Transcript of 'Judging Freedom' edition of 5 December 2024

Transcript submitted by a reader

Napolitano: 0:32
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for "Judging Freedom". Today is Thursday, December 5th, 2024. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for your time and for your thoughts. The last time you and I spoke, the Russians had recently fired and were overjoyed at the results of the Oreshnik missile. We understood it to be of nuclear quality without the nuclear fallout. Have the Russians been, or is there an argument out there that they have been exaggerating its strength, its efficiency, and its effects?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:25
Well, the question is very relevant, because the conduct of Russian policy on the further responses to any provocations from the British, the French, or the United States, their firing additional missiles into Bryansk or Kursk.

The Russian response to that is predicated on their shock and awe developed from the test firing, the test attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. They believe it was effective and that it should have put the fear of God into Mr. Zelensky and into the Americans, so that they would refrain from further provocations. This was a decision taken after Mr. Putin had already made clear days earlier when he spoke at a press conference in Astana at the end of a two-day state visit, he spoke then about possibly using these missiles against Western targets.

And of course, the "Western targets" raises a lot of fear, justified fear, in all of us, whether we're mainstream or we're alternative media: are we on the way to World War III? Mr. Putin had clearly turned the other way. He'd gone down the road of putting all possible pressure on the Ukrainians and not responding to the, their "curators", as the Russians like to say, to their sponsors in the West who are supplying them with these missiles that the Russians find so unacceptable.

3:19
Well, so that leaves us with the question, what did really happen at Dnipro? And there have been several authorities, several experts who have come forward to address that question. I was tipped off on this two ways. One was a letter, a comments letter on one of my websites, which informed me that I and almost all other commentators on the Oreshnik issue are inexpert, don't know our ass from our elbow, and should more or less shut up, because the Oreshnik, according to laws of physics, is a nothing rocket, a nothing missile.

It doesn't pack an explosion greater than would be the case with a standard two-ton bomb, which as the author also indicated, is only a slight fraction of the strength of some American super bombs. Well, that caught my attention, particularly since the author of that rather vicious comment made reference to recent articles and video appearances by Ted Postol, who is a well-known authority on missiles, explosives and related issues.

4:45
Then there was a second point of contact that caught my attention. This was on the Russian news, the Russian talk show, I think it was "The Great Game" a day ago, in which they called attention to an article in "Forbes" magazine, an article I have in front of me, "Oreshnik Threat, Rods from God, Are Not as Dangerous as Putin Thinks". And this was by a journalist, technical affairs journalist, in London.

5:08
I'd call attention to this last one first, because it explains very much what Ted Postol explained, that the laws of physics tell you that the actual impact value of the munitions-- or not munitions, of the metal on board the nose cone in these 36 sub munitions that were sprayed across Dnipro-- that the net impact of these munitions, sub munitions, would be equivalent to a two-ton bomb, which isn't a great deal. However, in the middle of that article, he mentions, "Ah, and the Oreshnik, you know, it doesn't have much lateral damage. It just goes straight down." Well, straight down is what Mr. Putin had in mind. The Russians were saying that the unarmed version of the Oreshnik, which is what they used in Dnipro, is a bunker buster, that it can do damage to 200 meters down by shock waves equivalent to an earthquake.

6:24
I don't think-- Mr. Putin likened it to meteorites. And for every Russian, now this doesn't say much to the American or global audience, but Russians all know about the Tunguska, it's in Eastern Siberia, meteorite, it was called meteorite, that struck there and was seen, the impact was seen 20 kilometers away. Very bizarre impact which knocked down trees in circular pattern for several hundred meters.

Anyway, there were peculiarities about the strike. It created a big crater and so forth. Well, that Tunguska affair is very much on the mind of Russians, well-read Russians of whom Mr. Putin is one, although he may be wrong about its cause. Later, researchers are saying that it was a comet, not a meteorite, but that's not important.

7:23
The point is that this is the language he used, and he assumed that Mr. Zelensky would be scared out of his wits because his refuge under a possible Russian attack is a deep bunker. And American and other NATO generals operating in Lvov and in Kiev to direct the military operations are in similar bunkers. So Mr. Putin, did he have something real or not? From this article in "Forbes", you wouldn't know.

From the article or the interview of Mr. Postol, you would assume that this missile doesn't have an impact greater than two or three meters, in which case really what are we talking about? So the--

Napolitano: 8:07
Aren't we talking about a missile that is faster than anything created by man and that effectively cannot be shot down, disabled or neutralized?

Doctorow:
That is all true. And the value of that is clear if it is nuclear-armed. And the Oreshnik can be nuclear-armed, so that if it is carrying nuclear warheads it would be a game-changer all by itself. But that's in a different game. What the Russians would say, it's from a different scene, from a different opera. The opera--

Napolitano: 8:44
Here's President Putin talking about it. So Chris, cut number 13, and you can cut it off, Chris, if it's a little too long and if President Putin goes into other subjects. But he begins by talking about the Oreshnik.

Putin: [English voice over]
The Oreshnik missile system isn't simply an efficient hypersonic weapon system. Thanks to its power, particularly in the case of its massive use, in combination with other precision long-range weapons that Russia has, the results of its use against enemy targets would be comparable in effect and its power to strategic weapons. Although, in fact, the Oreshnik system is not a strategic weapon. In any case, it is not an intercontinental ballistic missile.

No one in the world has such weapons yet, as we know, as you know. Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are already under development. But this will not happen tomorrow, or in a year, or even two years, while we have this system now. I will add that there are no means of counteracting such a missile, no means of intercepting it in the world today. They don't exist.

And I will emphasize once again, we will continue testing the latest system. Considering the special strength of this weapon, its power, it will be put into service in the Strategic Missile Forces. In addition to the Oreshnik system, several similar systems are currently being developed in Russia for further testing.

Napolitano: 10:31
Is any of that inaccurate?

Doctorow:
Yes, there are bits and pieces here that are probably inaccurate. For one thing, it actually is an intercontinental ballistic missile. It all depends on where you launch it from. If you launch it from Astrakhan, well, then it just is within the Eurasian land mass. But if you launch it from Kamchatka, it is down in the South of Montana.

Napolitano: 10:55
Aside from his terminology, is there anything inaccurate in there about its strength and invincibility?

Doctorow:
We don't know. Frankly speaking, I have seen nothing to suggest that anyone knows what the real power of that missile is on impact.

Napolitano:
Why is the West attempting to discredit this weapon? And why are the Americans and the British continuing to assist the Ukrainians in using ATACMS and Storm Shadows to reach into Russia?

Doctorow:
Because--

Napolitano:
Those are different questions. I apologize.

Doctorow: 11:31
No, no. They refuse to accept that the Russians, on a budget 10 times less than theirs in the States, could achieve a technical breakthrough that is not in the grasp of the United States today. That is, a hypersonic missile that cannot be shot down. And so they look for reasons to say that Russia is basically weak, that this is misleading, that it just creates a little crater, like a 2,000-pound bomb of TNT would create, and they don't want to accept that there could be something very, very serious here. Nobody has shown what the real destruction there was or wasn't inside the underground factory that the Russians were aiming to destroy.

12:20
Nor has anybody concentrated on the level of precision of this. This is a very critical issue. When you come in at Mach 10 or Mach 20, it should be extremely difficult to keep that missile and the payload onto a precise target. And Mr. Putin was saying that this is a precision striking missile. They hit that factory, after all. The question is what did they do to it? And we don't know. Nobody seems to know.

Napolitano: 12:57
What will the Russians do, Professor Doctorow, to prevent, retaliate, or punish for the persistent use of ATACMS and Storm Shadows landing inside Russian territory?

Doctorow:
Well, because of the premises in Mr. Putin's appreciation of this missile-- that it is precise, that it is devastating on impact at great depths, and that it does no collateral damage in a city. That is, it's not a great threat to civilians or to valued cultural city infrastructure-- we can expect he'll do what he said he would do. The next step is to use the Oreshnik against decision-making centers and command and control centers in Kiev and elsewhere. So that's the next step.

Napolitano: 14:01
Well, command and control centers for the United States would be Langley, Virginia or Washington, D.C. Or, are we talking something more modest like the new American air base in Poland and a more traditional-style American storehouse of weapons in Romania?

Doctorow:
No, Judge, none of the above. He's limiting himself to Ukraine, and there are two reasons. I gave one of them, that this missile is most threatening to Mr. Zelensky and the people in his regime, because if it does what Putin says, it will kill them wherever they're hiding, at whatever depth. There's a second reason, which is probably as important or more important. The second reason is that Putin has no trust in Trump's ability or willingness to aid the resolution of the war with Ukraine. He believes that the peace plans that Kellogg has put forward are irrelevant to the present situation, and therefore there is nothing to expect in waiting to January 20th, and there's nothing to expect by responding directly to the States and destroying any possibility of dialogue with the Trump administration when it comes in.

Napolitano: 15:30
Is, to your knowledge, Professor Doctorow, General Kellogg talking to people in the Kremlin?

Doctorow:
No, he isn't. According to the Russians, officially speaking, they have had no contact.

Napolitano:
What kind of peace proposals has General Kellogg even proffered, whether directly to the Kremlin or indirectly through the media?

Doctorow:
Well, it goes back to June, when he was in charge of this America First think tank, and he then put out ideas for how the war could be ended quickly. These ideas apparently have not been altered since then, although the Russians say they're not relevant to the present situation, nor are they germane to what the Russians seek to justify ending this war. And those terms were set out earlier this week in an interview or in a feature article in the "Financial Times" about a certain Malofeyev who is close to the Kremlin, close to Putin, who runs an ultra-nationalist news journal online called "Tsargrad". "Tsargrad" is the old Russian term for Istanbul pre-revolution.

Napolitano:
And who speaks to General Kallog.

Doctorow: 16:51
And who critiqued the terms of Kellogg's settlement, the basic idea being, let's do this quickly. We will cut off arms to Ukraine if they don't agree to sit down and talk to the Russians about a peace treaty.

We will raise the level of support to Ukraine if the Russians refuse to sit down and negotiate a settlement. We want to have an immediate ceasefire before anything happens. Those terms-- oh yes, and the outcome would be, Ukraine would not be eligible for admittance to NATO for 10 years, and we will lift our sanctions, for example, on oil, gas, and so forth-- these terms, they're the only terms that have been published relating to General Kellogg, they are, according to Malofeyev, utterly unacceptable to the Russians. And although Kellogg will be admitted to Moscow and they will sit down and talk, the result will be zero. What are their basic reasons for going to war to be addressed?

Napolitano: 18:07
Right, right. Here's President Zelensky just six days ago expressing a willingness quote "to stop the hot stage of the war". You've got to tell me if this is rational or not. Chris, cut number one.

Zelensky: [English voice over]
If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That's what we need to do fast. And then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically.

Napolitano:
That's delusional, isn't it?

Doctorow:
Completely. He is losing the war badly, and his army may be overrun and forced to capitulate in a matter of weeks. And he's talking as if he's winning the war, or as if the United States can step in and freeze the conflict so that he can then at his leisure negotiate away what the Russians have gained on the ground. This is delusional.

Napolitano: 19:11
Here's someone else whose comments are delusional, even though he will soon no longer be in office. Secretary of State Blinken earlier today at a meeting at which apparently, as you'll hear from the Secretary, Russian defense minister Lavrov was there and left before Secretary Blinken began to speak. Cut number 12.

Blinken:
I regret that our colleague, Mr. Lavrov, has left the room, not giving the courtesy to listen to us as we listened to him. And of course, our Russian colleague is very adept at drowning listeners in a tsunami of misinformation. So I won't parse everything that he said, but I will just note two things.

19:55
First, he speaks of the indivisibility of security. That's right, but it cannot be and must not be a one-way street, good for Russia, but not Ukraine. But let's not fool ourselves and let's not allow him or anyone else to fool us. This is not about and has never been about Russia's security. This is about Mr. Putin's imperial project to erase Ukraine from the map.

Napolitano: 20:20
I mean, he sounds like Senator Graham, "imperial project to erase Ukraine from the map". There's never been that articulated nor has there been behavior from which that can rationally be drawn, but I'll let you take it from there.

Doctorow:
No, I agree with you completely. This man cannot leave office soon enough. He is a danger to everyone around him. And by that I mean to every American, by his totally irresponsible propaganda.

Napolitano: 20:51
Before we go, what are the Russians doing in [Syria]? Are there land ground troops-- excuse me, in Syria? Are there ground troops in Syria?

Doctorow:
There are ground troops in Syria. The Russians, again, they take this very seriously, although there are many commentators among the alternative media, including some very responsible ones, who are saying that this is an Israeli project, that the Israelis have long had their objective to create [chaos in] Syria because it thereby disrupts the main channel of supply of Iranian weapons to Hamas and to Hezbollah. All of it transits in Syria. And this is why the Israelis have been attacking by air for the last several years, attacking what they say were arms caches in Syria. But the Russian perspective is this is an American project. And here we come back to this old question that you and I have discussed in the past: which is the head and which is the tail of a dog?

21:54
The Russians are saying clearly that the head of this dog is in Washington, DC. And the ambition of this project is to make Russians pay a price for their absorption in the Ukrainian war and for their winning the Ukrainian war.

And the price would be to jeopardize and perhaps to force out the Russian base, naval and air bases on the coast of Syria, thereby depriving Russia of its naval support in the Eastern Mediterranean and of its influence in greater Africa.

So this is what's in play for the Russians, say, "Don't kid yourselves, we have the means, we have the men, and we will fight to keep the Assad government in place."

Napolitano: 22:43
Well, you read my mind. Will Russian troops be fighting IDF, Israeli Defense Forces and others financed by the US, aligned against President Assad?

Doctorow:
I believe they will. But I wouldn't put the emphasis on boots on the ground. Participation was, from 2015 on, primarily air power. And the air power is there and is being used today. I'd like to point out that, listening to the BBC, they assume that their audience is mindless and has no recollection whatsoever, because they're reporting on the "white helmets", daily reports on deaths of civilians from bombing in this area of Idlib and northwestern Syria. Sounds familiar, "white helmets", hmm. They're all British intelligence people. So the Brits are in it up to their necks, not just the Israelis and the Turks and a few other opportunists.

Napolitano; 23:52
What conceivable threat to national security of the United States of America or the United Kingdom is the presidency of Bashar al-Assad in Syria?

Doctorow:
This is big geopolitics. It's like asking what was the threat to American security of Vietnam. Nil. But it was the old domino theory which explained the presence. And we have a new version coming from the likes of Blinken and Sullivan. They don't call it a domino theory, but if you follow their words carefully, that's what they're talking about.

"If we let Russia win in Ukraine, then Poland comes under threat, then the Baltics disappear and so forth." This is a new version of the domino theory, without those little pieces of wood.

Napolitano; 24:41
You know, Senator Graham has made this argument. I don't know if Senator Rubio, the incoming Secretary of State, has made the argument. Representative Congressman Walz, who is the incoming national security advisor, has made this argument. Will these insane domino arguments be whispered into the ears of and resonate with President Trump? You can't answer that, but you must be fearful of it, as am I.

Doctorow: 25:11
Yes, he is a loose cannon on the deck, and that characterization will not go away. Exactly how he will come down on any given issue is unpredictable. And some of your other guests are saying very much the same thing. We're hopeful that reason will prevail and he will not fall for these cheap tricks like the domino theory. But time will tell.

Napolitano:
Here's Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Rabkov mentioning Oreshnik.

Rabkov:
Oreshnik is not a strategic ballistic missile. It's an intermediate-range missile which was tested in combat, and the results are known for people in Kiev, for people in Washington, in Brussels, and of course in Moscow. We use this as not just a messenger [in] a sense, But we use this to test what we really have in terms of our growing and additional capabilities in this very crucial area. Let me tell you that if not for the Trump-1 administration that simply destroyed the INF Treaty, which served well interests of both the US and Russia for several decades, then there would be no Oreshnik in our hands.

26:40
We would still be restrained from our capability to develop such weapons. But okay, it's gone, and now we have what we have. We do not complain about missed opportunities. We look forward. We're very sure that we will reach all our goals and objectives through our action on the ground, and all the objectives of the Special Military Operation will be achieved.

Napolitano: 27:09
One thing that he said is absolutely true, and that is: President Trump abrogated a treaty which had succeeded in restraining the development of this kind of weapon while the treaty was being enforced. Your thoughts on what the Deputy Foreign Minister said?

Doctorow:
Well, let's consider who he is. He is surely the most strong-willed and most free in expressing his thoughts of any of Lavrov's deputies. This is the man-- "We will achieve all of our objectives." Let's remember who he is. He is the man who rolled out in December of 2021 the demands on NATO, that it roll back its presence to where it was at the end of the Cold War. That is before all the NATO expansion. So which of the objectives he expects to achieve remains to be determined. I found his language was done in this video to be quite moderate, considering, as I say, that he is a tough, very tough guy. He's certainly the toughest senior representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Napolitano: 28:29
Where do you see all this going? How is Ukraine going to come to an end? The government will collapse, Zelensky will flee, either alive or dead. The military will probably collapse before Trump becomes president of the United States, no?

Doctorow:
I agree with that scenario. There are those of my colleagues were speaking as if this can happen tomorrow. Well, maybe it won't happen tomorrow, but it can certainly happen in the coming weeks. The Russians have shown on the latest television, finally, some diagrams, moving diagrams, showing what they've achieved in the last month, or six weeks. Because you listen to the daily news accounts, and this town is under fire, and that, and you can't make any sense of it, frankly speaking. But they made sense of it. Their role, their move westward towards the Dnieper is dramatic, and the likelihood [is] a collapse of the Ukrainian forces when the Russians bring in 150,000 or more men that they have waiting and prepared for a major offensive, I don't see how the Ukrainians could withstand that.

Napolitano: 29:45
Professor Doctorow, it's a pleasure to chat with you, my dear friend. Thank you very much for your time and for your thoughts. And of course, I hope you'll come back again and visit with us next week.

Doctorow:
Very kind of you, and I appreciate the offer.

Napolitano:
Thank you. Coming up later today at two o'clock this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. At three o'clock this afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer.

30:09
Judge Napolitano for "Judging Freedom".