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1:02
Hey,
1:02
everyone. John here, and welcome to Helen High
1:04
Water. My podcast about politics and culture
1:06
on the edge of Armageddon. It's
1:08
determined if dubious, committed,
1:11
if Kukui for cocoa puffs wrong,
1:13
but rarely in doubt exercise in
1:16
elevated gas baggery. And
1:18
neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom
1:20
of night nor the toxic
1:22
rantings of the not house right, a
1:24
president attempting to invalidate legitimate
1:26
election and stage in auto coup complete
1:29
with an armed dissection of the United States capital,
1:31
nor more broadly and arguably
1:33
even more disturbingly. The capture
1:35
of a decent sized chunk of our political social
1:38
and civic spheres by a cadre of
1:40
incoherent insidious conspiracy
1:42
idled, photography craving, authoritarian
1:45
worshiping lunatics, hustlers, grookerters, nihilists,
1:47
and nint compoops. None of it. None
1:50
of it has kept us from our
1:52
duly sworn duty and obligations.
1:54
Giving you our listeners a fresh
1:56
episode of this podcast week after week
1:59
after week Maybe not without
2:01
fail because, you know,
2:04
hashtag epic fail is one of our many
2:06
models around here, but certainly without
2:08
a pause. We're doing
2:10
that for more than two years.
2:13
Haven't had a break. All of
2:15
which is to say that I
2:17
am plumb, shagged
2:19
out and desperately in need of
2:21
some R and R. And with the midterm
2:24
election now comfortably in the rearview
2:26
mirror, In our democracy, amazingly,
2:29
if I will admit a little unexpectedly, still
2:31
intact, it seems like a suitable
2:34
time. For the Heilemann Water home
2:36
office to give itself a fucking
2:38
break. And so for the next few weeks,
2:41
that is exactly what we are gonna do.
2:43
And we'll see you back here on the other side of the holidays.
2:46
Tanned, rested, refreshed, revitalized, and
2:48
raring to go. Ready to
2:50
get back to cranking out more,
2:52
tasty content. In the meantime,
2:55
don't despair. We're not leaving
2:57
you entirely in the lurch for
2:59
these weeks. To the contrary. Every
3:02
Tuesday morning, per usual, you
3:04
will find a hopefully unfamiliar
3:06
episode of the podcast doing
3:08
the backstroke in your feed drop
3:10
there by the able AI fact totems
3:13
who'll be mining the store while we're away.
3:15
And while these episodes come
3:17
over the next few weeks, may not be fresh
3:19
or strictly speaking new,
3:22
they will be piping hot, a carefully
3:24
curated series of high water golden
3:26
oldies, which those of
3:28
you who've been around from the start may remember,
3:31
I
3:32
hope fondly. And those of you who came
3:34
along sometime later may never have encountered
3:36
it all. Given our focus
3:38
on politics these past few months and our desire
3:41
not to take a dump on your mood of holiday inspired
3:43
good cheer, we've decided these encore presentations
3:45
will avoid that topic like the plague. And
3:48
focuses dead on culture, entertainment technology
3:50
and such with a run of some of our most favorite guests
3:52
in those realms over the past two years, including
3:55
this beauty right here, which
3:57
whether or not you've heard it before, you
3:59
will not want to miss. And so with
4:01
that, we leave it to it with a
4:03
hearty and heartfelt Nalaste. While
4:07
your most burning finance and investing
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5:21
Hi, everyone. I'm Christian Castro Rizzo,
5:23
executive producer of Helen High Water,
5:26
John Heilemann podcast about politics and culture
5:28
on the edge of Armageddon. John didn't
5:30
have time to record his usual introduction. He's
5:32
currently on a flight to Poland, where he'll be
5:34
reporting on the only story that anyone really
5:36
cares about right now, the war in Ukraine.
5:39
But before he left, he did have time
5:41
on Saturday night to talk to two brilliant
5:43
Russia
5:44
experts. Julia Yaffe, I
5:46
feel like the right is getting a lot of heat for
5:48
their criticism of Biden, but I think
5:50
the left has been fucking awful on this.
5:52
Like, This is not our fight.
5:55
Like, it's so classically
5:57
American. We want all the benefits and
5:59
none of the costs. It's been
6:00
Michael Butfall. Treatment is a assessed with
6:02
us. He wants victory. He wants
6:05
to show despite all of all of our
6:07
threats and all of our stuff, I can go
6:09
in and wipe them out and put in my
6:11
and you can't do anything about it. It's
6:13
all aimed at us.
6:18
Julia is a Russian born American journalist
6:20
who's a founding partner at puck news as
6:22
well as their Washington correspondent. Julie
6:24
is written for the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and
6:27
political, and she has a memoir coming out
6:29
next year titled Russia Girl, memoirs
6:31
of a Russian soul. And Michael is
6:33
former US ambassador to Russia and a
6:35
foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration,
6:38
a distinguished professor at Stanford University,
6:40
and the author of many books most recently
6:42
from Cold War to Hot Peace. Understandably,
6:45
both of them have been in high demand since invasion
6:48
began a little over a week ago.
6:50
You've probably seen them on TV and read their
6:52
social media posts and articles. And in
6:54
keeping with the craziness of their schedules, Julia
6:57
joined us a bit late and Michael had to leave
6:59
just a bit early. But we were lucky to get
7:01
a full hour of brilliant insights into
7:03
all aspects of the invasion, including how
7:06
we got here, where we're going, what
7:08
it's like in Russia right now, what Putin's
7:10
mindset is, and how the war will reshape
7:12
the world. Even though this is a lightning
7:15
fast story, the quality of Michael and
7:17
Joey's perspectives are enduring. And not
7:19
affected by the vagaries of the ever changing
7:21
news cycle. But however the situation
7:23
evolves, one thing is for certain. The
7:25
resistance determination and bravery
7:28
of the Ukrainian people have been extraordinary
7:30
and awe inspiring as they come face
7:32
to face with an unprecedented degree of
7:34
geopolitical, military, and existential
7:37
Heilemann high water. Good
7:43
morning, Ukrainians. Currently, there are a lot
7:45
of games appearing on the Internet. Like that,
7:48
I'm masking our army to put down arms and
7:50
evacuate. So I'm here.
7:52
We are not putting down arms. We'll be
7:54
defending our country because our weapon
7:56
is
7:56
truth. And our truth is that
7:58
this is our land, our country, our
8:01
children, and we will defend all of this.
8:03
That is it. That is all I wanted to
8:05
tell you. Glory to Ukraine.
8:07
Glory to Ukraine, McFaul. I saw you, I think,
8:10
yeah, on your Twitter feed. Yeah. Sitting here on Saturday.
8:12
We're talking about Ukraine. We have Mike McFaul from
8:14
our US ambassador to to Russia, and Julia
8:16
Yapia is gonna join us shortly. It's
8:19
day by day right now. Right? And by the time
8:21
this podcast comes out on Tuesday, God knows where we'll
8:23
be. But I want to start with you because
8:25
I know you're monitoring things very closely in ways
8:27
most of us can't even comprehend. I mean, seeing Zelensky
8:29
on video, that was a overdub version of Zelensky
8:32
early this morning, you know, if you like a
8:34
selfie video, basically saying, I'm
8:36
still on the street. Yeah. We're still resisting.
8:39
I think it's got probably twenty million views at this
8:41
point on Twitter. And I have not felt a swell
8:43
of admiration,
8:46
you know, at the heroism of this man in
8:49
a long time from anybody on the world stage. Talk
8:51
to me about what you've been feeling today, Mike. Well, so
8:53
I completely agree. Zelensky is
8:55
one badass. He has stepped
8:57
up. He is a leader of the nation. I
8:59
have the chance to host about here at Stanford. Five
9:02
or six months ago when he came to see president Heilemann.
9:05
And, you know, I followed his career. I I
9:07
know him. I I know his TV show, which
9:09
by the way, used to be really popular in Russia.
9:11
I found him to be very impressive. I
9:14
have lots of Ukrainian friends, John. Ukraine
9:16
is a democracy. It is a rough
9:18
and tumbled, rough and rolled democracy where
9:20
they are divided, and the
9:22
American foreign policy leads that
9:25
follows Ukraine. They also are very critical.
9:27
And there's been lots of people over the years
9:29
saying, Zelensky didn't do this, he didn't do that.
9:32
I've always been a a big admirer of him
9:34
after he came out to Stanford. I felt the same way.
9:36
I even wrote couple of pieces about it.
9:38
I think now the world knows what
9:41
an incredibly brave courageous
9:43
leader that he has risen to
9:44
be. I felt exactly the same way that
9:46
you just described your feelings. You know,
9:49
that video. I woke up about three in the
9:51
morning and I'm cruising Ukraine war,
9:53
Twitter. I saw right at the moment when
9:55
the AP dropped the story that had the reporting
9:57
with the US basically telling Zelensky. We'll
9:59
help you evacuate. You should leave the country in Zelensky
10:01
the quote which I think will be written history books. Yes.
10:04
You know what? The quote which was I'm staying
10:06
here, but, quote, I need ammunition not
10:08
a rod. That's a scripted movie
10:10
quote. That's something you see in a in superhero
10:12
film, not in real Heilemann, you
10:14
know, we all have our flaws. I'm sure his lens gives
10:16
his flaws too, and there's some plays in which, you know,
10:18
as like all politicians. He he said certain things
10:20
he probably regrets and would go back and change. But he's
10:23
under a lot of pressure And right now, at
10:25
the moment of maximum pressure, the guy
10:27
seems to be performing, not just
10:29
demonstrating individual heroism. And this
10:31
goes to the larger question I wanna ask you, because you were
10:33
the first person withstanding who
10:36
started ringing the bell in the middle last week when we
10:38
were talking on TV and you were like, sanctions really
10:40
matter. But what's gonna matter more is
10:42
the resistance on the part of the Ukrainian military
10:45
and the Ukrainian people. That's gonna matter most of all
10:47
in terms of if there's any chance of beating back this impatient.
10:49
And it feels to me like Zelensky understands that.
10:51
Yes. That part of what he's doing is not just demonstrating
10:53
heroism or machismo, but saying,
10:56
we gotta dig in
10:56
here. All of us have to dig in. I'm staying
10:59
because this is the only way through for us that's not
11:01
gonna and disaster. Exactly right.
11:03
This is a fight for, you know, for it's a fight
11:05
for his life. Let's be clear about
11:07
that. Let's make it very crystal clear. It's
11:09
a fight for freedom in his country.
11:12
He understands that. And it's a
11:14
fight. Let's just be honest that they're fighting
11:16
alone. Yes. The night that the campaign
11:18
started, I was in touch with lots of Ukrainian
11:20
friends, you know, politicians, elites,
11:23
got a big training program here at Stanford for
11:25
couple of decades, John. We've had about three
11:27
hundred Ukrainians through at an institute
11:30
I run here. So we have a pretty big network of of
11:32
people. We have a lot of calls. And
11:34
right as the bombing started, one
11:36
of my close friends said, I can't believe
11:39
we have to fight this bastard alone. Right.
11:41
And that's what they're doing. And I understand it.
11:43
I wanna be crystal clear. I support
11:45
president Biden's decision. There is not
11:47
a military option for the United States.
11:50
But we gotta come to grips with the fact that
11:52
all of our unity that we keep yelling about
11:54
and screaming about isn't it great? We're
11:56
all unified and we're all unified watching
11:59
on the sidelines as this
12:01
horrific evil dictator tries
12:04
to obliterate a free and democratic
12:06
country. And so the only thing left right
12:08
now is ammunition just as Zelensky
12:11
said and more patriots and more
12:13
stingers. Why the hell we haven't send more
12:15
stingers. It needs to be question for the future.
12:17
But right now, it's all about the fight
12:19
on the ground. And so anything we
12:21
can do to support that because we're not gonna
12:24
fight. We have to be all in. As I said, it's
12:26
day by day, and there's always a chance that we'll be overtaken
12:28
by events. But I'll say just to summarize
12:30
what I felt this morning, I thought you looked
12:32
at all the coverage and I talked to my
12:34
friends. My I the few friends not nearly as many as
12:36
you in Moscow and some in Europe and people
12:38
who are covering this and people were covering it from London,
12:41
people were covering it on the ground and Kiev and Poland and
12:43
other places. The story of
12:45
the moment is, Russia is
12:47
having a harder time. Militarily that
12:49
it thought it was gonna have. The resistance has been stiffer.
12:51
Their assault has not gone as well as planned.
12:54
The question of what that means going forward is
12:56
a large question. So that's a big story,
12:58
the heroism of the Ukraine. You know, there's
13:00
all the stories about the ghost fighters in
13:02
the sky who are probably apocalypses, etcetera, etcetera, but
13:04
there's this spirit of resistance there
13:06
and the fact of resistance slowing
13:08
Russia down. And that same time, the trucks
13:11
are rolling in with the thermoburic weapons. And
13:13
you know what that means? Yes. It means
13:15
Aleppo. It means Grosney.
13:18
It means maybe that the worst
13:20
thing that could happen in war, just short
13:22
of nuclear weapons, people being burned from
13:24
the inside out with bombs that suck
13:26
the air out of the air and put Heilemann
13:28
chemicals inside humans and buildings
13:30
and leave nothing but dust in their wake. That
13:32
could happen. By the time this podcast comes out, that
13:35
could be happening in Kiev. So guess I
13:37
ask you not to predict the future,
13:39
but whether you think that is where we're headed, but
13:41
whether you think that all
13:43
of this resistance
13:45
is just making Putin crazier and
13:47
that that kind of bararity and war
13:49
criminal behavior is becoming more likely in
13:51
some ways because of the fierce resistance
13:53
and the heroism of the Ukrainian military
13:56
and and citizens. That's a great question.
13:58
I I don't have a great answer, but I'd say
14:00
a couple of things. First of all, I'm glad
14:02
you pointed out the fact that mister
14:04
Putin has used these tactics
14:06
before in Grozny, in Aleppo, he
14:09
has slaughtered innocent civilians and
14:11
he seems perfectly fine with it. So I won't
14:13
be surprised if it happens here. It
14:15
does seem like their strategy initially
14:17
with some kind of shocking off. They thought
14:19
people were gonna run. They thought Zelensky
14:21
was gonna go to Lavee for Poland,
14:24
and then they would have a much easier
14:26
time. Now they're on to plan B. That didn't
14:28
happen. And over time, it's
14:30
hard to imagine that eventually, they
14:33
won't be able to seize the major cities.
14:35
They do have military asymmetries
14:38
here, particularly in the air, particularly with
14:40
rockets and planes. But that
14:42
said, I also am impressed with,
14:44
you know, the resistance so far what
14:46
I hear from Ukrainians reporting on it.
14:48
And, you know, by the way, they have a free independent press
14:51
in Ukraine, fantastic set of
14:53
journalist reporting on this war. Suggest
14:55
that it is not going as fast as
14:57
they want it. We're only in the early days we should
14:59
all remember. Right? Yes. Of course. And
15:01
I fear I fear that. I wanna I wanna
15:03
be clear. I fear exactly what you just described.
15:06
I've been watching Putin for a long time. I met him
15:08
in nineteen ninety one the first time. I've written
15:10
about him and I sat in the room with him, you
15:12
know, when I worked five years in the Obama administration,
15:15
whenever we had meeting with him. You
15:17
know, this is a a different man than twenty
15:19
years ago. I think he's even a different man than
15:21
just a couple years ago. The language
15:23
that he uses is crude. He feels
15:26
unhinged to me. He's calling him
15:28
fascist and drug
15:30
users. Yeah. By them, you mean, you could the Ukrainians
15:32
and and Zelensky, their Nazis, their you
15:34
know, he's he's off the deep
15:36
end. Yes. He's trying to demonize them
15:38
and it, you know, it's with vigor. Right? The
15:40
language he's using is very crude
15:42
Russian language. So, you know,
15:44
he's getting pissed But what I don't understand
15:47
if he would go to those horrific acts.
15:49
And I wanna underscore I won't
15:51
be surprised if he uses those kind of tactics
15:53
because he's used them before. He has no
15:55
regard for civilian life, and
15:57
he's convinced himself that these people are
16:00
evil. Right? And, you know, listening to his language.
16:02
But then what? What happens
16:04
a day after he put some puppet in place?
16:06
Med did Shuke or Yanukovic or something
16:09
like that. There's no way that
16:11
person can survive as a leader
16:13
in Ukraine without the Russian
16:15
military being there full stop forever.
16:18
By the way, I wouldn't I wouldn't wanna take that job.
16:20
Imagine John. Talk about a death wish.
16:22
I can take that job But
16:24
what is this plan? Ukrainian people
16:26
are just not gonna say, okay, that was too bad that
16:28
we lost that war. Now let's listen to this
16:30
guy. That's not gonna happen. And
16:33
and by the way, talking to Russian, you
16:35
know, strategist types because
16:37
I talked to all kinds of Russians, but the the
16:39
ones that are pretending to be neutral
16:41
experts. So I think it's kind of hard to be neutral
16:43
in times like this, but they
16:45
can't answer that question either. And neither
16:48
can my friends in the Biden miss tracing. That
16:50
is the big
16:50
mystery. Nobody understands what will
16:52
be his plan if that moment comes.
16:55
We'll come back to Biden a second. We're gonna walk Julia
16:57
Duffy who came in couple minutes late and we're so glad
16:59
you're here. Thank you for being here, Julia. The thing you
17:01
got to miss or you're unfortunately not gonna get comment
17:03
on now because I think Mike and I did a pretty
17:05
good job, keeping praise on Zelensky and and talking
17:08
about his heroism. And we just talked about the
17:10
extraordinary resistance that we're seeing on
17:12
this Saturday. Twenty sixth
17:14
of February on the par of Ukrainians.
17:16
And I guess the question I wanna open with
17:18
you is picking up that thread talk
17:21
about what's going on in the streets of Russia, which is also
17:23
kind of an incredible thing, you know. And and not
17:25
just in Russia, but in in the Baltics and
17:27
in not just in one place in Russia, and
17:29
there's dozens of cities where we're seeing protests
17:32
in the streets. What do you make of that?
17:34
Which impressions are of it? Character
17:36
of it, the intensity, and so on, but what
17:38
you think the implications of that might be going forward
17:41
when it comes to Putin's
17:42
calculus? I think the protests
17:44
in Russia are both notable and not notable
17:47
or significant but not significant. It's
17:50
significant because it's happening after
17:53
a year of Putin kind
17:55
of carpet bombing the opposition. So
17:57
many people have been driven out of the country
18:00
or put in jail for ridiculous made
18:02
up things -- Yeah. -- like posting
18:04
music videos on their social
18:06
media, like just being
18:08
related to somebody who's in the opposition.
18:11
For example, a sixteen year old boy
18:14
was a couple weeks ago
18:16
given three years in a penal colony because
18:19
he blew up something labeled the FSB
18:22
headquarters on Minecraft. Sixteen
18:26
year old child, I mean -- Yeah. -- for Minecraft.
18:28
So that's the context in which these protests
18:31
are happening. This is no longer
18:33
twenty twelve. It's not twenty fourteen
18:35
and it's not even twenty twenty one.
18:37
The price of protesting and
18:40
opposing Putin has gotten much, much
18:42
higher. It's become much, much more dangerous.
18:44
And so the fact that anybody came out at all,
18:46
the fact that people are posting no
18:49
to war all over their social media
18:51
is significant. And you're already
18:53
seeing a crackdown. So
18:56
nine hundred people were arrested in Moscow
18:58
alone. That first night when
19:00
people came out on spontaneous protest, but
19:02
also an eighteen year old woman was arrested
19:05
in Moscow for hanging
19:07
a bedsheet from her balcony
19:09
that said no to war. At
19:13
the same time, you know, I've spent
19:15
a lot of watching Russian TV. Last
19:17
night, I was watching it. And the picture
19:20
people are getting is very different.
19:22
It is a totally different universe. The
19:24
offensive is going really well. It
19:26
is about dencertification, whatever
19:29
that, you know, that means. It is
19:31
about liberating people from Ukraine
19:34
war crimes. There are zero casualties,
19:37
apparently, which we now know is not true.
19:39
Russia has lost at least three
19:41
thousand to three thousand five hundred soldiers
19:43
in the first three days alone. And everything's
19:46
gone great. Oh, and Russian
19:49
soldiers, according to Russian state, too, are
19:51
being greeted as liberators. And
19:53
though people are there
19:55
are fewer people watching Russian state
19:57
TV than there were a decade ago,
20:00
you know, there's still the older kind of
20:02
more rural population is watching this.
20:04
And that if you're watching that, that's the
20:06
image you see. I
20:10
think Americans like to put a lot of hope
20:12
in Russian protests, and every time
20:14
Russians come out into the streets, I get asked,
20:16
you know, are they gonna topple Putin? And
20:18
I don't think they are because Putin
20:21
still has a monopoly on force and a monopoly
20:23
on violence in Russia. And in
20:26
the last ten years since those
20:28
big predominantly protests we saw
20:30
right before his returning to office for
20:32
a third presidential term, he has
20:34
created ever more security
20:37
organizations and has
20:39
invested more and more heavily in cracking
20:42
down on dissent and investing in,
20:44
know, security infrastructure to keep him
20:46
in place. I think the
20:49
real danger to Putin comes as
20:51
always from the
20:52
elites. And if you look at the last
20:54
two revolutions Russia has had. It was
20:56
because of a crisis in the elites -- Mhmm. --
20:58
and splintering of the elites. And
21:01
wrote on Twitter yesterday, I think the only way out
21:03
of this is going to look like something out of
21:05
clue. Like, Sydney Narishkin, the
21:08
SVR head, ahead of foreign
21:10
intelligence in the conservatory with
21:12
candlestick. Yes. I don't think it's gonna be
21:14
street protests that get Russia out of this
21:16
and get Putin out of
21:17
Russia.
21:17
By before I I turned this the question
21:19
of sanctions in a second.
21:20
I wanna talk about this.
21:21
I was literally about to
21:23
say. Thank thank you. I was about to say, before
21:25
I turn to the question of sanctions, which Julie
21:27
talked about the swift sanctions, and and there's obviously
21:30
other debates going on. would you wanna talk about that? But
21:32
before I get to that, I wanna give you a chance to reply to
21:34
that whether you think Julia has it right? Or
21:36
whether you're more optimistic about the possibility of
21:38
a popular protest in
21:39
Russia? Mike
21:39
is always more optimistic than I am. Well,
21:41
that's okay. Lal, we give him a chance. He's he's
21:43
rising about like a fish out of water going
21:45
for a big hunk of bait. Well, just let me say couple
21:48
of things. And I I yes. Social
21:50
scientists try to figure out causation. Julie's
21:53
right, I am optimistic and the causal mechanism
21:55
there is I was born in Montana.
21:58
And
21:58
I was born in Soviet Moscow. Exactly.
22:01
Mhmm. I wanna put on my professor hat if
22:03
I can, John. Just for a minute, and I'm happy to
22:05
then put on my sanctions form policy
22:07
hat in a second. Yep. Just a couple of
22:09
things. I'm actually right now as we speak,
22:11
I just taught on Friday. I'm teaching
22:13
a course on social mobilization and
22:15
democratic breakthrough or not. Right?
22:18
So both. And by the way, I'm teaching it with
22:20
a professor who was one of the activists
22:23
in the Egyptian revolution, three year square in
22:25
two thousand eleven. And every week,
22:27
we have an activist from the
22:29
various cases. Right? And I hate to use the
22:31
word case to talk about people's lives and histories.
22:34
But we have somebody. We had somebody from South Africa.
22:36
We had somebody from Serbia two thousand.
22:38
We just did the Soviet Union, and then we
22:40
did Egypt yesterday. And
22:42
what I would say is Julia is right
22:45
and wrong. It's a combination of these things.
22:47
It's a we do not have one unified
22:50
theory of democratic breakthrough. Right. There
22:52
are multiple pathways. Usually, including
22:55
all the cases I just mentioned, it is
22:57
a combination of splits between
22:59
elites and popular mobilization.
23:02
That's what happened in South Africa. That's what happened
23:04
in the Soviet Union. Okay. That's what happened in
23:06
Serbia in two thousand. That's what's happened
23:08
in the orange revolution in two thousand four.
23:10
First, let's understand that. I think it's
23:12
really important the other point that Julia said
23:14
about the nature of this regime.
23:17
Julia, I was just on Eco Muskie, like, four or five
23:19
days ago. Mhmm. Radio station, you know,
23:21
well, and, you know, we were talking about these very
23:23
things. This is before the war started.
23:26
And and I was saying, why aren't there more protesters?
23:28
That day, there were six, John, and they got arrested.
23:31
And there said You've been gone for
23:33
eight years, man. This is a different Russia
23:35
than when you were ambassador. And I think that's
23:37
a really important thing. I don't think it's a coincidence.
23:40
That all that cracking down on opposition
23:42
took place before he invaded. But
23:45
third third, autocrats
23:47
make mistakes. They make mistakes
23:50
all the time. We treat them like they're
23:52
ten feet Heilemann then we wake up the next
23:54
day and they're not ten feet tall.
23:56
Right about revolutions. And I said before
23:58
revolutions, they seem impossible after
24:01
revolutions, they seem inevitable. Inevitable. Yeah.
24:03
I just think we need to understand, we're
24:05
not good at the social scientists is predicting
24:08
these things. Believe me, I work five years
24:10
in the Obama administration. The CIA
24:12
is horrible at predicting these things. They didn't
24:14
predict the green revolution in Iran. They
24:16
didn't predict the Arab spring two thousand
24:18
eleven. They didn't predict the
24:19
protests.
24:20
I I believe they missed the downfall of the Soviet
24:22
Union rather rather famously. Need to
24:24
be humble about what we know about the future.
24:26
Yeah. But if I'm impressed, here's the mistake
24:28
that I think Putin's made. He's been on
24:30
a run You know, he's four before in the last
24:33
four, he's spot. He is in
24:35
complete control. He has a incredibly
24:37
sophisticated autocratic regime
24:39
in place. And I think he overreached.
24:42
I really think this is the beginning of
24:44
the end of Putin and Putinism. I
24:46
don't know if we're gonna measure that in years
24:49
or even decades. But I think he
24:51
overreached. You'd be surprised of
24:53
the kind of Russians I interact with. They're not
24:55
just the opposition leaders, you know,
24:57
the cartoonization that Putin wants you to believe.
24:59
I just was talking to an interlocutor of one
25:01
of the biggest billionaires, oligarchs
25:04
in Russia today. And,
25:06
you know, without naming names, Nobody
25:09
supports this stupid war. Nobody
25:11
supports this. Yeah. And that doesn't
25:14
mean they're gonna protest. But it does
25:16
mean that over time, you know, there's this great
25:18
piece by a guy named Timrikura
25:19
on. It's about preference falsification. I'm
25:22
sorry for sounding like an you say
25:23
you're gonna put your professor's head on.
25:25
I have my professor's head on. I
25:26
didn't say you could use your
25:27
professor's head on. Right. I did
25:28
not get permission for that. It's a great piece
25:30
about nineteen eighty nine and where
25:33
right before everybody said these regimes are
25:35
strong, blah blah blah blah. And then overnight, we
25:37
saw what happened. And he writes about
25:40
preference falsification. You have no incentive
25:42
of what's soever, living in Putin's
25:44
rush in a day to tell people honestly what
25:46
you think, you're a fool if you do that.
25:49
Yep. But we have to be careful that we don't
25:51
misinterpret
25:52
that as being support for what he's doing
25:54
today. Can I just chime in here? Yeah. I
25:56
tease Mike for being optimistic, but
25:58
as usual, I agree with him on all three
26:00
points. And -- Mhmm. -- people
26:03
often throw around Putin's impressive
26:06
popularity ratings or approval ratings,
26:08
which have, by the way, fallen by something like
26:10
twenty points. And they're still super
26:12
high, but it doesn't really tell you
26:14
all that much. You know, if you're
26:16
an older person with a landline who
26:18
remembers the Soviet Union, And
26:20
somebody from an official sounding organization
26:23
calls you and asks you, do you like Putin? What
26:25
are you gonna
26:25
say? We have problems with public opinion polling.
26:28
With accurate political polling in America. I just
26:30
imagine what it is
26:31
if, like, you answer wrong in your fears that you're gonna
26:33
be throwing the gulag. I remember, you know, a decade
26:35
ago when it was a much more permissive
26:37
political climate. I remember a
26:39
pollster at the very respected independent
26:42
Nevada center saying, you know, we don't really measure
26:44
public
26:45
opinion. We measure how well propaganda
26:47
works.
26:47
Yes. Right. It's something that Mike said
26:49
about revolutions seeming impossible
26:51
before they happen and seeming inevitable
26:54
after the fact is something
26:56
Mike has been saying for a Heilemann it has really
26:59
burned into my brain and I think about it all
27:01
the Heilemann I quote Mike
27:03
to people on this all the time. Because
27:05
I do agree with it having, you know,
27:08
obsessively studied the revolution of nineteen
27:10
seventeen and of nineteen ninety one, if
27:12
you can call it a revolution. I
27:14
think, you know, in nineteen ninety one,
27:17
when the elites carved up the Soviet
27:19
Union and undid the
27:21
whole thing, when it
27:23
fell, I think this is where the lack
27:25
of support even if it's passive
27:27
matters a lot. When it fell, nobody
27:30
gave a shit. And nobody tried
27:32
to undo it and nobody nobody
27:34
was sad to see it go. Right? You
27:36
know, it fell on very kind of fertile
27:38
soil. And in nineteen seventeen, and
27:41
this is one I've been thinking about a lot,
27:43
revolution came after Tsar
27:45
Nicholas the second who was
27:47
very informationally isolated and talking
27:49
to his wife and Rasputin got
27:52
into World War one, a stupid
27:54
war that Russian soldiers didn't know they were fighting,
27:56
And three years later, he was out, and another
27:59
year after that, he was shot in a basement.
28:01
Again, he abdicated the throne.
28:03
Right? It was a change from the top. But there
28:06
was so much unrest in the country because
28:08
of the poverty and the stress
28:10
that the population was feeling after three years
28:12
of war and you had soldiers deserting to go
28:15
home and help their families with the harvest because
28:17
they were starving. And
28:19
it's something I've been thinking about a lot in the
28:21
run up to this war that, you know, is this
28:23
going to be Putin's nineteen
28:25
fourteen? I also think this is the beginning
28:28
of the end for Putin. If it takes a
28:30
few months or a few years, I think this
28:32
is his, like, tragic
28:34
mistake -- Right. -- where he overreaches, believes,
28:37
the very bad information he's getting inside
28:39
his
28:39
bubble. If you look at the security council
28:42
meeting, that was very indicative.
28:43
Yeah. Today, for example, There was
28:45
a video that went around of the
28:48
young man, a Russian soldier captured
28:50
by Ukrainians. Ukrainians filmed and
28:52
they asked where he was from and his date of birth, you
28:54
know, whose parents were, and it turns out he's from a
28:56
little village in
28:59
the Smolensk area. Which had
29:01
become famous for adopting a lot of orphans
29:04
in the late nineties, early two thousands. And
29:06
he said, I'm adopted, and he
29:08
was born in March two thousand. So he
29:11
was born the month and the year that
29:13
Vladimir Putin was first elected to
29:15
the presidency. And it struck
29:17
me for two reasons, like, you have the
29:20
people who are already the most socially vulnerable.
29:22
They first sent in a wave of conscripts,
29:25
right, as cannon fodder almost. The casualties
29:28
are much higher than they expected. Yeah.
29:30
And, again, the most socially vulnerable, but
29:32
also like people who literally
29:34
were born with Putin's presidency. Right.
29:36
I don't think that's a coincidence, and don't think
29:38
that's going to I think that's going to have
29:40
major consequences for Putin. Alright.
29:44
We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back on
29:47
high water.
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31:03
Welcome back to Helen High Water. I
31:11
wanna play a piece of sound now that relates
31:13
to the US response, but then I I'm gonna
31:16
use it to come back something that Mike said a little
31:18
earlier. So let's play right now
31:20
Brian Tyler Cohen talking to Joe Biden about
31:22
sanctions, you have two
31:23
options. Let's start a third
31:25
roll war, go to war with
31:27
Russia, physically. Or
31:30
two, make
31:32
sure that a country
31:35
that acts so contrary to international
31:37
law ends up paying a
31:39
price for having done it. These
31:42
sanctions are the broadest
31:44
sanctions and history. And
31:47
economic sanctions and political
31:49
sanctions. And my
31:51
goal from the very beginning was
31:55
to make sure that
31:57
I kept all of
31:59
NATO and the European on the same
32:02
page. Because the one
32:04
thing I think that Putin thought he could
32:06
do was split
32:07
NATO, creating a great aperture
32:09
for him to be able to walk through. Right.
32:11
And that hasn't happened. If
32:13
you notice, it's been complete unanimity.
32:16
So Michael McFaul, I want to go back to the thing
32:18
you said earlier. Which is you're with the Biden
32:20
administration, you agree with the policy, which is
32:22
sanctions and no US troops
32:25
on the ground, and that's been they've been very clear about
32:27
that. But you also made the point that I
32:29
swear, man, I hear from more people, normal
32:32
people, not people like us, not people who are in this
32:34
racket of ours in any way, who just
32:36
oh, man, someone texted me after I was talking
32:38
about incredible heroism of the Ukrainians and
32:40
then the prospect of of Thermo
32:42
Barrick weapons being inflicted on Kiev.
32:44
Someone just wrote to me a very smart person who's
32:47
not connected to this world who just wrote
32:49
the following sentence to me in a state
32:51
of total despair, which was
32:53
there is no one to help them.
32:55
Exclamation point. And I thought
32:58
when you said basically those same words
33:00
earlier, it raises this question.
33:02
Right? You know, the Germans are now saying they're
33:04
gonna send arms. There's discussions in in
33:06
the European Union, there's obviously all the NATO
33:09
action. Beyond, like sanctions,
33:11
I think at the beginning of last week, you said, you know,
33:13
things aren't really bad, sanctions are gonna seem pretty thin.
33:15
And even hearing Biden, you hear
33:17
him defend what we're doing, and you're saying, oh,
33:19
as matter of logic, it all makes sense. But
33:21
as we see all these things, how long the sanctions are
33:23
gonna take to bite and all of this, there is
33:25
this moment of like, these people are defenseless and
33:27
no one is gonna help them and they may very
33:30
well be on the way to slaughter. So what should we be
33:32
doing? What should the world I this
33:34
is the most basic question I can ask when you parse it
33:36
twenty five different
33:36
ways, but what should the world be doing right
33:38
now to help Ukraine and to hurt
33:41
Vladimir Putin?
33:41
Today. Right? Not what we should have done. No.
33:44
Today, for the next week going forward, I know we could debate
33:46
the past all, you know, for months, and we will probably.
33:48
But I'm just talking about right now going
33:49
forward. We're in the middle of a war here. More
33:52
javelins, more stingers. It's just
33:54
as simple as that. And I I
33:56
mean, I can go on. Yes. I'm using those as metaphors,
33:58
but that what they need? I mean, literally
34:00
yesterday through an into lock
34:02
a tour. I heard from a a leader in
34:04
counter chief saying, we are running out
34:06
of javelins. Help us get javelins.
34:09
That city is under attack. By the time
34:11
this podcast goes live, it may be taken.
34:14
Now, you know, it begs the question, why
34:16
didn't I have more javelins before, by the way?
34:18
Right. Why didn't they have more stingers before to
34:20
the best of my knowledge? The United States has
34:22
not Bots. We haven't provided
34:24
any singership. We're asking other allies
34:26
to do that. But right now, more singers,
34:29
more javelins. And then second, I was on
34:31
this Zoom call with all of our colleagues
34:33
in, you know, the seventy
34:35
or eighty Ukrainians who have been in
34:37
various programs at Stanford yesterday. You
34:39
know, we were asking your question too, John. He said
34:42
knee pads. And that was that was
34:44
very jarring to us. And I said, what do you
34:46
mean knee pads? He said, we're running
34:48
out of knee pads here. And I said, what do you
34:50
need knee pads for? And he says, you need to have knee
34:52
pads when you're on your knees shooting.
34:55
You know, in other words, they need this
34:57
kits for territorial defense,
35:00
civic defense. And so that
35:02
kind of very basic stuff. And by the way, he
35:04
said for his gear, it was two thousand
35:06
dollars. He bought two thousand dollars
35:08
worth of of equipment. You know, he's
35:10
a businessman. Most Ukrainians can
35:12
afford that. So anything that can help
35:14
fight the war That is the most important
35:17
thing. I'm glad they're doing sanctions, but sanctions
35:19
takes years to have any impact. It's
35:22
all about making this as costly
35:24
as possible for Putin to
35:26
fight this
35:26
war. In the short term, it's basically
35:29
in my short term, I don't mean just today, but Heilemann,
35:31
while this war is high, and while there's still
35:33
stuff to fight for and Ukraine is not yet
35:35
a wholly owned subsidiary of Russia, it's
35:38
armed the Ukraine. It's basically like do everything we
35:40
can militarily to put guns in their hands to help
35:42
them defend else and fight this That's number one.
35:45
Juliet, to your point about what
35:47
can we help do to bring Putin down, your
35:49
argument before was part of, like, the way you guys
35:51
were in the interplay between, you know,
35:53
how protests in the street versus other
35:55
kinds of pain that can be brought. It
35:57
does go back to kind of speaking about sanctions because
36:00
in the medium to longer term, And this
36:02
is what I think Joe Biden, you know, when he
36:04
says, look, he acknowledges sanctions
36:06
are a long term thing. And just like McFaul just
36:09
said, Like, when you think about the oligarchs,
36:11
when you think about the elite class
36:13
that has either tolerated or supported Putin
36:15
because it's been there in their economic interest do
36:17
so. What does it feel like a global
36:20
strategy would look like to
36:22
inflict enough pain on them where
36:24
the thing that McFaul said earlier, which is they're
36:26
not for this war, but they're just not gonna be against
36:28
it. What's the thing that turns that
36:31
tide as a matter of practical policy or as
36:33
a matter of international, a program how
36:36
do we do that? How do we get the oligarchs
36:38
to say, we've had to fuck enough with this guy. We
36:40
gotta withdraw and let the guy do the clue
36:42
candlestick in backroom thing and
36:44
we'll be fine with
36:45
that. I think a lot of
36:47
what we're doing, you know. First, the
36:49
UK, and then pretty much all of Europe has
36:52
closed their airspace to
36:54
Russian planes. A lot of these
36:56
oligarchs have family and
36:58
property in London, Paris,
37:01
Spain, Italy, etcetera. For
37:03
example, what I keep seeing in Russian media
37:05
is freaking out over
37:08
the EU ban on Airbus
37:11
and any technology exports
37:13
to Russia related to aviation and space
37:16
which covers Airbus exports
37:19
and Airbus spare parts and
37:21
something like forty percent. I saw forty one
37:23
percent of the Russian domestic fleet
37:26
is Airbus. So that means they won't
37:28
able to service forty percent of their domestic
37:30
airlines. The Ruble has tanked. It has reached
37:32
an all time out. It is almost ninety
37:34
to the dollar. A decade ago was thirty.
37:37
So that means as a further chipping away
37:39
of Russian spending
37:41
power, prices have been going up
37:43
steadily since twenty fourteen. They're going to
37:45
spike now even as the ruble
37:47
can buy less and less of it. That means less food.
37:50
You already see Russian stores reacting
37:52
with hiking their prices on tech products
37:54
and even domestic appliances. I
37:56
think this tech export ban
37:58
is going to really really hurt Russians.
38:01
would say the first fifteen years of Putin's power,
38:03
the thing that was really the most effective
38:06
were pocketbook issues. And you would get
38:08
much bigger protests when
38:11
things like, for example, all of the Russian
38:13
Far East was up in arms and, like, thousands
38:15
and thousands of people came out into the street much
38:17
more than had ever come out in Moscow or
38:19
Saint Petersburg, for example, because
38:22
the Kremlin declared they could no longer
38:24
import cars with right side steering
38:27
wheels from Japan, which is what the entire
38:29
Far East drives. It's these things that you
38:31
can't necessarily expect, but
38:33
I think that's going to hurt people
38:36
just regular Russians. already seeing
38:38
Russian friends saying, you know,
38:40
people are canceling contracts, payments
38:43
are getting canceled, dollar transactions are
38:45
basically impossible. I mean, the biggest retail
38:47
bank has been sanctioned. It's like
38:49
sanctioning Bank of America. I
38:51
think that's going to hurt the elite too.
38:53
The only issue is I think it's how
38:56
many people can you peel Ioffe? Because I think
38:58
a lot of them like Putin's childhood friends,
39:00
they will probably go down with a ship.
39:02
You know, if the US tried to peel them off in twenty
39:04
fourteen, But, you
39:07
know, they moved some assets around. They registered
39:09
them to their kids or their wives. But
39:12
now we're sanctioning kids as well.
39:14
And family members, which we weren't willing to
39:16
do before. And I think that's really good. But
39:18
again, I think that's going to take a
39:20
while. Toward the end of last week.
39:22
The the fact was reported that admits
39:25
of all of this and, you know, the Europeans are all sticking
39:27
together and we're gonna do swift and we're
39:29
gonna hit all we're gonna do all these economic
39:31
sanctions, etcetera, etcetera. And then I
39:33
read about how European
39:35
utilities are buying more Russian
39:38
natural gas through Gazprom
39:41
in the days ahead than they were in the days prior.
39:43
Like, the one place that could really cripple
39:45
the Russian economy ambassador McFaul, I
39:47
believe you'll agree with me, is on energy. And it's the one
39:49
place where the west is like, we wanna
39:52
be as tough as we could possibly be with Vladimir Putin.
39:54
But really need that energy. And so we're
39:56
not gonna do a fucking thing about that. And I guess
39:58
I ask you whether that is another one
40:00
of the unfortunate economic realities
40:03
that is just we have to live with because it's
40:05
like a law of physics? Or is that also
40:07
in some way an indication of a lack of genuine
40:09
political will about doing what it would really take
40:12
to not in this war because
40:14
that again is a long term solution, not a short term
40:16
solution, but to really show Vladimir
40:18
Putin the
40:19
door. Well, I'd say a couple of things. I mean,
40:21
first the more strategic thing.
40:23
John, you'll remember worked in the Obama administration.
40:25
So as part of the transition team, I wrote the
40:27
main memo for our transition
40:30
and we had five major strategic objectives
40:32
we wanted to get done. And number
40:35
four was end European
40:38
energy dependence on Russia. That
40:40
was the winter of two thousand eight. Yep.
40:43
And I just I I underscore that because
40:45
there is ways to do it. It is not impossible.
40:47
There just has not been the political will to
40:49
tackle it. It's better than it was in
40:51
two thousand eight, but you can just look up the numbers
40:53
and and you can see the dependencies. By
40:56
the way, I bet you a lot of your listeners will be
40:58
shocked to know that we import
41:01
more oil from Russia than we do from
41:03
Saudi Arabia. So the political
41:05
will is not here. That market has been disrupted
41:07
in the last couple of days, but that was going
41:09
on through this entire time. So,
41:12
yes, we could. And and by the way, there are
41:14
some creative ideas out there. One of
41:16
them is an import tax. On Russian
41:19
energy. So we're not cutting it off. We're just
41:21
gonna make it more expensive than other markets.
41:23
And that would have a major disruptive
41:26
impact on their ability to earn
41:28
money from what they export. But I
41:30
don't see the political will for that yet.
41:32
I hope that that debate changes. Right? You
41:34
already see it. Like, three days ago, I was told
41:37
by some administration official, we
41:39
can't do it. We can't do it. now we did it. Right?
41:41
Right. So maybe that'll come. Central
41:43
Bank sanctions. The former finance minister
41:45
of Ukraine, an incredibly savvy
41:48
person who knows these markets well.
41:50
Natalie Eresto's her name that's what she's
41:52
calling for. You wanna talk about disruption, that
41:54
would be disruptive. So there is more
41:56
we can do on that
41:57
front. If we want to, we just do not
41:59
have the political will yet. I wanna play another
42:02
quick clip here. This struck me
42:04
because it starts to ask questions. Obviously,
42:06
if there's a lot as you said before, Mike,
42:08
it's early days, but people are already
42:10
starting to talk about what comes next here. If
42:12
it's right, that eventually despite the difficulties
42:14
are having despite the difficulties the Russian
42:16
military is having, the slower going than
42:18
expected, despite the fierce and heroic resistance
42:21
of the Ukrainian resistance and military that
42:23
eventually keeps gonna fall and and Russia's
42:25
gonna own Ukraine. On British
42:28
television, the Latvian deputy
42:30
prime minister and defense minister, Artis
42:32
Pabriques, was on TV saying something
42:34
that struck me about the stakes here,
42:37
not in the long
42:37
term, but in the short term. If you don't feel
42:39
just to watch like we are doing now, If
42:42
you will not engage fully in supporting
42:44
Ukrainians. If Ukraine fall,
42:46
believe me, the strategic situation
42:49
of Europe. And transatlantic alliance
42:51
will be totally different. And I can
42:53
use all my authority and experience to
42:56
tell this to you Because when we in the
42:58
Baltics and in Poland, we were
43:00
warning the western leaders about
43:03
what will happen with Georgia in two thousand
43:05
eight. We were right. In two thousand
43:07
fourteen, we've warned about Ukraine and
43:09
Crimea. We were right. Mhmm. When we
43:11
were warnings that Belarus will be invaded
43:14
and followed by Russia, Three years
43:16
ago, we were right. Please,
43:18
believe us today and act now.
43:20
So, Julie, that goes to both a backward looking
43:22
question, a forward looking question. You know, all of these
43:24
Baltic Republic and and all of these other
43:26
Central and Eastern European countries. That's
43:28
a very common refrain, which is, first
43:31
of all, we'd like an apology from all of you
43:33
people who doubted us about what Vladimir Putin
43:35
would do. And second of all, once we get the
43:37
apology, please, understand the implications,
43:39
which is not going to stop at Ukraine. We're
43:41
all gonna be under threat, and we need to do much
43:43
more than we're doing right now. Talk to
43:46
me about that and about the way in which the
43:48
region that you're very familiar with, the former
43:50
Soviet Union, is looking at these
43:52
moves and their degree of concern and
43:54
what might arise in the coming
43:56
days and weeks because of that
43:58
concern. Well, I think if we're gonna look backward,
44:00
we should start with,
44:03
you know, a lot of people are criticizing the
44:06
west for expanding NATO too
44:08
far. I would criticize the
44:11
west and specifically the George W. Bush administration
44:13
for doing it sloppily. So
44:16
in two thousand eight at Bucharest, George
44:18
Shelby Bush and Condelez Arise
44:21
pushed for over a French
44:23
and German objection pushed for this open
44:25
door policy for Georgia and Ukraine
44:27
to basically invite them in.
44:30
And there were people, you know, the French and the Germans
44:32
and also people inside the US government
44:34
who said this is a terrible idea because you're
44:36
just going to inflate Putin.
44:38
These two former Soviet republics are
44:41
so core to Russia's sense
44:43
of self as an empire. So
44:46
the US did it anyway, but then
44:48
didn't let them in. So what ended
44:50
up happening is we got the worst of both
44:53
worlds. We infuriated and
44:55
taunted Russia. Right? It's like bringing out
44:57
the red cape and moving it around
44:59
front of the bowl. But then we left them
45:01
twisting in the wind. We didn't give them the protections
45:04
that infuriating Putin, you know,
45:06
would protect them against. You saw that
45:08
frustration with Zalenski's statements
45:11
and the lead up to the war where he
45:13
was throwing shade at Biden and people
45:15
in other countries in NATO, he
45:18
said, you know, you keep talking about
45:20
how, no, we will never officially close
45:22
the door to Ukraine. We can never do such a
45:24
thing. But then at the same time, you're not letting
45:26
us in. And I think that one
45:28
of the ways actually to have avoided this
45:30
war with them. And to avoid the war in Georgia
45:33
would have been to just let them in. I
45:35
think that even back then, And
45:37
even now, I think that's an extra step even
45:39
for the clearly even more
45:41
deranged Putin. I think it would
45:43
have offered some protection and I don't know that he would
45:45
have dared to invade a Ukraine that
45:47
was in May though. We're gonna take
45:49
one more break and we'll be back on Heilemann High Water.
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we're back.
48:12
Here's the question I wanna ask you to close out your
48:14
time with us. Yeah. I'm gonna take up some domestic stuff
48:16
with Julia. But here's my question for you. Like, when
48:18
III was looking for the earliest Mike McFall
48:20
on on video. And I found a thing,
48:22
the earliest thing we could find was from nineteen ninety nine.
48:25
And you were at a at a conference, and the US
48:27
is to the peace panel. And what you said at the
48:29
end, you said Russia has two
48:30
choices. US, Russia, and US
48:32
Soviet relations have gone from being the core
48:35
foreign policy concern for both countries.
48:37
To being Russia now on the periphery
48:40
of our concerns and really on the periphery
48:42
of the international system in general. They're
48:45
dependent on us and that's why they resent us
48:47
and that's why they wanna poke us in the eye anytime
48:49
they can. If you accept this
48:51
core periphery model,
48:53
Russia has two choices. One
48:55
is to continue to try to
48:57
do things, to be reintegrated into
49:00
the core. And I believe it's still
49:02
possible. I'm an optimist on that front.
49:04
But the other option, of course, is to be a rogue
49:06
state. How do you get the attention of the
49:08
corps you're down and
49:09
out, well, if you got ten thousand nuclear weapons,
49:11
you'd be pain in the ass,
49:14
frankly. think pain in the ass
49:16
is one way describe what's going on right now in a
49:18
very cheeky, understated way.
49:20
But the nuclear thing is really on the table, and it
49:22
freaked me out this week. I will say,
49:25
Dear Vladimir Putin, talking about nuclear weapons,
49:27
threatening to use them. And then the French
49:29
foreign minister saying, you know, yes,
49:31
I take that as a threat. He should remember
49:33
that NATO is nuclear armed alliance also.
49:36
Again, it's obviously correct. That's true.
49:38
And yet, nuclear saber rattling right now
49:40
has my teeth on edge. Is that have your teeth
49:42
on edge? Or do you think that this is all sort of play
49:44
acting? And we don't really have anything to worry about here.
49:46
I that one went in with you in a two apocalyptic
49:49
place, but how much does this
49:51
feel potential not like a new cold
49:53
war, but a new hot war that could really escalate
49:55
and get out of control. I'm worried.
49:57
Of course, I'm
49:58
worried. And I wanna say two things about
50:00
it. First of all, this war is mostly about
50:02
us. Ukraine just happens to be
50:04
the place that's being far. Putin is obsessed
50:06
with us. He wants victory. He
50:09
wants to show despite all of all of
50:11
our threats and all of our stuff. I can
50:13
go in and wipe them out and put
50:15
in my puppet and you can't do anything about it.
50:17
It's all aimed at us. And
50:19
by the way, I'm afraid of that. Because
50:22
if he wins, people all over
50:24
the globe are gonna be looking at us. I
50:26
don't touch with people in Asia and the Middle East,
50:28
and they're gonna be wondering who do I line
50:30
up with? You know, if we are back in the
50:32
jungle -- Yeah. -- where there's no multilateral
50:35
institutions, there's no liberal and international order,
50:37
it's just the jungle, then you gotta make
50:39
a decision. Are you lining up with him, or are you lining
50:41
up with us? So the stakes are very
50:43
high. And when he throws on top of that
50:46
nuclear weapons, we should be
50:48
serious about them. I can't tell you how many
50:50
conversations I've had over the last several weeks
50:53
with, you know, armchair Geostrategists.
50:56
I hate to be flipping, but everybody's an expert
50:58
on Putin these days. By
51:00
the way, I wrote my first anti Putin piece
51:02
just because we're going back in history in March two
51:04
thousand. Saying we need to be worried
51:06
about this guy as an autocrat because
51:09
autocrats screw up the world.
51:11
But I can't tell you how many times I heard,
51:13
oh, he's not serious, oh, he would never
51:15
do that. Oh, this is just about
51:17
native expansion. If we could just sit down
51:19
and give him that listen
51:22
to the guy. He is serious. Listen
51:25
to his words. When he says denotification,
51:28
he means he is going to kill mister
51:30
Zelensky. Listen to Heilemann when
51:32
he threatens, that is a threat
51:34
that we have to take seriously. Now we don't want to
51:36
overreact. Right. You know, it would be
51:39
nuclear holocaust where he would die
51:41
too, but think we've just so
51:44
underestimated this guy for so
51:46
many years. These intentions By
51:48
the way, I think we've underestimated their capabilities
51:51
too. That's for another day. But on the
51:53
intention piece, we keep thinking oh,
51:55
we're gonna pivot to China and we gotta focus
51:58
on this. This is just a distraction. People
52:00
literally wrote that ten days ago. This
52:02
is just a distraction to the real fight
52:04
which is about Asia. No.
52:07
Right now, and I'll I'll leave with this
52:09
thing from one of my friends who
52:12
sometimes we've had some radical disagreements
52:14
over the three decades. His name is Gary
52:16
Kasparov. Gary and I, you know,
52:18
we agree on most things. And during
52:21
the transition, John, he said this to me. And
52:23
I was working with my friends in the Biden
52:25
administration where it's all about the Asia
52:27
pivot. And we just want a stable
52:29
and predictable relationship with Putin.
52:31
And, you know, you can imagine what Gary thought
52:33
about that phrase. And I don't use that kind of language
52:36
that Gary uses. Juliet is more comfortable
52:38
with
52:38
that. I'll let I'll go fuck
52:40
you. I think I'll go fuck yourself. We've probably been the
52:43
first things out of Gary's mouth. Yeah. You know how Gary
52:45
rolls. But he said something profound
52:47
and I think he's, you know, he's been right. He
52:49
said, yeah, for the long fight, yes,
52:52
dealing with the threat of China in the twenty
52:54
first century is right. But we gotta
52:56
get to that long fight because the immediate
52:58
fight is gonna happen in Europe and it's
53:00
with this guy Vladimir Putin. And I think
53:02
he was dead right about that, and I hope
53:04
we're up to the challenge. With that, I gotta
53:06
run great to talk to you
53:07
guys. You and I and and Mike
53:10
McFaul and others, you know, have spent one
53:12
one subdivision of our discussions around
53:14
all this over last week and inevitably
53:16
has been the kind of US domestic
53:18
front and what Putin has done to the Republican
53:21
Party or what he helped to accelerate the Republican Party.
53:23
And the Trump thing has a whole other podcast. Like,
53:25
we could spend a lot of time on it. Mhmm. But I do
53:27
kind of wanna ask you in the
53:29
context of what Michael
53:32
McFaul was just saying, it feeds into
53:34
one question that we can focus on, which is what's
53:36
in Putin's And Seeing
53:38
Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo and Tucker Carlson
53:40
and Lori Ingram and JDV. Accent. The
53:42
Josh Holly with his little tiny birdhands
53:45
out in Missouri, the shakes his
53:47
fist for the interaction. Seeing all those people
53:49
providing him with the words of either
53:51
praise or warm praise or non
53:53
condemnation. People say, well, well, that's
53:56
a propaganda metric for Putin. I'm sure you agree
53:58
with that. But as Putin
54:00
filters information how
54:03
does that victory that he's
54:05
clearly won in the United States? How
54:07
does that feed back into do
54:09
you think on the basis of your all
54:11
of the psychoanalyzing you've done of him, hasn't
54:13
feed back into the way he thinks about
54:15
things like further territorial aggression.
54:18
In Central Europe about the possibility
54:20
of actually using nuclear weapons, Mike that
54:23
we have taken seriously. So let's take it seriously.
54:25
How much does he look at that and say,
54:27
when he sees the former president of the United States talking the
54:29
way it does. Say, hey, you know what? You know, I'm getting criticized
54:31
in large parts of the world, but I got a lot of backers out
54:34
there too and some pretty powerful ones in the United States.
54:36
That Republican party's not against me. Does
54:38
that play a role? And does that
54:40
make you even more concerned about
54:43
how potentially bad this all
54:46
could go under some nonimplausible
54:49
scenarios that we could both sketch out. Yeah.
54:51
I think I think you're exactly right.
54:54
And what I wanna point
54:57
out is that well, first of all, I wanna
54:59
say Mike is totally right that nothing
55:02
annoys me more than American
55:04
editors and TV anchors who are like, okay. But
55:06
what does Putin really want? I'm like, he do he
55:08
sound it? Straight out. He wants to fight with
55:10
the US. In declaring war
55:12
on Ukraine, he talked about the
55:14
US the whole time, not even NATO. NATO,
55:16
he was like, oh, they're just you know, America's bitches.
55:19
My fight is with the US, and if you try to meddle,
55:22
I will use nuclear weapons like
55:24
he said it. It's not about Ukraine,
55:26
and there's no reason he will stop there. He just
55:28
threatened Finland for fuck's sake. You know?
55:31
But then getting back to your point, I think it makes
55:33
it easier for him. For example, you
55:35
know, what happens when there's a Republican
55:37
house in senate, so in January, right,
55:39
after the November elections? What
55:42
happens if there's a Republican president
55:44
in twenty twenty four or
55:46
after the elections of twenty twenty
55:48
four? It gets sworn in a few months
55:50
later.
55:52
And what I wanna point out to
55:54
people like, people, you
55:56
know, the horseshoe has become such a,
55:58
you know, not just a circle, but a snake
56:01
eating its own tail. You seek people on the hard
56:03
left and the hard right, you know,
56:05
cheering for Putin. And
56:08
Putin doesn't respect you. Like,
56:10
he doesn't respect Trump, he
56:12
doesn't respect Tucker, Carlson,
56:15
he doesn't respect
56:16
Glenn Greenwald or Heilemann Assange. He
56:19
sees you as They're
56:20
all they're all his bitches, basically.
56:22
They're used to have his e took the course.
56:24
No. But
56:25
not away with that a second time. Yeah.
56:26
No. I'll do it for you. That's alright. I saw where we go.
56:28
He doesn't want to be friends with America.
56:31
Like, this whole Trump talking about how we
56:33
have to be friends with Russia and affect
56:35
Russia and respect its secure
56:37
you know, as you're hearing from the left, none of this
56:39
would have happened if we had taken Russia's
56:41
security concerns seriously. That's not
56:43
what he wants. Like, he wants to own you
56:45
and you're just owning yourself for him.
56:48
And I'm not saying this, you know, conflict
56:50
for conflict sake that we should just
56:52
be against Putin and the people around
56:55
him just because they're against us. But I remember
56:57
when I moved back from Russia a decade
56:59
ago in meeting some of John McCain
57:01
staffers who were like, oh, Russia is
57:03
just, you know, a nuclear arm gas
57:06
station or like China's gas station. I don't
57:08
think that's true anymore. And
57:10
obama said that Russia is just
57:12
a regional power. I don't think that's
57:14
true anymore. think it's kind of, you know, super
57:16
power is as super power does. And
57:18
Putin is not afraid to flex those
57:20
muscles. And, you know, it's
57:23
it's like it's not gonna be better for you a fresh
57:25
wins.
57:25
Right. Hear these arguments on the left
57:27
as well. I feel like the right is getting a lot of heat
57:30
for their criticism of Biden.
57:32
But I think the left has been fucking awful
57:34
on this. Like, This is not
57:36
our fight. Like, it's
57:38
so classically American. We want all the
57:40
benefits and none of the costs. We
57:42
want to not touch Social
57:44
Security, and we want our Medicare, but we
57:46
want lower taxes, and somehow that's supposed
57:48
to work. And we want
57:51
like cheap shit made in China, but we still
57:53
want it all to be manufactured here and people
57:55
to be paid fifty dollars an hour to make those t
57:57
shirts. Right? And we want all the benefits
57:59
of being the world's superpower and
58:02
policing all those shipping and
58:04
air highways all over the world,
58:07
and we wanna be the world's reserve currency,
58:09
but we don't wanna spend any money
58:11
or blood or doing that. And we don't wanna be the
58:13
world's policeman thinking that
58:16
if we stop being the world's policeman, there will
58:18
be no more policeman and the world will live in
58:20
peace. But you know who wants to be the policeman? Russia,
58:23
China. And if we're living in
58:25
a world where they are the Heilemann
58:27
and they are more powerful than the US, especially
58:29
if Russia is more powerful than the US, believe
58:32
me, it's not gonna be better for you, including
58:34
in the US. And it's
58:37
just the height of, like, being spoiled
58:39
and privileged. And having
58:41
two friendly neighbors as our
58:43
north and south border and two oceans
58:45
as our borders on the east and west.
58:47
Not all countries have that. And eventually,
58:50
shit will come to our doorstep as we learned
58:53
in World War one, as we learned in World
58:55
War two. And you can stay
58:57
out of things and decide that it's not our
58:59
but these people will make it your
59:01
fight. They are intent on it. It's
59:03
like it's such a US focused view
59:06
that it's all because of us. And that
59:08
we're aggravating Putin or he
59:10
came to like
59:13
obsessed with the US, obsessed with
59:15
NATO, It's about us, but it's not about
59:17
us. And the isolationism on the
59:19
right and left is very nice and very privileged.
59:22
But
59:22
eventually, he will make
59:23
it a problem. He has declared
59:25
that he will. So you might as well get in
59:28
you know, it's like with World War two. Like,
59:30
we could have gotten in, for example, in Europe at
59:32
a much earlier phase. And saved
59:34
everybody a
59:34
lot, including ourselves, a lot of bloodshed,
59:37
and money. Yeah. I mean, I'd say raises a lot
59:39
of questions and I just will say, first of all,
59:41
just only because I once had
59:43
the opportunity when I was thinking about snake snaking
59:45
in its own
59:45
tail. It turns out that in Greek mythology, that's called
59:48
it a Roburos. A Roburos?
59:50
A Roburos. Yeah. Because I had to look it up.
59:52
I've now remembered it forever. So whenever he says, I'm always
59:54
like, hey, you know what that's called? And then second thing
59:56
is just to to put the cap on this. Right?
59:58
I think one of the things that I know you've talked
1:00:00
about this a bunch this week. People say, you know, as
1:00:02
Putin is irrational or is irrational, you
1:00:05
know, that that debate, which always strikes
1:00:07
me as kind of a weirdly, a kind of false
1:00:09
binary because, you know, there's
1:00:11
a kind of rationality or at least the kind
1:00:13
of logic that even really delusional
1:00:15
people have. Right? It's not it's not
1:00:17
like when you say someone's irrational, people
1:00:19
think, well, as the British the Fed minister said apparently,
1:00:22
you know, he's gone full tonto, which is not
1:00:24
only weird, but kind of racist, but it's
1:00:26
like that notion that he's these bunkers.
1:00:29
Right? He's not unhinged. There's
1:00:31
a rationality and a clarity. But it's just
1:00:33
not the logic that we Heilemann the reason
1:00:35
I raise it is just because it does seem to me that,
1:00:37
like, you know, you're being very selective
1:00:39
when you're desperate and and really
1:00:42
any leader any country about what information
1:00:44
you look at. You're always picking and choosing. You're always
1:00:46
saying, well, the condemnation, that's
1:00:48
just over there. Can I find some approval?
1:00:50
And if you can find some approval out there, especially if you can
1:00:53
find the United States on the part of like Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo,
1:00:55
and other people, you can very easily convince
1:00:57
yourself that the world's not against
1:00:59
you, and that can lead you to do some very
1:01:01
fucked up shit.
1:01:03
Look, again, I've spent
1:01:05
way too much time watching shitty.
1:01:07
Rush now that Mike has gone. It's just whatever.
1:01:12
Rush and probably Amanda, which is
1:01:14
Just their, like, evening newscasts. Right?
1:01:16
Because all of television is controlled by
1:01:18
the Kremlin.
1:01:20
And guess who they're quoting? All the time.
1:01:22
Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson and Tulsi
1:01:24
Gavin. They play Tucker on RT at this point. They just
1:01:26
make chunks of Tucker and put it on. Literally, put
1:01:28
it on RT. You see it there? I'm not here.
1:01:31
Yeah. And I don't know how much people watch
1:01:33
RT inside Russia, but on their
1:01:35
domestic news, there's a lot of Tucker.
1:01:37
Yeah. And I agree with you. I
1:01:39
think when people say rational, irrational,
1:01:42
they mean this person doesn't think the way I
1:01:44
do. Right. And I think for
1:01:46
the first time we have an administration
1:01:49
that gets Putin and sees him clearly
1:01:51
in part because so many people
1:01:53
handling foreign policy in the Biden
1:01:55
administration, including Biden himself, dealt
1:01:57
with Putin during the Obama administration.
1:02:00
Right. And they understand that. But
1:02:02
before, there was always this
1:02:04
And I remember so many arguments I had with
1:02:06
people in the US about this, like, he would
1:02:08
never do x because it's irrational. It
1:02:10
doesn't make sense. Like, it doesn't make
1:02:12
sense to you, but it makes here's how it makes perfect
1:02:15
sense to him. It's like we're
1:02:17
operating in base ten and he's operating
1:02:19
in base
1:02:19
twelve. And you have to do some
1:02:22
conversion for those things to line
1:02:24
up. Sorry. A little math throwback. Yeah. Really
1:02:26
seriously. I first the bathroom back. And then, also,
1:02:28
I I have to say it's the most charming thing I've ever heard, which is that
1:02:30
you restrain yourself from using profanity, but out of some
1:02:33
respect for Michael McFall. think that's an admit. You're like,
1:02:35
well, now that Michael McFall is gone. I just dropped f
1:02:37
bombs. Left right in the center. But before I felt like
1:02:39
I should probably, like, watch my mouth. Listen,
1:02:41
thank you for taking the time. I really could talk to you and
1:02:43
to him really for narrows up. But you guys are, like,
1:02:45
the busiest people on planet Earth right now. Because
1:02:48
you're Heilemann, and you know what you're talking about. And
1:02:50
this is really, like, the most important story in the
1:02:52
world right now, and so you're in
1:02:53
demand. But thanks for taking a little time to
1:02:55
chat with me and him and be with us.
1:02:57
Thank
1:02:57
you so much, John. Thanks for having me. This has been
1:03:00
really fun. You know, for
1:03:02
all things considered. Given
1:03:03
that we're talking about award, right? Yeah. Helen
1:03:06
I Water is podcast from the recount. Thanks again for
1:03:08
being with us. If you like this episode, please subscribe.
1:03:10
Helen I and share us and rate us and review us
1:03:12
on whatever app you happen to use to mask in
1:03:14
the splendor of the Podcast universe. I'm
1:03:16
your host and the executive editor of the recount. John
1:03:19
Grace Weinstein is a cocreator of Heilemann Water.
1:03:22
David Wilson engineered the podcast. Justin
1:03:24
Chumo handles the research. Margo Dray
1:03:26
is our assistant producer, Stephanie Stender,
1:03:29
is our post producer and Christian Beadell.
1:03:32
Gastro
1:03:32
Rizzo. Is our executive producer.
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