Noam Chomsky about Ukraine and NATO [2022]

as you know since february 24th there has been a war going on in ukraine there's been a lot of debate about who is at fault about the situation where we find ourselves in i was sort of surprised to read that john mersheimer one of the most famous realists john merchaima from the university of chicago he argued that ukraine is the west's fault basically so i was wondering where you land on this obviously vladimir putin started this war but how did we get to this point well we got to this point over a long period uh with regard to who is for blame to the war there's should be no question it's russian invasion of ukraine criminal invasion you can give explanations for it but there's no justification for it so i don't think the question of blame arises however if you look at the background there's plenty that we can go back 30 years when leading there was a firm promise explicit unambiguous promise by the united states and by germany and by the secretary general of nato all of them said we guarantee that uh nato forces will not extend beyond germany it's very explicit no ambiguity it was sustained by president bush he kept to it bill clinton started to waver um he was on the one hand telling eastern european voting constituencies in the united states like the polish community don't worry we'll get you into nato on the other hand he was saying very explicitly to the russians don't worry we'll never move to nato this you got protests from yeltsin gorbachev other russian leaders finally in 1997 he just ignored it and moved to bring in several poland hungary slovenia he was strongly warned by a host of high u.s officials including very famous ones like george kennan henry kissinger jack matlock reagan's ambassador to russia leading russia specialist the head of the cia director of the cia current director preceding director whole host of officials that this is very provocative dangerous and could bring severe dangers well he continued george w bush the next president he carried it further more warnings from u.s officials protests from the russians the russians also established very explicit red lines will tolerate a lot of things but not georgia not ukraine that's our geostrategic heartland and no nato membership that was well understood on all sides uh in 2014 at the time of the maiden uprising nato began there were several reactions one is that russia annexed crimea and supported uh moved in unofficially uh to the non-best region mostly russian-oriented area meanwhile nato began providing weapons and training to ukraine this is already building up to a conflict as one can see in 20 september last september september 2021 the united states came out with a strong policy statement saying that the door is wide open to ukraine to join nato as part of the enhanced preparation program for joining nato the u.s will provide heavy arms joint military operations and training to ukraine that was strengthened in a november charter for official charter of policy with ukraine a couple months later russia invaded so there's a big build up to the story nothing justifies the invasion but you can see the steps that provoked it basically this leads me to the question of how does one not engage in being an apologist for vladimir putin but still criticize actions done by nato and by the west it's quite straightforward exactly the way that i just did the invasion is a criminal act it's on a par with the u.s invasion of iraq hitler stalin invasion of poland other cases of criminal aggression on the other hand you can also see the reasons for it there's no contradiction european countries such as finland and sweden are now discussing whether they should join nato and it looks like they might actually do it within months or even years but even that will be quick do you think it is a good thing that more european countries are thinking about joining nato now i think that putin's gift to the united states uh in the aggression was a criminal act it was also a very stupid act the what he did was give the united states its fondest wish uh there's a long issue goes back right through the whole cold war period as to whether europe will move on an independent course become what used to be called a third force maybe along the lines outlined by the goal later by gorbachev when the soviet union collapsed uh calling for what they called a common european home with no military alliances there are good uh certainly commercial trade security reasons why this would be beneficial to all the russians did make various offers in that direction so did the united states pre-clinton so in the early 90s the united states did initiate a program called partnership for peace which was it didn't eliminate nato but it sort of sidelined it you could be a member of the partnership for peace without being a member of nato so tajikistan for example was a member russia was interested they moved repeatedly towards trying to join somehow with uh western europe with europe uh that continued so in uh 27 the year 27 putin made a important speech in munich and which was quite conciliatory and constructive various ideas about how they could cooperate was ignored on top of this i should say that the united states was carrying out actions with nato that directly threatened russian interests was also doing it in a way which purposely humiliated russia the assumption was russia is defeated we can do anything we like so the bombing of serbia in 1999 serbia was a russian ally wasn't even informed just bomb serbia there was a pretext for totally fraudulent pretext the pretext was that nato was intervening to stop atrocities that was an outright lie the atrocities were the consequence of the bombing and the anticipated and predicted consequence we have definitive evidence of that kosovo was that were saturated with osce observers they were giving regular reports we know exactly what happened but there's been massive lying about it inverting the chronology another case of straight aggression uh the bombing of libya was a direct pro uh attack on the russians the united states it was mainly france and england then the united states joined they succeeded in passing a u.n security uh security council resolution calling for a no-fly zone russia agreed not to veto it with a promise from nato that they would not do anything beyond enforcing the no-fly zone they immediately violated that and became essentially the air force of the ro of the rebels toward the country to shreds uh invasion of iraq of course was a unprovoked criminal aggression threatening to russia but the russian concerns were simply disregarded they lost they're finished they're weak we can do what we like well finally it got to the point where it reached the red lines georgia russia did react strongly then comes ukraine so now what about joining nato the let's go back to what has been the main issue right through the cold war should europe become an independent third force in a european common home from the atlantic to the euros and the coals the gauls formulation gorbachev's formulation from lisbon to vladivostok no military alliances that's been the issue putin saw the united states of course wanted the nato atlanticist version where it's in control uh putin solved the problem by giving the united states the greatest wish it could want europe totally under its control what about finland and sweden joining nato now here we're facing an interesting contradiction in european thinking on the one hand europeans are exalting over the fact that the russian army proved to be so incompetent and broken down that they could not capture cities 30 kilometers from their border so it's a empty shell on the other hand they're saying it's such an enormous danger that we have to defend ourselves against an attack by this army against uh western europe doesn't make any sense uh finland and sweden gain nothing by joining nato except giving the united states the gift that it wants of dominating europe there is no there has been no threat to any of the to the baltic countries right through the cold war austria finland were neutral and never any threat to them there's certainly no reason why there should be a threat today when we have just seen that the russian army is incapable of even as i said capturing cities a couple of miles from its border the what notice that all the talk virtually all the talk is about how to deal with war something's missing how about the talk about how to deal with peace how about an effort to spare ukrainians further tragedy we all know that a war ends in one of two ways either one side destroys the other or there's a negotiated settlement what's going to happen here now russia is not going to be destroyed it's too powerful to be may lose the war in ukraine it's not going to be destroyed uh ukraine can be destroyed russia has the capacity to destroy ukraine we know that in fact it has the capacity to destroy the world certainly ukraine so one possibility is ukraine will be destroyed the other possibility is a negotiated settlement well actually zielinski has proposed a variety of steps towards a negotiated settlement we don't know if russia will accept them they've indicated some varying degrees of support the united states has been strongly opposed the u.s position remains officially what it was in the statements of last september and last november door open to ukraine entering nato advanced military weapons joint training joint exercises that means no negotiations uh china which could be of assistance in moving towards negotiations has not done so staying on the sidelines you should notice that the chinese position is i think is subject to criticism but we should remember it's the same as the us position participating in negotiations uh and it's also pretty much the position of most of the world the global south has been staying on the sidelines you know they're they they deplore the invasion condemn it but they say basically what's new uh you've been doing this to us forever so what's the fuss about uh we condemn it but we're not going to join you and uh that's pretty much the global situation if you look at so what should we be talking about we should be talking about how to save ukraine from destruction and that means moving towards negotiations not hampering them not staying away from them but focusing on them and seeing what can be achieved we don't know you can have all kind of speculations about what's in putin's mind but we know one thing for certain if we don't try to enter into diplomacy and negotiations there won't be any that's obvious it's very unlikely that russia and ukraine alone can reach a negotiated settlement it will involve great bar power participation as is always the case in negotiations you look at them bosnia anyone you look at there's always great power participation it's the way the world works so the concentration of our efforts and energy should be on trying to see if we can bring about a diplomatic settlement instead of fighting to the last ukrainian which is basically the operative policy that's not my phrase incidentally i'm borrowing it from uh ambassador jaz freeman one of the most respected figures in the diplomatic service the person who was in fact involved in trying to create the partnership for peace in the early 90s and one of the many who was bitterly opposed to clinton's violation of the agreements we talked about finland and sweden joining nato do you believe that buffers you talked about great power politics great power competition do you believe that buffer zones between great powers are a good thing it's better than war but there's something still better a european common home in which there are no military alliances that's what we should be striving for uh i as far as i know there's only one european statesman who's sort of moving in that direction that's macron his abortive efforts at negotiations with russia were small moves towards establishing something like the de gaulle gorbachev vision of a common european home with no military alliances if the kremlin had a single person who resembled a statesman anyone like a statesman they would have used that opportunity they would have exploited the opportunity to draw europe into a common alliance with russia with no military alliances either side none many advantages for europe uh trade relations are obvious security reasons are obvious kremlin could have pursued that option would it have macro sort of gave an opening would it have worked you never know unless you try you refuse to try instead reach for the gun that's the normal way that powerful figures act so let's invade let's give hand europe over to the united states on a silver platter that destroy the possibilities for peace that's unfortunately the choice that was made as i say if there had been anyone with the vision of someone like gorbachev might have been different to what extent do you believe that the united states and russia are already at war with one another through the war in ukraine they are indirectly at war the united states russia invaded ukraine it's now mass apparently massing forces for what looks like a major attack in the donbass region along the border um so they're obviously at war the united states is well i mentioned its official stand this is before the invasion but it remains so um it's indirectly at war both sides know that if this war turns into an actual war we're all finished it's the end can't have a nuclear war between the major powers and conceivable destroys everything so those are that's where we stand incidentally it's not only nuclear war the putin gave a huge gift to the fossil fuel industry it means they're exalting they're euphoric the environment they're free from pressures from environmentalists they're not being criticized they're being praised for increasing fossil fuel production uh helping to ensure that the climate will be destroyed and human life will organized human life will not be able to persist there being lauded for that as saving civilization from putin it's very hard to surpass the euphoria in the offices of the main weapons producers lockheed martin and the fossil fuel producers they've just given a go ahead to go ahead and destroy the world as quick as you can they love it that's one of putin's contributions how do you when you look at the war in ukraine how do you assess the risk of nuclear war or world war three nobody can assess the risks we just know that it's possible and that's too much of a risk you have to not only calculate the risk but consider the consequences if there's a nuclear war we're finished the end of the human experiment okay that's what the risk is uh it's not a risk worth taking to what extent do you believe that we are in a new cold war because sometimes it is now framed as a sort of a sort of competition between systems between democracy and autocracy do you believe that's the case or do you believe that's that's wrong well if you wanted to take a look at the major u.s allies so they were the main recipients of u.s military aid are israel apartheid state democracy for jews not for others uh egypt is the second largest recipient the worst most brutal dictatorship in egypt's ugly history uh other leading allies are saudi arabia united arab emirates the most reactionary harsh anti-democratic states in the world take a look at the record of the united states which leads this western alliance it's a record of overthrowing parliamentary democracies over and over iran guatemala chile is it brazil do i have to run through the record the long history of contempt of for parliamentary democracy where's of course russia's a highly autocratic state but worse than the ones that are the main us allies i mean how can anybody talk with a straight face about a conflict between democracy and of autocracy it's not even a joke what do you think we learn about the western world and sort of spreading so-called western values in the world do we learn anything when we look uh towards ukraine and the war there that's why the global south is staying out of this and in fact cracking up with ridicule when they hear the west talk about western values in africa in asia in latin america you want to talk about western values i mean literally cracking up in ridicule amazed that westerners can even produce these words they know what western values are in fact they see it right now it's not in the past they see western values in the european reaction to refugees fleeing from centuries of european violence and destruction i don't have to run through the european record in africa okay countries are wrecked destroyed people are fleeing in terror what does europe do let them drown in the mediterranean set up bases in nigeria to prevent them from getting to the mediterranean that's european values want to see more of european values look at afghanistan millions of people literally are facing starvation millions real starvation there is food in the markets but people with a little money have to watch their children starve because of western values the united states stole afghans funds 10 billion dollars are stolen sitting in new york banks so that afghan mothers can watch their children starve and not go to the market because they can't get to their bank accounts that's western values or they can look at say yemen worst humanitarian crisis in the world mainly the result of saudi and emirati bombing the blockade blockade of the one port odaida port how does that happen with the us's pouring with the brit british and some european countries or pouring in weapons providing training providing the intelligence without which they can't function that's european values now we'd also look at the past invasion of iraq that's european values tearing the country to the shreds the region to threads inciting ethnic conflicts that didn't exist that's european values if you look at it from outside the european propaganda bubble to what extent do you believe that history is cyclical and what can we learn from uh from thinking about that do you think it is cyclical because we sort of are entering into a new more ballistic phase of history are we not i don't think it's cyclical i think there are consistent tendencies which show up in one or another way as circumstances change so since the second when you look back through history for centuries uh britain and france were the world dominant powers hideous destructive record i mean it's concealed but it's barely beginning to open up so in britain which was you look at british wealth uh go back to the 18th century uh the richest country in the world was india and china india had about 25 of world gdp when the that's when the british barbarians came in and through the east india company then the army and destroyed india the industrialized it stole its higher technology by the time the british got through india had three percent of world gdp thanks to british benevolence and western values uh what about the rest of the world apart from destroying and robbing india britain gained its wealth by piracy sir francis drake other elizabethan heroes were pirates robbing spanish ships that's a large part of british wealth later it turned to the most vicious system of slavery in human history totally different from past systems in the west indies finally in the american south cotton was the fuel of the 19th century industrial revolution had half cheap cotton he got it by vicious brutal murderous slavery ruined africa by stealing its younger population and of course hideous conditions in the caribbean and then finally the american south then britain turned to the world's largest narco-trafficking operation opium was one of the main commodities in world trade in the 19th century run mainly by the british large part of their reason for conquering india was to in control of the opium trade so that they could force their way into china by gunboats and drugs lord many of the fortunes the great fortunes in england and the united states come from narco-trafficking one example is franklin dylan or roseville his wealth came from the delano side of the family nor major norco traffickers joining in the british system well that's european values was taken over by the united states when the u.s replaced britain after the second world war and it continued don't have to run through the record isn't it's not cyclic similar about similar you could say the same about russia russia was you go back to the 15th century russia a little before that russia was the duchy of moscow it expanded and became an empire okay what we call the soviet union was an empire expanding from russia in fact much of what was in russia is also imperial conquest just as much of what's in the united states in the united states is imperial conquest where where i'm sitting right now happens to be arizona occupied mexico half of mexico was stolen by a war of aggression let alone destroying the native american populations just mainly almost exterminated well that's history is it sickly takes different forms not pretty do you believe that the competition between the united states and china will as it is often said define the 21st century well let's take a look at the competition uh it's quite one-sided but there's something called a china threat what exactly is the china threat are they in placing have as china formed a military alliance with mexico where it's uh inviting mexico into a chinese run military alliance supplying heavy weapons to mexico carrying out joint military operations with mexico i haven't heard that in fact mexico is a sovereign country but cannot do any of these things uh the proposal for ukraine is the same it should be like mexico sovereign country no u.s military no alliance with a hostile military alliance no supply of heavy weapons joint program military programs with nato and so on in other words be like mexico well if we were to look at things from the point of view of the global south they don't see any difference between the diplomatic proposals for ukraine and what's normal life mexico for example the united states is reacting to the so-called china threat by the official policy is encirclement of china the official policy encirclement with what are called sentinel states uh australia uh japan uh south korea which have to be provided with not only advanced weapons but under biden increased precision guided missiles aimed at china and circling it that's one way we deal with the so-called china threat the other way is in a way more interesting uh the united states has fallen well way behind in infrastructure in science technology it led the world it's now being undermined from within well one way to deal with that is to build up u.s science technology infrastructure and so on because the united states needs it can't do that there is in fact a bill in congress past congress to do some of these things it's called the china competition act we can only put resources into improving our society in order to overcome china this is pathology deep cultural pathology something deeply wrong with western culture that can only see things in these terms how about moving to cooperate with china on issues on which we must cooperate over all finished like global warming pandemics nuclear war peaceful relations and so on can't consider that we have to compete with them and make sure that there's no competitor with us in the world that we dominate the world well that's the way britain acted too when the american revolution took place king george iii king of england warned that this would lead to the downfall of the british empire by erosion now the great statesmen of europe maternity and others warned that the threat of republicanism meaning democracy from the new american state would endanger global order it would fall apart because of this threat they had to contain it okay that's these are themes that run right through history they're continuous uh united states now uses them why why in fact is china a threat but why is cuba a threat well united states is a very free country so we know the answer the united states unlike other countries is free enough so that we have access to internal documents we know not perfect of course but much beyond any other country so we have documents from the 1960s when kennedy was carrying out a major terrorist war against cuba and extremely harsh sanctions were imposed which remained until today to try to strangle and destroy cuba it was a threat what was the threat read the documents state department explained the threat of cuba is cuba's successful defiance of u.s policies going back to the the monroe doctrine which declared the u.s intention to dominate the hemisphere couldn't implement it at that time britain was much too strong but over time came to be the case cuba is defying policies going back to the 1820s and doing it successfully intolerable threat we have to destroy them well that's cuba china's a little bigger than cuba and china doesn't follow u.s orders it's not like europe europe follows u.s orders uh europe opposes strongly opposes the sanctions against cuba the sanctions against iran openly publicly opposes them completely uh supports them lives by them they're afraid of alienating the united states well china's not like that they don't get pushed around they go in their own way it's a threat that cannot be tolerated that's why you have to have a china competition act when you want to improve u.s infrastructure that's why we have to send a fleet of nuclear submarines to australia uh uh china has nothing like it in the south china sea but we have to be sure to dominate the world right now the u.s the u.s has nuclear sub-tridents of marines each of which according to the military each of which can destroy to about 200 cities all over the world one submarine got to get rid of them they're not powerful enough we have to replace them by more powerful submarines because we have to make sure that china doesn't carry out successful defiance nothing new britain acted the same way in a more limited way so did france so did russia in its own area that's great power politics nothing cyclic you mentioned pathologies in western culture and i was wondering what do you think are the sort of pros and cons of western culture what are the good things and bad things about it it's like everything it's a mixed story take the enlightenment the enlightenment greatly advanced their first of all our understanding of the world but also our moral values out of the enlightenment came abolitionism [Music] democratic popular control of governments much else on the other hand out of the enlightenment came by far the worst genocide in human history extermination of most of the population maybe 80 million people in the western hemisphere hideous slavery new form of racism which hadn't existed that's the other side of the enlightenment so history is a complicated affair uh there are take take the united states again i've talked about negative side i also mentioned a positive side it's the only country in the world that i know of which is free enough so that citizens can get some knowledge of what their government is doing not too much but some you don't want to go too far so julian assange now is uh has been under torture for six years now held in a high security prison threatened with the life sentence in the u.s prison system which is terrorism why because he revealed things that emit information that the government didn't want to reveal about u.s crimes the press meanwhile i don't know about denmark but in western europe and the united states is happily using all the information he received but refusing to support him okay so what are western values it's mixed i have two more questions my second to last is i know that spreading western values and spreading western culture spreading democracy has obviously often been a pretense for starting illegal wars for starting illegal acts but is there do you believe that there is any way of spreading the good in western culture in the world and what would that look like sure that's not going to come from government can come from the populations if you look at the advances and they have been very significant in moral level in cultural level and so on they've come from popular action slavery came from popular opposition in england in the united states finally leading to a war uh in uh other countries it was the same that's how slavery ended in much earlier in mexico and later in brazil and so on about women's rights they didn't come from the benevolence of government they came from feminist movements going back centuries picking up strongly in the 1960s so same with everything else freedom of speech is one of the greatest american achievement came from public action the supreme court made its strong first strong judgments in support of freedom of speech in the 1960s the atmosphere of liberation that was being created by popular activism and that's the way it works so yes we can expand the values that the west professes but doesn't live up to we can expand those values by popular engagement and we see that happening right now on the most important question that humans have ever faced in their history how to stop destruction to the environment it's not coming from governments it's coming from young people the greater thunders extinction rebellion that's where it's coming from and it's having some effect not enough now putin has managed to drive it far back uh but that's the way it's happened through history there's no reason to expect any change so how do you think the war in ukraine can end how do you think it will end well there are two possibilities one is a negotiated settlement the other is escalation which will probably lead to the destruction of ukraine and maybe uh international war if you can think of a third possibility i'll be happy to hear it nobody suggested it and i think that tells us what you should be doing exerting our efforts to try to see if a diplomatic settlement can be reached and here we can if we like to listen to ukraine listen to president zielinski what has he proposed he's proposed neutralization of ukraine which is supposed to be putin's main demand putting crimea on the sidelines or for later negotiation and working out some arrangement with the dunbas regions through diplomacy i think we should be supporting that we're not we're undermining it the u.s explicitly in the uh policy statements that i cited earlier from just a few months ago but we should be supporting it that's what we should be worrying about that's far more important than figuring out what kind of weapons to send the ukraine that's not going to lead to it the only solution which will save ukraine from destruction we can escalate the war to the point where putin will have his back against the wall there's nothing to lose i'm going to go to war crimes trial i'm charged with genocide i might as well go all out could get to that then ukraine is finished professor chomsky thank you so much for your time thank you [Music] you

Channel: Geopolitics Joe

Views: 126,963

Keywords: Putin, Ukraine, NATO, Chomsky, USA, Alliance, War, Finland, Sweden, Joining NATO, NATO Expansion, world news, breaking news, breaking news today live, independent media

Id: YdCuW66pOQ8

Length: 49min 58sec (2998 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 13 2022