#58 — The Putin Question
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Summary
Gary Kasparov is a former world chess champion and now a great critic of Vladimir Putin s Russia. He has also written a book, Winter is Coming, arguing that we are in need of a new Cold War strategy to deal with the threat from Vladimir Putin and his current Russia. In this episode of the Making Sense Podcast, I talk to Gary about his new book, and how we can prepare for the coming Cold War. I also talk about his views on the rise of artificial intelligence and climate change, and why we should be worried about it. This is a very timely conversation, given the man who will soon occupy the Oval Office, and given the people he has appointed to advise him, and the choices he has chosen to advise Donald Trump, and his team, and what they are planning to do in response to them. We don t run ads on the podcast, and therefore, therefore, it s made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers, who are making the podcast possible. If you enjoy what we re doing here, please consider becoming a supporter of what we're doing here by becoming a subscriber. You'll get access to all sorts of great shows, including The New York Times besties, The New Yorker, The Huffington Post, and The New Republic, wherever you get your news and opinions are available. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Make sense of it! Sam Harris - Making Sense: A podcast about things you can t live without making sense, and more! - by becoming one of our listeners get a discount on our premium memberships, and get 20% off the purchase of our newest issue of Making Sense. Subscribe to our newest podcast, The Making Sense to get 10% off of our next month's newest issue, "Winter is Coming." and much more! Subscribe to Making Sense, wherever else you get a copy of the podcast is available, including the podcast? Subscribe on Audible, Podchaser, PODCAST, and other perks, including epsiode of our new podcasting service. . Learn more about your ad choices? Subscribe & subscribe to our podcasting choices, too! Subscribe for more like this podcasting experience? and more like it on Apple Podcasts, and subscribe on iTunes, too check it out on your favorite podcatcher, and a chance to win a discount of $5 or more?
Transcript
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I am talking with Gary Kasparov, the former world chess champion, perhaps the most famous
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of modern times, and now a great critic of Vladimir Putin's Russia, and a great critic
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of the failures of American and European foreign policy with respect to Russia.
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Needless to say, this is a very timely conversation, given the man who will soon occupy the Oval Office
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and given the people he has appointed to advise him.
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And so without further preamble, I give you Gary Kasparov.
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Listen, it's really an honor to get to talk to you.
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I'm sorry we can't do it in person, but we'll be forgiven any audio hiccups here.
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We're doing this by Skype, and you are half a world away.
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So again, thank you for taking the time to do this.
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Okay, thanks for more technology that we can do it, you know, staying a thousand miles away
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There are really two broad areas that I want to touch with you.
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The first I want to get into is politics, obviously, and the recent Russian influence
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The second is that we have to say something about the future of intelligent machines, because
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I've been talking a lot about artificial intelligence on the podcast, and while you will go down
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in history for many things, one of those things will be that you are the first person to be
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beaten by a machine in an intellectual pursuit where you were the most advanced member of
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You will have a special place in history, even if that history is written by our robot overlords.
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We have to talk about that, but we will get into politics first.
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And you've written a fascinating book entitled Winter is Coming.
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You argue several things in the book, but generally, you claim that free and open societies
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like our own have grown weaker, especially because we no longer think in terms of spreading
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Many people consider this a return to some kind of humility and political realism, but
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you consider it a failure of nerve, and I must say I agree with you there.
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Your specific claim is that while we're now facing many threats, and many which we seem
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ill-prepared to deal with, the worst of these threats is coming from Vladimir Putin and his
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So perhaps you can just start there with your political thesis.
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Yes, let's start with the title of the book, Winter is Coming.
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I have to confess, I'm a fan of Game of Thrones, and I even read all the books.
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And I thought the title was very appropriate because it could indicate two things.
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One is that the history is not developed on a linear basis, and it was somehow a delayed
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response to Francis Fukuyama, The End of History in 1992, the best-selling book.
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And I have to admit that in 1992, I shared the same optimism, thinking that liberal democracies
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have won, and the rest would be just a bright future.
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So it's all up to us to build this future, and the evil has been defeated once and for
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So I think we get to recognize that the evil doesn't disappear.
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So it probably happens in the books, in fairy tales, but in real life, the evil could be buried
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temporarily under the rubble of the Berlin Wall.
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But, you know, at one point it sprouts out, especially if we lose our vigilance and if
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And also the idea of the title was, again, reflecting the motto of the House of Stark in Game of Thrones
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is to indicate that this is not a winter, this is not a climate change, this is not this change
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But this is something that happens, again, because we are grown weaker, because we don't
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understand the threat that is coming to hurt us and maybe to destroy our way of life.
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But it depends on us whether this winter is long or short, whether it's, you know, devastating
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So that's why I thought the title would be appropriate.
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And, you know, to my surprise, and I publish a few books, and Sam, I'm sure you know, the publishers,
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they always come up with 10 different suggestions, trying to shoot away your original title.
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I mean, this time they accepted the title, you know, recognizing that, you know, it had
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But they were very cautious and almost rejected the subtitle.
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They said, oh, Vladimir Putin and the enemies of the free world.
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Is this just, you know, old language that may, you know, scare people off?
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I said, yeah, it's a cold war because winter is coming.
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And now when I talk to my publisher, they're very happy that they actually agreed to have
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Because when they ask me, so what about the, you know, what about advertising?
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Because it was really, you know, just, you know, a very short cycle for writing and publishing.
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We, me and Meg Gringart, my co-author, so we approached them in January 2015.
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And I said, I said at our first meeting that I would like the book to be published in October.
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I said, no, 2015, because I hoped that the book would make difference for, for upcoming
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And it could, you know, help to shape debates of foreign policy between two, between candidates
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So, and they were not sure that you can do it because I said, oh, you know, we have,
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And I said, look, as long as you have Putin as a centerpiece of the book, he will definitely
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create enough, you know, conflicts, you know, to make sure that the book will be always,
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Again, unfortunately, this prediction was right.
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And I have to say that, you know, things that I predicted in the book, you know, they turn
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to be even worse than I thought, because probably we live in a time when, you know, everything
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I would just want to stop you there, Gary, for a second, because I want to get into Putin
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But you use this term evil, which I want to flag for a moment, because unfortunately,
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this term has been really undermined in intelligent conversation.
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Thank you very much for actually raising this point, because, you know, if we are looking,
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if we are now looking at the American politics, you know, the partisanship, it reached such
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a level where, you know, people from two major parties consider their opponents evil.
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So, and you're right, you know, the word evil, you know, has been used and overused in
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the political debates between people who, you know, who disagree on many issues, but still
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They all, you know, represent different, you know, wings of liberal democracy.
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And what I wanted to emphasize in the book, and again, thanks for raising this point,
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is that, you know, we are being attacked by people that are, again, let me use this old
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cliche, old word cliche, the enemies of the free world, because they did not share the
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And one of the fundamental differences between us and them is we believe, you know, in the
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So the one person dead, you know, it's tragedy.
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For people like Putin, you know, hundreds of thousands dead is just, you know, it's a
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It's just statistics that proves that, you know, they are on the winning streak by, you
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So we have to realize that, you know, you know, despite all the differences between, you
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know, different political groups and activists in the free world, we're still united by values
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by values that makes us very different from the other side of the world, where, you know,
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I could apply world evil, because it really threatens the way of life, you know, the very
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And value of human life is one of the things that brings together Putin, ISIS, Al-Qaeda,
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But at the end of the day, you know, they believe in something that is, you know, is
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not modern, something that, you know, that, you know, brings us, pushes us back to the
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And it's for those who are saying, oh, unlike Soviet Union, Putin's Russia is no longer an
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existential threat to the free world because it doesn't have the same ideology.
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My response is that probably you're right, but the Soviet project, though it was, you know,
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condemned by history, it was, you know, marked by repressions, by bloodshed, by devaluation
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It was a futuristic project, you know, based on wrong assumptions about human nature.
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Well, today we're dealing with threats that all are looking for ideal society in a distant
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So Putin looks for a 19th century imperial politics, Iranian moolahs for, you know, medieval
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And ISIS, of course, goes all the way back to the early caliphate.
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But it's all about something that, you know, just that has no connection to the modernity.
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And so that's why we could say that today we see the fight, you know, between modernity
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And somehow even, you know, the last US elections was also about, you know, about a desperate
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attempt to look for an ideal model of the past.
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So, yeah, and that's why, again, I think it's, it's, it's, I thought it would be very important
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to have the book on time for, for a proper debate about US policy since, you know, foreign
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policy since, whether we like it or not, United States as a leader of the free world, you know,
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defines the way the free world moves, you know, one way or another.
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And unfortunately, you know, this election was about, you know, throwing mud at each
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other, rather than talking about serious issues.
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But still, you know, it's probably now it's now while we're digesting the surprising results
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of these elections, we will have time to think about the sort of the the potential impact
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of all these important foreign policy issues to to the life in the United States, especially
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because it became quite apparent that Putin's influence on the elections, even if it was
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not decisive, it was still a considerable factor that that helped to tilt the election to the
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Well, so before we get into Putin and the election, you've just raised this generic problem we have
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with dictators, dictators with regimes that fundamentally don't share our values.
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Just generically speaking, how do you think we should deal with this problem?
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It is another paradox of of modern times is that unlike 50 or 100 years ago, dictators,
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they have almost, you know, equal access to modern technologies.
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So the technological advantage was always, you know, an important factor of of the superiority
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of the free world, because, you know, we know that the free society always could mobilize,
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you know, brains and intellectual resources to come up with new ideas, new industries, new
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Even Soviet Union, you know, eventually lost the space race, though it was, you know, it
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It was, you know, the country that that relied on on resources of Russian empire.
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So the generations of scientists and it's it was well advanced.
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So it's it was quite a unique experiment or failed experiment.
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And it it managed to put, you know, Sputnik and the man in space even ahead of the Americans.
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But eventually, you know, it it lost this race because closed societies, they cannot compete.
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Even the Soviet Union failed to compete with the United States in in in the technological race.
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But today, you know, things are different because the globalization, you know, as every every
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new technology, every new technological process has to to two sides, like every coin on one side,
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you know, we can spread things around, you know, we can do business, we can socialize,
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Many good things can happen by using this modern device, which is in everybody's pocket or a purse.
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But at the same time, you know, it helps bad guys to to advance their cause.
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So you can socialize on, you know, on the net, but you can also build a very sophisticated terrorist network.
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And dictators, as we can see now, they they feel very comfortable with these modern devices because,
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It's something that is, you know, it's is yet to be to become part of international law.
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You know, and bad guys, they don't pay attention to any rules or limitations so that they have
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by by definition, they have an upper hand in something so new and so advanced and getting
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access to this is is is as easy, you know, as as buying, you know, food in the store.
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So it's quite a quite a paradox that while we relied on on Twitter, Facebook, Google and
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all these, you know, new brilliant technologies invented in the free world to promote the ideas
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of the free world, we are now seeing the opposite effect that the dictators, the totalitarian regimes,
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they are successfully using these tools, very sophisticated tools for propaganda to actually
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promote ideas that are that are very that are opposite to to to to our values, actually
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It's more like poisoning minds of people because it's almost impossible to identify what's true
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and was not since you are receiving so much information.
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And well-organized forces, you know, supported by by massive budgets as as, you know, Putin's
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So the propaganda machine, you know, could have a could have a deadly effect not only in
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Russia, not only in the Russian speaking people around the world, but also to on the minds
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And this is a paradox that we have to we have to understand and just to, you know, to recognize
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that it's it's it's a new challenge and the free world was not ready for it.
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Well, one point you make in your book in several places is that we have pursued a path of engagement
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with with Putin in particular, but with respect to many regimes that are fundamentally illiberal
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on the assumption that mere engagement, mere economic and social integration will moderate
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these regimes and get them to align with our interests and with the interests of sane and decent
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And you then observe how foolish this has proved to be.
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And it's pretty clear that some people only understand strength.
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And this goes back to this issue of evil, because many people have lost sight of the
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fact that there are people, you know, whether it's individual dictators or even whole cultures
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or subcultures, certainly, who are committed to very different aims in life.
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I mean, there are people who are malignantly selfish or just delusional.
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There are whole cultures that can be organized around delusional ideals.
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And I think what we're witnessing on our side, especially in recent years under Obama,
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and I say this as someone who's a real fan of Obama, I mean, I think he's an extremely
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And the contrast to the incoming president here is just appalling to me.
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But his foreign policy has been so anemic, it seems that our enemies no longer fear us
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And yet it's easy to see how we got here, because there's this perception of just this
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absolute futility of foreign interventions because of what happened in Afghanistan and
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And those are, you know, very different wars, as you know, one was probably necessary and
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And there's this, I think, an agreement, certainly on the left and now even on, you know, what's
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now called the alternative right, that a sophisticated and realistic vision of America's place in the
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world is one where we should be more isolated, more humble, more, I mean, just any notion
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of us really leading the world and trying to spread our values all the way across it is
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It seems to me that we have lost our sense that there really are right answers to questions
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There really is such a thing, potentially at least, as universal human values that we have
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Now, let's start with this, you know, with your analysis about, you know, American intervention
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No matter what President-elect says about trade and his threats to sort of to turn it around
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and just, you know, to go back to, you know, to protectionism, I don't believe it's going
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to happen because America is the most globalized economy.
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And when you look at the United States as a country with 330 million people, the country
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Yes, you know, global trade as an average trade, as a capitalism, some people win, some lose.
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But clearly, you know, when you look at the balance, you know, more people, you know, are
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So you have to think about sort of softening the blow to others, but trying to change things,
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This is this is exactly what I said, you know, when I talked about, you know, different societies
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looking for for the ideals that that are distant past.
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So America 2017 should look in 2030, 2040, 2050, not in not to 1950, 1960.
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Those certain things, you know, I would I wish country could recover from from from those
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decades and trying to hide in a shell, you know, ignore the fact that I mean, someone has
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to lead, you know, if you create vacuum and this is this is the biggest lesson of Obama's
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presidency, you know, he meant well, he wanted to reach out to American enemies.
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And he just, you know, he did absolutely utmost to remove America, what he thought, you know,
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was no negative American influence in politics, trying to sort of to work through agreements,
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Yeah, it's it could be great if he had at the other side of the bargaining table.
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People, institutions, states that shared even 50 percent of his conviction about about the
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So for Putin and the like Obama's what they saw a flexibility and weakness was an open invitation
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And this vacuum was filled, not by force of peace and prosperity, but by forces of of war
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And again, there's no simple answer, you know, for, you know, for America's role in the world.
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You know, you you separate wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Like, you know, my problem with the war in Iraq, you know, in 2003 was that, you know, as someone
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who was born and raised in a communist country, I could never blame, could never condemn invasion,
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even invasion that led to a to to to a demise of dictatorship.
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You know, and it's, you know, people like me, we viewed, you know, the invasion as a liberation.
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I understand, you know, it's it's it's it's it could open, you know, Pandora box.
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But this is also important for people in the United States to understand the views of those
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Well, you know, anything that led to the collapse of dictatorship was a good idea.
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So that's why, you know, we we had different views about American presidents, you know,
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viewing those who were strongest in opposing Soviet Union and and communism as our best
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Again, I understand, you know, it's a subject for debate, but let's, you know, move away
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from 2003 and agreeing that, you know, we may disagree on that and go to 2009.
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And this is, you know, something that Obama's decision, you know, to follow, by the way,
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that was Bush's plan, you know, to to eventually move troops out of Iraq.
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So when in 2009, Obama looked at the global map, you know, I believe he thought that it
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was a good moment for America to exercise positive influence, soft power, you know, friendship
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to even to to the to the nations that that that that wish America ill and to, you know,
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extend the olive branch to to everyone, you know, including Cuba, North Korea.
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Now, the failure, in my view, is based on the fact that if you play the game, you know,
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chess and if you believe that you made a mistake a few moves ago, the biggest mistake,
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you know, would be to try to sort of to go back and to change things because you're already
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And that's what happened with with with Iraq in 2009, when Obama tried to sort of to rectify
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mistakes made by the previous administration without recognizing that it's already a new
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And, you know, and and by trying to get out, you know, led to what what what what we are
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seeing is seeing these days in the in the Middle East.
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You know, we all know where the road paved with good intentions leads.
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So it is very important that we learn from these lessons because, you know, it's now what
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follows Obama is is is is much more cynical approach.
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So if Obama Obama wanted to to cut these deals, you know, out of his ideological beliefs that
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Now you may have administration that would like to cut these deals, you know, out of very
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pragmatic assumptions that, you know, that could benefit people who are close to the administration.
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So ironically, they could be pursuing the same goals, but for very different purposes.
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And I think that, you know, America, as long as, you know, it remains the most powerful economy
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and the most powerful military force in the world.
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And it's it's due to to remain the leader of the free world.
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That's, you know, carrying these responsibilities for for protecting the world order from different
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Because if America doesn't do anything, then what's going to happen to NATO?
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And now we already saw the result in Crimea and definitely Putin is not going to stop in
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And he's now, you know, willing to willing to to have, you know, a great bargain with Trump
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about about dividing the world and and eliminating all security institutions that that were standing
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So I think it's very important that America, you know, recovers its, you know, its its integrity
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as the as a global power and will come up with a view of the foreign policy, which is, by
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the way, you saw you saw it in these elections, is somehow extension of domestic policy or other
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And to to stop, you know, changing these policies, you know, from elections to elections, because
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if from Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, and that's what I argued in the book, American foreign
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There were some modifications with basically all presidents, Democrats and Republicans.
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They they they they knew what was America's role in the world.
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Now, since 1991, the collapse of the of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
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So we saw American foreign policy working more like pendulum switching from one side to another.
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You have Clinton, who did little than a W did too much than Obama, who did almost nothing.
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And then now you it goes to Trump, who can do whatever nobody can predict.
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And it's quite interesting that when you look at the all presidents, you know, were elected,
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you know, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in the last
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25 years, I think it's the first time in American history that the four presidents that were
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elected, Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump, they had no foreign policy expertise and very little
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So it's interesting that that's, you know, it's the it seems that if Americans looking for
00:26:41.880
something else, you know, so the country, you know, didn't want to hear about big problems
00:26:46.040
and wanted just to, you know, have a comfortable life, let's enjoy.
00:26:49.580
And now we reached a point, you know, after these elections that, you know, it's time to
00:26:56.240
And I don't believe that the United States has a chance to to stay away and just to isolate
00:27:03.260
since, you know, the world, you know, has changed and very much under American influence.
00:27:09.180
And walking away means that, you know, you will have to come back.
00:27:12.900
But but but when it happens, it will be already under the terms of your enemies.
00:27:17.900
Yeah, that final point is really worth reflecting on, because to retreat and to ignore the world's
00:27:25.820
problems when we alone among nations have this disproportionate potential influence to let
00:27:34.320
genocides happen, you know, especially in the case of, you know, we draw a red line and our bluff
00:27:39.180
gets called and then we do nothing. That kind of weakness is really provocative. And as you say,
00:27:45.200
then once we're dragged back into involvement, it's on the terms that are now on the ground,
00:27:50.440
you know, the pieces on the board, to use your analogy, have have moved, and we're in a worse
00:27:55.300
position. And so let's let's talk about the position we're in with respect to Putin at this
00:28:00.320
point, because it seems to me and you make this point as well, that he's running a very clever
00:28:06.480
dictatorship. It's a dictatorship that for those who don't want to see it as one seems to be justified
00:28:13.420
by, you know, a high level of support. He holds elections and he's managed to sanitize his reputation
00:28:20.720
by being taken seriously as a statesman on the world stage. And again, you point this out many times
00:28:27.140
that American, many American and European administrations are culpable for this. So
00:28:33.000
this policy of engagement with Putin has given him a free pass to do more or less whatever he's
00:28:38.340
wanted. And of course, this all has been facilitated by a rise in oil prices. But Putin seems like
00:28:49.880
It's very bad and he's getting worse. But, you know, we have to give him credit. And you're right,
00:28:54.280
you know, pointing out at his strengths and his ability to manipulate both domestically and
00:28:59.680
internationally. He started in, you know, in the beginning of this century. So as as a president
00:29:07.840
of Russia, so whether he had an idea of turning his rule into dictatorship, I don't know. But he
00:29:14.980
wasn't he is an opportunist. And he suddenly saw big opportunities. Oil prices, you know, were rising.
00:29:21.480
So giving him, you know, a limited amount of cash. And also, he just recognized that there was a lot
00:29:27.080
of goodwill on the on the other side. So he could play games with with George W. Bush. It was an
00:29:34.160
amazing, you know, psychological game when they met in June 2001. And Putin told him a story about,
00:29:42.880
you know, hiding, you know, cross, you know, while, you know, being in a KGB school. So because he was
00:29:49.220
baptized by his grandmother or whatever. I mean, it's obviously it's a fake story. But, you know,
00:29:54.620
he he made it was a perfect calculation for George W. That was a story that always, you know,
00:30:01.800
caught, you know, cause him to cry because it was about religion. So just about affectionate about the
00:30:08.440
Putin's connection to religion. And and he built a very strong psychological contact with with George
00:30:15.140
W. who after his meeting said that he looked into Putin's soul, looked, looked and put his eyes and
00:30:21.640
saw his soul. So that was a big victory. And Putin strengthened his ties with with George W. by being
00:30:28.440
the first leader calling after 9-11 immediately, recognizing that that was a moment, you know,
00:30:33.420
where he could, you know, have a Bush, you know, on his side for many years to come.
00:30:37.500
So he was very good in building this relations and looking for friends because at that time he needed
00:30:43.560
friendship from the Western leaders to neutralize any opposition in Russia. And I remember in 2006 when
00:30:49.880
Putin was hosting the G8 meeting in St. Petersburg. And I was always reluctant to call it G8 because
00:30:56.320
G7 stood for seven great industrial democracies and Russia was neither democracy nor industrial power.
00:31:02.640
But Putin, you know, was there, you know, actually Yeltsin was the first one to be invited like an
00:31:09.180
advanced payment for immature Russian democracy. And Putin fully capitalized on his position of being
00:31:16.340
one of the members of G8. And it was his turn in 2006 to host it. And it was a phenomenal PR success
00:31:25.620
for Putin because Russian television, you know, um, had, uh, was showing these meetings from every
00:31:31.480
angle. And, uh, you know, they say that, you know, picture is more powerful than thousand wars,
00:31:36.540
but Putin had both the picture and thousand wars. And, uh, how could people like myself or late Boris
00:31:42.360
Demtsov, how could we convince even, you know, liberal minded Russians that Putin was not a Democrat,
00:31:49.280
Putin was not recognized as democratic elected leader while every other leader of the free world was
00:31:54.640
there, you know, to, to, to, to, to greet him as one of the equals. So Putin, by using this,
00:32:00.940
you know, by using this game, Putin totally neutralized opposition in Russia. And as you
00:32:06.000
pointed out, you know, created an image of, you know, of, of, um, a ruler that was not probably,
00:32:11.980
you know, um, uh, true Democrat, but, you know, he was not one to fear, um, not one who could,
00:32:20.860
you know, who could destroy, you know, democratic institutions. Uh, and that, uh, and that's why
00:32:26.580
his decision to stay behind Medvedev when he following constitution, he had to step down,
00:32:31.520
but he stayed, you know, as a prime minister. And we all in Russia knew that it was, you know,
00:32:35.860
he was a puppet master who was pulling the strings. Um, it, you know, it, it caused some kind of an
00:32:41.400
illusion, uh, for Europe and for the United States where, um, politicians, political leaders
00:32:47.800
believed that they could play Medvedev against Putin. And eventually they could see some kind
00:32:52.320
of, uh, peaceful transition of Russia from Putin's, you know, as, as they thought slightly
00:32:58.520
authoritarian regime into something more democratic, not recognizing that Putin was buying time,
00:33:04.640
uh, um, to, um, strengthen his crippling power. And eventually he would come back as the all
00:33:11.140
powerful dictator as it happened in, in, uh, 2012. And then as every dictator, you know, he had to,
00:33:17.220
uh, change gears because if he needs friends in the beginning of his rule, eventually he needs
00:33:23.120
enemies because at some time he realized that all economic, um, resources that could, uh, generate
00:33:31.600
steady growth of, um, Russian GDP and, and more, more important, um, steady improvement of, uh,
00:33:41.460
leading standards for the Russians. These resources have been, you know, have been wiped out by the,
00:33:46.940
lower oil prices and also by the aging infrastructure and by endemic corruption.
00:33:52.340
So economy was no longer serving Putin and he needed something else to legitimize his endless
00:33:58.560
same power. And as every dictator, he turned for foreign aggression. As we warned from, from the
00:34:04.300
beginning saying Putin was our problem. Eventually it would be everybody's problem because this is the
00:34:09.620
way dictatorship works. And, uh, it was amazing that Americans and Europeans didn't want to see it.
00:34:16.160
It didn't be the rise of anti-American, anti-Western propaganda on Russian television. Um, and since
00:34:22.240
2012, it became, you know, a staple of Putin's, uh, domestic propaganda to blast America for anything
00:34:29.800
that happens in the world and to present Russia as the sort of besieged, uh, fortress of good
00:34:36.820
surrounded by global evil. By the way, they, they, they, they use this language. This is, this is the
00:34:41.440
language used by Russian television. Right, right. Is it true that the level of anti-Americanism in
00:34:46.360
Russia now is, is the worst it's ever been? Look, maybe it was worse in the forties and the fifties.
00:34:52.940
I don't know, but it's definitely, it's definitely the worst in my lifetime. And, uh, I can rely on my
00:34:59.100
mother's comments. She's turning 80 next March. Uh, so she was born under Stalin. And of course, you know,
00:35:04.600
propaganda machine was, you know, different because, you know, there was no television, there was only radio
00:35:09.460
and then, you know, primitive TV. So it's hard to compare to, to, to, to, to these days, but she said
00:35:15.260
that, you know, by listening to, to, to, to Russian media today, um, she couldn't help but thinking
00:35:23.500
that while Soviet propaganda was, you know, was, um, very intense and it was brainwashing, but it was
00:35:32.020
still about bright future. So Soviet propaganda tried to present something that is more, you know, um, uh,
00:35:39.300
it's more positive, something, something futuristic that, you know, that, that, that could, uh, make a
00:35:45.680
great deal of difference for everybody. So they talked about, of course it was false talk, but still
00:35:51.340
they talked about, you know, communist brotherhood, you know, generations ahead of us, uh, and about,
00:35:57.660
you know, competition between socialism and capitalism and about socialism, you know, so gaining
00:36:01.800
ground. So there was some kind of a competition about, uh, uh, fighting for the, for the better
00:36:07.540
future of, of humanity. Putin's propaganda is more like cult of death. So Russia has no allies. It's
00:36:15.120
all about, you know, Putin defending Russia against global evil. It's, you know, we all maybe have to
00:36:20.280
die, you know, but it's, but it's, the language is so poisoning. And my mother says it's, it's,
00:36:25.280
it's depressing. It is so depressing. And, you know, because of modern technology, it comes, you know,
00:36:31.800
as we say in Russia from every kettle. So it's from everywhere. So, and it's 24 seven and, uh,
00:36:39.800
and this propaganda, which, you know, just, it's, it's follows oral rules that, you know,
00:36:44.640
it should be total lie. So it's not just, you know, you know, some truth, some lies, but it's
00:36:50.420
basically, you know, it's as white as black, you know, war is peace, you know, freedom is slavery.
00:36:54.220
So it's, it's totally reversing the facts. And if, if it's so intense as, as it, as it is now,
00:37:02.380
you know, it works and it works way beyond Russia now, because we could see polls in some European
00:37:09.020
countries or people, you know, ordinary people in, in, in, in these countries, they are just buying
00:37:14.820
the Putin versions of the events in, in Ukraine, in, in, um, uh, Middle East, um, and elsewhere.
00:37:22.200
So what's the significance of his being a former KGB figure? President Bush senior ran the CIA,
00:37:29.200
and I've never heard it said of him that that made him somehow nefarious by definition. Obviously
00:37:35.220
there's a false moral equivalence here, but this is the way many people would think about it.
00:37:42.240
Yeah, but you, you mentioned his false moral equivalence. I mean, KGB is an organization that,
00:37:47.000
you know, that I believe, you know, was, was criminal from day one. It was built by Lenin and,
00:37:51.980
and, and his, uh, associates, you know, to, uh, destroy whatever, you know, was left of freedom
00:37:58.920
in, in, in, in, in, in, in Russia. And it had a history of, of going after, um, uh, political
00:38:05.120
opponents of the regime. And, um, you know, it's, it's one of the most, uh, um, uh, uh, nefarious
00:38:10.940
acronym in the Soviet history, KGB. So these three, these, these three letters and Putin in 1999,
00:38:16.860
uh, uh, while being still a prime minister, when he spoke at the, um, meeting of, um, KGB officers
00:38:25.360
at, um, the headquarter in Lubanka square, um, he said, once KGB is always KGB. And that,
00:38:35.800
you know, you couldn't say it's better, you know, it's just, it's a recognition of the fact
00:38:39.680
that, you know, he never, you know, betrayed his organization. And he always believed that,
00:38:43.700
you know, they, they had some kind of rights, you know, to, to rule the country and just
00:38:48.160
to, um, to, um, basically they were always above the law. So the, if we are talking about
00:38:54.560
Bush 41, who was head of CIA, I know he was, he was a still civilian. And, and, uh, even
00:39:01.720
as a, as a head of CIA, you know, he knew that he was under some kind of supervision of the,
00:39:06.760
of the legislation and the president. So it's the, there were many things that, you know,
00:39:10.860
uh, and still, still hopefully there in America, you know, that guarantee checks and balances.
00:39:15.540
So it's, you can hardly imagine, you know, one institution in that state, you know, going
00:39:19.940
just, you know, totally, um, wild. So it's probably, probably, you know, we'll still, we'll still
00:39:25.820
have to see the resilience of US democracy in the years to come, but, you know, in, in the
00:39:31.040
Soviet Union, it was, it was the opposite. So the KGB was always above the law. So it's the
00:39:35.640
whole idea that the organization, you know, was the law itself. And, um, and while today
00:39:41.420
we're looking at Putin's actions, I always warn people that, you know, you should remember
00:39:45.600
about his, his, his true nature. He's a KGB guy. So that's why, you know, while he is
00:39:51.260
not, um, he's not alien to the idea of using force, he can, you know, decimate cities, he
00:39:56.560
can do, he can order carpet bombing, he can, you know, um, order genocide, but, uh, um, but
00:40:02.520
at the same time, he always prefers to deal with more clandestine methods. So the, um,
00:40:08.640
just looking for kind of hybrid wars and, uh, and, and every opportunity to buy favors,
00:40:14.420
to blackmail people, to, to have a covert operation. And, uh, and the fact is that his, uh, reputation
00:40:21.280
is still quite sanitized, as you just said a few minutes ago worldwide is a result of,
00:40:26.240
of, uh, of these operations that have been heavily funded, uh, by Putin. And, uh, you
00:40:32.140
know, well, um, designed, um, uh, adjusting to the certain, um, uh, specifics of, uh, different
00:40:41.380
countries and, and, uh, regions. Do you think there's any truth to the rumor that he might
00:40:45.760
be the richest person on earth at this moment? I think we should, you know, we should first
00:40:50.440
agree on the definition of the richest person on earth, because, you know, um, if you, I mean...
00:40:56.440
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