm so

00:28:59.380 adamant demanding the no-fly zone because i don't think that russian pilots will be willing to

00:29:05.280 sacrifice their lives to uh give putin a pretext to uh start a war against nata i i want to see how

00:29:12.720 many russian pilots or russian generals will follow putin's orders to enter confrontation with nata

00:29:18.800 because that's for them it's it's a suicide and i don't think that the morale in russian army in

00:29:24.760 russian political circles in security apparatus it's it's can can can resemble anything that we

00:29:31.800 witnessed in hitler germany or stalin soviet union because many old dictatorships they had this

00:29:37.500 ideological craziness and and fanaticism i don't see it in russia it's it's all about oh we can we do it

00:29:44.180 because we can do it if we cannot do it i'm not so sure that they'll be willing to to put their their

00:29:49.380 their lives at at risk well so i want to talk about the strategic logic of a no-fly zone but

00:29:56.020 one more question on sanctions what do you think about the strategy of rolling them out incrementally

00:30:02.820 the way we have i mean i naively when i look at this it seems i mean i understand that the logic of

00:30:09.020 holding something in reserve so that you can you know when putin calls our bluff again and again we

00:30:14.800 can ratchet the um the sanctions on him but why on earth are we still buying russian oil and gas

00:30:22.180 directly funding his war on a daily basis well what what do you think of the sanction regime thus far and

00:30:30.640 what do you think we should have done differently this is a very important question sam it's it's it's

00:30:36.260 just helps us to understand the the roots of the current crisis because in theory incremental

00:30:46.140 sanctions could influence decisions of a potential aggressor but it it's important that you you have

00:30:55.380 an adequate response now even 50 of the sanctions that have been imposed lately maybe 25 of the sanctions

00:31:04.160 in 2014 after annexation of crimea could have saved us from this nightmare right some sanctions

00:31:10.920 imposed let's say between geneva summit and and and first biden putin zoom call uh so from june

00:31:19.320 20 to 2021 to i think november the last year also could actually send a message to putin and his and his

00:31:26.520 inner circle that america was serious i think the big mistake was to threaten the sanctions without actually doing it

00:31:34.160 so now we reached a point where unfortunately no half measures will work and that's another rule

00:31:40.260 that's i i learned from history books and unfortunately we're all learning today every day of our delay

00:31:47.540 responding decisively to the threat of a dictator the price goes up and something that could have worked

00:31:54.360 before the invasion doesn't work now when americans american administration talked about sanctions at the

00:32:01.540 threat i said many times i put it on it was on my twitter on my facebook sanctions cannot stop tanks if

00:32:08.680 tanks are rolling if planes are just dropping bombs so sanctions could actually help to prevent it maybe

00:32:14.960 but now we reach the point where it's it's no longer prevention it's about solving the problem

00:32:23.180 you do not compromise with cancer you have to cut it out and i think now it's there's no other choice

00:32:29.260 for us to see that the the end of the war must lead to the collapse of putin's regime because as long as

00:32:34.920 putin stays in kremlin there will be no peace

00:32:36.720 so would you favor ramping up all the 100 sanctions at this point i mean so that we uh exert every

00:32:45.360 feature of economic war we can all of a sudden look it's a oil embargo sounds great but it's the it's the i

00:32:53.260 said it's it's it was not even necessary if america could impose technological embargo because russian

00:32:59.740 oil industry will not function without or gas industry without a full tech support from the from

00:33:05.160 the free world but obviously you know oil embargo has a psychological effect my only concern is just you

00:33:11.260 know that is this doing this oil embargo we are helping other bad guys as much as i i'm concerned

00:33:19.020 about putin and and his his criminal uh uh war in ukraine and and and people being killed all the

00:33:24.720 time look helping iran saudi arabia or venezuela that's those are also bad guys with blood on their

00:33:32.700 hands so um it's i understand there's a balance so you just have to find a balance i what i think is

00:33:38.300 important now is is to come up with a strategy because at the end of the day look it's it's we're all

00:33:43.680 concerned about climate change but what's the difference there's more oil in from venezuela or more

00:33:48.180 more oil from america at the end of the day you could or from canada so i think it's important to

00:33:53.420 to agree on priorities and if priorities are about putin and about the let's be honest about change of

00:34:00.440 the regime in russia then we have to concentrate on on this goal and i think it can be done but

00:34:06.240 i'm not sure that the there's an agreement about the the future goals and how we're going to solve

00:34:13.480 putin's problem which does not disappear with the defeat of his armies in in ukraine and also

00:34:19.520 we we are all talking you just mentioned in the beginning of our conversation about putin's attempts

00:34:25.080 crazy attempts to spread the war beyond ukrainian borders so i think it's time to recognize that

00:34:30.600 we are playing the game again let me use chess analogy this time that cannot end in a tie

00:34:37.220 it's that's why it's not exactly chess either we win or putin wins and and i think we just we just

00:34:44.700 have to do whatever uh mobilizing all the resources of the free world and also from political to to

00:34:51.740 call it spiritual and ideological because ukraine i think gave us very powerful spirit to show how to

00:34:57.780 fight and and die for freedom and democracy and to make sure that as a result of this war not only

00:35:04.520 ukraine will be safe and and will restore its territorial integrity but russia will become free 0.89

00:35:10.340 so you've spoken two phrases that i think are going to strike fear in many people the first is a no-fly

00:35:16.460 zone and the second is regime change and each in their own way by a slightly different logic

00:35:23.120 seems to uh invite a serious escalation of the conflict and even the threat of of a nuclear war right

00:35:32.400 so i mean many people are looking at the situation and all of their bandwidth is taken up with a

00:35:39.420 concern about just avoiding world war three how do we prosecute this conflict in such a way as to know

00:35:45.780 that we're not going to go over the brink here and so let's take them by turns a no-fly zone a no-fly

00:35:52.220 zone seems synonymous with a shooting war between the u.s. slash eu and russia which is to say 0.83

00:36:02.260 a a shooting war a conventional shooting war with nuclear arm powers where one is run by a psychopath

00:36:10.520 who increasingly has less and less to lose and who's already threatened in some form to use nuclear

00:36:16.980 weapons if he's antagonized so talk to me about a no-fly zone how is it that you can advocate that

00:36:24.140 again we're dealing with a strategic question because you raised a very good point and i

00:36:32.180 again hear it all the time no-fly zone involves consider

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00:37:05.420 as well

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - March 10, 2022

#275 — The Russian War in Ukraine

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