Exclusive: John Mearsheimer vs Alexander Dugin: All You Need to Know about China, Russia, and the US

terms that Putin has laid down to settle this one that I believe no American president would ever accept you can blame us you can call us aggressors imperialist and so on but for us Ukraine in NATO means existential threat what President Biden wants is for Ukraine to lose the war on Donald Trump's watch not on his watch when the people in the west Say Never Putin will use nuclear weapon they are [Music] wrong um president Trump uh throughout his campaign has said that he's going to resolve the conflict in a matter of 24 hours now

I understand that maybe a figurative speaking but what is the outlook for the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine right now yeah I'll say a few words and then turn it over to Professor Dugan uh there's no question that President Trump has said that the one issue area in the world which is Ukraine that he's going to really fundamentally alter American foreign policy uh is in that uh conflict and as you said he says he's going to shut it down very quickly I do not believe he's going to shut it down very quickly uh I

believe he may have good intentions but it's not going to happen and the reason is that he would have to accept terms that Putin has laid down to settle this one that I believe no American president would ever accept and specifically Putin has said before he will even negoti neate this is to begin negotiations to come up with a peace settlement uh the west and here we're talking mainly about the United States the United States and Ukraine have to accept two conditions one that Ukraine will never be in NATO uh either dour or de facto

that Ukraine will be a neutral State a genuinely neutral State and furthermore that the West and Ukraine have to accept the fact that Crimea and the four oblas that the Russians have now annexed are permanently lost they're permanently part of Russia and again Putin is saying before I even begin negotiations to settle this to come up with a peace agreement you have to accept those two conditions I find it hard to imagine the United States even president Trump Trum accepting those two conditions I find it hard to imagine the ukrainians accepting those two conditions now

one could argue that President Trump is a very special person uh and he has views that are outside the mainstream and he is after all the president of the United States but the problem is that he is surrounded by people who have russophobia in the extreme and and have been super hawkish on Ukraine for years it's not like Trump is bringing into office with him a good number of people who share his views about shutting down the Ukraine war he's bringing into power as is very clear a bunch of hawks and therefore Trump is going

to be surrounded by people who are not going to want to accept the conditions that Putin has laid out so my view as to what's going to happen here is that this is going to be settled on the battlefield and I believe the Russians are going to win an ugly Victory they're in the process of doing it and at some point you're going to get a frozen conflict or you're going to get an Armistice and the end result is you're going to have bad relations between Russia on one side and the west and Ukraine on

the other side for as far as the eye can see I think this is a terrible situation but I don't think that Trump is going to change things in any meaningful way and be able to come up with a meaningful peace agreement on my side I can only agree totally with what Mr May shimer has said and I would add the situation is more radical that you have described because the conditions put forward by Mr Putin uh officially don't correspond to the real intentions of Russian Federation so that was a kind of minimal minimal conditions

that uh were put ahead put in the front precisely because nobody could could accept them o on the west so in the reality the situation with Ukraine is much more more existential and important for Russia we could not tolerate any kind of Ukraine hostile to Russia any versions in any borders inside any borders the point of agreement um consensus in inside of Russia that the war will lead with the West in the Ukraine should end without our Victory and nothing less that is not just the uh vision of Mr Putin that is the condition of

Putin to stay in power and to save our political regime so that is much more than just poish or um imperialist reactions or desires or dreams or or something like that of emerging once again independent power in theia it is much more than that so and I think nobody in in the west understands that correctly because for us to be or not to be as Russia as Russian Federation means to win or to lose the war in Ukraine that's much more than the conditions that Putin has put forward and Mr M shimer has very correctly

correctly explain and I agree totally with this opinion that this minimal and unsupportable and unacceptable conditions that Putin has put forward they have no chance to be accepted by the future administration of Mr Trump with his agreement or against his will I think there is the kind of geopolitical realist if you want logic that the west and United States could never I would say never accept not only expressed and explicit claims of Russia but much less implicit claims of Russia that go much more further than than just keep in our possession the territories we have

won or neutral uh neutral status of Ukraine so Mr M M shimer has explained very well very well the realist balance of power in this in this situation and I think as well that we need to to to separate in Russian understanding of Trump's Administration and Trump's Factor two things first of all Russia is um in agreement uh Russia supports eager eagerly the orientation of Mr Trump against globalism uh globalists against Council culture in his fight for restoration of Traditional Values or all that is very well accepted in Russia but I think in the terms

of the realist geopolitics there are such so huge contradictions that I I would say they stop precisely in the moment when these possible virtual probable negotiations start in that moment there will be the huge amount of understanding on the Deep level on the Deep level of the mutual understanding of the nature of the conflict in Ukraine that will prevent any possible solution so I agree once more with Mr M shimer that the result or the the the end of this bloody conflict will be decided on the battlefield so that will be no or Arce no

truth no no peace talks but rather the weapon that will decide the Fate the destiny of this geopolitical conflicts and that's beside or or I would say uh Beyond a Russian great great impression of trump because Trump is in our eyes he is Defender uh of the Traditional Values and we applaud that we we totally agree with that uh Council as Elon Musk recently has said Council culture should be cancelled so we should stop with this left liberal agenda on the global level in that sense Russia will support absolutely that but on the term or

in the realm of the realist geopolitics I think the contradictions contradictions will not disappear or maybe will aggravate more if I can just pick up on what uh Professor Dugan was saying and make two additional points uh he used the word existential threat and I have long argued that it is imperative from a western perspective to understand that putting Ukraine in NATO is an existential threat from Russia's perspective and once you accept the fact that Russia views Ukraine in NATO as an existential threat you realize just how dangerous the situation is and you realize that

the Russians will fight to the death to prevent Ukraine from being in NATO because it is an existential threat it threatens their survival the problem that you face in the west is that hardly any anybody accepts that argument and they will say that NATO expansion is not an existential threat to Russia and they believe that what's going on here is that Putin is just an imperialist he's an old-fashioned aggressor he wants to create a greater Russia by incorporating Ukraine into it and this has nothing to do with an existential threat my argument is is you

may not think you and the West may not think it's an existential threat but what you and the West think is irrelevant what matters is what the Russians think and in particular what Putin thinks and the Russians have made it perfectly clear in my opinion from the very beginning that Ukraine inside of NATO was unacceptable it is an existential threat nevertheless we continue to talk about bringing Ukraine into NATO number one and number two if we don't talk about bringing in Ukraine if we don't talk about bringing Ukraine formally into NATO we talk about creating

a situation where Ukraine is a def facto member of NATO where there is a strong security relationship between the West especially the United States and Ukraine this drives the Russians crazy they they view this as an existential threat but we refuse to accept that and if we refuse to accept that and we refuse to take Ukraine in NATO off the table you're never going to get an agreement and that's a point I think that both Professor Dugan and I agree on the second point I would make is that the more we push to maintain a

tight security relationship between the west and Ukraine this is the de facto NATO argument and the more we talk about a dour relationship where Ukraine is actually brought into NATO the more we incentivize the Russians to capture additional territory in Ukraine and to destroy Ukraine it's completely counterproductive from Ukraine's point of view it would be in the west interest and in Ukraine's interest to accept the fact that Ukraine cannot become a member of NATO and go to Great Lengths to come up with a genuine peace agreement but because we in the west refuse to accept

the argument that the Russians make that Ukraine and NATO is an existential threat we continue to wave this threat in the face of the Russians and the end result is the conflict will go on and and in the end Ukraine will be destroyed it will end up as a dysfunctional rub State and it will lose a lot of its territory to Russia and furthermore this will be a humiliating defeat not just for NATO but for the West itself so what I'm saying here is that by refusing to accept the fact that the Russians view NATO

expansion into Ukraine as an existential threat the West has basically shot itself in the foot and destroyed Ukraine in the process so I I totally agree with that so that that is I have remarked some years ago that the West um has finished to think in the realist terms so what is realism in the theory or practice so you can imagine not only your position in the balance of power and the international relations but as well you take in consideration the position of the other so you can think this way but the other thinks differently

as realist you put on the balance both positions and you try to come to some rational solution B so that is maybe cynical maybe outside of moral but realism in the international relations prec precisely that so so you you evaluate the real capacity the real possibility of the other than you and you take that in consideration in calculation of your National interest so that was starting from Morgantown and car in the international relations that is uninterrupted line of realist thinking and I think that Mr uh mimer has explained it excellently everything is completely clear if

you consider Russia as an object in international relations you could say we should we need to punish it we need to put it in the Border we need to to to overthrow Putin and so on but if you accept that that is not just object but subject so you start you start to consider to explore to study its subjective perspective and in this subjective perspective appears precisely what Mr mimer has absolutely clearly defined as ex existential threat and that is so so for us you can blame us you can call us aggressors imperialist and so

on but for us you in NATO means existential threat and Mr M Mir shimer has uh said one very important thing about the fight to the death and if the existential threat is perceived as such in the ice by the subject of the nuclear power as Russia the death means not only the death the death for Russia or for Ukraine the death in the case of nuclear power involved means as well the possible death of the Western Europe or United States the death means the death for everybody so and that is precisely what Mr Putin

wanted to emphasize some years ago when he has affirmed clearly that the world without Russia would not be tolerated by Russia that is the nature and a deep dimension of in existential threat if something threatens you existentially you could prefer to destroy everything universe life on the Earth Humanity everybody but you should save yourself so the the prize is in the in the case of nuclear power with nuclear weapon capable to destroy humanity is very high so it is maybe you could say you could say so that is crazy that is anti-humanist something like that

maybe but that is Moral Moral evaluation of what is going on but on the on the level of the mutual realist understanding on what we think to be existential threat so that we need to take that in consideration for example if Russia would uh invite Mexico in in in the military alliance with Russia and Mexico Mexico at the same time claimes to restore the Texas and other ancient uh uh Spanish territories inside of United States now so you can imagine what existential threat is it for us I am not speaking as Mr M M shimer

here we are not speaking about moral about liberalism about values we are speaking about interests I appreciate very much I I have studied uh ideas of Mr M shimer about offensive realism I I completely agree with this line of of S may you could you could criticize that you could accept that but that is absolutely brilliant Exposition on what what is going on in the reality and maybe I think the the lack of realism uh will play very bad JW with Trump Trump's new Administration the realism could solve this conflict realist approach when we involve

when we involve the moral liberal ideals democratics values democratic values and so on we are losing the the the the reality of of the seriousness of the situation and I think that Mr M shimer has has has shown brilliantly what is what is on the state there are actually many layers of questions that I have from um the conversation just now is that we are in agreement here um everything is well said and heard but how many people do you think um I suppose I would direct a question to Professor m is that how many

people do you think in the United States actually understand what we are discussing here um because it is about a word of um perspectives right um so you can argue that hey we are benyan haimon there's nothing to worry about well it's not about what you think it's about what the you know Mr Putin what the Russian people think so um playing in um between a a a conflict between a war of perspectives and potentially with the nuclear weapons at stake um how many people side with you how many people understand your perspective um in

America and also to follow up on that is that I why the recent provocation why the recent escalation I mean calling on lowering military age in Ukraine and allowing Ukraine to use Americade longrange missile by Biden Administration right before he's about to leave the office I mean I mean why I think it's fair to say that hardly any Americans accept my views on the Ukraine conflict uh and what really is happening here is to use the rhetoric that Professor Dugan was using it's almost impossible for most Americans to put themselves in the shoes of the

other uh in other words American policy makers American foreign policy Elites are not good at thinking about how the Russians might view Ukraine in NATO they have their own views which they think are the dominant views this is captured in very famous comment by meline Albright in the late 1990s she said we are the indispensable Nation we stand taller and we see further just think about those comments we the United States we're special we're exceptional we stand taller we see further this is all a way of saying we know what is best for everybody else

we have the approved solution and what's really happening here is that when the Cold War ended and the United States had won this tremendous Victory and ended up as the unipole the most powerful state in the system with this liberal ideology we thought that we could spread liberalism all over the world which is a way of saying we thought we had won not just geopolitically but we had won ideologically and we were in a position where we could cause every other state in the system to become a liberal democracy like the United States and we

were so full of confidence that we could shape the world in our image that we fell into a situation where we found it impossible to pay serious attention to what other states said and by the way this is not just Russia it's China as well the United States thought it knew what was best for China this is what the engagement policy towards China was all about it was to make China look like the United States and of course the United States wanted to make Russia look like the United States so you had this situation which

was always present in the United States it was always there that we had some difficulty putting ourselves in the shoes of the other side for sure but after 1989 and certainly after the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991 we fell into a pattern where it became almost impossible for us to strategize strategy is all about thinking about what the other side is thinking and what the other side will do in response to what you do that's what strategy is all about this is why realism is inextricably bound up with strategy but we really in a

fundamental way lost that ability and therefore when the Russians said this is an existential threat and they said it over and over and over it's not like you can look at one speech where Putin said it's an existential threat to bring Ukraine into NATO Putin said it millions of times it's crazy all the Russian Elites said the same thing but we refused to believe it and it's because we believe and I think this is still true that we are the indispensable Nation we stand taller and we see further and we know what the Russians really

think or what they should think and what they think and say they think just doesn't matter that much and when you're operating on those kinds of lines of thought you're going to get yourself into a lot of trouble and that's why we're in a lot of trouble not just in Ukraine but in the Middle East as well that were the Great WS of the wise really wise men and I would say that I I would certify that uh 2005 I was in Washington speaking with Mr binski Mr binski and there was the chess board chess

board the real chess board uh in in front of us between us and I I have asked Mr brazinski do you think that the chess is the game for two layers he has said no no it's for one that when I have called my book great Eurasian chessboard great chessboard I have meant precisely the logic of the game and not the the quantity of the G of the player so there is only one one player at the chase board that is to see to to to be toer to see further that is attitude or that

inspires the confidence that you are alone at the table o of the global geopolitics and when uh Putin popped up in that sense and China popped up on the scene of this uh of this chess Bo that was insult moral attack against this Consciousness that the chess is the game for one one one player that is unipolarity not only or on the geopolitical level but as well as Mr mimer has emphasized on the the ideological level as well so liberal democracy is unique Universal system of values and the interests and values of the West are

unique so when someone appears on the other side of the chess board that is a scandal we need to punish it immediately we we need to cut it we need to to to to destroy it we need to make to bring the strategical defeat on Russia immediately because the chessboard the chess is the play game for one so I think that is and that is completely irrealist attitude so realism in international relations is based on the acceptance of the sovereignty and if you accept the sovereignty you accept the possibility at least theoretically to behave As

You Wish because there is no other instance that could say oblig you to to to behave in this way on another way that is the the the nature of sovereignty if you accept sovereignty you accept the existence of other player Chinese Russian maybe Muslim as well as in the The Case of the Middle East or Indian maybe or African Latin Americans so we are dealing uh with the other subjects that other than ourselves that is very very very tragic I think that United States of America and the collective West in general lacks today this strategical

approach with existence or presence of this strategical approach we could imagine much more easy solutions for some some crisises in the world that seem to be irresolvable accepting multiplicity or diversity of the players and civilizations as kton has put it has called it I think everything will be much easier to solve so we are discussing in a framework that we are living under the dictatorship of American LGE liberal democracy and uh you know they're so full of themselves that they don't see how you know people from other parts of the world leaders from other Sovereign

nations may have a brain of their own um but is there also a possibility and this is a question who um a friend of mine gave me um before the conversation started and he's a propo for Liberal democracy um his question is that are we um sort of giving the United States too much credit that it is the uh the the the master the Puppet Master orchestrating behind it all is it also possible that the conflict in Ukraine is a result of um you know the long history um between Ukraine and Russia between um people

living in e part of Ukraine and the western part of Ukraine is it possible that it is a very local issue I will let Professor Dugan go first this time since I've gone first in answering all the previous questions I think it's only uh just that he have a chance to go first so and then I can respond so in my opinion so we could not reduce the importance of the Russian Ukraine conflicts to Regional scale so that is geopolitical issue or or the larger scale because uh in the reality uh the identity of Ukrainian

nation is very recent it is artificial and recent because uh Ukraine never existed in history never existed in history and that was just the part disputed between Russian Empire and Poland and Austria and the west Western General so that was the frontier Frontier between two civilizations and politically politically Ukraine was liberated first of all from Turks and that was nov Russia or Eastern Ukraine that was the territory uh Bel that belonged to the Turks to the otoman Empire and not to some some imagined Ukrainian State there was nothing at s of s in the history

so that was the fight between two empires Russian Empire and Ottoman Empire for some Frontiers for some border zones and Russia has won the control over what we are calling now Novar Rosia from kov that was the part of the other ancient region to Odessa that was the part of newly acquired or reacquired territories by Russian Empire from Turks no Ukraine were involved because they didn't exist that situation the western part of Ukraine was the same people the same culture the same religion Orthodox but the western part was after the Mongols Invasion uh under influence

of Lithuania and Poland and partly later of Austria and having the same exactly the same identity root Roots identity as ourselves as Russian from mosco with Russian Eastern Russian Russian they were under control of the Polish Catholic and Austrian as well Catholic but they conserved they for ukrainians fault for their Orthodox identity under the rule of the Catholic Poland and Austria so we could not regard them as the part of the Western Europe as well Western ukrainians belong to the same to the same root to the same tree of our his historical identity that fought

against the Polish and against Western Europe the experience to be to leave some centuries under control of Catholic European nation that has made the impact the influence o o over their identity and in L lamber in the most western city of the western Ukraine that is regarded is considered as a capital of all Western anti-russian ideology the until recent uh times there were two parts two parties prosco and anti and russophobic uh parties coexisted there is the complex history of identities inside of Ukraine and the unique way to save the newly established national state of

Ukraine was to take in consideration both identities Pro Russian Eastern identity and more or less not so radically anti-russian identity of the western Ukraine to make a balance to create state for as Belgium for example with Valance and the Flemish people balancing each other with different linguistic identities historical experience and so on so that was the chance and they have lost the the KE regime has lost this chance uh choosing only one identity Western Ukraine artificially created Western Ukraine identity uh cleansed from Pro mosco with Orthodox elements to liberated from this part of the deep

Ukrainian identity and creating artificial proest pru European Union LGBT plus globalist liberal identity artificial in order to fight against against Eastern Ukraine and Russia so in that sense and that say Regional dimension of Ukrainian conflict we could not discard we could not we could not forget it exists and it existed historically because that was the the history of the fight between the great Russia Moscow against the the West the Western Europe and the Ukraine was the frontier the the battlefield in in the time of Peter the Great before in the time of um Alexis Romanov

that was the battlefield and until until the Stalin's time when the Western Ukraine was uh Ann next to Soviet Union so that was the uh Eternal Eternal battlefield of Russia to expand our border to the west or to to diminish uh our influence in that in that orientations that uh Regional Dimension really exists but it doesn't explain think because when we consider the place of Ukrainian conflict in geopol on the geopolitical scale on the global scale of the confrontation between unipolarity defended by globalists not realists in USA and emerging multipolar World Order where Russia pretends

to be Sovereign pole as well as China and other polls so that I think Regional aspect is the secondary uh comparing with these uh Global geopolitical geopolitical uh level two quick points uh one XI you pointed out that the United States is this awesomely powerful country uh which I think is true uh but it's very important to understand that we no longer live in a unipolar world that we we do live in a multipolar world uh there are three great powers in the system and although the United States is the most powerful State uh among

those three great Powers uh I think uh the United States is the most powerful China's the second most powerful and Russia's the third most powerful the fact is the world today is fundamentally different than it was say in the 1990s when we were in unipolarity uh and I think the Americans have had a very difficult time coming to grips uh with the fact that we're no longer in unipolarity a lot of American leaders want to act as if it's still a unipolar world and it's not and the United States has to be much more careful

uh because it's dealing with two other great Powers both Russia and China second point I would make has to do with Ukraine I think as Professor Dugan said there all these sort of heterogeneous forces at play inside of Ukraine that were there independent of uh NATO expansion or Western policy I've always thought since the Soviet Union broke apart and Ukraine was created that there was the potential for civil war I'm not saying it was going to happen period but in the early 1990s I thought there was a serious chance that what happened in the Balkans

might happen inside of Ukraine but the key Point here is that NATO expansion EU expansion and the color revolutions those three policies in tandem basically helped exacerbate and make worse all of those tensions inside of Ukraine and that's why the situation blew up in 2014 you want to remember there was no serious trouble there was no fighting inside of Ukraine until 2014 and what happened in 2014 was in good part consequence of Western policy there was a coup inside of Ukraine that the United States played a key role in making happen uh we were interested

in doing social engineering inside of Ukraine this is what the orange Revolution was all about we wanted to bring Ukraine not only into NATO we wanted to bring it into the EU and what this did was it took all those heterogeneous forces that were at Play already inside of Ukraine it exacerbated them and the situation blew up number one inside Ukraine and number two between Russia and Ukraine and between Russia and the west and here we are today I'm going to uh switch uh switch a gear a little bit uh to uh bring China into

the for since both of you mentioned it also that um since uh Trump's reelection um there's been quite a bit of speculation about how uh the US is now going to um realign its foreign policy and it is about to drive a wedge between the emerging alliance between Russia and China uh How likely I'm question to both of you How likely do you see that happening uh I'll answer that very quickly I think it's clearly in America's interest speaking as a strategist for the United States to be allied with Russia and that way the United

states can concentrate on containing China and as you know I've long argued that the United States should try to prevent China from dominating Asia from becoming a regional hedgemont and I think it makes no strategic sense for the United States to drive the Russians into the arms of the Chinese which of course we have done with our foolish policies so your question is is it likely that we will change our policy and that we will end up having good relations with Russia and in a sense separating the Russians from the Chinese I think there is

hardly any chance that that's going to happen because I think as we were discussing before there's hardly any chance that relations between the United States and Russia are going to change anytime soon and in fact I believe sadly that the United States and Russia are going to be bitter enemies for the foreseeable future and the end result of that is the United States is going to continue to try to damage Russia to hurt Russia and as a consequence of that the Russians will have very close relations with the Chinese because the Americans have their gun

s sites on China as well you have the situation where the United States has its gun sits on both Russia and China and unsurprisingly Russia and China have become I think it's fair to say close allies maybe not formal allies but close allies as they should be and it doesn't make strategic sense for the United States for sure but doing things that make strategic sense is not something that the United States pays much attention to these days so that's the sad State of Affairs here in America so that is very correct explanation and description as

long as I understand I would say that I still I am a little more optimistic about strategical sense in Trump's future Administration I observe some Trends inside of appoint appointments and some people that I have contact with from newly new newly establish established American Trump's Administration that that are the signs that maybe I hope there will be more strategical dimension in the future uh in future uh American policy intern international relations relying on this sources or these presumptions I would say uh I could say that Trump will try to rebalance a little bit relations with

Russia and China in favor of Russia and against China that is not not only his subjective individual understanding but that is the logic as Mr Mir shimer has said the logic of strategical strategical uh attitude and I think that at some point the new administration of trump will try to do to make not peace but just to calm down relations with Russia and to try to I would say to sabotage the these Alliance strategic Alliance growing alliance between Russia in China at least he would try I think he will try to do that but at

the same time that is important thing that this strategical alliance between Russia and China if we uh accept and if we agree and I personally totally agree with Mr M about the conditions of multipolarity already here not just in the future not as desire or plan or expectation but the description of the reality there are at least three complete and established polls United States obviously the West Collective West Russia and China or China second and Russia I agree with this this this consequence but we should not forget India aat greater India emerging as well as

independent player not on the side of China not on the side of United States not on the side of the Russia but as something independent and the Islamic world now very very weak I I agree but Islamic World Africa Latin America new emerging polls maybe would be polls the the future polls of Mal multi poity they are already here here they're already in the Bri in bricks so they are operating on the second level uh establishing more and more and more elements of this m multi-polar World system and in that sense I think that is

not about three poar Vision so for example to to tear Russia from China and to to get it closer to United States it's hardly imaginable I think and but at the same time I I I think that United States Washington will try to do that to try they will try this strategical approach and they will fail because it is oldfashioned way of understanding strategy the strategy of the multipolarity is something totally else Trump would would try to do precisely that to shift the attention from Russia to China hostile attention not positive attention but I think

that multipolarity is much deeper that it looks like uh now so the relations uh between Russia and China are not about just situational alliance against the pressure of the collective West or United States is something deeper and I as long as I could judge Mr Putin Mr they understand the strategical depth of the Russian uh Chinese Alliance greater Eurasian Alliance not just as situational response to the challenge of the mutual situation to be under some attack from the West is something uh further so maybe maybe we could finally doubt that the way f is taller

and see further maybe it is smaller see and see closer to to its own misconceptions of the reality reality of multipolarity Demands multipolarity demands new new new hats new positions uh new strategical dimension it is not only just let us keep Russian a bit Clos and China to bit uh a bit further from us so we need to to reconsider the relation uh on the other terms and that is challenge I think to uh the uh intellectuals of New Wave because the intellectuals of of the uh old wave they have lost everything so they understanding

of reality has totally failed absolutely so we need some new new way of multi smaller vision of the world including American interests including western western interests in well inside not excluding so we need to to understand and accept the existence of some other and maybe other who is hostile to us but we need to get inside of its brain and to to think with him accordingly not just project our wishful thinking or self-fulfilled prophecy on other that is my my point a lot of uh what's been discussed um just now and on many other occasions

that the two of you have uh been quite outspoken about um analysis of the current world affairs it's essentially a Guess Game on the intention so um if I can uh um direct this next question to um um Professor Dugan is um that I mean we we we've had quite a few occasions over the past year um to see each other in person but I've never actually had the qu had the opportunity to ask you this and um so let's put it in the um background of also the current Ukraine conflict is that uh tell

us about the intention of um Mr Putin really because I've heard this from um some friends living in Western Europe also is that their fear is that should Russia's aggression towards Ukraine go any further it's not going to stop there Mr Putin's ambition is to go even further west um so first fold of the question is that um to what extent is that true what is Mr Putin's true ambition and the second question is quite um um specific about China really um you are a controversial figure in China not just because your current um uh

reported uh influence in the uh Russian Administration but more for what you said quite a few years ago some almost like 20 30 years ago that in your book you said um I maybe paraphrasing here because of the translation so correct me if I'm wrong but um you said uh from what you see China is Russia's most dangerous neighbor to the South and it must be in Russia's interest um to the maximum possibility uh be dismantled China as a great power um and from that to what you've been talking about multiparity um what explains your

um apparent shift in your ideology or your philosophy so it is not quite few years but that was more than 30 years ago that I uh I have proposed my uh geopolitical understanding of the role of China in front of Russia and that was beginning of the 9s so it is not quite few years ago beginning of the '90s that was totally different situation Russia crashed Russia totally totally uh submitted to the West globalist agenda unipolar moment and China in our eyes was the kind of Co complice um the the the power that has betrayed

Eastern identity and Joint globalization process in in order to be the part of the global Pro Western system that looked like that maybe I was wrong already in that and that that way I could not I could not judge that but I that was the idea of how to consider China being the part of the West being more and more involved in the globalist globalist economy and in Russia present uh pitiful conditions under yelen and that was precisely uh some geopolitical geopolitical vision of that China being more and more involved in the west more and

more globalized and Russia more and more uh losing its sovereignty so that was a kind of geopolitical Despair I would say and uh the uh uh thoughts like that they belong to this EPO when I tried to when first of all when Putin came to power and and second when sanin came to power we in my eyes in my Russian patriotic eyes the situation was very very different so we see Russia returning to the global politics maybe as Mr mimer has said at third rank far distant third pole after United States and China I agree

I I I I I don't argue that we are number one maybe we are number three but we are number we are not nothing we are number three with nuclear uh weapon number three it's something it is not nothing so but I uh that is not about that and from uh Putin's time and from Cen pin time I have and most of all after visiting uh thanks to my friends in China visiting China teaching in Chinese Institute and fan University and making contacts with different Chinese uh thinkers I have a right more than 20 years

ago this is not few years ago so more than 20 years ago I have arrived the at the conclusion that China represent the main strategical Ally for Russia in constructing multi-polar world and from that time that is more than 20 years and maybe more I started to revise my previous geopolitical attitude of this the age of despair of of the early 90s so I have many times I have explained that but globalists they are playing their game they starting to to get to cut some expressions and terms from from previous uh without contexts of previous

previous texts and in order to to destroy our relations so I would say maybe I'm not the only one who has changed this uh that is much more important than myself so I am not the only one who has corrected the uh attitude to China in much more positive way so multipolarity is much more than our national interests than your Chinese national interests American or Russian and dealing with this strategical Dimension that Mr M shimer emphasize always and emphasizes now I think we need to teach the art to not only follow what is good and

seems to be right to us in our eyes but we need to understand other so so when I started to learn what China is I have totally totally totally changed my opinion so I think though I I I have missed the point in China in Chinese involvement in globalization I what point I have missed I have missed the point that China is still the great power where National cented Society with the Deep uh ch confusionists and it could not be just socialist as in the west or capitalist it is something Chinese we need to understand

to get deeper in uh exploring the Chinese identity to understand Its Behavior its psychology and finally I think I came to the conclusion 20 and more years ago that China is most reliable Ally of creating with Russia and other polls as well as India not to pro-chinese PO the multipolar system when we accept that the chess is the play at least of the the game of two players at least uh against binski or in the multipolar multipolar case more than two players three at least maybe four and more so we are inside of strategical uh

strategic iCal fields and I think that we need to put Russian Chinese relations precisely in this field if we understand other the word strategy something some meaning that Mr M shimer has explained previously very well may I um I'm sorry to cut in again but may I quickly get a comment on what or at least in your perspective uh what is the intention of uh President Putin um because it is some I mean speaking of it's all or or a game of perspectives here it is um perspectives that I hear from people actually living in

Western Europe that they believe um uh containment or at least keeping Ukraine neutral is not the end game of Mr Putin is there any choose to that concerning Ukraine Ukraine should be in the eyes of Mr Putin or either either neutral totally neutral better friendly but at least neutral or ours so that is all so neutral or ours neutral we tried we failed so it should be ours concerning Eastern Europe I would repeat the same either it will be neutral what will be or it will be ours so that is for and people like Orban

people like geores in r man different other persons understand it very well so we could not tolerate hostile of weak and aggressive entities in the dangerous uh uh distance to us so but uh the threat of Ukraine is is existential and the threat of the Eastern Europe is less existential so it is I think the product or the case of bargain bar we could say so maybe it could be a bit more hostile a bit more neutral but we prefer to be neutral or friendly hostile uh Eastern Europe represents for us existential threat of the

second second degree of the second second importance Ukraine represents for us the existential threat of the first degree it is to be or not to be that is more or less how I would uh would answer if I could just make a very quick point on this uh latter issue of Putin's intentions Putin has never once said that he was interested in conquering any country in Eastern Europe and making it part of a greater rusher uh he's just never said said that second point I would make is the Russian military is not capable in my

opinion of conquering all of Ukraine and then conquering countries in Eastern Europe as everybody surely recognizes the Russians have had a difficult time Conquering the Eastern 15 the Eastern 1 of Ukraine the idea that this is the ver Mo in World War II too uh that's poised to launch a blitz cre into Eastern Europe and then into Western Europe is an argument that makes zero sense it's a crazy argument the Russian army is a quite formidable fighting force but it does not have the capability to conquer countries in Eastern Europe the third point I would

make is the Russians occupied Eastern Europe during the Cold War it was a nightmare they had a big Insurrection that had to be put down in Germany East Germany in 1953 they had to invade Hungary in 1956 they had to invade Czechoslovakia in 1968 there were three times they almost had to invade Poland to put down insurrections they had huge problems with the albanians and the Romanians the idea that the Russians want to go back into Eastern Europe and try to manage the politics of those countries is a laughable argument uh they would be crazy

to do that and Putin you might not like him but he is a first class strategist and he surely understands I believe that even occupying the Western half of Ukraine would lead to unending trouble because of all those ethnic ukrainians there that Professor Dugan was talking about before the last thing he wants to do is start trying to conquer countries in Eastern Europe I've been there I've done that and it did not work out very well exactly in that sense I agree I agree if it is okay with both of you can we um possibly

move on to the topic of the Middle East and and i' also hope to leave a bit of time for our friends um um some of them influencers some of them from the media to ask a few questions because um many of them are uh joining us from around the world literally middle of the night for them um so on the point of um the Middle East um Gaza is there any possibility of us uh seeing a ceasefire or any sort of resolution in immediate future I'll say very quickly I think there is a possibility

at some point that you'll get a ceas fire but will you get a resolution of the crisis between the Palestinians and the Israeli Jews or will you get a resolution of the war or the genocide in Gaza between the Israelis and Hamas I think the answer is no uh the Israeli goal is to defeat Hamas uh I do not believe they can defeat Hamas I think the Israelis have obviously damaged Hamas considerably but Hamas is still a formidable fighting force and the Israelis are in no position to decisively defeat Hamas uh and the Israelis have

no strategy uh for settling the conflict inside greater Israel between the Palestinians Israeli Jews other than to ethnically cleanse them uh and I do believe the Israelis have been trying to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from Gaza and from the West Bank but they have not succeeded uh in all likelihood they will not succeed and the end result is the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis will go on for a long long time uh long after uh I pass from this planet uh and you also want to remember that the conflict between Israel and the

Palestinians is only one of three big conflicts involving Israel at this point in time there's also a conflict in Lebanon that involves Hezbollah on one side and Israel on the other and even though though you just got a ceasefire the fact is the Israelis did not decisively defeat Hezbollah they cannot decisively defeat Hezbollah and this conflict is going to go on for as far as the eye can see and then the third conflict of course is between Israel and Iran uh where the United States might even be involved the Israelis cannot defeat Iran uh and

this conflict shows no signs of ending and indeed there's a real danger uh that Iran will get nuclear weapons so when you look at the Middle East it's a bleak situation much like Ukraine and in my opinion there is no hope for putting an end to all these conflicts anytime soon is do you think the Trump Administration might even consider even the slightest possibility to get involved most directly particularly between uh Israel and Iran no I think think that the Biden Administration has demonstrated clearly that we have no interest in getting involved in a war

with Iran it's a war we could not win uh and if we did get into a war with Iran it would incentivize them to get nuclear weapons so I don't think the Trump Administration will be interested in fighting a war against Iran by the way what's been going on with regard to Iran and the United States is that both Iran Iran and the United States have been trying to avoid a war between the two countries Iran doesn't want a war with us any more than we want a war with Iran it's the Israelis who have

been trying to drag us into a war with Iran the Israelis want the United States to attack Iran to destroy its uh nuclear facilities once in for all which is impossible to do but they want us to try to do that and they want us to do so much damage to Iran that we will affect regime change uh in Iran and presumably we will then get a government in Iran that's favorable to the United States and to Israel this is delusional this is not going to happen most American policy makers thankfully understand that and therefore

we're trying to avoid a war with Iran and again Iran's trying to avoid a war with us but it's the Israelis who are trying to drag us into a conflict and I don't don't think the Israelis will succeed uh uh with the Trump Administration where they failed with the Biden Administration but one never knows I would like to add some some words I agree in general pictures with what what Mr M shimer has said because it is true uh I just want to make one one observation of the theoretical theoretical level so uh strategy and

realism uh is limited as as attitude as the manner of analyses to some levels of the reality and when realists they remark something that that go beyond this strategical and realist Dimension they say oh that is just irrational and there is a kind of too irrational attitude I think and a strategy in in in international relations on one hand liberal idealism liberal idealism that is promotion of the liberal democracy against the interests of for example United States that is the what is globalist uh globalism what is globalist globalist attitude to sacrifice American national interests in

order to promote some agenda of LGBT individualism posthumanism some something that that sounds Progressive and in order to promote the this agenda the way is to to get Beyond American national interests so we we we are dealing here with some perverted kind of idealism so Idols beyond the interest so something that is liberal way but in the case of Israel we uh we are dealing with the different kind of not realist uh attitude it is not liberal anymore it is the kind of eschatological eschatological agenda so I think if we consider Israeli far right or

religious right they consider the reality only the different totally differently than ourselves that is not strategic that is very idealistic but not liberal in a liberal sense they thinks that the time of mashia in which the Jews Israel and Israeli Jews believe should come that the the time of mosia or the Messiah uh has come and in order to accelerate its appearance his appearance so uh Israel should prepare the path and to prepare the path is to cleanse the territory of the greater Israel from any kind of shells any kind of something uh that uh

that that doesn't belong to the core of Israeli identity and to blow up moski Alexa and to start to to to build Third Temple that is how betel smotri or benu or or do leor or other intellectuals inside of Far Far Right of Israel they conceive the situation so they are Beyond any strategy so kill Palestinians cleans G Gaza cleans West Bank conquer uh Damascus um kill Assad cleans any Palestinian from the promised land that is the way to accelerate to provoke the coming second Com or first for them sorry for them first coming of

Messiah we could say that is laughable we could say that is totally irrelevant or irrealist but it is so if we are consequent realists we need to understand them and they consider United States just their tools to do that not some super power that they need follow their orders so they they totally they they mock on United States they consider this very stupid but huge power that should be used in uh to to achieve the goal of this small uh relatively small group of people but with very fanatic ideas that adds some eschatological element to

the Middle East strategy so we need to put on the same scale on the same level the realities strategical realities what United States wants uh what Iran wants that Syria or Hezbollah or Hamas could afford and these eschatological level of totally irresponsible comparing with strategical level of thinking uh Behavior so and that being not strategical not realist in its core in its nature it acts on the level of the global strategy so that is I think the very important elements so Mr Mir shimer has has shown some years ago in his as well controversial texts

with wal uh how small Israel is in in front of global American interest how secondary how unimportant uh Israel as political real real political entity is comparing with the global interests of United States of America but and that is totally correct on the level of the realist strategical analysis that is totally true but if we take in consideration uh subjective subjective reality of the Israel government we could say they they will they are ready to violate any kind of realism any kind of strategical thinking in favor of their Messianic idols and we need to deal

with that so it is quite quite irrational to start war between United States and Iran but such War could happen in in spite of the contradictions to the interest The Logical rational interests of all three uh countries involved that will destroy if we consider that in the purely material aspect Israel it will damage American strategy and it will make harm to Iran nobody is normally interested interested in this in such kind of War except the people who think differently and they are not just the marginals so you we should not under underestimate marginals they sometimes

they are key players in as for example bists on other so we need to take them as well in considerations in consideration and that is why I think the situation Middle East would not be easily put to truth or peace talk or of ceasefire in Gaza or elsewhere or in Lebanon precisely because of this Factor it is just maybe minor factor in the politics but it is very very very powerful and the netanyahu's government uh I wouldn't I wouldn't underestimate that I would be happy to open it up to questions if if you think that's

B professor professor Duan yes okay okay great so miss Camila is from Venezuela she is as with many other participants she is a reporter a uh influencer on social media commenting very much on geopolitics and international Affairs so here we go Miss Camila thank you for um for hosting this and thank you to the professors uh for responding to our questions just a correction I'm not from Venezuela uh but I worked for many years at telesur based in kakas Venezuela but I am Latin American and so I'm going to tie that into my question so

the Us and other NATO governments have tried to Rally support for their Wars in Latin America and the Caribbean uh they've made visits they've sent the southcom commander to hold meetings with Latin American governments to do things such as try to uh convince them to trade in their uh arms for us weapons so you know they're also trying to get them in involved in supporting uh Israel's projects of War over there uh in that region in particular perhaps uh you can uh either or both of you i' would love if you could comment on uh

the role of Latin American governments in these different conflicts um in particular perhaps comment on the role of the friends of the incoming US president Donald Trump friends like Javier M the president of Argentina naib B who's a very uh good friend of the Republicans in the US and these leaders seem to be quite antagonistic towards the multi- polarity project and anyone promoting multipolarity they're quite antagonistic to Venezuela Nicaragua and Cuba and so perhaps you can just touch on the role of Latin America I'll say a few words about it uh I don't think Latin

America Matters that much uh in the Ukraine conflict uh or in the Middle East uh there's no question that when you talk about world opinion uh that matters and the United States cares greatly about what world opinion uh says regarding Ukraine the United States wants as many countries as possible to be pro- Ukraine pro-western and anti-russian and in the Middle East the United States wants all sorts of countries around the world to support Israel unconditionally the way the United States supports Israel so in terms of world opinion we care about Latin America but the fact

is that the United States does not have a lot of influence in terms of how Latin American leaders and Latin American publics think about these conflicts so we have this situation where in the west there is support widespread support for America's position in Ukraine and for America's position in the Middle East but outside the West that's not true and when you talk about outside the West you're talking about Latin America you're talking about Central and South America and the United States has not been successful in getting much support from Latin America in Ukraine or in

the Middle East so in that sense the Latin America Matters and it's been a problem of sorts for the United States but if you look at sort of power politics if you look at the nitty Gill of what's going on in places like Ukraine and places like the Middle East Latin America just does not matter very much because Latin American countries to be perfectly Frank don't have a lot of power to throw around on the world stage and therefore they don't matter that much in terms of the nitty-gritty of these conflicts but they do matter

in terms of public opinion I think that on the level of the balance of power or calculation and measuring of the real potential Mr mimer is totally right once more so uh I don't think in the reality that Latin America Matters in the Middle East or Ukrainian uh conflicts but I think that Latin America Matters in the terms of M multipolarity and I think that there is the year conflict between two World Vision uh trying to save unipolar moment to prolong it to to to keep it still alive and that means that nothing uh of

a sort of a PO would ever ever appear in the Central America or South America so that is preventive strategy I think melee and the other Pro us leaders they are preventive weapon uh against the the the possibility the virtual the virtuality of creation of something like a consensus of M of Latin America American countries and I think that we have two but I would like to add that we have two versions of the possible uh unification of integration of Latin American countries that is leftist represented by Venezuela of chav by Kuba by nicaragu but

as well as well we have the very interesting conservative version of Peron Juan Peron varash in Brazil so we could Aspire or we could hope that once there will be moment of Latin America Latin America becoming the independent poll but in order to get there we need to you need to overcome many many local contradictions of postc colonial nature but I think that in the present world that is almost not important factor in the in the in the context of the power Politics on the global global scale ha and I agree that the influence of

Latin America in the Middle East conflict or Ukraine is is very very small but in the future I think that Latin America could play very important role in uh creation or facilitating or helping the multipolar world system to to to be established or to sabotage it so I think that that Brazil is trying now to to converge to to to invest somehow in this multipolarity being present in bricks and melee tries to sabotage the this Mal multipolarity that is clear but I think that is the next round of the global game of the balance between

multipolarity emerging multipolarity and declining uni unipolarity it is next round and it is of less importance obviously than what is going on going on now in Middle East or Ukraine and what in front of what will happen I think soon in the uh Asia and the Taiwan with Taiwan problem in the Pacific Ocean that and uh Africa Africa and Latin America will go after you have your role to play in this multipolarity but I don't think that today in the balance of power Latin America really matters I I I think that maybe including in the

opinion uh Global opinion of Latin American population as well doesn't matter too much to the West we are very very happy and very grateful to uh Latin America to to support our our will to to establish multi multi multipolar world world order in that sense we are grateful and for us it it matters but in real balance of power I would rather agree with Mr M sham that is secondary secondary um secondary elements and argument thank you very much but I just want to cut in here because we're talking about multipolarity and balance of power

um some of the key on that were mentioned just just now so in a multi-polar world um Professor Dugan um in your Invision of multipolar world and I also want to hear from Professor Mia sh I think um this is a very important issue because we we didn't quite have time to dig into this is that in a multi po World um with Batts of power so are every state going to start Pro in um nuclear weapons how is that going to look like and in a multi-polar world are there going to be military alliances

and my opinion we need first of all to understand what is the poll and of multiple roles and in my opinion that is difference maybe from classical realism the poll uh doesn't doesn't coincide with the national state so uh the pole for sure the pole of multipolar uh World System should have a nuclear weapon but the pole is something very very different from the national state so not every each state national state should possess uh nuclear weapon but Poll for sure should possess so but what is the poll the poll is something that we have

already now the West that natal land it is the poll United States is a poll it could easily more or less easily separate to two polls and they still will be Sovereign United States and Western Europe they still will be full scale poll so that is huge pole Western pole that could permit to itself to separate in possibly in two polls and still they will be polls there is China as a poll agree that that there is Russia as a poll all three or four eventual polls if we accept the possibility of Separation inside of

the West still Western Europe will possess nuclear weapons so this uh three or four polls already possess a nuclear weapon India that it is next next poll India possesses a nuclear weapon so it is not about the distribution or uh nuclear weapon of proliferations it is already in the hand of the force or fifth already poll if we consider Islamic poll it is still to do it is not ready but we we see at least one uh one country Pakistan with nuclear war uh weapon and Iran in the process to obtain it so Islamic Islamic

nuclear bomb is already here and it's not about proliferation so if we if we think the world in terms of polls and not countries so we have only two issues to give nuclear weapon to some African power but we don't see yet still some Pretender to to to Manifest this uh independent African pole it is to come and the same the same for uh Latin America and I presume that Brazil is the first first uh country that could claim to to to start to startle weapon as as as as a plan because Brazil is much

more developed much more te technologically advanced with its submarines of uh created in in Brazil so I think that uh and so we are near to have nuclear multi multipolarity it is we we shouldn't expect to distribute to each country because multi-polar world order it is not about the nuclear sovereignty of each country it is about something different and that uh I think that it is still very undeveloped undeveloped branch of international uh relations uh theory of multipolar world because the West denies and still is very stubborn in denial of these accepting uh of multi-polar

Worlds as the reality so that is undesired or something um rejected reality that is something uh the the Western the Western strategical thought tries tries to to to damp to to uh to discard to to deny uh the reality of multipolarity and that is why it is absolutely um ideological IR realistic and that I think that uh that is the reason why they don't hear such brilliant mind as Mr M shimer enough they for sure they consider Mr M shimer as one of the most important strategical thinkers but still I think the global West still

continues to think in different terms they consider multipolarity as insult as something something as scandalous and not as and if they would accept that as status quo the state of things they would they would explore more what is the poll and the problem of the proliferation of nuclear weapon would be put in much more realistic context I see um we do have a bit a few more questions and also uh Mr Jerry Brown is raising his hand and I believe you are a uh an invited by uh Professor Mia Sher so I'm going to ask

firstly ask M sh Professor M if you want to uh follow up on the uh possibility of the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world uh and also pass it on to uh uh Mr Brown to see uh what your question is okay I'll just say a few words uh I think I have a bit of a difference with Professor Dugan on how you define uh what is a great power or what is a pole uh for me a pole has to be a great power so I would not describe the West as a poll

or Islamic society as a poll this is a definitional issue for sure but I do have a somewhat narrower definition so when I think about a multi-polar world what are the polls they can only be great powers in my lexicon and the three great powers in the system are uh of of course the United States China and Russia and that's what a multi-polar world looks like for me India could be a pole at some point but the West uh cannot be in my story nor could Latin America as a whole be a pole uh now

the really interesting question has to do with the likelihood of nuclear proliferation during the Cold War both the United States and the Soviet Union had a vested interest in preventing proliferation uh we were not completely successful because of course countries like Israel uh France Pakistan India uh and a few other countries all have nuclear weapons but the United States and the Soviet Union were committed to preventing proliferation and after they signed the non-proliferation treaty uh and a handful of other treaties uh they went to Great Lengths to prevent proliferation in the second part of the

Cold War they were much less successful in the first part of the Cold War and I think that in the multipolar world that we live in and uh there's no disagreement here between me and Professor Dugan that we live in a multipolar world uh today that all three great Powers have a vested interest in preventing proliferation uh just as a Soviets and the Americans had an interest in preventing proliferation the key question for me is whether or not the so the Russians the Chinese and the Americans can work together to prevent proliferation and Iran is

a really good case here if you go back to 2015 when the jcpoa that's the arms control agreement ment involving Iran and nuclear proliferation was put into place the Russians the chines and the Americans all work together to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons this is consistent with my argument that great Powers polls do not like nuclear proliferation the Soviets and the Americans didn't like proliferation in the Cold War and what you see in 20 2015 is the Russians the Chinese and the Americans working together but that was at the end of the unipolar moment

when there was a lot more cooperation think about engagement with China China and the United States in 2015 were getting along quite well and the Russian and American the Russians and the Americans were in some trouble but not great trouble like they are now and I think the question we have have to ask ourselves moving forward given the intense security competition given the intensity of the competition between China and the United States and Russia in the United States can those countries work together to prevent proliferation in the future will they work together to prevent Iran

from acquiring nuclear weapons this is not 2015 the American and Russian and Chinese relationship with Iran today is much different than it was in 2015 and I think there is a real danger moving forward that proliferation will take off it will accelerate because the great Powers the three great powers in the system who do have an interest in preventing proliferation will not be able to work together to prevent it Mr Brown um if you would uh yes please yeah on the matter of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty article six uh very clearly states that the nuclear

Powers that's Russia and America and China and the others are are obligated to seek and to negotiate in good faith a disarmament of nuclear weapons certainly uh leading toward a reduction and the ration for that is that these nuclear weapons are not totally under the control of the respective countries there's technology there's software there's human Frailty there is a real potential of error in the form for example of false alerts and in a growingly hostile world uh those dangers increase so the question is with America Russia and China building new nuclear weapons systems replacing and

modernizing what they have everything is getting more dangerous and the mutual uh emulation uh among all the powers uh is interacting in a way to create ever greater danger so my question to both speakers but primarily Professor Dugan uh what is the view of Putin in terms of uh negotiating reductions in the exis ing stock of nuclear weapons because if there's no proliferation whatsoever there still is a growing danger which at some point will result in a nuclear exchange and who knows how horrible that'll be so is there any appetite in Russia or in the

mind of Putin that you know of uh for serious nuclear uh reduction and the same can be said about the United States which is involved modernization program in China which is now in the process of building a thousand more nuclear warheads so where does Russia stand on article six and the current issue of build more or build less that is not my uh preferred uh preferred domain so as long as I understand the situation uh Russia fears today not precisely the Strat mes of the proliferation by the behavior of United States of America so Russia

now is confronting with the nuclear possible nuclear conflict with the West so uh in that sense the the danger of proliferation for example to give the nuclear weel to Iran or to to facilitate the the studies and develop and uh development of nuclear weapon in North Korea is in the eyes of Russia now is much less the threat than the threat of direct confrontation with the West on the nuclear level or the threat of receiving of the nuclear weapon from the west of from NATO to Ukraine so uh all the rest is the secondary and

that is why I think that for example the idea to to to limit the exploration of nuclear weapon uh by Iran is not so important for us or for example development of nuclear weapon in North Korea or in Pakistan so it is of no importance because we consider ourselves on the brink of the new nuclear war with the west and the balance or relations between nuclear warhead uh nuclear heads of missiles between Russia and NATO is much counts much more than the proliferation and in order to avoid or this in order to to counterbalance this

this threat I think the Russia could could in the radical situ ation to make some some extravagant steps and we could do that because comparing for example the danger of possession of nuclear weapon by Iran Iranian regime or North Korea is much smaller than the real possibility of attack against Russia by nuclear weapon from the West so now we are in different situation so uh what Mr uh mimer has said about this trilateral agreement between china west and Russia in order to to diminish or to control or to to reduce or to stop proliferation nuclear

proliferation that that belongs to to to the different different Epoch different time so that was a kind of peaceful uh great three great power world to and now Russia considers itself to be under Western attack we consider ourselves to be in the war with the nuclear West and that is different so that is very important so if we could imagine return to them to these peaceful three polar system more or less understanding and balance of power with no Direct military conflicts maybe this this idea to to limit a proliferation of nuclear weapon would be would

seem rational but not now in our eyes so I've tried to to respond as I could I want to add one little Point here that forgetting about nuclear proliferation however bad that is the mere possession of thousands of nuclear warheads through many system systems of software hardware and human control presents a risk of error a risk of blunder in Russia uh and in the United States and presumably in China as well the danger is not that America's going to bomb Russia or Russia's going to bomb us that may be a problem but the risk of

a mistake of a blunder we've had false alerts before the risk every year is going up it is inevitable that there will be a nuclear exchange no matter what the intention of trump Putin there is an immediate threat that requires serious negotiation uh under new start and under other arrangements to get greater control whatever our other disputes are there's a danger of nuclear blunder happening even though nobody wants that I think that there's no question that there is the problem you describe I also think there's no question that there's the problem that Professor Dugan described

but the fact is we are not heading towards a solution to either of those problems if anything we're going in exactly the opposite direction uh the United States walked away from a number of Arms Control agreements over the past two decades that's Point number one number two there is hardly any evidence that these three great powers are going to craft or put together a new set of Arms Control agreements number three they're building up their nuclear arsenals as you described uh and number four uh nobody seems interested in trying to figure out a way to

head in the other direction and amarate the threat of a nuclear war if anything with strikes me as I observe people in the west talk about nuclear war it's that they don't think it's that serious a threat uh I'm quite amazed to be honest that so many people think that the Russians would never use nuclear weapons that we can simply push them around do whatever we want to the Russians and they'll never use nuclear weapons this is not the way we thought in the Cold War it doesn't seem to me we've made progress on this

front over time if anything we seem to be headed in the wrong direction so when you add all those factors up I'm actually very pessimistic about uh the likelihood that we will avoid nuclear use in the future I'm not arguing that it's axima publically going to happen but uh it makes me very nervous uh when I listen to people talk uh about nuclear use in the west and when I think about what's happening with the nulear arsenals and what's happening with the uh uh elevation of all these crises around the world I think we're in

you know serious trouble arms control is dying I can tell you uh the bulleon of atomic scientists puts out a Doomsday Clock and it is currently set at 90 seconds to Doomsday the closest in the last 50 years there's a danger of miscalculation of accident totally independent of the antagonisms that have been described so well over the last hour so I just caution people that even without intention intending uh there will be inevitably a nuclear exchange that's what I'm worried about thank you Mr V moving on to our next um participant uh Jackson hko Jackson

are you there yeah I'm here hello yes hi so um Jackson hle multi-million um follower with multimillion follower on X but probably more famous for being banned by YouTube over to you uh Jackson thank you and uh thank you to the professors for being here and I'm in Moscow right now I think I'm maybe one of the only people that has uh both of the professors books in English here in Moscow but anyways my question is regarding Trump's uh promise to place very harsh tariffs on any countries pursuing dollarization and arguably sovereignty uh unfortunately a

lot of the countries pursuing dollarization are flirt flirting with uh multipolarity bar China and Russia have a ruling class that still maintain an interest in the expansion of their private Capital uh at the expense of you know pushing for sovereignty for their countrymen so do you guys think that uh this tariff policy will increase America's power on the global stage and risk the ideal of multipolarity and further sovereignty or do you think it will backfire as President Putin and Dimitri pesov have put forward I'm not an expert on this subject so I'll uh not say

too much on it my sense is that Donald Trump has a powerful tendency to talk like a tough guy and I think it's very easy to talk that way when you're not in power but when he starts talking about leving all these tariffs on countries all around the world we don't want to lose sight of the fact that those tariffs if he were to impose them are going to have significant consequences for the American economy and those consequences are not going to be good and you want to remember that one of the principal reasons that

Donald Trump got elected is because the American economy is not in good shape at least from the perspective of the bottom half of the society there are lots of people who are having a very difficult time scraping together enough money to pay for their rent and to put food on the table and these people voted in droves for Donald Trump so Donald Trump when he comes into office has a deep-seated interest in making sure that the American economy flourishes under him and that those people who are in the bottom half of the society do very

well uh and are able to put food on the table and find affordable housing this really matters uh and if Trump doesn't deliver he's going to be in a lot of trouble now everything I read about tariffs and again this is my area of expertise and a lot of Trump's hard-headed economic policies tell me that if he goes ahead and executes all these policy proposals that are floating around he's going to hurt the American economy he may hurt other economies as well he may hurt the Russian economy or he may hurt the economies of countries

X Y and Z which is his intention because those countries didn't do what he wanted but he's also going to do damage inside the United States and this is not going to be good and therefore I think that he is not going to act on his rhetoric and I underline the word think one can never be certain with Trump but I do not think he is going to end up acting as harshly uh with regard to terrorists as he's now talking uh simply because of The Economic Consequences at home to answer uh the question I

am not as well I'm not an expert in the tariffs or an economy but uh theoretically I rather the advocate of outter sea so economic uh Independence and sovereignty and financial sovereignty of all great civilizational States so uh in my opinion if for example Trump would put tariffs on some uh bricks uh countries that will not behave themselves as uh in line with the Hony of dollar that will will save their economy so that will make good for them and maybe for American economy as well so I I strongly believe that we should not only

have political or strategical multi multipolarity but as well Financial or economic um multipolarity so we need to to to be Sovereign on the level of our economy and if Trump tries to say a kind of financial Hony of of dollar is for the first first it is his total right he could uh thread the other but we are under sanctions or already Russia is trying to exploit its inner potential and the sanctions put on us they are they are a kind of the only way to restore our independence so we are very grateful for the

West to put the sanctions on us and if we will be cut from Dollar system we will much more grateful so I think that that's that threat pass on T on tangent to us and if someone really has fear of trump making tariffs against their economies in the future they are globalists they're just liberals uh being part of this global system so uh let him do that so I will be very grateful to Trump to cut the economic relations from the powers participating participating in this division of labor and the global level that is the

way in my opinion to exploit more and to prevent the people really to develop their own in our in our potential so uh I I see no no threat in that I would be very grateful I think that the Hony of dollar should end and if Trump thinks differently it it is all his right let us try multi multi multipolarity on the financial uh and currency level so there could not be the real uh the real uh multi poity without Financial sovereignty of the polls that is challenge to China that is challenge to Russia that

challenge to all other emerging emerging superpower emerging poles and I think that but better better to threat us with that than than with nuclear weapon I think that that Trump in general is the chance is it is the chance for us for America to to be great again to China to the world to to any any body the chance it is not the gift he will not give us nothing as a gift he is not um a kind of kind of of Savior of the humanity he's just the chance and if we are smart enough

if we are strong enough in if we are convinced enough to to to use this chance we will be the winners in that sense and and that could be this time win-win strategy for United States so let's try let let Trump to to try to do what he wants I I wouldn't prevent him from doing anything bad or good let him try because that is the chance of for all of us Biden is zero chance Biden Kamala Harris is the same we know what is it we we know what that was and we could presume

what it will be with Trump is a kind of History once more open so I I I think that is very very challenging I I I applaud Trump and his Tee It is bit crazy spontaneous um inconsequent but that is something new so that is the fresh air in the world with with with Trump with I enjoy the posting of Elon Musk for example recent one the council culture should be canell so you could not say better so that is the we wish from all our hearts that to end to be cancelled we we we

want these globalist guys out of the scene and we are ready to to to experience everything think uh every alternative that that United States could imag imagine so I think that is so better than what we had before so we shouldn't shouldn't be too much serious in our in our relations let them try let them try to make America on great again let them try to avoid the conflict let them try to pacify uh Russia and Ukraine it is impossible we know that but let them try let them try to put the sanctions and tariffs

against everybody who challenge the imperialism of dollar let them try that is very very interesting very very challenging and I think that we should say oh we have already seen that no we never have have seen that that is something new and let it be like that let it be let it happen let the globalist flee from United States to Canada and and Canada to turn into uh 51st uh state of United States let them try to do for doy do doggy what re and Elon Musk want to to do that is totally crazy and

that is that is why it is so beautiful I think let them try when I see uh cash Patel I couldn't couldn't believe my eyes so that couldn't could be real so what this strange guy says that that is very very exciting I think and all the rest but more more or less the rest that is going on in in the future nominees of trump so let these people try to to improve something and I think all the rest will depend on the realism or strategical strategical depth what what will happen but they they have

the right to to to to start something and you um he is a um political commentator um comments yeah oh oh there is the picture hi so thank you very much for staying with us because um Mr little Q that's his online name he is in Australia at the moment he com on international relations and particularly a lot of them are about the functioning of the United Nations so with that thank you so I have two question but conect so it will be quick so the first question will be for great Powers if power competition

is inevitable um in which areas do you see this competition most important we you primarily focus on military power um or economic dominance or cultural influence or technological development so which of these areas do you believe you take priority um in shaping the global balance of power so the second question is for other actors the small and middle Powers how should small and middle Powers navigate the increasing tensions between great Powers especially um in the context of Middle East Ukraine and and the situation uh today we see I guess I can start uh just with

regard to the first question question uh with regard to what areas do a security competition mainly focus on uh I think it's obvious uh if you think about the US China security competition that underneath that concept of security right underneath the umbrella of the SEC words of the word security competition you have a military competition and this is what containment is all about uh and furthermore you have a competition for power uh both sides are interested in what the balance of power looks like and both sides are interested in having a favorable balance of power

so at the military level again you have containment from an American perspective and you have um also Al concerned about the balance of power on both sides but there's a very important economic Dimension to this security competition it's not just military and the reason for that is that economic might economic power economic wherewithal is the basis of military might you have to have a powerful economy to build the powerful military so there's an economic competition that takes place and today in the Contemporary world that competition focuses mainly on cuttingedge Technologies the United States as is

very clear uh is deeply concerned about the fact that China looks like it may have the ability to beat the United States in the competition for developing high-end Technologies so when you look at the US China security competition you see that there are two main areas of competition one is the military and two is Cutting Edge Technologies so I would answer your first question by focusing on those two uh areas of competition with regarding to your with regard to your second question about how the smaller states in the system uh navigate uh the competition that

takes place between the great Powers I think there's not much more to say that you want to do everything you can to make sure you don't get caught in the crossfire uh you may be forced in some cases to Ally with one great power uh rather than the other uh and in such a case if you're alligned with a great power you want to go to Great Lengths to make that great power behave as responsibly as possible to get that great power to act in ways that are in your interest uh but I think if

you don't find yourself in a situation where you have to AE with one of the great Powers what you want to do is do everything possible to remain on the sideline to not get involved because great powers are ruthless and when they get into a security competition with each other they behave in ruthless ways and as a minor power or even a major power but not a great power you have a vested interest in staying out of the way as much as possible so that would be my advice to you know any minor power or

major power uh in dealing with the great power rivalries that we now see in the world thank you uh maybe I would ask add some some points only I agree with this advice and I think that small power and middle power maybe they could become the key to the m multipolarity because uh on their on their art to have the balance to not provoke uh great uh powers to not let uh to be used by great Powers uh uh as a tool uh as a object as an object from that depends the the global global

balance so I think that small and middle Powers could play in constructing uh in the process of con excting multipolarity multipolar World very important role as a kind of set Setters of some some balances on the regional levels for example Nepal trying Nepal as the country tries to to combine interest of the Great China and great India in this region so Ukraine could be a real Bridge a an real and very important and powerful small power or middle power in establishing the geopolitical balance between Eurasia Russia and the Europe but when you uh or or

the same the reason of color Revolutions of the post Soviet space is precisely the same to use these small and not really sovereign powers to to serve to make them serve to one of the powers of the superpowers and after that to sacrifice them to to get them away because they they are not real subjects and the agreements with there they they are nothing in eyes of the superpowers so they could easily to get them out to throw them out into the thresh because they are not uh subject if you really um Master of the

global politics being small and being or being middle siiz you could play very important role in defining the main power force line of the global politics that was the idea of Nichols Pikman uh when uh who has emphasized the role of rimland in the geopolitics insisting that rimland so Border Lines the Frontiers on the global skate could play key role in establishment balance piece of pro provoking war between uh great uh great civilizations so I think we shouldn't un underestimate these uh small and middle middle scale powers in multi po World they could be regarded

as a frontiers of the great importance and we need to pay attention for them next is uh Chris Young now Chris is a long-ter friend of ours and uh he's a senior editor with Guan cha. CN which is arguably um the most influential and active um political news website here in China so um um Chris over to you uh hi thank you Charlie and thank you both professors I've enjoyed every minute of it um I have a very long question but I want to shorten it as much as possible so um because I'm most interested

in the Paradigm or the framework by which we examine the world Dynamics so I want to ask both of you are we going to witness a New Age of Empires uh because just now uh I think I believe it was Professor Dugan who said he believe a pole is not a nation state and professor mimer said a pole is a great power not well basically to say it's not a civilization not Muslim civilization so it's not a civilizational Empire but I be I think that's one of one of the what I view to be one

of your key differences between both of you believe Professor MIM has grounded in scientific modernity which um you view the basis of nation states basically rational actors between power and maximization whereas Professor Dugan it seems to me that you're saying that um bigger States uh their subjective view of their existential threats and national interests could Trump those of smaller States like um Russia's uh because the Baltic states obvious obviously they will have um subjective their subjective fear of Russia to some extent but there was this very asymmetric power structure because power is so imbalance so

there are concerns uh limited to more oblivious to the International Community I I'm sorry of like making this as a comment but I want to try to ask you um about the future uh by which we can examine we we can examine world affairs or can we um how can international relations Theory um adapt to New World Dynamics because I believe one of uh professors m Mish heimer's uh lament is uh the US wasn't realist enough and in that unip moment us was could afford the luxury to not to be realist enough I'm not sure

about the future I so I want to ask you about the future do you think we are going to see an Age of Empires if that's the case what's going the the international relations you like I'll give you my view on the future of Empires and of course a lot depends on how you define an Empire uh in my lexicon in my understanding of international politics an Empire is when a particular country controls the territory of other ter controls large chunks of territory in other areas of the world we once had a British Empire we

once had a French Empire a Belgian Empire there was once an otoman Empire uh if you look at Turkey today that turkey when it was the Ottoman Empire controlled almost all of the Middle East and indeed that Ottoman Empire extended up uh into Southern uh Southeastern Europe uh th those were Empires the AUST austro Hungarian Empire is another example in my opinion Empires are no more and there are not going to be any more Empires this is not to say they're not powerful states in the system great powers like the United States that have huge

influence in Europe and in East Asia I fully understand that but that's not an empire in my understanding of the world and the reason that all of those Empires disappeared the British Empire the French Empire the austr Hungarian Empire they all disappeared because of nationalism I believe that nationalism is the most powerful political ideology on the planet and when a great power tries to conquer territory and control it it runs into nationalism and it gets into a huge amount of trouble this is what happened to the Bush Doctrine what was President Bush trying to do

President Bush was trying to do social engineering in the Middle East at the end of a rifle barrel he thought that he could invade countries like Afghanistan like Iraq and eventually even maybe Syria and Iran and he could do social engineering we could determine what those countries would look like political politically we could we could influence their political order you cannot do this in the age of nationalism the people of Afghanistan don't want the British they don't want the Soviet Union and they don't want the Americans coming in and telling them what their political order

should look like Professor Dugan much earlier in the ation emphasized the importance of the concept of sovereignty sovereignty is all about self-determination people's all over the world want to determine their own future they don't want the United States or the Soviet Union or any other country coming in violating their sovereignty right and what this is really all about is nationalism nationalism says I will decide my own fate and I pointed out before that the so Union in its Heyday occupied all of Eastern Europe and it had huge trouble governing Eastern Europe and the reason is

nationalism polls checks hungarians East Germans did not want the Soviet Union telling them how to run their politics you could do that a long time ago before nationalism came on the scene nationalism is a re relatively new ideology it really doesn't begin to show its face until the late 1700s and then it begins to flower in the 1800s and those big Empires that we read about in the history books were all created before the coming of nationalism but once nationalism comes and once nationalism becomes a really powerful force it becomes almost impossible I to create

an empire and in my story it becomes almost impossible to invade another country to occupy it and to try to influence its politics in a meaningful way one last story on this when I was young I was in the American Military between 1965 in 1975 which was co-terminus with the Vietnam War during that war many people argued in the beginning that the Americans were fighting against communism this was us liberal democracy capitalism versus communism but it eventually became clear to most Americans certainly to me that what we were up against was not communism we were

up against Vietnamese nationalism it was that same nationalism that finished off the French at the NBN Fu in 1954 right it finished off the Americans in 1975 you do not want to invade a country like Vietnam because the Vietnamese are incredibly nationalist the Chinese by the way found this out in 1979 so again nationalism is a remarkably powerful force and that's why we live in a world of Nations States and in that world of nation states you do have great powers and those great Powers sometimes have enormous influence we all agree this is true with

the United States but the United States cannot create an empire like those empires of the past the British Empire the French Empire and so forth and so on and in my story it cannot even invade countries occupied them and try to run their politics that too is a prescription for disaster so nationalism in a very important way limits what great powers can do I often argue and this is my final point that the two forces in the modern world that put the greatest limits on great powers and this includes the United States are number one

nuclear weapons and number two nationalism I've just told you the nationalism story and the nuclear weapons story has come out here in uh my exchanges with Professor Dugan we both have made clear that nuclear war is a real possibility that's something you want to avoid and that tends to make countries much more cautious than otherwise would be the case out of respect for everybody and here we go um Richard then uh DAV and Mr Panda uh Richard please for professor John M sham uh when the Biden Administration green light the long range missile stri into

pre 2014 Russian territory the atmosphere changed because many Chinese geopolitical analysts believed that was one of the red line us surely will not cross and they were wrong and that's quite a psychological shot to a lot of people here um if you ask them today these so-called us expert they have no idea what the US red line is anymore perhaps us simply does not care whether Russia use nuclear weapon in Ukraine or not uh we went as far as to say that Russia using nuclear weapon in Ukraine is in favorable to uh us because it

is US interest strategic interest to drive a permanent division between uh Europe and Russia which allow us to continue to project power uh into Europe for the long run and if us can push actually Russia to use nuclear weapon in Ukraine uh it will eliminate the recovery of relationship between Russia and Ukraine and this will help us sell more weapons to Europe uh to Monopoly the energy trade to Europe and also uh also push Europeans harder to decouple from China because it holds a us will hold a leverage over the Europeans and you also complicated

relationship with uh Russia indiaan and China so what is the downside uh I want to get your take on this uh professor John M sham thank you Richard and uh my name is D and I have two questions first to professor mimer and second depending on the time if I have time I ask for ask Professor toen so my question is you claimed uh in this conference that there's nobody in the state who understands how to understand that bringing Ukraine to Nato poses an exential threat to Russia I would say a consider considerable amount of

American Scholars and politicians well vered in Eastern European politics knows this but they either do not care about moscow's feelings or they're marginalized in decision making I mean to most of us the US foreign policy these days are just determined not based on real politics or national interests but determined that interest groups like the military industrial complex and the Israeli lobby lobby as Professor mimer wrote In the book The knew Ukraine is not going to win they knew Israel is not going to win they knew Taiwan is not going to win but they still support

those parties for the sole purpose of selling more arms so my question is under what circumstances if ever will Washington get a hold of itself override those powerful interest groups and start to make rational decisions for the people and state of America um P thank you Sally I have only one question for both honorable professors um regarding the Trump 2.0 uh Trump had shown a tendency to withdraw from existing intern ational organizations and tradition traditional alliances during his first term and the policies outlined in his agenda 47 and RNC 2024 platform seem to uh prioritize

domestic issues largely over Foreign Affairs suggesting a shift toward isolationism again so do you agree with this observation if yes what strategic opportunities might this present for China or um what role do you suggest China play for its peaceful rise as a global power in the in the potential absence of active uh us engagement on global stage and that's my question thank you I'll I'll answer all three and then turn it over to Professor Dugan who can you know answer all three as well uh with regard to Richard's question the first question which had to

deal with uh the at attacks uh and I think his question boiled down to you know of why did the United States do this and what is the downside uh now with regard to why the United States did it I don't think that President Biden uh decided to attack uh into Mother Russia with a attacks because he thought it was going to influence the course of the War uh I think the Biden Administration understands the atacam just don't matter that much in terms of influence in the course of the war I think that President Biden

is very concerned about the possibility that Ukraine May collapse on the battlefield before he leaves office what President Biden wants is for Ukraine to lose the war on Donald Trump's watch not on his watch so I think that by using a tacks he thought that he could increase the chances on the margins that Ukraine will hang on until uh January 20th furthermore I think Biden once he leaves office wants to be able to say I did everything possible to help the ukrainians and giving them aacms or allowing them to use aacs to attack Mother Russia

will allow him to say after he's done being president that he did everything possible to help the ukrainians he gave them everything they wanted so I see this as basically a case of Biden protecting his own reputation because again I don't think it's going to affect the outcome at all now the second question on the atacam is what is the downside I actually think there's not much of a downside I think it was a mistake to use the attacks there's going to be some escalation and I don't think that's good but my view is that

Putin has two goals his first goal is to win on the battlefield number one and two to avoid World War III with nuclear weapons it's very important to understand that Putin has no interest in seeing this war escalate and he has no interest in seeing nuclear weapons is being used Putin has an interest in winning the war against Ukraine and the West inside of Ukraine and getting a settlement that's favorable to Russia and at the same time again avoiding a general thermal nuclear war or indeed any nuclear use so if you have a situation where

these eight tacks don't matter very much they don't matter very much in terms of what the out outcome is going to be and at the same time Putin doesn't want to see this war escalate I think that Putin will retaliate he will escalate but only in a minor way he'll be very uh I think discreet very careful in how he escalate because it's in his interest to be very careful so I don't think there's much of a downside here to these attacks being used because again they're not very effective second big question uh was uh

people must know that I'm right there must be a lot of people in the west who agree with me and Professor Dugan that Ukraine and NATO is an existential threat and what's happening on the battlefield uh is as we describe you want to know the truth I'm not sure about that uh I think you do not want to underestimate the extent to which uh American policy makers are blinded by their own ideology uh you do not want to underestimate underestimate the extent uh to which the unipolar moment and the notion that we had reached the

end of history and the Americans had the perfect political system and the idea that we stand taller and we see further is firmly embedded in the minds of most American policy makers Akers I wouldn't think this would be the case especially now that we're in a multi-polar world you would expect American policy makers to wake up and to think in a more strategic way uh to understand to go back to Professor Dugan's point about playing chess that it's a two-player game not a one-player game but in fact I think in very important ways lots of

Americans are in denial about what's happening in Ukraine and what's happening in the world one could argue that if we suffer a devastating defeat in Ukraine that will have a powerful effect on how we think about the world we will be left with no choice uh but to change our way of thinking uh that may happen but in the meantime uh I don't see much Hope for Change and I think you're overestimating how smart most American policy makers are you know just to go back to a point that Professor Dugan was making he was saying

that he really welcomes president Trump because it's a this is my language not his but I think it captures what Professor Dugan was saying it's a breath of fresh air it represents change I'm not sure about that uh the argument I usually make is there's not much difference between the Republicans and the Democrats and when you look at the cast of characters that Trump has surrounded himself with they look just like the Democrats I don't see much difference there's huge amounts of russophobia in the Republican foreign policy establishment just as there is in the Democratic

foreign policy establishment now I think where Professor Dugan is correct is I think Trump himself is a breath of fresh air in the sense that Trump wants to break with that mindset I think he does I think he wanted to break with that mindset in 2017 the first time that he went into the White House but it's very important to understand that he failed and he failed because he's embedded in the foreign policy establishment of the United States which has this sort of uh reigning world view that privileges us over everybody else and my great

concern is that that foreign policy establishment will dominate Trump again uh so I don't see much evidence of change on the horizon inside the United States with regard to Panda's uh final point just about alliances I think that the one positive aspect of Biden's foreign policy over Trump's was that Biden treated allies with respect the United States needs allies alliances matter in a multi-polar world the United States needs to have good relations with its East Asian allies and Trump has a tendency a powerful tendency to want to slap allies around he wants to slap tariffs

on allies every bit as much as he wants to slap them on neutral States or adversaries so I think the United States could have some problems moving forward in crafting alliances in East Asia and in other places around the world because of how president Trump treats allies so I think that's a real problem my final Point has to do with isolationism there is no threat of isolationism in the United States the American foreign policy Elite in the Republican party and in the Democratic party is filled with people who want to run the world they're people

who want to tell China and Russia what their politics should look like these are people who believe we are the indispensable Nation there are hardly any people in the American foreign policy establishment who don't believe that we're the indispensable nation that we stand taller we see further uh we have a right we have a responsibility and we have the power to interfere in the politics of every country on the planet this is the way the American foreign policy Elite thinks and when I hear people talking about isolationism the United States pulling out of Europe pulling

out of East Asia pulling out of the Middle East coming back to the Western Hemisphere creating Fortress America this is not serious commentary right this is talk about Donald Trump being an isolationist is just empty rhetoric that's designed to smear Trump and make it look like Trump uh is a trog that Trump is a fool that Trump doesn't know what he's doing he's an isolationist he thinks this is 1938 that's not what Trump is thinking but even if Trump is thinking that he is surrounded by people who are anything but isolationists so uh I wouldn't

worry about isolationism uh but I do think the whole matter of alliances and how Trump deals with our allies is a matter of great concern that's my commentary on those three excellent questions thank you Professor Dugan so uh I I I would like to maybe sum up uh I I I I think that um Mr mimer has um described absolutely correctly what how Mr Putin considered the situations situation uh in the escalation so he uh the main idea the main strategy of Putin is to have Victory on the battlefield with using conventional weapon only only

conventional weapon maybe it will take a time but we are ready for that we are trying to adjust adjust our economy our society our political system to this long war with use of the uh conventional weapon against the West in the Ukraine until we consider that we could stop so we consider not anybody else could suggest us to stop so that is precisely that and that is the main main uh goal I would say to to have the victory or to put the control over Ukraine or the part of Ukraine eastern part of Ukraine uh

that we consider to be legitimate legitimate restoration of our security around our core territory and that's at the same time as well once more I agree that that Putin is not going uh to use uh nuclear weapon and will try to avoid as long as it is possible escalation so it is not his intention it is a kind uh of something uh imposed on us escalation we are not initiators of the uh of the escalation so he will try to aoid the escalation but I think that there are as well red lines nevertheless there are

some red lines that could oblige Putin to react he is very unwilling not to do that but just to think about that he he's not willing but he could be put in the situation that he uh he will not have any any possibility to avoid use of nuclear weapons so when the people in the west Say Never Putin uses will use nuclear weapon they are wrong if you insult and attack uh Putin's Russia too much so it could be possible he will try to avoid that okay but not uh he will be that is not

valid for for everything that could happen until come Trump comes to to office so there is very dangerous moment I would say so and we shouldn't un underestimate the danger uh of this moment because in critical situation for example if atams could reach some really really sensible point in Russian territory and it could or maybe the other long range missile could so uh I think that that that could be so of some very very very serious response in spite of the will of the Putin and spite of our plan a and uh B that all

our plans are I I I can assure you you you you are not obliged to believe me but uh all our interests are limited by Ukraine and nothing more nothing more not now and not in in in the future so Mr M chair is totally right he's totally right about our uh absence of the will and absence of absence of the capacity to enlarge our influence Beyond some limits that we consider to be realistic and we didn't yet reach these uh uh limits that we consider to be realistic and that is where we are still

fighting and we will fight more and more until the moment comes when we consider that we have reached some some limits of our national interest and avoiding trying to avoid trying to avoid the nuclear escalation so that is totally correct description of the situation it is out of the main main concept of the western experts and that is why situation is so dangerous only few people in the west understand what what Russia is so there is a kind of exaggeration in both senses so the the part of the people thinks the Russia is too weak

and you could treat us as as as you want or the Russia is to met to in despair to to to make some incredible aggressive uh aggressive steps both uh understandings are wrong Russia is Guided by some realist very realist calculation more or less in in the tune with what what Mr M correctly correctly have said today that is I think it's Unique uh unique pae of the deep understanding of what we are and what we want to say the truth and about uh Trump agreed that that is anything that is only only the chance

and we shouldn't uh underestimate underestimate the influence of the inertia in political establishment of the US but if you consider for example very interesting point Trump number one his first term of presidency you could say oh that is just casual that is just some some short circuit so there something some just the computer is stoned so that is just uh just a casual event that could not be explained that is that has no serious impact that is just just some some uh failure of the system uh but second term of trump it is the serious

sign for anybody for everybody in the United States including deep State persons and guys in the politics in the Republican Party in the White House in the administration in in among Democrats as well that Trump is nothing anything but something casual so that is serious that is tendency Trump the second election of Mr Trump is the sign of logic nature and consequences so that is the invitation to reconsider American politics inner politics and uh ex foreign politics seriously you if American people has for twice uh has voted for Trump that means something has already happened

so you need check your denial of the reality you you should you are obliged you have no other issue but to make reality check and the reality check and at the end of the denial of the reality will bring United States to the much more taller position and further uh side so if you make now reality check if you adapt or yourself to the objective transformations of the world at at least uh this not only two players game by but but at least three and maybe three and a half maybe four uh players chess B

if you accept that you will behave yourself more effective uh you can reach the goals you you want to reach you will be much more realist and effective and I think uh second term of trump it is tendency it is not just something casual and I think that uh the uh now not only America should shape global politics but America should let the other as well to participate in this shaping of the world structure and China and Russia and India including the smaller lesser lesser Powers they can have they place in this reshaping of the

world and that will help to United States of America to to be great again but to do that in order to do that I think that the the line of realist strategical thinking explained and exposed by Mr uh Mr M shimer is one of the best and shorter shortest way to do that so and that is the part of American Heritage realism not isolationism not return to the archaic archaic asolution just realism that that was the one of the main main School of international relations of United States of America during 20th century the globalism or

this dominance of Liber s in the international relations there's something recent that that is something new that that last a little bit than three three decades before that was the balance between uh liberals and realists so realism is nothing there is nothing Russ Russian in that not nothing Chinese that is purely American way to consider the international relations so that is return to the to the recent past to kind of American identity and I think that the second coming of trump is something like that the sign of the possible possible Tor realist Tor the end

of unipolar moment the end maybe of liberal moment as well but that could coincide with with defense of American interests so I see here no contradiction and what Mr mimer uh has has told about nationalism that fits perfectly in that I am not in favor of nationalism I have uh I I I could say much more words about Empire because I'm in favor of Empire I don't agree that Empire means necessarily uh colonies outside uh of of the sea but that is a totally different topic but uh the the main idea that nationalism matters in

modern world it is obvious that that is just just reality check and it's very pertinent remark and observations and theoretical points so I think if we if we if we could debate like that we could avoid Mutual Annihilation I hope okay um if everybody agre it's a wrap for today is that okay Professor sham and Professor Dugan and thank you so much for everybody and um to all of our participants we need all the help we can get in um promoting um this video promoting the valuable conversation that we've had today and to our audience

who will be seeing this online in the next couple of days um please do follow us on our website thechina academy.org if you find today's conversation insightful and constructive that's what we hope to bring thank you very much to our both speakers and to all of our participants thank you [Music]