RFK Jr. The Defender - Strategies For China and Russia with Alex Christoforou

In this episode of The Duran, Alex Cristoforo and Alexander Mercoris join host Alex Blumberg to discuss the rise of the neo-conservative foreign policy establishment in the United States. They discuss the role of the Biden administration, the previous administration, and the entire history of the neocon infrastructure that led us to the Ukraine conflict, and how it all came about. They also discuss the current state of affairs in Ukraine and Russia, and why the U.S. should be worried about it. Alex is a journalist, YouTuber, and World Traveler, and world traveler. He is also the co-founder and co-host of the popular online news site, the Duran. He is a fellow member of the "The Duran" team, and is one of the most astute and penetrating sources of foreign policy information in the world. He has been with us for a long time, and we are so grateful to have him on the show. He's a great friend of ours, and a great ally of the show and we hope you enjoy listening to this episode. If you like what we're doing, please consider becoming a patron or a supporter of our show. We'd love to hear from you! and share it on your socials! Timestamps: 1:00:00 - What's your favorite part of the podcast? 2:30 - What do you like about the show? 3:20 - How do you feel about it? 4:10 - What would you like to see more of it in the future? 5:40 - What are you would like to hear us talk about it again? 6: What are your thoughts on a bit more? 7: What's the most important to you? 8:00 9:00 -- What would your biggest takeaway from this episode? 10:30 -- What are some of your biggest pet peeves? 11:40 -- Why do you want us to do more on this topic? 12:00 | How do we need a better? 13:30 | What is your biggest weakness? 14:00-- What do we want to see? 15: What is the worst thing you're looking for? 16:20 -- How did you think of this episode so far? 17:40 | What are our biggest takeaway? 18:10 -- What s your biggest problem? 19:30

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:01.000 I'm really privileged to be joined by Alex Cristoforo, who is one half of the team, the Duran team, which is probably one of the best sources of foreign policy information, the most astute and Piercing that I know of.

00:00:17.000 They're a very, very popular online news service called the Duran.

00:00:21.000 His partner is Alexander Mercoris, and he was on here originally, but we had problems, so we're going to just go forward with half the team.

00:00:31.000 Alex Christoforo is a Cyprus and Greek-based geopolitical analyst.

00:00:35.000 He is a journalist, YouTuber, and world traveler.

00:00:39.000 Welcome to the show.

00:00:40.000 Thank you.

00:00:41.000 And I've been following you guys for a while and just loving, you know, really learning so much.

00:00:46.000 I want to have the two of you back to talk about China.

00:00:49.000 But today, if we can, let's talk at least just a little while about Ukraine.

00:00:54.000 You published recently a comprehensive history that showed the role of the Biden administration, the previous administrations, the entire kind of historical neocon infrastructure.

00:01:09.000 And purposely, it appears precipitating this conflict and the desire that they have to, you know, to destroy for a balkanized Russia. 0.69

00:01:19.000 You are not a sympathizer with Vladimir Putin, are you?

00:01:23.000 I'm a sympathizer.

00:01:25.000 I'm neither a sympathizer nor against or pro.

00:01:30.000 I just look at the facts and see, you know, where it leads us.

00:01:33.000 I have no, on the Duran, we have no animosity or hatred towards Putin or Russia or towards any country or any people for that matter.

00:01:44.000 We look at the situations and how we got to where we are.

00:01:47.000 And we have been trying on this channel from day one to put an end.

00:01:53.000 To this conflict.

00:01:54.000 But you can't put an end to this conflict until you understand how you got here.

00:01:59.000 And that's what we've been trying to uncover and to share with our audience.

00:02:03.000 And we talk about the history all the time on this show.

00:02:07.000 But why don't you give us kind of, because you've just written a really brilliant synopsis.

00:02:12.000 It was actually from, yeah, we actually did a show with Professor Jeffrey Sachs and he put out an article with the synopsis and we discussed it together.

00:02:22.000 And we've been going over the history of Ukraine for a while now.

00:02:25.000 And it goes back many decades.

00:02:29.000 What has been planned for, and it's not really so much about Ukraine.

00:02:34.000 That's the key to unlock everything that has taken us to where we are, that has brought us to where we are.

00:02:39.000 It's not about Ukraine.

00:02:40.000 It's about Russia.

00:02:41.000 And it really is the story of the rise of this group of neocons and how they've now managed to take over much of the State Department and much of the Biden White House and actually every administration even preceding the Biden White House.

00:03:00.000 There's been this neocon presence that has been growing over the many decades, and it's now come to a point where these neocons are taking us to the brink of an absolute catastrophe, which is a conflict, a direct conflict between NATO, the United States, and Russia.

00:03:18.000 When we say a conflict between NATO and Russia, U.S. is NATO. 0.60

00:03:21.000 So you're really looking at the U.S. facing off against Russia.

00:03:26.000 And it's this neocon obsession. 0.51

00:03:30.000 With the destruction of Russia, it's on their minds, it's on their brains 24-7, and it's taken us to a very dangerous place.

00:03:41.000 And let's go through some of that history, because there was a time when the Democrats opposed the neocons, and there was a time after the Iraq War.

00:03:52.000 The neocons, of course, got us into the Iraq War, and that was one of their When they published PNAC, the project for the New American Century, back I think in 1999 or somewhere thereabout, they basically said, we want to do eight wars, and one of those was Iraq.

00:04:12.000 And they had to lie to us to get us into Iraq. 0.80

00:04:15.000 They had to pretend that it had something that Saddam Hussein had some responsibility for 9-11 wars.

00:04:21.000 And then they had to pretend that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

00:04:26.000 But two years, three years into that war, when all of those stories were discredited, a lot of those, the neocons were really in malodor across both political parties.

00:04:36.000 And at that point, you know, I think most of us believe that they were headed for permanent exile.

00:04:43.000 So what happened after that?

00:04:44.000 How did they survive, you know, that cataclysm of Iraq? 1.00

00:04:49.000 I think that's the million dollar question, isn't it?

00:04:53.000 I always thought that after the debacle of Iraq, that the neocons were done.

00:04:57.000 But they've actually gotten stronger.

00:05:00.000 And since Iraq, what have we gotten? 0.87

00:05:02.000 We've gotten Libya. 0.93

00:05:04.000 We've got Syria, and now we've got the biggest one of all. 1.00

00:05:09.000 Yemen.

00:05:09.000 We've got Yemen.

00:05:10.000 Pakistan and Afghanistan.

00:05:13.000 Afghanistan for 20 years.

00:05:15.000 We have Ukraine now.

00:05:17.000 We have possibly China after Ukraine. 0.80

00:05:20.000 Well, Biden just said he wants to go back to Syria.

00:05:23.000 I'm worried about Syria, to be honest.

00:05:26.000 I think everyone is rightly focused on Ukraine.

00:05:30.000 And we're covering Ukraine a lot, but Syria worries me because the United States is in a very vulnerable position there.

00:05:40.000 They're occupying a part of Syria, but all of the people, all of the countries surrounding this occupying force in Syria, they're now pushing for the U.S. military to get out.

00:05:53.000 And Biden is not getting out.

00:05:57.000 He's continuing to build up in Syria. 0.81

00:06:01.000 And I'm very worried about the situation in Syria.

00:06:04.000 Something could go awfully wrong there.

00:06:06.000 The Syrian government, Iran and Russia, they were conducting military operations because of U.S. Reaper drones that were active in the area.

00:06:15.000 And the Biden White House came out with a statement the other day, and they said that they've warned Russia to not operate in the area that they're occupying.

00:06:25.000 And they're exploring their options as to how to confront the Russian Air Force there.

00:06:31.000 So, you know, it really worries me because everyone's focused on Ukraine, but something could go wrong in Syria.

00:06:36.000 And of course, you could have a chain reaction, which can carry over to Ukraine.

00:06:40.000 So it's not a good situation in Syria either.

00:06:43.000 Talk about the deadlock right now with Ukraine becoming part of NATO, because that's very, very interesting, because you actually have some of the neocons who are now stepping up and saying, we don't think Ukraine should be part of NATO. And explain that paradox.

00:07:02.000 You know, the Ukraine and the NATO situation is something that has been...

00:07:12.000 In the works, since 2008 is when the discussion of Ukraine entering NATO was seriously considered.

00:07:23.000 And it's at that time period that Russia warned the United States NATO, the collective West, not to do it.

00:07:31.000 Don't put Ukraine into NATO. They accepted many other countries into NATO. Of course, we have the Baker Gorbachev-Bush promise we're not going to go one more inch to the east.

00:07:46.000 Russia accepted many countries to the east to enter NATO, but Ukraine was the red line.

00:07:52.000 And I think a lot of the White House administrations, including the neocons, They believed that Russia was bluffing because Russia accepted all of these other countries into NATO and they didn't really give much pushback.

00:08:04.000 I think they believed that they could also bring Ukraine into NATO.

00:08:09.000 And the year up to the special military operation and the conflict in Ukraine, the collected West, they seemed intoxicated with this idea of bringing Ukraine into NATO.

00:08:21.000 I remember the Munich Security Conference, which took place about two weeks before the February 24th invasion of Ukraine.

00:08:30.000 Everyone at that conference was so excited with the prospects of bringing Ukraine into NATO that Russia was looking on and they sent their final warnings and they were building up their forces.

00:08:44.000 And there was a lot of talk about a potential Russia incursion into Ukraine.

00:08:48.000 But even at that point, the leaders of the European Union and the United States, it seems like they didn't believe that Russia would actually call the bluff.

00:08:58.000 And it was at that conference when Zelensky started to talk about Ukraine even obtaining nuclear weapons.

00:09:06.000 And at that conference, you had Kamala Harris, you had Ursula von der Leyen, you had Olaf Scholz.

00:09:12.000 All of these collective West leaders were at that conference, and not one leader decided to push back against Zelensky's statement.

00:09:21.000 Not one leader came out and said, there is no way that Ukraine is ever going to obtain nuclear weapons.

00:09:26.000 Ukraine is not going to be entering into NATO anytime in the future.

00:09:30.000 There was no talk contrary to what Zelensky was saying.

00:09:34.000 And I think that was the point where Russia said, okay, we have to do something now.

00:09:39.000 We have to find a way to bring Zelensky to the negotiating table to grab the attention of the collective West so that they can understand our security interests and And to make sure that Ukraine never enters NATO. And that's when they launched the operation on the 24th of February.

00:10:00.000 And they almost succeeded.

00:10:01.000 They almost succeeded in bringing Zelensky to the negotiating table and signing an agreement, pledging that Ukraine would not enter NATO. And that's when Boris Johnson flew into Kiev and then the war changed.

00:10:13.000 This was April of 2022.

00:10:16.000 Yeah, end of March, beginning of April, when Putin, about three weeks ago, actually showed the agreement that was signed.

00:10:22.000 And it seems pretty clear that Putin was very confident that if he put troops in, that the West would be forced to come to the negotiating table.

00:10:33.000 And he was probably surprised at that point.

00:10:37.000 He put a minimal number of troops into Ukraine, clearly not wanting to take over the entire country.

00:10:44.000 But just to bring them to the negotiating table.

00:10:47.000 No one was listening to him.

00:10:48.000 No one was listening to his red lines.

00:10:50.000 I think it was 40,000 troops moving into Kiev.

00:10:55.000 So obviously 40,000 troops are not going to occupy a city of 3 million people.

00:10:58.000 That's crystal clear.

00:11:00.000 But he succeeded to a point.

00:11:04.000 And he had the agreement in place.

00:11:06.000 He had it initialed and signed.

00:11:09.000 Ukraine actually even got their security guarantees.

00:11:12.000 So Zelenskyy, he asked for security guarantees as well, and those were in the agreement.

00:11:18.000 So as a whole, the agreement was fair.

00:11:21.000 It provided Ukraine security guarantees.

00:11:24.000 It took NATO off the table.

00:11:26.000 It reverted to an extent back to the Minsk agreements so that the Minsk agreements can start to be enforced as well.

00:11:33.000 And it looked like disaster was averted, but we don't really know what promises were made to Zelensky when Boris Johnson flew into Kiev, but it was after that meeting in Kiev that they tore up the agreement, and that's when the conflict shifted to the war that we have today.

00:11:51.000 And to get back, and that's a very good synopsis, to get back to my original question, the kind of the tide has turned where you now have some of these neocons who are actually saying, well, wait a minute, maybe we made a mistake.

00:12:08.000 I think they felt that they would have already brought down Russia, and the extraordinary resilience that Russia has demonstrated economically.

00:12:20.000 Where they outmaneuvered the West and, you know, all these sanctions that were meant to destroy Russia actually ended up strengthening it.

00:12:28.000 And then Putin's popularity, I think, has never been better.

00:12:34.000 Oh yeah, his popularity is at an all-time high.

00:12:38.000 I flew into Moscow just the other day beyond the ground to see what it's like.

00:12:43.000 And I can tell you right now that you walk through the streets and you understand that...

00:12:49.000 They've managed to weather the storm of the sanctions quite well.

00:12:54.000 I think they're even surprised at how well they overcame the sanctions.

00:12:59.000 And that was the goal.

00:13:00.000 The plan was to implement these shock and awe sanctions.

00:13:05.000 And the belief was that Russia is this country masquerading as a gas station, gas station masquerading as a country, whatever John McCain said many years ago.

00:13:16.000 And they've internalized that.

00:13:19.000 the neocons, they've internalized this belief that the Russian economy is weak.

00:13:24.000 It's the size of the economy of Delaware or Iowa or something like that.

00:13:29.000 And if they put these shock and awe sanctions in place, the economy would crumble, the government would collapse, and we would revert back to, say, the 1990s, where things were good for certain powerful people in D.C. where things were good for certain powerful people in D.C.

00:13:48.000 And You know, it didn't work out like that.

00:13:51.000 Putin, to his credit, the Russian government, not only Putin, his entire team, they've been preparing for this since the Maidan coup in 2014 and probably even before that.

00:14:02.000 They had everything in place to push back against the sanctions, and it worked.

00:14:09.000 It worked.

00:14:10.000 And not only that, they pivoted very quickly east.

00:14:15.000 Very quickly towards China, very quickly towards BRICS. You know, a year and a half ago, no one was really talking so much about BRICS. I mean, it was there.

00:14:25.000 Russia, India, China, South Africa, but it wasn't talked about the way it's being talked about now.

00:14:32.000 It wasn't seen as a peer rival to say the U.S. economic architecture and economic structures.

00:14:42.000 Now it is.

00:14:43.000 And in a year and a half, two years, we've seen a huge change of focus from west to east.

00:14:49.000 You know, that's been one of the terrible consequences for the United States with this conflict.

00:14:54.000 You know, Lindsey Graham said the other day that the U.S. has come out really good for this conflict in Ukraine.

00:15:00.000 We're using Ukrainians to fight the Russians. 1.00

00:15:03.000 And, you know, for the United States, it's a win.

00:15:05.000 We're weakening Russia by Ukraine, and it's a win. 1.00

00:15:08.000 It's not true at all.

00:15:10.000 The U.S. is going to get hit hard by this, as is Europe is already getting hit hard by this.

00:15:16.000 I live in Europe.

00:15:17.000 I see the economy and what it's like.

00:15:19.000 I see how the people are suffering from an economic standpoint.

00:15:23.000 And it's just going to get much worse.

00:15:25.000 I mean, we've de-industrialized Germany.

00:15:29.000 We're destroying Europe economically.

00:15:33.000 A whole pipeline was blown up.

00:15:35.000 Right.

00:15:36.000 And we've also exposed all these weaknesses now in NATO, where we don't know whether NATO would follow America into war in Ukraine.

00:15:47.000 NATO's boxed themselves in, and that's another worrying part to all this.

00:15:51.000 What does NATO do now?

00:15:53.000 What kind of off-ramp can NATO find?

00:15:55.000 Because if NATO keeps on pushing for escalation, and how can they even escalate?

00:16:01.000 They've given up so many weapons to Ukraine.

00:16:05.000 So much of their power has been destroyed by Russia in this conflict that NATO is in a very tough position right now.

00:16:14.000 But Do they walk it back?

00:16:16.000 If they walk it back and they say, okay, we've lost this proxy war to Russia, then the trust between NATO members is lost.

00:16:27.000 But if they escalate further, they're going to get defeated.

00:16:31.000 Obama, when he was president, said something.

00:16:35.000 I didn't often agree with Obama, but he said something that was very correct in 2015.

00:16:40.000 He said he's not going to get involved in Ukraine because Russia has escalatory dominance in the region.

00:16:48.000 That was in 2014-2015.

00:16:51.000 He understood it then.

00:16:52.000 How come the Biden White House doesn't understand it now?

00:16:56.000 How come NATO doesn't understand it now?

00:16:58.000 This is Russia's backyard. 0.98

00:17:00.000 They're not going to win this thing.

00:17:02.000 They can't win this thing.

00:17:03.000 This is Russia's port.

00:17:05.000 It's their only warm water port.

00:17:08.000 I mean, strategically, it's existential for Russia.

00:17:12.000 Yeah, it's existential.

00:17:13.000 Yeah.

00:17:13.000 And they can't lose and they will not lose.

00:17:15.000 But by continuously escalating, Biden has pushed the US into an impossible position and he's pushed NATO into an impossible position.

00:17:25.000 And he needs to find an off ramp, but he has these neocons whispering in his ear.

00:17:30.000 And unfortunately, Biden continues to listen to the neocons.

00:17:35.000 And instead of finding some sort of diplomatic solution with the Russians, I still believe the Russians are open to negotiating and diplomacy.

00:17:44.000 I don't believe they've completely shut that door.

00:17:47.000 But Biden is not listening to people in his administration who are saying, walk through that door.

00:17:53.000 Instead, he's listening to the neocons who are trying to slam the door shut, and they're calling for more escalation.

00:17:59.000 Yeah, I mean, part of the problem is he has a domestic political problem, is if we don't win this war, we've been told that we're winning.

00:18:08.000 We've been told all these lies about the war.

00:18:11.000 And if he suddenly walks away from the war with a settlement that puts Ukraine in a worse position than the Minsk Accords, and a worse position than the April 2022 agreement, Biden politically...

00:18:28.000 You know, is very, very damaged.

00:18:30.000 And the whole neocon ideology is, you know, I would say destroyed.

00:18:35.000 Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right.

00:18:37.000 He's now in the beginnings of a campaign, and he's based his entire presidency, it seems, on Ukraine, which is crazy in and of itself.

00:18:47.000 I don't know why he's invested so much into Ukraine.

00:18:51.000 He should have realized after the sanctions had failed that it was time to negotiate a settlement.

00:18:57.000 And that time was the end of March, beginning of April.

00:19:01.000 He had the deal in place, and it could have been behind him by now.

00:19:08.000 But they decided to keep on pushing forward.

00:19:11.000 That's the problem there.

00:19:13.000 And I agree.

00:19:13.000 He's now in a campaign, and I don't see him pulling back.

00:19:18.000 I just don't see how he can do it at this point.

00:19:22.000 No matter how many Ukrainian kids die, The tragedy is the hundreds and thousands of people that are dying on both sides, but especially on the Ukrainian side.

00:19:35.000 And we're getting reports now on the front lines that the military is not even sending the armored vehicles towards the front line, of which they haven't even been able to get to the first line of defenses.

00:19:48.000 They're still trying to get through this gray zone area and try to get through the mines that the Russians have placed before they even get to the first line of defenses.

00:19:58.000 The vehicles have all been destroyed and burned.

00:20:01.000 They're not even sending Bradleys.

00:20:03.000 They're not sending leopards now.

00:20:04.000 There are reports that the UK told the Ukraine government don't even dare send the challengers in that direction.

00:20:10.000 We don't want to see images of challengers being destroyed and burned on the battlefield.

00:20:16.000 So now the Ukrainians are just sending the troops just on foot to try and break through.

00:20:23.000 This is a horrific situation.

00:20:26.000 Well, Alex, thank you very, very much for enlightening us.

00:20:29.000 And I hope we can get the two of you back next time to talk about China.

00:20:34.000 Absolutely.

00:20:34.000 It would be my pleasure.

00:20:36.000 Take care.

RFK Jr. The Defender - August 10, 2023

Strategies For China and Russia with Alex Christoforou

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