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 scotthortonshow.
Right you guys, on the line, I've got Gilbert Doctorow, author of Memoirs of a Russianist, in two volumes, which I swear I'm gonna get to someday when I figure out how to stop time and catch up on all my book reading.
Gilbert Doctorow.com is his website, we run him all the time at antiwar.com, and you should know that he lives in Brussels, and is a very keen watcher of Russia and all of the former Soviet Union and the politics involved in all of that.
So welcome back to the show, Gilbert.
How are you, sir?
I'm doing well, and glad to speak to you again.
Great, great.
Very happy to have you here.
So I kind of want to know everything that you think about what's going on.
And I guess we'll start with the danger of a Russian invasion of Ukraine and an American violent response to that, and the worst case scenario type thing, I think is probably what people want to know most.
Well, I don't know how closely your listeners follow the stock market, and I rather imagine they don't follow the Russian stock market with special interest.
However, today was a good day for the markets, and that is an answer to your question.
There you go.
Great.
That's great.
Thank you so much for that great news.
I'm going to tweet that out right now as you continue.
Thanks.
The point is that one of the Russian deputy ministers of foreign affairs made the remark that Russia has no interest, no desire to even think about fighting with Ukrainians, with their Slavic brothers.
And that, of course, got the markets going very well.
The Gazprom rose 10% today.
So the mood is more optimistic, but I have never been pessimistic because the talk about war was, as I've said in some places, a complicity between Russians and Americans, providing a cover to discuss things which, absent a sense of crisis and imminent disaster, would not have been possible.
What I mean is that the talk of war allowed the Biden administration to take and to consider Russia's demands for revising the security architecture in Europe.
Now, we may say, well, so they considered it, and then they said no.
But the game isn't over, not by any means.
The initial no is there, but that is hardly going to be the final American answer.
I will find some kind of compromise that may not give the Russians exactly what they want, which is sign on the dotted line that you will never let Ukraine in.
They may not get that, but they will get, at the end of the day, I believe they will get certain offers from the United States which give them the assurance that the worst that they have tried to prevent and avert, the worst being that the United States, the UK, and other NATO members use Ukrainian territory as a launching pad for offensive weapons and for stationing offensive military units that are at an easy striking distance of the Russian heartland.
That is unlikely to happen.
Some kind of compromise will be reached which keeps NATO forces effectively out of Ukraine.
So that has been my position from the beginning, and I don't have very much to revise or change now that what appears to be good news has come out of Moscow and the markets have celebrated.
Well, that's great.
That's right.
And that's what Ray McGovern has said too, that when they say, oh, we want a treaty promising that Ukraine will never be brought into NATO, they know they're not going to get that.
What they want is a real assurance.
And the same thing with, as we've talked about before, I believe, sir, you're probably the first one who brought this up to me on the show, the MK-41 missile launchers in the name of defensive anti-ballistic missile missiles, that those same launchers can be used for tomahawks.
And that's certainly the way the Russians see them.
And they wanted an assurance, which Biden gave them quite blithely, actually just sort of, oh, no, we don't have any intention of putting missiles in there.
He said that publicly, like kind of off the cuff, even like, oh, that's not even an issue.
We weren't even planning on doing that, which, in fact, that's a good question for you here is did you have any indication that they really were considering putting those missile launchers into Ukraine?
Or do you think that Putin had some real reason to believe that they were considering doing that or he was just kind of using that, you know, potential issue as a cudgel to get the argument started?
I think it's the last point.
There were, however, other things going on, which were not covered by the blithe remarks of Mr. Biden, and which will have to be addressed before this issue begins to be put away in the outbasket.
It's still very much in the inbasket.
And the other issues, for example, are the British and American, but primarily British construction of two naval bases on the Black Sea for Ukraine, which will effectively be armed and manned by the British.
And at least one of those naval bases is just 80 miles from the Crimea.
That is obviously unacceptable to the Russians.
And some kind of agreement will have to be separately reached to ensure that it's not just these dual-purpose missile launchers, but all military infrastructure that has an offensive potential or has a very brief warning period before attack, given the distances involved, that all of this will be carted out of Ukraine.
That will be the likely end.
Now, how we reach that end, how much more pressure the Russians will have to apply, that will depend on the stubbornness of the American side.
And the Russians have a lot of cards up their sleeve.
There was talk in the last week of the agreements, the strategic cooperation agreements that Russia has reached with Venezuela and Nicaragua.
The purpose of doing that is to restage, to recreate the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse.
That is, whereas the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was Russia stationing missiles that were nuclear armed in Cuba, 90 miles or whatever it is, from Florida, which the United States rejected as totally unacceptable and was ready to go to war over.
And now it is the Russians who are doing this in reverse, that what you, the United States, are doing by marching up to our borders in NATO, or simply on your own, is unacceptable to us.
You're presenting security risks which we cannot accept, and we will return the favor by placing our bases close to you.
They weren't necessarily going to be missile bases in either Nicaragua or Venezuela.
But what they will be, very possibly, is a port facility rights.
That is to say, for Russian submarines and surface vessels to be able to put into port in Nicaragua, and so not have to travel several thousand miles back to their Russian bases to keep a watch in the Caribbean.
Now that would be very unpleasant for Washington, and it has the negotiating advantage of placing in the front pages of all of our newspapers the Russian charge, oh, we don't have the right to a sphere of influence or a buffer zone.
Then gentlemen in Washington, how dare you call out the Monroe Doctrine and complain about our bases in Nicaragua or Venezuela.
So that is a next possible development if the Russians do not get satisfaction with their present negotiations that will probably resume in Geneva.
They of course also have the possibility of playing peekaboo with their nuclear-armed hypersonic-carrying submarines off the U.S. coast, both east coast and west coast.
That would be, certainly get the attention of Washington, of Capitol Hill, and you'd have a lot of angry words, but the knowledge, but not just angry words, but deep fear, existential fear, which might make the United States more flexible in negotiating the Russian demands.
Yeah, now, you know it's funny because the parallel kind of argument from the Doves has been, guys, remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and how the Americans reacted to the Soviets putting missiles and these kind of bases in Cuba?
Well, how do you think they feel now?
But then there's the whole other argument about the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is, the Russians could make another one of those if they wanted to, which I know you didn't say missiles.
You know, a destroyer base would be, you know, 10% of a Cuban Missile Crisis, but any kind of increased Russian military presence in the Americas would be, you know, obviously the kind of crisis, you know, politically, domestically, that any politician would want to avoid.
And so, but it just goes to show, right, that there's all kinds of things the Russians can do.
If they want to have something to negotiate away, well, they could escalate all over the place in, you know, we're probably just beginning to imagine all the different things they could do to get the Americans to just agree to back off, which has already happened, right?
I mean, as you're saying, the Biden government isn't going to, you know, force these issues.
In fact, the headlines on antiwar.com today are the Ukrainians met with the Russians and agreed to, I guess, try to reinforce the Minsk II ceasefire in the east of the country, which is, you know, obviously the Americans are behind them telling them they want them to make this deal, right?
Or don't tell me that's over the Americans' dead body that the Ukrainians are making that deal today.
Well, of course, the United States would be pressuring Ukraine.
This is unpleasant.
They would like to have Russia over a barrel, but they don't, in fact.
Washington's options are far fewer than the Russians' options, and its geography tells you that story.
I think the most remarkable thing in the development of the post-Cold War is how the countries that the United States has brought into NATO, the so-called frontline states, like the Baltic States, which have borders with Russia or are within very close proximity of Russia, that none of them look at the map.
And when you look at the map, you understand that there is a big neighbor, and you may be close to them, but they're also close to you.
And there's no way in hell that any country that is your ally, 4,000 or 5,000 miles away, and has like 3,000 troops stationed in your country, is going to save your neck if the Russians decide to break your neck.
So that's one side, the military side.
Of course, the other side to this issue has been the self-destruction of these countries economically and demographically.
When their elites did a cozy deal with Washington, got themselves established as Washington's favorites and as the democratically elected governments, well, these democratically elected governments in all of these East European countries oversaw the loss of 25, 30% of the population because their economies imploded when they lost the Russian market.
And they lost the Russian market because they gave it away, or by spitting in the face of the Russians and smiling to the Americans.
So these countries all are in a weak position, although they shout a lot, make a lot of noise, and have until recently been the tail wagging the NATO dog.
The Russians intended to end that impossible situation and to speak to the principal, which is why they went over to the head of Europe and spoke to the United States.
Hang on just one second.
Hey, y'all, they've got great deals on weed at TheHempSpot.com.
The Hemp Spot specializes in Delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol instead of Delta-9, so they can send it straight to you anywhere in America.
Recently a friend moved and didn't have a guy in his new town, but then he heard about TheHempSpot.com on my show and was saved, figuratively and literally, because if you use the promo code Scott, you get 15% off every order and free shipping on any order over $100.
Legal jams, bud, gummies, and the rest in your state, TheHempSpot.com, spell V-T-H-C.
You guys, my friend Mike Swanson has written such a great revisionist take on the early history of the post-World War II national security state and military-industrial complex in the Truman-Eisenhower and Kennedy years.
It's called The War State.
I have to say, it's the most convincing case I've read that Kennedy had truly decided to end the Cold War before he was killed.
In any case, I know you'll love it.
The War State by Mike Swanson.
Some of y'all have a problem.
You've got chickens, but you don't want to stand around throwing food at them all day because of all the important stuff you have to do.
Well, the solution to that is to get the Free Range Feeder from FreeRangeFeeder.com.
The Free Range Feeder has been developed to satisfy the needs of the poultry chicken hobbyist and the homesteader.
The convertible design allows for four different mounting methods.
Go to FreeRangeFeeder.com slash Scott or use promo code Scott to get 15% off and get the free e-book.
Subscribe to their newsletter to immediately receive your free copy of Getting Started with Backyard Chickens.
That's FreeRangeFeeder.com slash Scott.
Tell me, Gilbert, about, as you wrote about on your blog, about the head of the Navy or something, I guess, in Germany, who said something reasonable and was forced to resign.
Well, he received a lot of very unfavorable press.
He made on the 21st of January when he was visiting in India.
This was in a closed meeting but some people used their iPhones to tape it and then they disseminated these tapes in which he was saying very reasonable things but very politically incorrect things given his station and given the official position of his government.
He was saying that Vladimir Putin deserves respect and that the main thrust of the present Russian activity around the Ukraine borders is precisely to get respect and that respect is very cheap and so it's unreasonable that Europe doesn't give it to him.
That was enough to, oh yes, he also said that the Crimea would never go back to Ukraine.
These are pretty obvious things and it will never go back to Ukraine and most anybody who's got their head properly screwed on to their bodies knows that.
However, the official position of the German government together with NATO and the United States is that the Russian occupation is illegal and so forth.
So he said politically incorrect things and he took a lot of flack and he consequently tendered his resignation which was then immediately accepted.
So he's gone.
However, as I noted in an article yesterday, this was not a one-off thing.
This is not the strange behavior of one German head of Navy who happened to have a heart as well as a mind and who behaved like a normal human being which is something that's quite exceptional.
It turns out to be the Germans are the most reluctant to go along with the more aggressive posture out of everybody in the current situation, right?
Right.
Well, if your listeners will hear repeated that the German coalition government has as a foreign minister and as a minister of defense Greens and you will hear the mainstream statement that the German Greens were a peace party.
Well, maybe for a couple of days when they were founded 30 or 40 years ago.
Ever since they've been a war party.
That in the European Parliament, the most of the last decade, the most vociferous anti-Russian voices in the European Parliament were always German Greens.
I stress German Greens because there are several Green parties from other countries, the Scandinavian Green parties, which are much open and reasonable and discuss all these issues like adults.
The German Greens were not adults, they were anti-Russians.
So Mr. Schultz, the German federal chancellor, has a tough time.
He required, he needed the help of the Greens to form a majority coalition and his new government.
But he is the heir to a different tradition.
That is the tradition of the SPD, of the socialists going back to the 1970s, was that called Inspannungspolitik, the detente in nice French English, relaxation or rapprochement between Germany and Russia.
This was the policy that was championed for five years during his chancellorship of Willy Brandt, who was, we all know first as the, or some of us know, as the celebrated mayor of Berlin who went on to become chancellor.
And he, with the assistance of a certain Egon Bahr, who was his helper and thinker as regards relations with East, he formulated this policy of dealing, trying to build bridges to Russia and to influence, well, the Soviet Union then, and try to make the Soviet Union more civilized, more open, more like us by bringing them close to us rather than by driving them away, which was the American way, dealing with them only from a position of strength, which means by diktat.
That was the American approach and the Willy Brandt had a different approach.
That is the legacy of the 1970s Socialist Party of Germany.
And it was picked up in the new millennium in 1999 to 2004 by the socialist chancellor at the time, who did two things that are very notable and which I would mention here.
One is that he backed, this is Schroeder, Gerhard Schroeder.
He backed the gas pipeline, the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, and he was joined France and Russia in publicly denouncing the United States plans to invade Iraq.
He denied the United States the UN cover that it sought before staging the invasion of Iraq.
And so the American invasion of Iraq was illegitimate from the first day, they formed what was called the Coalition of the Willing.
Well, the Americans didn't have a choice but to forgive Schroeder and Germany.
After a big fuss with France over the Freedom Fries and whatever, the United States gave a little tap on the wrist to France, and the United States went after Russia to hound it out of the civilized world.
So the bad relations with Russia started under Bush Jr.
And the starting point was precisely the Russian denial in the UN of the US hopes for UN-sanctioned invasion of Iraq.
Anyway, I want to say that this was, the policy of Schroeder was Russia-friendly, and then after he was succeeded, because he was a very brave man, the German finances were a mess after investing hundreds of billions of euros in raising the East Germany following unification under Kohl, the government was broke, and Mr. Schroeder did a very brave thing, he introduced austerity to put finances in order, which made him instantly very unpopular, and he lost an election.
And he was replaced by Madame Merkel, by Frau Merkel, Mutti Merkel.
And their party, the CDU, the conservatives, had no investment in close relations with Russia, and despite all the talk of American newspapers of how, because Angela Merkel was an Aussie, came from East Germany, and she spoke Russian as a child, she had an instant rapport with Vladimir Putin and blah blah blah, that was all just newspaper concocted propaganda, there was no love between Madame Merkel and Vladimir Putin, she looked down her nose at the Russians in general, and although she initially resisted American sanctions in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea, she then went on to become the main enforcer of European-inspired, of US-inspired sanctions against Russia.
So, this new government of Mr. Schultz is an heir to this legacy of good relations with Russia, which was not the policy of the CDU, of the conservatives, who were in power for 13 years under Merkel.
We will see whether or not Schultz is able to master, to take control of his government, and override the rather hawkish and warlike instincts of the Greens that he had to bring into his government in order to rule.
But I wanted to bring attention, if you give me one more minute to say this, I wanted to bring attention to something that happened yesterday, the day before yesterday, and which is a follow-on to your introducing the question of this German minister of the Navy who was forced to resign.
40 German dignitaries, well-known personalities, who were former, they were all in retirement, you don't make open letters to the government when you're in the government or occupying positions of authority, if you do that, you find yourself out on the street the way the German naval minister is.
So, these are retired, but very well-recognized and known, ambassadors of Germany, political scientists of Germany, and business people.
And they signed a letter, 40 of them, calling upon Schutz to implement the Socialist Party's tradition of detente with Russia.
And they blame the United States for using this conflict over Ukraine to enforce its control over Europe as a whole against the interests of Europeans.
I think your readers would be quite interested to consider the statements that are made, because I imagine many of these statements, that they will also subscribe to, that the European Union consists of vassals controlled by the United States and working against the interests of the European peoples.
Well, I'll tell you what, I mean, to read the statements from this guy, I'm sure I'll say his name wrong, Jen Stoltenberg, the head of NATO, you know, he talks as though he's ready for war at any time.
And then he came out making demands that, I'm not exactly sure the exact language of it, but essentially saying that he wanted, he demanded that the Russians leave the Donbass, where they really aren't anyway, and the Crimea, but also South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the Transdniester.
I'm sure I'm saying that wrong too, which is this little strip of land, I guess, I'll let you describe, I think between Hungary and something or other.
And he's calling all this occupied territory and demanding the Russians leave now.
And this is after Biden's given his written response to Putin, which we have to assume includes some climbing down rather than just more tough talk.
But so I wonder who this guy Stoltenberg is really representing.
Is it just Lockheed Incorporated or is it something else?
Well, I think he gets his marching orders from Washington, just as the head of the European Commission, von der Leyen, who was the formerly the Minister of Defence in Germany and worked very closely with NATO, she also gets her marching orders from Washington.
And for that matter, the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, also gets his marching orders from Washington.
These people are on the US payroll.
I don't mean necessarily they get a check every month, but they're lined up to get their hot dogs at the ranch.
And Europe as a whole does not defend European sovereignty at present.
Individual countries have that possibility.
And Germany is the outstanding case where there is a tradition of independence from NATO and from the European Union vassals, the following Washington.
Under Merkel, that was submerged.
And she did Washington's bidding in the hope of preventing things from getting still worse.
In the case of Schultz, we'll have to see what he does.
He isn't very impressive in the first days in office, but perhaps he'll get his feet on the ground and will be able to command a team that is distinctive in being more peace-minded.
By the way, the open letter had the following title.
It was for a German security policy that builds peace.
So I think that this will be of interest to your listeners.
Just that it is not a completely new development.
I was in Berlin in November, together with Ray McGovern, by the way.
We both were there in November 2016, when something called Detente Now was launched, also by socialists, with people who had served closely with Willy Brandt's assistant Egon Bahr.
And this appeal, which found rapport in the States.
Noam Chomsky signed on.
Daniel Ellsberg signed on.
Ray's organization, the VIPs, that is Veteran...
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Intelligence Professionals, yes.
They signed on.
The American physicists signed on.
There were a number of large and very reputable social organizations in the States.
And the appeal, which I brought to the nation, the weekly magazine of commentary in New York, that appeal was put on their pages.
Now, unfortunately, at the time that this was made, the socialists...
I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I am up on a time wall right here.
I have to go.
Somebody's supposed to be interviewing me in a minute here.
Okay.
But thank you so much for coming on the show and for all your great insight here.
And we'll look forward to reading you at gilbertdoctorow.com and at antiwar.com.
Thank you again, sir.
My pleasure.
Bye-bye.
The Scott Horton Show, Antiwar Radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in LA, APSradio.com, antiwar.com, scotthorton.org, and libertarianinstitute.org.
