I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism.
And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at ScottHorton.org.
You can sign up for the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton Show.
All right, you guys, on the line, I've got Lyle Goldstein.
Now he used to be with the U.S. Navy and has since gone independent.
He's here writing for Real Clear World, What Germany Sees in Ukraine.
Welcome back to the show, Lyle.
How are you doing?
Well, thanks, Scott.
Glad to be here.
I wish it were under happier circumstances.
I'm doing well, though.
Thank you.
Great.
Yeah, I agree.
So listen, I mean, I'm really happy to have you on.
You're one of the brightest guys that I know that examines issues of America's relationship with Russia and China.
So I'm really happy to have the opportunity to hear what you have to say about what's going on right now.
And starting with what's going on this morning, and I don't know if you know, but my wife, Larissa Alexandrovna Horton, she is Ukrainian and speaks Russian very fluently.
And she wasn't translating word for word for me or anything, but she was.
We were watching this morning.
The Russian National Security Council, I guess it was, held a meeting and streamed it live on YouTube.
And essentially what was happening was the various people were coming up and explaining that they were ready for war and that it was weird, it was the FSB guy who said we're ready rather than a military guy.
I don't know if that's meaningful.
And he did say it would be a hard fight.
He wasn't like bragging and boasting.
He was saying it would be a difficult thing, but yes, sir, we can do it if we have to.
And then a lot of the rest of them were essentially making the case that, well, the poor people in Donetsk and Luhansk absolutely need our help and Kiev has made them outlaws and they are essentially, you know, one with us, this, that.
So they were making the case maybe for not going all the way to the Dnieper, but maybe taking Donetsk and Luhansk.
But then again, to me, the entire question was, are they really making the case for war because they're going to war?
Are they really making the case for war because Putin's got a phone call with Macron later and wants an even stronger hand than he already had?
And this kind of deal.
And so I just turned over to you what you think is really going on there.
Are they really in the final stages of making excuses to invade?
Yeah.
Thanks so much.
And again, glad to be here.
You know, I love, I love this show and it's so important these days, the, I mean, it's, it's very hard to try to differentiate between what is, what is just very, very nasty and realistic form of coercive diplomacy versus what, you know, what are real preparations for war.
Like your wife, I'm also watching the Russian press day to day and, you know, it's kind of extraordinary to behold.
I've never seen this kind of mix of vitriol and accusation and, you know, a lot of, a lot of aggressive and bellicose statements.
So I mean, it's very disturbing.
I mean, those of us who've been watching this for years, though, are not, are not too surprised because we've seen this kind of building up and building up and building up.
And I mean, it's, you know, I do think, I mean, you know, let's say at the outset, you know, Russia is clearly culpable in many ways for a lot of this, but I mean, you know, we're, we're certainly our country has been extremely negligent about European security for, you know, for decades.
And, you know, so we're, we're kind of harvesting the fruit of this, of a lot of bad policies here.
And, you know, I think this was all very predictable going way back to the 90s when I started writing about Ukraine.
And you could tell it was going to be an incredibly delicate situation going forward.
And here we are, you know, on the brink of a major war.
And I have to say, you know, my sense is given all the evidence I'm seeing that this is more than a show, that this is, that this is most likely the real thing.
And so the question I've been debating for a while in my head is whether, whether we'll see a big war or a small war and, you know, for Ukraine's sake, I think, I hope that it's a small war, of course, but I don't know.
Well, I mean, obviously it's a giant, complicated mess, but it seems like in February of 2015, if I remember the timeline right here, this is kind of right in the heat of, or maybe there was a lull, but it was right near a time of extreme violence in the, in the Donetsk and Luhansk, you know, Donbass region there in far Eastern Ukraine.
Back and forth.
I think most of the casualties are on the Donbass side at the hands of the Ukrainian military.
And in February, 2015, the Donbass voted to join the Russian Federation and Putin told them no.
And it seemed like there were a few different reasons why, I'll let you explain why you think he didn't then.
And what do you think has changed now that he would go even that far, much less to the Dnieper there?
Yeah.
Wow.
Great question.
Great question.
You, you, you're really on top of things, Scott, and it's, it's admirable.
I wish all our people commenting and, and talking about the crisis were so well informed.
You, you know, you have a great understanding.
You're exactly right.
There was a period of, of kind of extreme violence there in early 2015, when you basically it was a total rout of Ukrainian forces.
You know, whether there were Russian regulars involved, I think it's quite likely, you know, at some level.
And, you know, more or less Russia was delivering the news to the Ukrainians that, hey, you know, if things start to get ugly, we'll take this in hand and do what we want.
And that's what they did.
And a lot of Ukrainians died for this as, you know, for this kind of misperception on the part of Kiev, but also in Western capitals, including in Washington.
So you know, at that time, though, there was a sense that they needed, that Europe needed to find a way out of this.
And they had set up the, the, I think the Minsk, you know, accords came out of this to try to shut this down and, and get some kind of a more stable approach.
Putin though, you know, good question.
Why has he been reluctant?
And I think let's, I mean, for people who follow the Russian politics realize, sure, Putin has kind of surfed on a wave of Russian nationalism, no question about it.
But you know, there are, how to put it, there are people much more aggressive and nationalist than he is.
And, you know, I think he likes to see himself rightly or wrongly as a statesman and somebody who's kind of takes a moderate viewpoint.
So I know that's hard for people to believe in the U.S. and the West, where he's vilified every day in the headlines, but in Russia, you know, he kind of paints himself as right of center, but a kind of moderate still.
So you know, in the daily drumbeat of reports from Donbass and elsewhere in Ukraine have kind of created a sense of inevitability in Russia that at some point Russia would take this in hand.
Like I said, I mean, let me point to two more factors that may have triggered the change because I've been mulling this in my head, maybe three factors, but one, you know, unquestionably Belarus casts some major shadows over all of this, you know, and I think for Putin and the Russian elite, that was a really kind of, how to put it, kind of existential moment where they considered whether Russia might be toppled by external forces, their own regime.
Now, I'm sorry, you're talking about the color coded attempted revolution in Belarus last year?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that really unnerved them and made them think that it was time to draw these red lines, which, you know, I think they would say that they had already drawn, but to color them in a deeper shade of red and make sure that they were flashing, you know, red, you know.
So I think that's one issue that really is sort of lurking behind all of this discussion and making the, and has made the Kremlin that much more aggressive.
You know, this idea that, you know, if you don't try to save your regime and your ideology and your ethos, is it where your national ethos, then you'll just be swept up in one of these colored revolutions and you're going down.
So that explains part of it.
You know, there have been moves against Ukrainians with Russian sympathies, Medvedchuk, I think it's known he's a friend of Putin.
I think he may be godfather of one of Putin's daughters.
I mean, that, you know, we shouldn't underestimate that Medvedchuk is a major figure in Ukrainian politics and very articulate spokesman of the kind of Eastern Ukrainian approach.
And so having him sort of targeted, not targeted, he's, I think he's under house arrest.
So, I mean, that's at least he's not in, I don't think he's actually physically in jail.
So, but I mean, this, I think has, again, sort of tripped a wire in Vladimir Putin's head and said, you know, this is Ukraine is going down in a direction that he cannot tolerate, you know.
And so there you have it.
It's sad because I initially thought that probably Zelensky and Putin could actually find a kind of rapport, partly given where Zelensky's from and his background.
But I was definitely wrong about that.
We don't see anything like that.
Well, I mean, that's a great place to go down a tangent here.
I mean, if you compare him to Mikhail Shakhashvili in Georgia back in 2008, he's not nearly so reckless as that freak.
Right.
So but he did make quite a few moves, as you're saying, against this oligarch who was very close to the Russians in the last year, taking his media off the air and all of that kind of thing.
And then, I mean, is that basically what I don't know?
I guess what explains his intransigence, then, if he's just a comedian and he's a front man for this guy, Kolomoisky or whoever.
But obviously, Joe Biden's driving the car anyway.
Right.
So.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, here's the thing.
Look, I Russian politics is immensely complex.
Well, guess what?
You know, I think I think we can say Ukrainian politics is also extremely complex.
You know, there are high stakes.
There's a ton of corruption.
You know, personally, I don't think it helps that they've been you know, we all know, you know, Kiev has been a kind of political hothouse related to the whole Russiagate thing.
And I hope some capable journalists, maybe yourself, will go after this issue.
You know, how is Russiagate, that whole, you know, scandal that went on and on and on, how it's tied in closely with this whole crisis we're having right now?
I think it is tied.
We can go more into that, too.
But Zelensky himself, I mean, my analysis is it's pretty simple.
I mean, you know, he's a comedian, but knows very little about I mean, he's a pretty sophisticated guy.
And, you know, I think he probably has some political sense.
Right.
But but I mean, how to put it in the sense of a of an actor, of a public personality, of somebody who likes being a celebrity and obviously can tell a joke.
But but I mean, do they have any real appreciation?
Have they ever taken, you know, a course in international politics?
Have they ever read a book about, you know, World War Two or anything like that?
You know, I doubt it.
So he you know, I think that as a as a political neophyte, he was sort of thrown into the maelstrom and immediately realized that the platform he ran on, i.e., you know, let's make peace with the Russians or at least let's talk to the Russians.
He realized that that he was going to be, you know, how to put it, rolled.
You know, in other words, he was going to face enormous pressure from all these entrenched elements.
And by the way, you know, I include among those entrenched elements, all those Western diplomats in Kiev who, you know, are very keen to bend his ear on all these, you know, all these terrible things allegedly that Russia is doing in Ukraine.
So therefore, you know, he was kind of brought around to that point of view that he had to suddenly become a hardliner.
So essentially, what I see is he more or less became he adopted more or less the positions of his predecessor on, among other things, you know, the whole Minsk process.
But you know, NATO, all these things, he basically adopted those positions, probably because he was advised to do so by, you know, various ambassadors and probably from the United States as well.
You know, that kind of, to me, explains how he, Zelensky, went from being a comedian with kind of pro-peace outlook to, you know, parading around in the trenches saying we're going to fix those Russians and one day we'll get Crimea back, which, you know, is a total pipe dream and doesn't help the situation.
I mean, you know, a wiser leader would have actually sat down with Putin on numerous occasions.
And remember when the one time where he did sit down with Putin, that was, I believe, in Paris in what, 2019 or 2018, he, it was threatened that there would be another Maidan.
In other words, that there would be another revolution in Kiev if he dared to make any kind of compromises, which is a, which is a shame, you know, how did it get to that?
And I think, you know, I think I know, I think it was the right sector demonstrating outside of the parliament, talking about we overthrew the last government, we can overthrow you too.
Right.
So, I mean, you have, you know, I call it these kind of out of control, radicalized nationalist elements and Ukraine's not the only country with these people.
So they're out there.
But I mean, you know, unfortunately we've seen that they're very skillful in Ukraine at mobilizing angry people, occasionally willing to resort to violence.
So I mean, it's a, it's a hothouse and, you know, I don't envy a guy like Zelensky, but I, of course, I, and everybody, I guess we're hoping for better that he would be able to find a way through this challenging circumstances to, I mean, look, you cannot move Ukraine.
It is located next to Russia.
It has a lot of people who speak Russian and who are interested in Russian culture.
And, you know, there's so many ties that bind them that, that, I mean, it's sort of ridiculous to the idea that you can excise all Russian influence from, from Ukraine.
And so a leader with foresight would recognize that and just sort of find a way, but we haven't seen that really.
Well, now I guess, I'm sorry, I got so many different questions.
I'm not sure which one to ask in which order.
Let's start with, what's the worst case scenario do you really think?
You think you're going to take the whole Eastern half of the country, march to Odessa and take Mariupol and all that, or they're just going to take the very far Eastern provinces?
I think you already said you're pretty sure they're doing something here.
By the way, the New York Times headline is live updates.
Putin prepares decision on breakaway Ukraine regions.
That's their headline for the meeting that took place this morning that we talked about earlier.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, they were setting him up to decide either way, I guess, you know, there's so much kind of spinning and misinformation and, you know, it's going on on both sides, I think.
So like, I wouldn't want to say, you know, whether a war will happen or not at this point.
I mean, it's clear to me as a military analyst, that's most of what I do, all the military pieces are in place.
So, you know, whether Putin has actually sent the order out as U.S. intelligence alleges now or not, I couldn't say, but my sense is, and this is, you know, just partly based on what I've seen on the military side, Scott, is that I think that Russia is prepared to go big.
I think that they would definitely stay away from Kiev.
Let's not say that, you know, the Russians have, you know, such military superiority.
If they want to run a column of tanks down the central boulevard in Kiev, you know, the Maidan, they can do that.
But I don't think, and they might, just to say they can do it and scare people.
That's part of this is about intimidation and symbols and stuff like that.
It occurs to me, they may want to strike at Lvov in particular, because that's kind of a hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism.
So I wouldn't be surprised if airstrikes or missiles were to hit.
That's in the far west of the country.
That's in the far west.
Because I think that they may want to, part of this is to say that you cannot just sort of put aside Russian aspirations and capabilities.
And so that message may come in the form of severe punishment.
I don't think that they will mete out extraordinary punishment in Kiev itself, because Kiev is a huge city.
Kiev is quite on the fence.
I mean, there's sort of, you know, it's a mix of people and cultures and, if you will, kind of a sacred city also in Russian sort of history.
So I don't think that they will, I don't think Kiev will be, you know, destroyed or something like that.
You kind of, there were some headlines like that.
I don't see that at all.
But to your point, I do see, it's very likely Russian movements against both Kharkov in the east, in the far east, and also Odessa in the far west.
Why do I say that?
Because a couple of reasons, you know, Kharkov is pretty obvious because it's so close and there's a lot of...
Odessa is kind of right in the middle in the south, right?
Odessa is pretty far west, actually, on the western side of Ukraine in the southwest.
But this is, I would say, is also a sacred city in the Russian mind, almost up there with cities in Crimea, Sevastopol, and so forth.
So, you know, to me, it would be very high on their list.
You know about the atrocities that went on there, how a number of pro-Russian people were burned to death, you know, in that horrible incidents.
And that was also in, that was in 2014.
You know, that hasn't been forgotten.
But I mean, there would be a couple of reasons for this, both sort of, as I pointed out, like historical, cultural reasons, then, you know, I have had quite a bit of interaction with the Russian Navy over the years, and they have a lot of pride, they want to, you know, like any military service, they want to show themselves as being relevant, important.
And so for them, you know, nothing could be more glorious for them than to land in southern Ukraine, you know, using amphibious ships, which have been sent to the area, probably for this purpose.
And so to make some kind of landings there, and then to attack Odessa, that would be, you know, how to put it, that would be sort of solidifying the important role of the Russian Navy in Russian history, which, by the way, you know, is not something to take for granted that Russian Navy often gets the short end of the stick, you know, while Russia favors, you know, tanks and air defense and so forth.
So that's a kind of bureaucratic explanation.
But also it would kind of, I see a kind of pincer movement, almost like a Stalingrad move that traps most of Ukraine's forces in the east near Luhansk and Donetsk.
But this, by attacking in the southwest also have the benefit of sort of pulling forces away from the east and kind of unhinging the Ukrainian command.
So I mean, I guess this is a long way of saying, Scott, I see a kind of very major operation that takes some some serious bites out of Ukraine, both in the east and in the far west.
Give me just a minute here.
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All right.
So you talk about, you know, bad policies led up to this, and I want to go back to that in a moment.
But can you talk about what good policies might defuse this situation on the American side here?
I mean, Biden has already said, hey, let's set up a verification regime so that you can be certain that we're not installing Tomahawk missiles in Romania and Poland and he won't write it in a treaty and they keep stamping their feet.
No one gets to close the door on NATO membership.
You know, the Russians can't tell us who to close the door on, but they could just close it themselves.
We all know they don't want to integrate Ukraine anyway, and the Germans and the French would never allow it anyway.
And Biden has mumbled a few different times that, like, look, man, we're not bringing Ukraine into NATO any time the next 10 years anyway, which is a pretty significant thing.
I know it's not signing a new treaty, but, you know, Bush and Trump and the Americans, they just tear up treaties all the time whenever they feel like anyway.
But so it seems like the assurance he's gotten on Ukraine NATO membership is as good as any other one, just because it's believable.
You know what I mean?
Not that like, oh, good, Biden made a promise.
And so that's sacred.
But just it's pretty obvious that he means it when he says it, that we're not bringing Ukraine into NATO anyway.
So what's left that America's got to do to appease this guy, to make him back off, you think?
Yeah, that's a great, it's a really interesting question.
One more point I meant to add on the last question about the geography or what a war might look like.
I should have said, you know, there's a major Ukrainian victory, sorry, Russian victory, which I think probably has a hold on President Putin's mind, which is the victory over the Swedes 1709 at Poltava.
Look on the map and where, you know, you think, oh, he defeated the Swedes somewhere near Sweden.
No, this was right in Ukraine.
And Poltava is very much a sacred term in kind of Russian history.
And anyway, Poltava is near, it's actually a province of Ukraine right near Kharkov.
So you could see, I would suggest that that is probably a place.
And one more issue is the water for Crimea.
And Crimea has had this problem of last few years that they have insufficient fresh water.
And I think this will be a major objective of war.
So this is why I would suggest that I think a decent amount of Ukraine will probably be come under Russian.
Well, I mean, that kind of answers the other question, which is, it sounds like you're saying there's so much advantage that they think that they could take here that they're going to take it.
Maybe, you know, resentment at NATO expansion is just an excuse after all.
Well, I, I think that that's some of it.
And part of it is, it seems like Putin, you know, he feels, I mean, this is a guy who, you know, people forget about this, but, but well, before Russia, you know, Putin kind of styled himself as a kind of westernizer, you know, and somebody who liked to hobnob with the, with leaders, you know, remember when, when George Bush looked into his eyes and so forth.
I mean, this, so he had that kind of disposition, but now he feels kind of severely wronged.
You know, he feels completely like isolated and shut out from that whole thing, you know, that whole kind of approach.
And so he's sort of, you know, as it were, this is his, his revenge, you know, in that, in that he's kind of taken, he says, you know, if I, if I can't, if I can't discuss or negotiate even on, on European security with, with Western leaders, including the United States, but other leaders as well, you know, then I'm just going to do what I need to do to, for, for Russian interests.
And that means basically, you know, not negotiating the future of Eastern Europe, just taking, you know, what he needs, what he wants and feels that Russia needs in Eastern Europe.
Now, I don't want, you know, I'm not saying that he's going to invade the Baltics and, and Poland or something like that, but I mean, he, he's taking very strident measures to show that if Russia is ignored, then it will kind of strike back.
I mean, what kind of offers could have been made?
I do think it's a little bit late for this diplomacy, but, you know, people have been talking about Finland and Austria as examples, you know, and I, I was recently on a call with somebody who said, well, you know, nobody in Europe likes the Finnish example, and even the Finns themselves would never agree to that today.
But I mean, really, I think that misses the point.
But Finland enjoyed lots of autonomy during the Cold War, and, and they escaped from a very virulent kind of oppression that the other countries in Eastern Europe suffered.
How did they escape that?
By declaring very firmly that they would not, you know, do anything that was contrary to Russian national security interests.
And Finland and Russia have enormous amount of bad blood, enormous, you know.
So they had every reason to contest Russia in a very forceful way.
They chose not to.
They said, no, we're going to try something different.
We're going to be neutral and, you know, carefully neutral.
And Finland benefited enormously.
And today, Finland is one of the happiest, most beautiful and well-off countries in the world.
And it's largely goes down to them just stopping, you know, ceasing this kind of endless warfare with the Russians.
So I would like to see other countries in Europe take this very mature approach in Eastern Europe.
That is, you know, there's not much you can do about the Russian bear.
He is who he is.
You know, he's not a cuddly bear.
And you just have to deal with that reality.
And the United States most likely is not, I would say almost for sure, is not coming to save you.
You know, that's one thing this crisis made very clear.
And I hope there are a lot of people in the Baltics who are kind of scratching their head going, wow, you know, what does this Article 5 really mean?
Yeah, because it's a question.
Well, you know, I saw where someone criticized me.
God help me.
I read a YouTube comment and it said, yeah, this guy completely ignores the fact that all these countries want to join NATO.
And my answer to that is, geez, you know, I didn't really think of that because I don't really care what they want.
But I guess he's got a point that all these nations are run by people who are afraid of Russia.
Yeah, I mean, the USSR is gone, but there's previous history for them to refer back to, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, look, the world is full of people who are fearful and who are, you know, who would like to live better and so forth and live in complete security.
And what could be better than having somebody from abroad come and solve all your problems and deliver security?
And I, you know, I don't deny that countries like Poland, Hungary and the Baltics even have done very well off NATO.
How have they done well?
Well, you know, all the investors think, well, if they're in NATO, then they're probably pretty secure and that's a good investment.
So, you know, I'm willing to invest in all this, all these things that I wouldn't necessarily do if I wasn't sure.
So, I mean, yeah, they have look, these people have benefited a lot and probably Ukraine would benefit, too.
But again, it's pie in the sky because it's quite illusory.
And hopefully, you know, I hope the situation will stabilize.
But we didn't talk about one scenario that does bother me, which is, you know, if you posit that Putin is not, Putin is not really, he's not fearful of Ukraine so much.
You know, Ukraine is kind of a mess now and for a long time.
But what he's fearful of is actually is NATO and NATO strength, all the capabilities that are piling up, all the, you know, adversarial sensibility, the constant exercises, their proximity, you know, the new deployments of various kinds of forces.
If you posit that that is the problem, you know, and I'm including that, for example, the missile defense facilities in Romania and also now in Poland.
If that's the problem, then messing with Ukraine doesn't necessarily, you know, this war in Ukraine doesn't necessarily solve that.
So how does he go about solving that?
And I do fear that there could be an Article 5 challenge in the near future.
I mean, and even part of this war where Putin says, look, you know, you and NATO seem to believe that I can only have my way in Ukraine, but I cannot have my way in the Baltics and Romania and so forth.
And, you know, as he said in his statements that he made, he considered, he put everything on the table.
He said, I want all infrastructure, all NATO infrastructure in Eastern Europe gone.
We're going back to where we were in the early 90s.
I want all that infrastructure gone.
It's not to say they can't be members of NATO, but I need all of the bases and so forth to be, you know, to disappear.
Well, that's an extraordinary statement and probably shows his wider intent.
That is to, you know, that Russia will not be secure until, you know, the threat, the specter of NATO close to its borders is removed.
And, you know, to do that, he may well try to essentially to call our bluff, you know, which is to say, to put Article 5, you know, very crisply, very, you know, in a crystal clear way to say that this is, you know, let's see if the Americans really show up to defend, you know, the Baltics and so forth.
I don't mean that he will roll his tanks into Estonia and Romania and so forth and drive to Warsaw.
What I'm saying is he may bloody, you know, he may, you know, create a small incursion, raids, strikes, you know, to sort of dare NATO to respond in some way.
So I think that is unfortunately, you know, that it's low probability, but it's kind of the darkest scenario here.
I call that the big war plus, you know.
Yeah.
Well, it does go right to what you were just saying.
The question that the Baltic states got to be asking themselves is, do we really mean it?
You know, I think back on, you know, in Kennan's warning in the New York Times in 1998, where he's talking with Thomas Friedman, and it's just one statement.
He doesn't really elaborate about this, but he just kind of says, we're including all these countries that we have no intention of protecting if it really came down to it.
I mean, really, are we going to go to nuclear war even over Poland, much less Latvia?
I mean, would even Joe Biden really draw the line that far east after, you know, Ike and LBJ and Ronald Reagan said, I'm sorry, man, you're too far east for us to fight for you at this point back then.
Yeah, it's absolutely right.
And I have major doubts.
And, you know, there have been, you know, a plethora of war games that have been reported out in the press.
I think conducted at least by partly by the Rand Corporation that showed that the Baltics are completely indefensible.
There's absolutely nothing NATO or the U.S. can do, you know, other than kind of lob cruise missiles and try to get in some airstrikes.
You know, these areas would be completely overwhelmed extremely quickly.
Now, I don't think Russia will do this.
I think it has no intention of doing this.
They know very well that the Balts are, you know, do not want to be part of Russia in any way, and they do not feel the same kind of kinship.
On the other hand, there are Russian speaking minorities in these countries, and hopefully the Balts will wisely choose to treat these minorities well because they do not want an angry bear on their border.
Now, I'm not trying to exaggerate the danger of a Russia-Baltic conflict.
I don't think that's in the cards, but I fear that if we continue to walk down this road of intense militarized rivalry, that this will, you know, grow and grow and grow.
And there will be a sense of that, you know, a spark could could light that.
I had a little bit of insight into this when, you know, I don't personally don't was never particularly interested in Romanian-Russian relations, but having visited Moldova a few times in the last, right before the pandemic, I just became acquainted with the fact that these tensions are growing and growing and growing, not just with Romania, but, you know, of course, with Poland and also the Baltics.
So, I mean, there are there are, how to put it, all these fuses to conflict and that we need to be minimizing these.
And NATO needs to be extremely cautious and careful.
And, you know, talking about Germany a little bit, because that's I wrote this piece Wait, wait, I was going to ask you about that in just a second, but I wanted to ask you about, you know, when you're talking about his statements that, listen, you know, we want a treaty that says Ukraine is never going to be in NATO.
And we want, you know, to America to now abide by Bill Clinton's promises from the 90s that we weren't going to move our military into Eastern Europe and that kind of thing.
I guess, you know, to paraphrase Ray McGovern here, these are kind of the opening positions of a severe negotiation, but he knows he's not getting either of those things.
But what he wants is a really good middle.
And so he's starting with these more kind of, you know, extreme demands, looking for a real severe compromise in his favor here.
But because he's got to know that Biden's not going to back down that far no matter what.
So isn't that what's really going on with that?
I see what you're saying that, well, he's still signaling, you know, a possible future that he's interested in anyway, I guess.
I mean, I think he is.
Look, he.
You know, I think he's looking back at his legacy, I think he is, you know, is a leader that is increasingly willing to kind of vent his his real feelings.
You know, I think these are things that he would have said 10 years ago, but he he was trying to kind of be accommodating and polite and so forth.
You know, he's still it's it's kind of funny in Russian, but he always whenever he uses the words Americans, he always says our American partners.
You know, so while we're busy calling Russia adversaries, he's constantly refers to us as his partner.
Right.
Yeah, I like to point that out all the time, too, that, you know, people say this guy's a throat slitting, ruthless, strong man and all that.
I guess that's true.
But he also, at the same time, seems like a very cautious guy.
I mean, he could have been.
Well, he's held a lot of these a lot of this bitterness has been piling up and piling up and piling up.
And, you know, this this is when I talk about the you know, what we have to harvest the fruits of Russia, gay.
Well, you know, for the last five years, we've been calling Russia, you know, our adversary or our greatest adversary, our enemy, you know, who is trying to destroy American democracy and all these things, allegedly, which I regard as mostly, you know, 90 percent garbage.
But it you know, if you tell somebody they're your enemy all the time, this other country will start to believe it.
And they've internalized this kind of discourse that came from the United States, really.
And now they're acting in a way that we are an enemy and they're doing everything they can to, you know, restructure their neighborhoods to reflect this kind of very deep anger and discomfort lashing out, if you will.
So I don't know.
I'm not really convinced this is part of a negotiation per se.
I mean, maybe we'll see that.
But I you know, my instincts tell me that that they're sort of taking this in hand and determined to set up their own security order.
And, you know, they let's face it, they do have some countries that are sympathetic, you know, Hungary and Serbia and so forth that are willing to entertain, you know, that they're willing to sort of get on with Russia no matter what.
So for them, this is kind of an opening and they may try to make life hell for the Baltics and so forth.
So we'll see.
What do you think, Lyle, about the idea?
Hold on one second.
If I were advising Putin, I would say, you know, chill out.
You know, Russia is not under severe danger and you don't need to do all of this.
But of course, that's a very American perspective.
And the Russians, as I've always said, are endlessly paranoid and nobody's going to tell them how to organize their own national security.
Absolutely not.
Yeah.
Hey, what do you think about the idea that the Americans actually would prefer to see a conflict here?
Because that would be the excuse enough.
Nothing else has been, but that would be the excuse enough to put the brakes on Nord Stream 2 and prevent Germany.
Well, yeah, I try not to be too cynical about American politics, but sure.
I mean, there's a lot of people who benefit from U.S.-Russia tension.
And whether it's people in the, you know, in the energy field, I mean, we've seen oil prices going way up.
There are people who are anxious to sell gas in Europe and so forth.
But, you know, obviously on the military side, there's huge profits to be made by people who are going to sell.
They've already been making huge profits on NATO expansion, but all this tension is.
Have you ever seen the movie V for Vendetta, where the dictator is yelling?
It's great.
It's the guy that played Winston Smith as the dictator.
But he's yelling, we need the people to remember why they need us.
And I was just picturing him saying that about Germany and that.
How are we supposed to keep the Germans relying on us for their security when they don't feel like they have any real security concerns at all?
Because they're getting along with the Russians better and better every day.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I wrote about this recently, as you know, but I mean, generally I am kind of encouraged by by the reluctance you see in Germany to to really confront Russia.
I think that's quite mature.
They, you know, Germans know their history.
They know how Eastern Europe can be, you know, easily just become a, you know, a giant crater, a burial ground, as it has been so many times in the past.
So they're determined to avoid that and not get sucked into it by some of their hotheaded neighbors like Poland.
And I applaud the Germans for that maturity.
But I mean, let's face it, Berlin is under enormous pressure now.
I mean, you know, they've been severely shellacked for their kind of policies that are more accommodating toward Russia, which is, you know, I find to be really, really terrible.
You know, I was sort of hoping that between Olaf Scholz and Macron that they would find the French leader Macron, that they the two of them could kind of come up with a diplomatic formula that spares Ukraine and somehow avoids all of this.
All of this terrible, you know, all the terrible things that we're seeing unfolding.
But I'm afraid that, you know, the United States is sort of can't avoid this constant opportunism where, you know, they're just constantly suggesting that anybody who wants to make a compromise is, quote, weak and therefore, you know, cannot carry the mantle of freedom and peace in Europe, which which is, you know, to my estimate is so so juvenile and harmful to the future of European security, which which, you know, it's just common sense.
You don't have to have taken any big courses in European history to know that you're that you cannot cut Russia out of Europe, which is what some people seem to be trying to do.
But it's that's insane and will result in in sort of continuous warfare.
I mean, this could be the first of many wars in Eastern Europe that that follow.
Let's hope not.
We need a more mature approach in the nuclear age.
It's just this is just insanity.
What what is going on?
Right.
Kind of risk taking that we're seeing.
Right.
OK, listen, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time, especially for staying over a little bit with me here.
Lal, great talk.
Thank you.
My pleasure, Scott.
Yeah.
And take care, everyone.
All right, you guys, that's Lal Goldstein, director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities.
And here he is writing at Real Clear World what Germany sees in Ukraine.
Update shortly after this was recorded, Putin gave a speech where he announced he was recognizing the independence of the Donbass region.
So far, it's not clear if he means already the parts that are independent de facto or whether he means to include the parts where the Ukrainian military is stationed.
We don't know yet, but that's the latest as of the time we're publishing this interview anyway.
The Scott Horton Show, antiwar radio can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A.
APS radio dot com, antiwar dot com, Scott Horton dot org and Libertarian Institute dot org.
