Transcript of interview with Glenn Diesen, 16 July

Transcript submitted by a reader


Prof. Glenn Diesen: 0:00
Hi everyone and welcome. We are joined again by Gilbert Doctorow, historian, international affairs analyst, and also author of many books such as the "War Diaries - the Russia-Ukraine War", [for] which I will add a link in the description. So yeah, welcome back to the program.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Yeah, very good to speak to you again.

Diesen:
So one of the more recent news is that Trump says he's very angry with Putin. He says they have a nice conversation, but then in the evening he goes on bombing Ukraine. And as always, it's some uncertainty in terms of the difference between the noise and the action. Either he's seeking to manage opposition at home and in Europe, or he's lacking in strategic focus and being, you know, swinging a bit back and forth. It's, I haven't been able to solve this riddle, if I can be honest. It's, it's very, it seems like very erratic behavior often.

1:11
So I was wondering if you can, well, try to share your perspective and shed some light on what you think is happening here, because it doesn't seem to make much sense, even his argument or even the way he's going back and forth.

Doctorow:
Well, this is one instance of very important international news where the leading, or the best, most widely seen experts on independent media, on various YouTube channels, are agreed more or less on the facts, and are completely in disagreement over the interpretation. We won't have a clear indication of what the interpretation is, until we know what the content of his arm shipments to Ukraine [is]. So far we only know about Patriots. There is speculation that's partly encouraged by his reported discussion with Zelensky over long-range missiles. Can he reach Moscow, can he reach Petersburg?

2:38
And of course, this fired up a lot of speculation about Trump's possibly giving this important offensive weaponry to Ukraine. We don't know anything though. That is all-- I consider what he's doing is a continuation of what we've seen in the past several months on various international developments.

This is political theater. And he is playing it for all it's worth. He gets in front of the television cameras daily. He's on international news. There's only one person making the news these days, and his name is Donald Trump. So in that sense, the narcissist Trump can be very happy.

3:19
But is there anything more to it than that? Is he, as one extreme interpretation, a hazard, that is by Scott Ritter, is he an idiot? Are the people around him all idiots? Is the Congress populated by idiots? Well, I personally find that a very poor start for serious analysis of most anything, to assume that your opponents or the leading figures of the day are idiots.

I prefer to consider what is behind what seemed to be strange or ineffectual actions. Can it be something else going on? One person who has taken that approach, who has a lot of respect in alternative media, and not only, is Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who was saying that Trump adopted the least-bad solution to the pressure he's been receiving from Congress and from Europe to respond to Putin's very aggressive and very destructive new attacks, aerial attacks on Ukraine. So that was a kind of middle position. I take a position that goes a little bit further than Colonel Macgregor on the political side.

4:45
And that is that Trump knew very well what he was doing. He was saying what he said about arms deliveries, about new sanctions and secondary tariffs on Russia, precisely to silence his critics, to give satisfaction to the most, the loudest-talking member of the Republican group in Congress, in the Senate, Lindsey Graham. Graham could take pride that the bill that he is steering through the Senate now has the support of Trump, who on his own initiative has stated to the public that he will be adopting the key point here of secondary tariffs at a hundred percent.

Well, that's one thing, silence the critics. I can tell you that my recent appearances on various video programs has been picked up by the Russians. And they pick up precisely this point from my message, which to my mind is the least important part of my message, that he was silencing his critics. No, for me the most important thing is the 50 days. The fact that he has given President Putin 50 days is indicative that he has little or no intention of continuing the war, of making Biden's war his own war, but instead is giving Mr. Putin time to finish up the job, in the same way that he instructed Netanyahu early in his presidency to get on with it, do whatever dastardly things you have to do in Gaza, but let's be done with it and move on. That's what he was saying to my way of thinking, to Vladimir Putin.

5:41
But none of us will know what really has happened. Has he joined the new cons? Has he made common cause with them? Or is he duping them, as I believe, with these words about sanctions and arms shootings, and intends to go for his detente? The proof will be what is in that package of weapons being shipped.

Diesen: 7:07
Yeah, the 50 days. I was thinking a bit about this as well. It could be a delaying tactic in order to not have to pick a side or make any big decisions because again, he wants to normalize relations with the Russians, but he doesn't want to alienate too many in his own camp. It could also, as you said, allow the Russians to finish off what they're doing. Well it could also be an effort to negotiate, to put some pressures, a deadline. So it can be interpreted in many ways.

But this is something that confused the Europeans a bit as well. Why do we have to wait 50 days for these sanctions? And his response was simply, well, 50 days isn't that much. Maybe it comes earlier. But I'm often inclined to lean in the direction that there is incompetence or as you said, the stupidity, but on the other hand, he does from, yeah, from the past decades, he's always talked about the importance of strategic ambiguity when you negotiate.

And he does like to think of himself as a negotiator. So if you, if you're ... playing with [a] too-open hand, it's very difficult to ... get the deals you want. So again, this is something his own administration says as well. "We won't let anyone know exactly what we're thinking or what we're doing." This is what he was always criticizing Biden for as well.

8:45
So if it works or not, putting that aside, nonetheless, I think we can conclusively say that this is something he believes in, this strategic ambiguity. So I do see the argument there, that ambiguity allows him to get some room for maneuver to do other things. And the pressure, as you said, has been mounting, given that the Russian strikes last night on Kharkov are becoming much more brutal in nature, that is both the quantity and the targeting. So one can see why there will have to be some reaction. But I guess your argument though, is that his response to this is to talk big, but it's somewhat muted because it all depends, I guess, on the weapons he's sending.

9:41
And I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly, but to what extent are the Americans sending weapons, or to what extent are they actually selling them? Because it seems as if he's selling weapons to the Europeans, and the Europeans can give it to Ukraine, and somehow this has to happen under the umbrella of NATO for some reason?

Doctorow: 10:03
That's a distinction without a difference. The question that I had in my mind is: is he just going to ship more of the same, meaning more tanks, more Bradleys, more artillery shells, so much as they have them, which certainly must have been in the pipeline. Let's come back to this question, is this Biden's war or Trump's war?

What he said about the ship was authorized under Biden. This is not new appropriations from Congress. So in that sense, I think it is not proper to speak about these shipments making it Trump's war. Now, if indeed, it is materiel that was authorized by Biden, then it is no cause for worry, because there's nothing that will threaten the Russians, or will change or will escalate the war. However, if new items are being put in, and particularly offensive weapons, long-range missiles, like ATACMS, which were never shipped, if they are now in the mix, then it's a very different readout of what Trump is doing. And he would be going beyond the irresponsibility button to a new level that takes us to World War III.

11:28
The Russians have made it plain by their latest revised nuclear doctrine that if they are hit by such weapons-- this was either, it was originally discussed with respect to ATACMS and with respect to Taurus-- if they are hit with this, they can respond with nuclear arms. And I find it incredible that Trump's team would not take this into account and would authorize ATACMS or something that could reach far into Russia. So I believe that we're on the plane of empty rhetoric, shipping things which everyone knows will be of no use to the Ukrainians, because the tanks and the Bradleys will just be hidden in the forest since if they put them in the open space, they'll be destroyed at once.

Just as the Russians are not using their superiority in tanks on the ground. They are also hiding them in the forest and shooting out from under cover. And they're using the tanks just as can, more precise can, with maybe 8-10 kilometer range.

12:44
The war has changed. And I don't see my peers taking that into account properly. What we are witnessing now is massive air attack, not just that came into the head of Putin or his general staff. "Well, let's try this."

No, it's precisely because what they were doing up to this point has reached the point, the stage where it's no longer productive. The Russians, to advance deep into Ukraine now, would have to take enormous losses because of the drone, the omnipresent Ukrainian drones on the battlefield. Therefore, they have gone to aerial bombardment. Now, once you're in aerial bombardment and missile strikes, it's only a half step to using those Oreshniks and getting the damn thing over with. If they take out, if they decapitate Kiev, which is entirely within their possibilities, then a lot of lives will be saved at all sides.

13:42
Now, this comes within the 50 days. It's entirely possible to finish off Ukraine within 50 days if they decapitate the country with the missiles they have ready. My question is, is Mr. Putin going to rise to that challenge? I don't know. Nobody knows. And so we may be stuck with still stalling and stalling. As regards aerial attack, it doesn't have a time limitation the way ground assalts do. Because of seasonality, there is a negligible factor in the devastation that is being brought. So if Putin responds both to the challenge, finish it up, and to the opportunity, now that he's not going to be escalating, he's already in the next stage of an aerial rather than ground war, we may see the end of this.

14:41
And I think that Trump could find this very satisfactory. Then the United States and Russia can put their heads together and say, "Well, what are we going to do to put Ukraine back together again?" Along the lines of Russia's desirata of what they want as their end game. And Europe would be sidelined unless they invite them in on the same conditions. But let's be constructive. Let's talk about an investment fund. Let's talk about a neutral Ukraine. And we're talking about a rump Ukraine. That could be the basis for moving on to detente. It's all there. Am I right, am I wrong? We will know in a few weeks, depending on the content of the military package.

15:24
Yeah, that's what I thought. Now I saw the weapons would be important because, well, if the, well, there's some flaws in the, in the whole optimism, at least we see now in Europe. Because well, the Europeans, do they have the money?

And do the Americans have the weapons to sell them? And do the Ukrainians have the human resources to operate them? I was wondering if you see it likely in terms of the Tomahawks being sent because this is something that you suggested that would trigger great concern among the Russians. Indeed, having Tomahawks and other missiles in Ukraine was one of the reasons for the invasion to begin with.

But how worried should they be though? Because usually they have to be launched from, you know, warships or strategic bombers. To ... what extent-- I guess would make sense. Again, I'm never sure if this is a lack of [logic], flawed logic or if it's a strategic ambiguity, but what kind of weapons would be crossing the line?

Doctorow: 16:40
Well, ATACMS to begin with. No one was talking about Tomahawks in the past. They were speaking about these precisely ground-launched missiles using the already existing HIMARS launchers. The United States shipped a lot of HIMARS, and the launchers arre there. And the same launchers can be used on the ground to launch the ATACMS. And that's why there was great concern in Russia, because they are-- the limitation on the Storm Shadow and the SCALP from France and also Taurus is that they are air-launched. And you have to have planes that are adapted to those particular missiles, and you have to have planes and pilots, and you have to have airfields, which the Russians have done a pretty good job of savaging. So if they were, as you say, the Tomahawks, the version exists, it can be ground launched, it's quite exotic.

17:40
If these were to be supplied, then we're heading into the unknown. I can't imagine that Trump could agree to that, because it would be a level of escalation that takes us just to the brink of nuclear war.

Diesen:
So what can we expect then from the Russians in the next 50 days? You used the word "decapitating" strike. Do you think they can try to go in for finishing off Ukraine? Because again, we've spoken in the past about the danger of underestimating the resilience of Ukraine. That is, they do keep fighting on. I thought things would have begun to collapse militarily as well as politically a long time ago, but here they are. They're still putting up a pretty good fight. But given the huge intensity now, increasing intensity from the Russian side, in attacking targets across Ukraine, do you think they are going for, if not knocking out the military, then going for the political leadership or something to put an end to this war?

Because in the war of attrition, you do exhaust the adversary, but the Ukrainians appear quite exhausted now. At least an attempt by the Russians to go for this over the next 50 days. Or if this is as you suggest, Trump's purpose might be to give the Russians 50 days to get this done with, whatever they want to do and then end the war. Is this what they might spend their 50 days on?

Doctorow:
There's one issue here that has to be addressed, and that is the nature of Mr. Putin. Not just that he's very cautious, but that he approaches everything from a lawyer's perspective, being a trained lawyer. And that has its up side and its down side. In the given case, I cannot see him giving orders for a decapitating strike under the terms of the Special Military Operation. That would be illegal, as he would determine it.

19:50
However, Mr. Zelensky should be careful about what he wishes for. If he receives any offensive weapons, which he then uses and strikes within the Russian Federation at what they consider to be strategic assets, then Mr. Putin would declare war. That would be considered an act of war. He declares war, and then it can decapitate Ukraine, in the context, only in the context of a declared war, from the perspective of Mr. Putin's mentality. So there's the qualification on how the 50 days could be used. I don't think that Donald Trump is aware of that feature in Putin's behavior. Certainly Mr. Trump himself doesn't care a whit for law, what's written even in the constitution. So it could not occur to him that Mr. Putin would. And that is exactly the case. There has to be a declaration of war for the Ukrainians to receive their decapitating strike.

Diesen: 21:00
I also want to get your opinion on an item in the news, which was that Trump had allegedly asked Zelensky if he's able to strike Moscow or St. Petersburg, so Putin would feel the pain. And then later on he was asked, I think it was on the tarmac, the same question. And he said, "Oh, no, no, I don't want him to Moscow." Do you have any thoughts around this back and forth?

Doctorow:
He was feeding the jackals. And the jackals picked it up. They picked up this piece of rotting flesh very nicely. By here I mean the BBC. They have gone into overdrive on how Mr. Trump is fed up with Putin. He's now aligned with the haws in Congress and and so forth. I don't believe that for a minute. But again, this is my my best guess. It is not founded on anything concrete, because we just discussed what the missing pieces to the puzzle are, which will decide whether the puzzle is being assembled, the jigsaw puzzle is being assembled properly or wrongly.

22:11
The discussion was piquant, he knew it would attract the press. It did, of course; as I say it's all over the BBC today. That's just what they wanted to hear, that is giving Zelensky hopes that he can strike Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Diesen:
But the, yeah, you referred to the, give them hope to the, to the Europeans and the hawks within the United States as well as Zelensky. But if Trump wanted to end this war and he knows that Russia considers this to be an existential threat and it won't move much on its key demands -- wouldn't Trump need to mount more pressure on the Ukrainians and Europeans as opposed to, I guess, throwing them some red meat and, well, making them feel more comfortable with this leadership and the possibility of continuing this war instead?

Doctorow: 23:11
Again, we're in the realm of political theater. And I don't believe the seriousness of what he has tossed out to the press. As I've said, he despises the press and he'll say anything, that he thinks will make them look like fools.

Diesen:
And, I guess the last back and forth I noticed of Trump was the arms deliveries. It was reported that, I think it was Pete Hegseth that halted arms deliveries to Ukraine. Again, with the engagement with the media, he was first asked, well, he was, he first stated that he wasn't sure who had halted the arms deliveries. And when he was asked, "Don't you know what's happening in your own administration?" He said, "Well, I will be the first one to know. Indeed, I would have ordered it." Except, you know, he didn't. So how do you make sense of this?

Doctorow: 24:13
Well, there isn't any sense to make of it. He's contradicting himself. And again, it is another expression of his contempt for the press. He'll say anything to them. He doesn't take them seriously, with good reason. He is treated very badly by Fox News, by CNN, he's treated with contempt by them and he returns the coin. So I wouldn't follow this too closely. Don't look for logic in what he says with a microphone in front of him. I follow what his feet are doing and particularly I place emphasis on 50 days, which undermines everything else. As you said, he could impose these sanctions tomorrow. He didn't do that. And so I don't believe he ever will.

Diesen: 25:11
Okay, so if you put the American side of this war aside to conclude him more or less pursuing strategic ambiguity. We won't really know yet if he's appeasing the hawks, the neocons, or if he's joined them, but we should know based on the weapons which are delivered. Again, the Tomahawks or any long range missiles. This is kind of the red lines.

But if we shift over to the Europeans, what is the strategy of Europe? Are they hoping that any of these weapons would turn the tide or, or is it just to pull America further into this, to make it a long war? What is-- it's very hard to read the Europeans, and here one gets the impression sometimes that there's no one behind the wheel.

Doctorow: 26:07
Oh, there are people behind the wheel, but I think they're driving a different vehicle, and they're concerned with a different road. The road that interests them is power and retaining it. They have put themselves in very fragile position by backing to the hilt a losing cause. And for them now to move the discussion from Ukraine to our own defense and to building our military industry and to how we deal with filling out the numbers of our men and women at arms -- that changes the discussion completely.

And it's all about their retaining power. Because if there is this big threat from the East, then the logic is we are the leaders, like as Ursula von der Leyen was saying, trying to defend herself against charges of fraud and abuse of power over vaccines. And how does she defend herself? Well, "We are now facing a very important threat from Russia, and we need strong leadership", meaning herself. That's what it's all about, is keeping their hands on power at all costs, whether it serves the national interest or not.

27:30
National interest, not to mention Ukraine's interest, don't count. The spoils of power, what it's all about. And here in Europe, in most of Europe, with exceptions, France is an exception because the way it structures its governments differently. But most of the European countries have coalition governments. And the whole game of a coalition government is dividing the spoils of power. So that is the center of attention of everybody at the top in Europe today. Not Ukraine, not Mr. Trump, not tariffs, but keeping power.

Diesen: 28:12
So the initial or the main argument for the past three-plus years-- in terms of boycotting all diplomacy, rejecting negotiations and instead just pumping weapons into the war-- the argument was, "Well, we need to put the Ukrainians in a better position. We'll negotiate later once the Ukrainians can negotiate from a position of strength."

Does anyone actually believe this in Europe now? I mean, your position there in Brussels, because it does seem as if it's becoming harder to deny that the war is shifting more and more in the favor of Russia. That is the Ukrainians having more and more problems building up. The Russians keep strengthening in the rear.

29:07
And also, again, in a war of attrition, you should look at the ratio of casualties. But the West, we tend to focus excessively on the territorial shifts. But even this is starting to intensify. We see now the semi-encirclement of Pokrovsk, which would be a strategic disaster, opening up the road all the way to the Dnieper and of course, Constanivka, which would then begin to seal off the entire Donetsk region. So there's a desperation in there, isn't there? I mean, so what exactly do they hope to achieve here?

Doctorow: 29:51
Let's divide up the West, because the United States is running on its own course. And in the question of how the war is proceeding, the United States is much more open than Western Europe journalism. A little bit seeps in here, in the press, but it's really in "New York Times" and the British press. I think the "Financial Times" also has articles which run completely counter to the editorial position of newspaper.

Journalists are reporting what's going on. "New York Times", they are every few days speaking about Ukrainian retreats or losses and the Russian advances. No question about it. They're preparing the public for Ukrainian defeat.

30:38
The most important indication of that was what appeared on Monday in the "New York Times". They had a front-page article on the crimes that the Ukrainians committed during their occupation of Kursk oblost. This was immediately denounced by Kiev as dissemination of vile propaganda. The "New York Times", for the first time in the whole war, had an article devoted strictly to the war crimes that the Ukrainians are committing. Now that tells you they're preparing the public for the Ukrainian defeat and they will find many reasons why they should have lost the war.

I say the game is moving on, the competition now is not about the fate of Ukraine. It's about the future of the present-day leaders in Europe, who have committed so much of their personal prestige and political power to winning a war that they're losing. And so they're diverting attention to, well 2029, how we have to be prepared for Russian invasion and so forth. They're changing the subject, because they lost this subject.

Diesen: 31:54
Well, the use of the media to exercise narrative control and prepare the public for a defeat in Ukraine -- I was thinking the same when I saw the gradual shift in the media coverage in the United States. And of course, this "New York Times" article was quite important as well. The fact that you had an American journalist from the "New York Times", I think she was already, well, the journalist was accompanying Ahmad through Kursk.

I mean, the fact that this was being done and the conclusion on the coverage was the Ukrainian war crimes. This is something unthinkable two, three years ago, when the Ukrainians could do no wrong and every person even with a SWAT sticker had to be, the first instinct was always to whitewash it. But in Europe though, I do not see this at all, especially in, well, I'm located in Scandinavia, and here the war propaganda is just going full steam ahead, hardly any changes. And indeed to suggest that Ukraine can't win the war is denounced as Russian propaganda, trying to reduce public support for what we call "helping Ukraine", which is pushing a war which the Ukrainians themselves want an end to.

33:21
But of all the Europeans, for many people, well, if you would have said this four years ago, that Germany would position themselves as the main country to essentially take over the fight against Russia now that America is pulling back -- this would have been very much unthinkable a few years ago, but here we are. How are you reading the German position? Because it's not simply Merz; this is something deeper in German society, isn't it?

Doctorow: 33:53
It covers the whole political spectrum. I believe this started with the Alternative fur Deutschland, when they were the first to speak up, well this goes back five years or more, the first to speak up and say, "Hey, we are not responsible for the sins of our grandparents. We are new people, we are new people, and we have to look after our sovereignty."

That was Avdei. And it's covered now the whole spectrum of German political life, where they do not take responsibility for the crimes that Germany committed across Europe, not just in the destruction of Jewry.

They believe that they are morally clean, and they follow European values, and they can get up on a soft box and preach to, well, particularly the Russians, who are the _recidivists_ and who have to be properly punished for their violation of European values. So there is the real threat that this is across the whole German spectrum. They willfully are forgetting who they are. And they have changed the role. They openly changed the role.

35:17
The role changed under the German leadership going back 10 years. Merkel was responsible for changing the role, but she did not want to name Germany. Germany did not have a foreign policy, according to Merkel. The foreign policy was made in Brussels, very convenient. And who made it in Brussels? Germans, since they dominated the parliament and the commission.

So de facto, Germany was the dominant force in European diplomacy and in world policy. But this was not acknowledged by the German leadership in Berlin. They hid behind the apron of Brussels. Now they're coming out from behind the apron and saying, "Yes, we are going to be Europe's dominant defender." As if this is natural.

It's not natural. It was-- the world for this was prepared by the gradual collapse of France and its authority. Not just the economic weakness of France, which was established decades ago compared to Germany, but its political weakness, a succession of disastrous presidents. And Mr. Macron is the latest uncrowned king under the French constitution, who defies the French political circles by holding onto power when he has maybe a 20 percent approval rating. The French are politically weak. The Germans have used that to move out in front, to muscle the French aside. Mr. Macron is making a desperate effort, his announcement on Bastille Day, that they are, "Oh, we are also raising our military budgets and to be big defenders."

37:14
And as soon as the Germans start talking about possibly getting nuclear weapons, well, that is the absolute end of any French claims to being Europe's defenders. They could hide behind the fact that they and the Brits were the only European countries with nuclear arms. If the Germans now aspire to do that too, then the moment of truth has arrived, and everything that the Germans aspired to in World War II, they now will be realizing, which is something that should give us pause.

Diesen: 37:46
Well, the German shift or return to militarism, it appears to have, well, it's not exactly that reason. That is, yes, throughout the Cold War, they had this very cautious idea that, you know, learned from history, they're not going to engage in wars any more.

But after the Cold War, in 1999, the attack on Yugoslavia, that is to wrestle away Kosovo, you saw the logic in the German argument shifting. So in the past, their history of genocide was a reason for why they had to be more constrained. And suddenly over Kosovo, the argument was, well, because of our history with genocide, we have a special responsibility to prevent it other places. So instead of their genocidal history being a reason for constraint, it was now a reason for taking action.

And you see similar rhetoric in Gaza, that is, as if they owed the Jewish population a debt, which is very fair enough after the Holocaust, but this is translated into unconditional support for Israel in effectively making the Palestinians pay for the crimes of the Germans by supporting the genocide there.

39:05
And also during the Kursk operation, when you had German generals appearing on TV, you know, with smiles on their face, being excited as they were speaking about how this was humiliating for the Russians. This was an important part of World War II and almost like a redo of World War II, as they saw German tanks roll into Russia. It's very unsettling. But besides how the Russians are looking at this, how would the Europeans react?

I mean, you mentioned the French. Certainly the French do not want to be pushed aside. They kind of had a division of labor. The Germans were the economic force, the French were the military and that kind of creates some balance of power within the European Union. Now that you know Germany is going to acquire weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons, how comfortable are really the Europeans with this? I think it was Thatcher already in her time, [who] warned that the German unification could bring about the Fourth Reich. I mean, it's not to argue that we overcome this historical concern. It would be an exaggeration, wouldn't it?

Doctorow: 40:21
Well, it wasn't just a Thatcher. Miserand also, he said, "I've been liking Germany so much, we want to see two of them." That concern about Germany existed. And as to Germany's coming out, so to speak, over Kosovo, actually that was, I think, precipitated by American action.

The whole crisis in the Yugoslav Civil War, was, had a defining moment, and that was the attacks on Sarajevo, the marketplace, I think this was 1996, correct me, and Germany could not bring itself to re-enter Yugoslavia, again, considering the history of Germany's devastating wars on Yugoslavia during World War II, or attacks and destruction in Yugoslavia in World War II. The Americans moved in, the Americans took charge, and then that relieved the Germans to do what comes naturally. And to go back to bossing people around in these fringe parts of Europe.

41:46
So America had its own role in relieving Germany of its constraints and its hesitation, by bringing it into a coalition of NATO that were doing what Germany was afraid to do, because that had been a dividing line before World War I. What was-- Serbia triggered World War I, and Germany did not want to get into that region again.

Well, it is, and it is in a lot of other places where it shouldn't be. And I have now in mind Mr. Merz's very proud establishment of the German presence in the Baltics to "protect the Eastern flank". So the way NATO had protected Germany during the First Cold War. The German position, is there a militarism? I don't know. I put my finger to the wind. I don't think so. There is, again, opportunism for the sake of political power in the hands of Mr. Merz and the people around him.

42:57
I'm not sure that that is founded on a militaristic feeling or enthusiasm in the German nation. I rather doubt it. Whether this develops, we'll see.

Diesen: 43:12
Yeah, I think the Bosnian market attack must have been in '94 because [Dayton] came in '95 and then Bosnia was finished. But I was wondering though, the one thing that the Russians are looking at when they look towards Germany is the Taurus missiles. As we know, Mertz used to advocate for them.

Now there seems to be some discussions that will let Ukraine build something similar to the Taurus missile, which the whole thing seems to be dubious as if they're looking for a cover to supply the missiles. Did you think that some version of the Taurus missile will be supplied or already has been supplied? And if so, what do you expect the Russian response to be? Because my impression is that of all the European countries, a lot of the resentment now is directed towards Germany. And given that they're competing with the British for animosity, it's kind of impressive how the Germans have moved up the ranks in terms of being seen as an adversary, if not an enemy then of Russia?

44:23
[We'll have] the number one enemy of Russia. When Mr. Soloviyov on his famous, on his well-known programs directly calls Mr. Merz a Nazi several times. And not as a joke, but as a dead serious accusation, I take that as being a word coming from the Kremlin, certainly Mr. Medvedev would make similar statements.

So they have earned the position of Russia's enemy number one. As to the Taurus, I think that Mr. Putin would be in a very tough spot if the Taurus is actually used by the Ukrainians, because that is openly crossing his most important red line, that he has discussed in interviews with Pavel Zarubinuk, that had then been shown repeatedly on Russian television and in the West, saying that these weapons cannot properly be controlled by the Ukrainians themselves and implicate as co-belligerents those who have supplied the weapons like Taurus to Ukraine.

45:34
The same is true, of course, of ATACMS. Even if the Ukrainians are properly instructed on how, what button to push or when, the coding of the path, flight path, the decisions on targeting are all taken by, and the information necessary from satellite intelligence is coming from the United States. And so for Putin to accept this, I think he might as well just give up and stop the war and be overthrown, because that's what it would mean. It's incredible.

It's impossible that he could hold on to power if he did not follow through on his threats to the United States, to Germany for attacks coming via these long-range missiles. And by the way, I firmly believe that some Taurus are already in Kiev, going back several months. Whenever the announcement is made that "in [not long], a month or two, we will ship", it means they already are there.

Diesen: 46:47
So, well, by the way, I agree with that assessment. I also think this would be the final straw that it would make it impossible for Russia not to attack. People keep saying, oh, why would they risk this? But, well, certainly Germany is willing to risk the war. So it would be too high cost, I think, for the Russians to do nothing. But what exactly could they do? They would be, you know, you have different targets, which would indicate different levels of escalation.

Rather than attacking German military bases, wouldn't it make, do you see it as more likely to attack German, I guess, industrial facilities where these weapons are actually being made? Or what do you see as, well, again, we can't get into President Putin's head, but what do you see as likely or possible targets for the Russians to retaliate against Germany.

Doctorow: 47:51
I think we have to try to get into his head in one respect, and I continue the point I made earlier. The man has a legalistic frame of mind. I think we got a hint how this will play out in a recent statement by Lavrov that if these Taurus are implemented, if their use is authorized from Ukraine and attacks on Russia, then Russia will break all the relations with Germany.

Now, what does that mean? That's what you do when you're declaring war. So essentially, again, I don't believe that Putin will attack anybody without a declaration of war. And I think that that's what would happen. He would declare a war on Germany and then he would strike.

48:44
And what he strikes, a military base or these production sites, is a secondary consideration. I don't think this has been properly factored into the recommendations that Karaganov made two years ago. He was not looking at Putin's way of thinking. "Yes, we have to do this, we take them seriously, our red lines have to be taken seriously, we have to use a tactical nuclear weapon somewhere in Western Europe, blah blah."

49:14
But that is utterly out of character and out of the professional mindset of one Vladimir Putin. So I take very closely the words of Lavrov about breaking relations. Similarly, you'll notice that when I think about Mr.-- why the Russian stock market went up 4 percent after Trump made his announcement to the press in the White House together with Putin: because there was nothing about confiscating the frozen assets. That surely is what drove the money people in Moscow, because the concern is that for the relative small amount of frozen assets in the States, this would be a signal to Europe to attack the 250 billion euros in assets that are sitting in EuroClear here in Belgium. That didn't happen because you confiscate assets in state of war. It's another way of declaring war and would be interpreted that way by the Russians.

Diesen: 50:28
Well, Thank you for your time. I think, you know, this is a very important perspective, especially when you're discussing an actor such as Donald Trump and well, his administration now acting deliberately with strategic ambiguity, then I guess we're all vulnerable to our own biases. We might see what we want to see when he's sending out all these very different signals. So I think what you brought up is, many people might have been missing some of these subtleties.

So yeah, this is, yeah, gives me something to think about. So thank you so much for your time.

Doctorow: 51:10
My pleasure. Bye bye.