Americans at used to enjoy the PX Americana the idea of being invested in Global Security was connected to the idea of American success Prosperity both psychologically it was pleasant but also economically that's completely broken down um even the people who still want to do good in the world because they have a sense of America's Mission and there are lots of people like that they have zero connection between that and it's good for America they just have a sense that we should cuz we're America
Amer we're the good [Laughter] [Music] guys welcome to Cambridge Forum coming to you live via Zoom I'm Mary stack the executive director and today we're focusing on a part of the world that is too important for us to ignore Russia due to its strategic location its enormous land mass and its environmental impact Russia's a country that will always matter but was it always so with the sudden death of Alexi Naval Russia's popular opposition leader Ukraine's recent setbacks in the war and the comin
g presidential elections in Russia next week Putin appears to be riding the crest of a reckless wave of confidence is he contemplating a new phase of global aggression or is his political postering just more smoke and mirrors well today we're going to consider what's at stake here in this elabor chess game and what if anything the Western World can do to strengthen the NATO alliance en counter the creeping spread of autocratic regimes to assist us in understanding the complex political web that
Russia is weaving we've got two superb experts today Professor Neil McFarland is professor emeritus from Oxford University who's been an international relations and Russia spe specialist for several decades currently teaching here and associated with the Davis Center at Harvard Peter penev is a senior fellow at John Hopkins University and he's co-director of the Arena initiative Peter was born in Kev Ukraine but grew up in the UK and is author of three books on Russian and authoritarian propagan
da his latest is how to win an information War the propagandist who outwitted Hitler so welcome to you both thank you for your time I know you're very busy but it's an important topic so I appreciate it so let's start with you Peter you Peter just returned from Kiev and you said people there were in survival mode there's a sense that America is exiting the international stage and that the ukrainians are trying to process what lies ahead including cap capitulation so perhaps you could expand a li
ttle bit about that and tell us what sort of dark sense of for boing perhaps you experienced when you were there well firstly the spirit is always one of grim resolve not dark for boing um you know when you look at existential threats very close up you weirdly weirdly feel kind of calm because the stakes are so obvious um I actually say I have much less anxiety when I'm in Ukraine because this the things are clearer strangely enough um so I I'm I'm much more dark for boing here with the oncoming
election so but yeah when you know I think something that comes from a sense of dependence and helplessness which for all Ukraine's bravery it is dependent on us is a sense that people might be doing deals behind your back um and there's a worry that the deal is already being struck um that Trump is already negotiating with Russia and getting ready to sell Ukraine and then one one you know then there's lots of calculations about what could happen after that uh one of them is that there might be
there might be sort of uh some sort of some sort of push by Russia to to um to offer a more cunning capitulation not the sort of outright one that they're talking about now but something some sort of deal that will sound okay but de facto means capitulation and from what you've heard is it is it talking along the lines of keeping the territory they've got or and creating a new border or what sort of no no the discussion if America leaves is whether no it's it's it's the the level of giving up o
f sovereignity it's not about territories it's about does Ukraine exist as an independent state and that would Russ was very open that it's in its statements I mean they don't think Ukraine is a real country they don't want it to exist or it can exist on paper but not not in any kind of serious sense despite the fact that they acknowledged it did have sovereignty in 1991 correct yes yeah I mean yes you're looking for consistency and inut I don't know to tell you yet he saying he never invaded a
few years ago they're not very consistent though okay before we look at the roots of that Invasion two years ago um let's look at Putin's Behavior just in the last few weeks he's been a bit strange um first we witnessed the the terrible death of Alexi navali who Putin really despised because I think in many ways he was everything Putin isn't he's smart he's handsome he's well educated he's articulate and he was popular clearly a threat um um he also took part in a strange interview with Tucker C
arlson uh during which time he mentioned Poland 20 times in that interview so my sense was was this a sort of rhetoric or was this a port turn of what he's really thinking about on the back burner after the fall of Ukraine um so Peter I'll take your view first and then I'll go to Neil well um if he's talking about it that means he's thinking about it so um and things which were considered crazy a while ago no longer can be discounted as crazy um um I don't know I I the S of Carlson interview was
was was strange in so many ways um why i' had actually expected Putin to do all this clever communication with his supporters and potential supporters in the west and he didn't he just went on rant about history which I don't think any Putin supporters anywhere in America really understood um which was either a sign that he just doesn't listen to his press guys anymore and they probably telling him to do something else so he might be at that points of of sort of alienation from his own advisers
or he was actually trying to make a point and maybe both the point he was trying to make is I guess um the MS of trump has come I think Putin would see Carlson as a messenger from Trump from Trump's Court coming you know on bended knee to pay respects and he wiped his feet on him and it was almost a statement to M Russians look look Little American has come and we are now at the stage where I wipe my feet on the next American president's little boy well that's a pretty good analogy of of that a
gain I have to say I'm speculating this is looking at it and trying to work it out I have not chatted to Putin recently but no you're right there didn't seem to be any good sense for it I mean if you're going to say something important you wouldn't say it to Tak Carlson right no but he could have us the opportunity to talk about culture wars and all these things that resonate really well with some audiences in America and and Tucker Carlson's audiences he could have made a bigger deal out of NAT
O expansion he didn't he just said like this is our historic L and we're taking them back and then he laughed at Carlson having applied and failed to join the CIA I mean he just sort of humiliated him so I don't know it was he wasn't following the logic that frankly I thought that he would follow but I say okay Neil over to you welcome what did you make of that uh recent events with Putin oh well uh uh it's pretty bizarre what can I say on noal which you started with I don't think uh I think tha
t does have an effect in Russia I don't think it will have an effect here because I mean the nature of the media landscape and I defer to Peter here uh in this country is that you get some weird thing or nasty thing coming up and two days later it's gone and the focus shifts to something else so I think it's important to the Russians but not to the American electorate uh Europe may be slightly different as for uh or tense uh I I have to say we don't know what Putin will do um next uh he is a cip
her um I don't think he's he he thinks about Poland Peter is right uh but I don't think he's ready to go there if he were to win in Ukraine and I don't think he will by the way um the next Target if that's what's in his mind would be the baltics and not Ukraine Poland is very well armed it is a NATO member it is covered under Article Five and it's big uh and I am if in a way one might welcome his attempt to take over Poland which of course is taking Peter's phrase also historical Russian land or
the eastern part uh under the tripartite agreement to partition Poland of I guess 1795 um sorry um but you know what is Russian land anyway um uh so people are worried about the baltics but they're also covered by Article 5 um I think we're in a situation with Putin where we need to realistically hope for the best that is to say that Ukraine won't fall we should do what we can to ensure that it does not fall but we should prepare for the worst and in that case uh NATO is already preparing for t
he worst there is a major complement of NATO forces including American forces in Poland and there are there's a substantial reinforcement of uh NATO forces in Estonia lvia and Lithuania defense spending in NATO is increasing that will take some time to work its way through uh the defense industrial complex is evolving that will take some time time is very important here we tend to think with regard to Ukraine with regard to Putin we think what's going to happen tomorrow the EU and NATO are movin
g reasonably effectively forward in terms of increasing spending and trying to integrate their defense infrastructures and in the United States there is also a substantial effort to rekindle the defense industrial complex so uh it's really uh it's a matter of time um so sorry go ahead um talking about the prospects Ukraine for the moment because uh you seem more optimistic than than than than I expected um I mean a year ago America was seriously invested um stressing the importance I remember Bi
den walking around with his State of the Union Address it's very important to preserve democracy this is the you know this is a kind of a Lynch pin if we let this go it's the beginning of the end and now we're distracted both with the Gaza situation and our border issues or at least they're being dangled to distract us um I I'm very skeptical that they will get the budget will be passed for the what they need in Ukraine well the budget is one thing the foreign assistance bill is another thing it
is stalled because of the minority in the House of Representatives a majority in the House of Representatives supports that bill and that would be 61 billion for Ukraine and additional military assistance as well as some for Israel and so on and so forth um I think that you know look I'm an optimist okay always but I think that the position of the Republican minority in this context is slowly going to become untenable uh and they will eventually cave they will get B they will get their kind of
border control as a side deal but I think uh it's if you think about sorry we're getting into American politics here we're not supposed to be here but hey let's go there um if if you think about Pennsylvania Michigan and Wisconsin they have significant uh ethnic minority populations including ukrainians Poes and bals this is where this election will likely be decided and so it would be a remarkable Act of self-immolation for the Republicans just to walk away from this and say no um there is a we
ird Fringe out there who says we're not like like Donald Trump who says not a penny more but they do not represent the American public as a whole and I don't think they represent the majority of the Republican party do you want to add to that or no Peter oh uh you know what the sun has come out in Washington it's our first Warm Spring Light day I'm going to go with optimistic as well um but um we have to also be realistic um there is We Know What's blocking the majority of Republicans doing what
they think is right and that is their presumed nominee who's by all accounts multiple sources he's the one who's stopping Ukraine Aid and that's become increasingly apparent it's been blocked for a long time now by the way in many months now and he seems to have a logic Victor Orban Hungarian prime minister just visited maralago and says that Trump has a detailed plan for Ukraine and at top of that plan is to stop all J to Ukraine and thus what he says forc it to NE neate what we all understand
forc it to capitulate and Trump's son has said this as well um in uh in a in a in a public talk he said that that is the plan stop all Aid and yeah they always used this superism force it to negotiate but we understand what that really means um maybe Trump thinks it in return He can then lift sanctions on Russia oil price drops he becomes an economic hero he may have his own calculation but there is a force that's stopping the majority of Republicans who as Professor McFarland quite rightly sai
d would like to pass this bill by all account and and they're quite beholden to that Force um I'd love to think that this is wrong I'd love to think that there's something else going on but there does seems to be a lot of evidence suggesting that is that is the logic here so if we um just rewind the clock for a bit um Neil you've spoken in the past saying historically there have been many instances of the West's failure to take Russian seriously and to cultivate the country that was the term you
use after the break up of the Soviet Union you said that we underestimate Russian pride and should have anticipated the return of Russia because history shows us that status and influence are very important to Russians so a lot has changed since 1991 and gorbachov and glasnost um what happens I know it's a long period but what do we do wrong I mean what should have we done okay we're we're talking about the short history of the last 30 years okay um well um let me think here let's be brief um t
o to go to the uh the Capstone immediately I think uh Western diplomacy radically failed with regard to and Russian economic American economic diplomacy radically failed uh in the 1990s you know as George HW Bush said we won the Cold War it's over what he didn't take into account is that Russia always comes back and this was a moment in which I think there was some possibility for integrating Russia into a broader International Community of Europe and the United States or whatever or at least ma
king it moderately benign but um it carried a price you had to all of these purported democratizers had an economic crisis on their hands of monumental proportions as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union we could have helped them more than we did but we didn't because the perception was the Cold War was over and as a result the the idea of democracy lost weight in Russia and um the if you will the Western economic system also as a as a model also lost weight and gradually more eurasianis
t or nationalist forces in Russia gathered steam when yini primakov became foreign minister and then and then prime minister is it's a good example and that was in the middle of the Elson period I'm going too far into the weeds Mary so I will I will I will move on quickly um but I think we lost an opportunity there and and going on to further errors I mean I I think I referred to the NATO 2007 Bucharest declaration where it said that Georgia and Ukraine would become neighbors of would become mem
bers of NATO at some point but as conditions change this I refer to this as the stupidest mistake that America diplomacy has made in the last 40 years because it left it it it irritated the Russians deeply it irritated Putin seriously and it left them vulnerable because they were not protected by a security guarantee and so we had Georgia 2008 we had Ukraine in 2014 this War began in 2014 not in 2022 and then we had the the full invasion and you know we we we could have done it differently it's
no point there's no point in crying over spiled milk and let's move on and do what we need to do now but as Peter said you know one never knows really what mood or what really Putin's doing even though he's saying something like for example when he recognized Ukraine as a sovereign state in ' 91 and then '94 granted them a security guarantee for them giving up their nuclear weapons that was a long-term strategy clearly that left them extremely vulnerable so was that a big mistake for Ukraine wha
t do you think Peter uh well if you want my opinion circumstances change under the circumstances of the time I I I I remember a Georgian friend of mine who was the foreign minister at the time in Georgia saying that when uh the president of Ukraine asked shiver NAD what he thought of The Bu Budapest memorandum and the the surrender of nuclear weapons in in Ukraine to to as it happens Russia um Shad said well maybe you should keep a couple well they didn't keep a couple and it was gone but under
the circumstances of the time I I think the ukrainians viewed the guarant of the UK Britain and Russia to be in good faith uh and at the time it was in good faith then Putin comes along circumstances change and he ignored it this is this is normal life in international relations acts are made to be broken and this one was broken okay P what's your take on that um I think that you know relating it to the present um the real there is a danger that if the world sees America showing such epic weakne
ss that it'll be a huge encouragement for countries everywhere that may have thought that America offered a security guarantee to start chasing nuclear weapons I think that's going to be one of the potential um consequences of America stopping being a a guaran of security to its friends so coming back to the nuclear question you know the bud Budapest memorandum and again I'm not a huge expert on the periods it seems to be this moment of you know an attempt to decrease proliferation now it's tras
hing is going to be part of a process of the reverse because every mediumsized Power that is next to a aggressive superpower is going to be thinking well what's our lesson here America is unreliable we need nukes and that's going to make for a much more dangerous one absolutely so let's go back to what Putin got wrong we were talking about what the Allies got wrong or the Western Alliance has he completely underestimated the extent of the Ukrainian resistance in this and miscalculated uh if are
you asking me Mary okay fine well Putin uh frankly uh sort of strategically as it stands now his attack on Ukraine was a massive error uh because he underestimated the resilience and the fortitude of the ukrainians themselves that was the that the result was the retreat from K and then har the of har and then uh and hon um and this is not what he expected more broadly and by the way he's losing a lot more people than Ukraine is in this war more broadly he thought he I guess he may have thought t
hat um he was uh halting the expansion of NATO then you get Finland saying let's go into NATO and then Sweden uh and by the way that turns basically turns the Baltic Sea into a NATO Lake because they these countries plus Denmark control all of the exits and entries to the Baltic Sea and and both Sweden and Finland are major military Powers uh and they have the capacity if Russia attacks the baltics to reinforce and they provide a land bridge for the rest of NATO to reinforce other than Germany i
n Poland which already exist so I mean I think this was just a uh it was I look frankly I think that Putin lives in a Mythic world he overestimated his own power he overestimated his the military capacity of Russia and he and then we get to this notion that Russians that ukrainians are Russians which is obviously now clearly wrong and that NATO is weak and we can just roll them over now that that story remains to be told but I think that was a it was on the face of it a massive mistake so let Le
t's uh move on to the upcoming first before our election we got the Russians having their elections next week which of course I'm sure are going to be a grand um display of the usual pomp circumstance and opposition now pretty much out of the picture um so Peter how effective is the old propaganda machine within Russia um do you sense that most of the population do genuinely follow the government line about the war or you said there's a general atmosphere of complacency and greed and you know mo
sites and City dwellers are miles from the theater of war life goes on they they they're not contesting being involved in the war as much in fact they got paid quite a lot didn't they people in the country to join up they got incentives to to join up so I guess it was a Salvation for people in poor parts of the country yeah actually just just getting to the end of analyzing a bunch of sort of Economic and discussive dates from across Russia and it's picture um yeah obviously you know we're talki
ng about a system where people acques or even you know rather enjoy being at War so but that's not you know that's that's sort of a deeper question about sort of national I don't know uh sort of history and and and identity but if we're talking about sort of on a kind of day-to-day level um it's an interesting picture so you have these real contrasts economically there are regions that have done really well uh we have big factories um that seeing an economic boom others have done very badly sort
of bits of the country next to the border for example the EU so it's actually there's a lot of there's a new kind of regional polarization going on which which is interesting um in terms of domestic issues the biggest issues domestically are not directly about the war they are tangentially it's about um inflation and about household debt so because people don't believe in the stability of the currency because it's there's an inflation that's been caused by war production um people taking out cr
azy amounts of household debt a lot of the domestic propaganda is telling people to stop taking out household debt and how great it is not to have debts to which people take out more household debt so which tells you you know what the vulnerabilities of the propaganda are um people will Aces or support the war and there seems to be some interesting sociology that says they actually you know enjoy it others will say that it's just imitation sociologists are having this debate Non-Stop about Russi
a at the moment um and each have great methodologies that prove the opposite of what the other one has but in terms of like Dynamics we see in a of day-to-day level um no the kemin propaganda campaigns kind of last well for a couple of weeks usually like mobilization campaigns you can see online they kind of manage to get sentiment up for a couple of weeks then it dips again so it's not all smooth sailing for them um especially when it comes to issues to do with sort of economic um sustainabilit
y so yes there hasn't been this giant crash that some people thought but in terms of the economic boom this atmosphere is more one of um a kind of let's have a big party before the rubal Goes Up in Flames um so it's less solid than it looks and sometimes we we fall for the image of things being very very stable you know just below the surface there's a Rumblings now those Rumblings are so far not the Rumblings of Thunder they're the Rumblings of a upset stomach should we say uh but but this is a
very fragile Empire um with many many potential vulnerabilities um but at the end of the day as long as on the big things like arms production you know as long as Russia as long as Putin can show the world and shows people that he's winning on these big bets then then he seems pretty but if you know if the West gets it act together and shows it can outspend out produce finally get its economic Warfare strategy together which hasn't happened so far um then maybe Putin stops looking like quite su
ch a Victor and maybe his risk calculation changes and he starts to become more conservative in his belligerence so the people that all lined up and went to Nani's funeral and laid Flowers for 3 days which surprised me uh because it's Brave and a lot of them didn't have any covers on their faces or anything like that now do you think there's going to be long-term consequences for all those people obviously they're all on camera somewhere right I mean there are some signs that some of that is sta
rting to happen um and there's a general uh what the Russians call a tightening of the screws going on um think was very notice well firstly killing nalni is a sign of something or however he died he was under the kremlin's duty of care so if it happened they were aware that there was a risk of it um and firstly and and and secondly that even more spectacularly the arrest of this sort of dual American Russian this young woman in ballerina who donated $50 to Ukrainian Charity she comes home and g
ets locked up for it that could just be like an overzealous official somewhere but it could also be a sign of telling a lot of people who are still moving backwards and forwards that you got to choose now you know if you're one of these disloyal people don't even think about coming back that's a big change because actually what a lot of people have been doing especially people businesses is sort of shuttling backwards and forwards kind of like one foot in rer and one in Moscow so that's a real s
ign that things are going to be shutting down um again rumors about GR internet censorship I mean so far you still have YouTube and a lot of Western Platforms in Russia that will be you know a lot there's been a lot of anticipation that might be cracked down on and there's a question of what are they preparing for you know the election itself is a given but is there something coming afterwards whether it's a huge mobilization drive or a change in the Constitution what are they planning next beca
use usually these tightenings of the screws come before some sort of policy shift um so people at the moment that are looking the situation are trying to eye up what that's going to be uh over to you for a moment Neil there do you think that there's a kind of a cold war logic returning to Russia since the war um thank you um first of all I'd like to add a couple things to the economic uh situation described by Peter um the economic growth in Russia is largely produced by investment in the milita
ry industrial sector uh it's not about anything else and in fact other sectors of the economy are being starved for resources including social spending and health spending now in terms of public opinion you're the expert Peter but I would think that eventually that will bite um if people can't get operations that they need or if their kids are not getting properly educated and then of course there is the I mean this is an unknown to me um there are all of these families of soldiers who are recei
ving either the mangled or the dead sons who were working in Ukraine and there are there is a there is a uh pre previous uh a precedent uh concerning Cheta where the mothers played a significant role in in causing a pause in that war so I mean I I think that I I agree with Peter that actually um it looks in terms of public opinion and support for Russia and the election itself we will uh see I think massive support for Putin on the on the ballot um what does that mean in terms of what's going on
underneath it's unknown anyway to your question is this a new Cold War I apologize for my digression um uh I'm not sure I mean look there's clearly a deep sense of Confrontation uh between Russia and the west and uh but the cold war at least in its mature phase also involved post 1962 uh significant cooperation to reduce risk the all of those Arms Control agreements uh the ultimately the reduction in weapons of mass destruction um that's different Putin has suspended almost all of the military
cooperation agreements with the West including strategic arms limitation uh agreements and also conventional arms uh and deployments agreements um so I think it's different it may actually be worse um but there's also the the global Dimension to this and just as in the Cold War when the Soviet Union was competing for influence in the third world with the United States and the West this is happening now but with it's a slightly different has slightly different flavor if you look at Russia's relat
ionship with China Iran most strongly but also with many parts of the global South they are to my mind pretty clearly trying to create an alternative International order which is a challenge to the liberal order that we claim to manifest ourselves and that could be I think uh really significant uh I don't think it'll work but who knows the future is a different country country well heading now towards the relationship that we've got um and our emulation of or Adoration of trump for Putin um whic
h uh um is clear it's embarrassing um I think surely Russians are are some in some ways laughing at the state of things in the United States right now I mean we've got ridiculous courts that can't seem to do anything about Trump um our we've got grid lot in our Democratic process um and then we've got people you know bending over backwards like you mentioned uh Victor Orban coming to the guardian described it the autocrat in Exile in Palm Beach which I loved it they didn't actually talk about Tr
ump by name um and he gushed about him being a strong man and a real boss that's what Trump trump described him as which is kind of the gangster language we've come to expect from Trump but he poses a huge threat to the NATO alliance if he gets elected um so what what's your feeling about that and why is it the American people don't seem to be concerned about Europe the implications and the rep cussions will happen will affect us and why do they feel so buffered um from what's going on in Ukrain
e and therefore everywhere else in Europe connected so who wants to take that I don't know I've been reviewing a whole bunch of sort of Sociology that was being done here in the US around the topic of sort of American involvement in the world and all that kind of stuff and what was really striking me was sort of lots and lot lot of um in-depth interviews with Americans which can be even more interesting than focus groups you really start to see the patterns between what people say which haven't
been forced and so it really came out for a lot of people was the lack of a connection between American prosperity and happiness and its connections to the outside world so I don't have anything to compare things to but I'd always imagin that Americans at Le used to enjoy the Pax Americana the idea of being invested in Global Security was connected to the idea of American success Prosperity both psychologically it was pleasant but also economically that's completely broken down um even the peopl
e who still want to do good in the world because they have a sense of America's Mission and there are lots of people like that they have zero connection between that and it's good for America they just have a sense that we should because we're America and we're the good guys for many more the outside world is simply a place that wants to parasite on America that is dangerous that you need to hide away from especially young people when they hear anything foreign policy they just want to hide thei
r instinct is like hide and for older ones it's the sense that everybody's leeching on us and that our entanglements actually make us poorer globalization has made us poorer the companies who do well out of it do it for themselves not for us and there's just this sense of the outside world is something that makes us poorer and weaker and we can explore the roots of that psychologically psych analytically if you want but but but also could have been just in terms of recent history and I think Ame
rica is almost waiting for somebody who can who can really make people feel and think that it's good for America to be invested in a more stable world but that connection is gone I mean it is not there anymore um and that was quite stunning I didn't realize that it had gone to such an extent um simply because I grew up in Europe where where we'd always assume that you know quite the opposite there's the opposite n there that America dominates the world in order to become rich you know um you kno
w that America is making money from profit and power from globalization that's sort of the narrative we grew up with um and then you go back to America and they think the absolute opposite it's there that it's there to leech off America uh someone has to start reforging those connections and I mean I think media needs to do a much better job because I mean even sort of n humanitarian Democrats don't see the connection let alone magga voters um so something's gone people's vision of the world doe
sn't make those connections anymore between American power and American Prosperity can I pick that one up Mary uh I I basically agree with everything that Peter has said um except that I would add one thing I mean if you asked a representative sample of Americans what country Orban was the Prime Minister of uh you'd probably get 10% correct and 90% don't know um it reminds me of a a poll in the 1980s we haven't changed much or I I should say America hasn't changed much this is a poll about uh Ni
caragua and uh American support for the contas and the poll question was is America supporting the government of Nicaragua and I believe it was 54% of the population said yes because we always support governments I mean which which was uh quite wrong so I think that uh America is a very big place and a lot of its population don't think very much about Foreign Affairs now as for uh leeching from America I think that that is a very clear um problem but I think this is changing and this might be on
e of the again being optimistic Mary this might be another positive spin-off of this debate in the United States I think the European countries certainly Germany France Britain if Britain is in Europe um uh and the Netherlands and the the low countries and so on and so forth and Norway and Sweden are very clear that there is doubt about the future of the American commitment to European security for domestic political reasons and so they are investing more in their own defense so one of the long-
term consequences of this might actually well be an integrated and cap European Defense structure which you know uh would be a good thing not least because the Europeans have been leeching off the United States defense establishment for decades uh the United States spends well beyond um NATO spending targets for defense defense spending uh and the ma majority of European countries like my Home Country Canada um are are basically taking the protection without paying the price and I think this cri
sis and also the American ambivalence about underwriting it has its effect in Europe and in NATO as a whole um I just wanted to move on to this comp Arison between Putin and Trump What similarities and differences they have um Peter you made an animated film for the BBC and in it you said Trump and Putin share a disdain for the facts and that's part of their appeal well my question first of all is to whom and Trump worships Putin but I don't think it's a mutual relationship so regardless of that
I'd still think the liaison is a dangerous one so what would you have to say about that disdain for the facts part of their appeal yeah my word that was so many years ago thank you for for finding that 16 17 um and we're still yeah and these topics are still still relevant um they they're more than you know there's a pattern here um look I'm not the first person to uh remark that um authoritarians um disregard for the truth is can be part of their appeal I mean it's a relief from the glum const
raints of reality maybe at some level it's some sort of Promise of immortality because the biggest reality out there is death so there is a pleasure in rejecting facts um maybe sort of weird that that we ever even looked to politicians who who gave us the facts um especially when the facts tell you unpleasant things you know that you're you know that you're getting older that your country is getting not as successful and so on um so there's there's something about that disregard for reality whic
h can make them yeah gives them a kind of almost an almost punk-like uh anarchic uh energy so but it's also deeply dangerous because if there's something very disconcerting when facts are thrown out the window it's very hard to form any kind of resistance because usually we need truth to resist very hard to sort of Base any arguments because you realize any arguments you make are hopeless it also s signals that disregard for institutions which is something that Russians have been conditioned to
assume as normal and something Americans are only starting to discover um is much more tenuous than they thought quick word from you Neil yeah sure I mean I think on on on Putin and Trump I think it it's sort of like Orban in a funny sort of way I mean Orban he reminds me of the I think it was the what is it Ben and Jerry cartoon of years and years ago I'm older Tom and Jerry I'm yeah Tom and Jerry I'm older than everybody here so I'm allowed to refer to this um where um the the mouse was offere
d a piece of cheese in front of his hole and the mouse ran out picked up the cheese and ran back into his hole this is Orban um no offense to Hungary by the way but you know he basically he he resisted EU assistance to Ukraine until he got $10 billion in side payment part of the the European support structure for Ukraine which had been denied because of his violations of rule of law and democracy considerations and and then he started uh delaying uh Sweden's accession to Nato um and what did he
get for that the swedes sold him some airplanes I mean it or probably gave them to him I have no idea but you know it's it's just he he is in in the NATO structure a minor player and if it becomes important to Nato a deal is always cut that shuts him up okay now as for uh Trump um I think Trump likes what Putin does I don't know whether he likes Putin particularly he may not like anybody particularly um but you know Putin is what Trump wants to be an authoritarian who controls the government um
Putin on the other hand my guess would be uh Peter could comment more effectively on this than I I think Putin believes Trump to be a useful idiot you know you play him and he does things that you like and certainly Trump is from what he says although we have no idea what Trump would actually do if he were elected and I don't believe he will be elected but leaving that aside um um uh you know Trump would do things that Putin wanted him to do uh and uh and what's wrong with that from Putin's pers
pective I don't think Putin has an ounce of respect for Trump but he's a useful idiot so propaganda p thing we've got a serious problem now with the coming election and one wonders how much more effective Russia will be the second time around with the Bots shaping the outcome um BBC just brought in this thing called verify I don't know if you've seen it in the last couple of weeks where they try and tell you whether something is true or not if a video is posted they say we verified it which is h
ow how they found out yesterday that Kate's photoshopped picture for Mother's Day or whatever was because of verifi but is it enough and it still doesn't make up for the big problem which is the bulk of the masses are not watching the BBC they're doing Instagram and Fox on their phone so how do we counter the fact that they're banging on and on and on about the age of Biden and there's only what three years between him and Trump I mean there really isn't a great deal and at least when Biden's do
ing something all the lights are on you know um which you can't say the same for Trump but that's never made any use of in the media so I I don't want to presume but what's the answer what's some of the answer to that with the the presses that we have the media that we have um well I'm a Brit and I've only been in America a couple of years and frankly I spent a lot of my time thinking about Ukraine so um I'm very cautious to make any um kind of like sweeping generalizations but kind of a journal
ist so I will um I've been kind of surprised since moving to America there seems to be so much talk of like how does one um well essentially do a longterm cultural media effort not just an election one but a long-term one to well to put it very simply sort of like break off some of the um some of the sort of uh more right-wing Community um it's fairly standard in many countries to have sort of 15% of people who are ver um I don't want to use the word um I don't want to use the FW but you know in
cline towards eism but um we see it in many countries 15% of people vote for for far-right parties um but to break that off and and try to integrate at least some of those people into a broader public sphere and I know it's very easy to laugh at the BBC in Britain um and it makes so many mistakes and it's constantly in crisis but but but after brexit they radically moved a huge amount of their staff news rooms to what's rather idiotically known as the north of England which is most the country u
m but it was the right idea because it had become to London Centric that was true and and they made up for a mistake and no one does that in America I mean it would be the equivalent of like CNN moving you know half its Newsroom to Fly Over States but no one does It in America when people try to overcome polarization polarization they do it in the worst possible way which is why by platforming Trump's lies that's not what it means it means undercutting the politicians to reach the audience but s
omebody has to do that we know how to do it it's actually it's not that I I've just written a book about how um the British managed to get Germans to listen to their radio content by making it about the lives of ordinary Germans and showing them how the Nazis were making them miserable I mean they were doing that and winning audiences of you know you know huge audiences in Germany during the war and breaking through the polarization during a real war let alone a culture War so it can be done I m
ean it's it's you know it's it can be hit and miss but but you have to want to do it and I've sort of been surprised I mean since 16 so eight years now people in America have been talking about this problem and I haven't seen one massive cultural Communications initiative to do anything about it if anything institutions well sadly like the New York Times have decided to double down the polarization because it leads to easier profit there's now been several people who've talked about this it's al
so a profit model and increasing polarization so I'm a bit confused I mean there's a complete recognition from the expert community that something needs to be done that somebody needs to be integrating diverse audiences into a shared understanding of reality but no one wants to do it and and and then we're surprised when so much of the country still seems to be living in a different place now now the election has started and Biden is doing this Biden is clearly trying to say hey Haley Democrats
come to me or hey people over here you don't want to be with the crazy people come to me so but that's an election and that's PR and tactics which will stop the moment the election's over what we really need is a project that that helps integrate the nation and I think in America this is particularly dangerous because America has always been a country of incredibly diverse people with not that much in common and so that common well we use the term public sphere is even more important in America
than it weirdly is someone like England which has so many other ways of fusing the nation because you know it's it's all let alone a country you know like like like we've talked about Poland which is now so you know very very um U has ways of surviving the polarization that it is going through as well but in America it's particularly dangerous I mean America has always been founded on the ability to integrate very very different people and somebody needs to be doing that and I just don't see any
force in America that's doing it I mean I I I maybe I'm misdiagnosing something maybe I'm missing something but it seems like this extraordin react to self harm well put well put well we're running out of time I hate to tell you we've got like very few minutes left but I'm going to run over a little bit because there are a couple of things that we didn't uh well was two things one is that you said to me Peter the West is all over and Russia and China are in the ascendency I don't know if you re
member saying that but uh again is this all show this this Russia China No Limits friendship and um won't the new Dynamic globally be dictated by Nations access to energy and armaments they're the two things right um I was talking about if if the election has lost or if Trump wins the election and does what he's threatening to do then it will be a a huge and this new alignment you mentioned between China I think I think I think uh I think um I think my co-panelist really had it very well it's no
t quite the Cold War we always look for analogies from the past it's going to be different because there's so many codependencies in economics in in so many in technology that I don't think we'll have two clear blocks like here's the sort of you know the Western block and here's the other block I don't think it's going to be that it's still going to be very networked but it's going to be kind of you know countries and superpowers in bed with each other and stabbing each other at the same time an
d we're going to see a much darker vision of globalization we're both interconnected and Incredibly and weaponizing that all the time and it's going to be a very turbulent period And I think he will win who can manage those networks better which is why again the Trump path is a dangerous path I mean what you're going to need the only way we deal with this challenge is if the democracies and other interested countries hang together um and you see the reaction from Japan Taiwan Australia to a war
in Ukraine which really doesn't affect them personally they get it they understand what happens here will influence them Japan is now I think the biggest the biggest donor of Ukrainian reconstruction don't quote me on that but it's spectacular and very quietly not doing it for show but when you go to kia they like oh my God the Japanese are the most effective actors at the moment they don't do military aid for obvious reasons but in in or in the other types if the democracies aren't going to han
g together I I think I I think we're into a very bad time um and it's not going to be clean as in like it's going to be democracies and not democracies at all there's going to be horrible compromises um but I think in this world he he who has the most effective networks is going to win that'll you know that sounds hay I'm talking about things like Supply chains right at the moment there is a case to be made that we don't understand our supply chains in the military space but also like in the too
thbrush space I'm not sure we know where our bits for our toothbrushes come from I've got a very fancy toothbrush as you can that probably has to change we probably do have to start ensuring that our supply chains especially in the security space especially with what's known as dual use technology are friend sh that's a phrase Janet Yellen used yeah because America can't actually produce everything itself it is going to have to get its microchips from somewhere else what is the security of that
place how do we make sure that a China or Russia can't mess with that and they'll by the way they're doing exactly the same thing they worked out you know you know China is rapidly you know understanding the game too so I think we're going to see that and and there are going to be countries going to be left horribly exposed and they're going to be in all sorts of trouble and I think we'll see all sorts of like little security deals happening you know if America is no longer the guaran and it cur
rently isn't the guaran anyway from lot of places we're going to see lots of tactical security Arrangements that kind of like Shore up something um in a particular Network so I think that's that's where we're headed so it's not going to be quite the Cold War but it's going to be like the cold war in TS in terms of allies and friendships are critical because we are dependent on each other and that's another reason why the Trump kind of throw your friends over the bus is that a is that a phrase fo
r over the boat over the oh my God under the bus under under the bus under the bus and over the boat um is is so Dam America um so another reason I hope I really hope it doesn't happen last word from you Neil and we didn't talk about the nuclear threat either oh well uh well if you want me to talk about that we'll have to do it another day I think following on what Peter said um you know one thing we're going to whether we like it or not and whatever we do is we are going towards a multi-polar w
orld us unipolarity is finishing um there will be multiple actors multiple powerful actors who will compete or cooperate as it suits them and this is a different place than it was during the Cold War where whether it was when it was either for us or against us and Punishment was delivered accordingly on Russia China I think uh just looking at the past 500 years of Russian Chinese history I think this is doomed uh what's what's happening now is that China is taking advantage of Russia's isolation
in order to increase its influence over Russia economically in terms of Revenue accruing to Russia and and in terms of stripping Russian resources now uh this given Russia's nationalism which is again also very old and its um exclusivity to others I think this will evoke eventually a reaction in Russia which will cause Russia to look elsewhere to compensate for its vulnerability to China and I expect that one area where we may be seeing this already is Central Asia where um Russia has tradition
ally been dominant there and now uh most of the trading and investment activity is done by China in Central Asia rather than Russia and Russia is not going to like that and the relationship so far has been calm in Central Asia but you know the worse the deeper Chinese incursion into Russia and also into Russia's if you will minions goes the more Russians will become disturbed by it so I I'm again I I don't know whether that's optimism or pessimism but I I I think that's what will likely happen i
n the medium term with the Russia China relationship and also final Point China's current influence over Russia is effectively driven by the war in Ukraine and Russia's isolation if the war in Ukraine ends one where or another that relationship of dependence Russian dependence on China diminishes and there is no love loss between the Russians and the Chinese okay well I hope your optimism um comes comes to fruition for both of you um and money does go into Ukraine and and keeps the dynamic um an
d NATO build up which I think has been a good thing that's happened um because it's given them a bit of a reality check this could happen and it could happen again you know what was it somebody put in the chat box here Putin's comment to Tucker Carlson about Poland being to blame for World War II because they didn't agree to Hitler's demand for a Danzig corridor that is ridiculous yeah well we run over I would love to keep talking but um they're going to pull the plug on me at gbh um I wanted to
thank you so much um you've been so wonderfully informative and and uh great analysis of a very complicated topic so Neil McFarland thank you and Peter panv hope you I got the name right the second time um thank you for your time appreciate it and insight um thank you Cambridge forum is made possible by the generosity of Herbert and Dorothy vessa the L Institute the mass cultural Council and of course you so don't forget to cough up um if you want to sign up go to the website www camridge forum
.org where you can receive all our e newsletters we produce weekly broadcasts of Cambridge forum and a video of today's program will be uploaded to you to shortly thanks to gbh Forum Network our wonderful Partners thank you every body for joining us today I look forward to seeing you all in uh two weeks bye-bye thank you bye thank you [Music] bye
Comments
Excellent discussion ! Thank you !