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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
1:51 - Putin's motivations
14:57 - War in Ukraine
22:00 - Propaganda
29:24 - China and American relations
44:24 - Hope for humanity

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Will there be a war between US and China in the 21st century?

A war between the US and China would destroy the possibilities of organized life on earth.

The following is a conversation with Noam Chomsky, his second time on the podcast.

This episode is focused on the war in Ukraine.

And it is a departure from the way I usually do this podcast in several ways.

Noam is a strong and healthy 93 year old, but this conversation is remote to be cautious.

It is more of an interview than a conversation due to the limitations of our audio and video connection.

I decided it's best to get Noam's clear thoughts on this war and the complicated geopolitics of today and the rest of the 21st century that is unrolling before us, with our decisions and actions fully capable of either helping humanity flourish or unleashing global destruction and suffering.

As a brief aside, perhaps you know this, but let me mention that I traveled to Ukraine and saw, heard, felt things that are haunting and gave me a lot to think about.

Because of that I've been really struggling to edit the videos I recorded.

I'm sorry for these delays and I'm especially sorry to the people there who gave me their time, their story, their heart.

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

And now, dear friends, here's Noam Chomsky.

You have studied and criticized powerful leaders and nations in times of global conflict and struggles for power.

So let me ask you, What do you think motivates Vladimir Putin?

Is it power, legacy, fame, geopolitical influence, or the flourishing of a

I have no particular insight into Putin's mind.

I can only watch the actions over the last

He took power about almost 25 years ago, has held it since as prime minister or president.

His first task was to try to overcome the chaos and disarray of the 1990s.

During the 90s, Gorbachev had a proposal.

He called for a cooperative enterprise with the West.

They would share an effort to rebuild what he called a common European home, in which there would be no military alliances, just Russia, Western US accommodation, with a move towards social democracy and former USSR and comparable moves in the United States.

The United States had no interest in that.

Clinton came along pretty soon, early 90s.

Russia was induced to adopt what was called shock therapy, a harsh, quick market transformation which devastated the economy, created enormous social disarray, rise of what are called oligarchs, kleptocrats, high mortality.

And Clinton started the policy of expanding NATO to the east in violation of firm, unambiguous promises to Gorbachev not to do so.

Other Russian leaders opposed it, but they didn't react.

When Putin came in, he continued that policy.

Meanwhile, did reconstruct the Russian economy, Russian society became a viable, deeply authoritarian society under his tight control.

He himself was organized a major kleptocracy with him in the middle, he apparently became very wealthy.

On the international front, he pretty much continued the former policies as US diplomats, practically every diplomat who had any contact with Russia that had been dispatched there knew about it, as they all warned from the 90s that what Clinton was doing, expanded by Bush, Bush too afterwards, was reckless and provocative, that Russia did have a clear red line before Putin, which he adhered to, namely no NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia.

This is pretty much how things went on through the 2000s.

In 2008, George Bush, President Bush, did invite Ukraine to join NATO.

That was vetoed by France and Germany, but under US pressure it was kept on the agenda.

The Russians continued to object to Western diplomats, including the present current head of the CIA and its predecessors, warned that this was reckless, provocative, shouldn't be done, continued.

the uprising that threw out the former president who was pro-Russian, instituted anti-Russian laws.

The United States and NATO began a policy of moving to effectively integrate Ukraine into the NATO command, joint military exercises, training, sending weapons, and so on.

Putin objected, other Russian leaders objected, they're unified on this, but didn't do much.

Continued with the proposals that Ukraine be excluded from that Ukraine be excluded from NATO, and that there be some form of autonomy for the Donbass region.

Meanwhile, in reaction to the uprising, the Maidan uprising in

Russia moved in and took over Crimea, protecting its warm water base and major naval base.

The US objected and recognized it, but things continued without notable conflict.

When Joe Biden came in, he expanded the program of what US military journals call a de facto integration of Ukraine within NATO.

proposed an enhanced program of preparation for NATO admission.

It was extended with a formal statement in November.

We're now practically up to the invasion.

France, mainly France, to an extent Germany, did make some moves towards possible negotiations.

Putin dismissed them, moved on to the direct invasion.

What are his, to get back to your question, what motivates him?

I presume what he's been saying all along, namely, establishing his legacy as a leader who overcame the extensive destruction of Russia, a massive weakening over it, restored its position as a world power, prevented Ukraine from entering NATO.

It may have further ambitions as to dominating and controlling Ukraine, very likely.

There is a theory in the West that he suddenly became a total madman who wants to restore the great Russian Empire.

This is combined with gloating over the fact that the Russian military is a paper tiger that can't even conquer cities a couple of kilometers from the border, but defended not even by a regular army.

But somehow along with this, he's planning to attack NATO powers, conquer Europe, who knows what.

It's impossible to put all these concepts together.

They're totally internally contradictory.

I think what motivates him is what he's been demonstrating in his actions.

Restore Russia as a great power, restore its economy, control it as a total dictatorship, enrich himself and his cronies, establish a legacy as a major figure in Russian history, make sure that Ukraine does not join NATO, and probably by now he's hardened the position, maintain Crimea and the southeastern corridor to Russia, and some ambiguous agreements about the Donbass region.

There's much speculation that goes beyond this, but it's very hard to reconcile with the assessment of the real world by the same people who are making the Grandiose Speculations

Don't think anything's changed It seems to me as far as policies are about the same as what they were.

They've changed in response to changed circumstances.

So very recently, right before the invasion, a few weeks before, for the first time, Putin announced recognition of the independence of the Donbass region.

That's a stronger position than before, much stronger.

Up till then, he had pretty much kept to the longstanding position of some kind of accommodation within a federal structure in which the Donbass region would have considerable autonomy.

So even the human mind of Vladimir Putin, the man?

I can only see the policies that he's pursued and the statements that he's made.

There are many people speculating about his mind.

And as I say, these speculations are, first of all, not based on anything.

Never said anything about trying to conquer NATO.

But more importantly, they are totally inconsistent with the analyses of Russian power by the same people who are making the speculations.

So we see the same individual speculating about Putin's grandiose plans to become Peter the Great and conquer, start attacking NATO powers.

On the 1 hand, saying that, on the other hand, gloating over the fact that his military powers so minuscule, he can't even conquer towns a couple miles from the border.

Well, it's impossible to make sense of that position.

Why did Russia invade Ukraine on February 24th?

Any power that commits aggression is to blame.

So I continue to say, as I have been for many months, that Putin's invasion of Ukraine is on a par with such acts of aggression as the US invasion of Iraq, the Stalin-Hitler invasion of Poland, other acts of supreme international crime under international law, aggression, of course, he's to blame.

The US committed 6.9 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the Russian invasion.

1 has to do with providing support for defense against the invasion, which is certainly legitimate.

The other is seeking ways to end the crime before even worse disasters arise.

Now that second part is not discussed in the West, barely discussed.

Anyone who dares to discuss it is immediately subjected to a flood of invective and hysterical condemnation.

But if you're serious about Ukraine, There are 2 things you ask.

1, what can we do to support Ukraine in defense against aggression?

Second, how can we move to end the war before it leads to even worse destruction of Ukraine, more starvation worldwide, reversing the efforts, the limited efforts to deal with global warming, possibly moving up an escalation ladder to war, the nuclear war.

That's the second half of the phrase attributed to Winston Churchill.

There's a lot of war, war, but no joy, joy, joy.

And there ought to be joy, joy, if you care about Ukraine and the rest of the world.

Official US policy is to reject a diplomatic settlement, to move to weaken Russia severely so that it cannot carry out further aggression, but not do anything on the jaw-jaw side, not think of how to bring the crimes and atrocities to an end.

So, yes, the US should continue with the kind of calibrated support that's been given.

The Pentagon wisely has vetoed initiatives to go well beyond support for defense up to attack on Russia.

So far, the Pentagon, which seems to be the dovish component in the US administration, has vetoed plans which very likely would lead on to nuclear war, which would destroy everything.

So calibrated provision of weapons to blunt the offensive, allow Ukraine to defend itself, if sensible, combined with efforts to see if something can be done to bring the crimes and atrocities to an end and avert the much worse consequences that are in store.

That would be all instead the US only dealing with the first.

And all of our discussions limit themselves to the first in the United States and in Britain, not in Europe.

Do you worry about nuclear war in the 21st century, how do we avoid it?

Noam Chomsky Anyone who doesn't worry about nuclear war doesn't have a great self-functioning.

Of course, everyone is worried about nuclear war, or should be.

It's very easy to see how steps could be taken, even been recommended, that would lead to nuclear war.

So you can read articles even by liberal commentators who say we should drop all the pretenses, just go to war against Russia.

You can see proposals coming from Congress, the leading figures saying we should establish a no-fly zone.

Pentagon objects, they point out correctly that to establish a no-fly zone, you have to have control of the air, which means destroying Russian air defense systems, which happen to be inside Russia.

Even the call, now almost universal, to ensure that Ukraine wins, drives out all the Russians, drives them out of the country.

It sounds nice on paper, but notice the assumption.

The assumption is that Vladimir Putin, this madman who just seeks power and is out of control, will sit there quietly, accept defeat, slink away, not use the military means that of course he has to destroy Ukraine.

1 of the interesting comments that came out in today's long article, I think Washington Post reviewing a lot of leaks from, actually not leaks, actually presented by US intelligence and US leaders about the long build up to the war.

1 of the points it made was surprised on the part of British and US leaders about Putin's strategy and his failure to adopt the fight to war the way the US and Britain would, with real shock and awe, destruction of communication facilities, energy facilities, and so on.

They can't understand why he hasn't done all that.

If you want to make it very likely that that'll happen, then insist on fighting until somehow Russia faces total defeat, then it's a gamble.

But if he's as crazy and insane as you claim, presumably we'll use weapons that he hasn't used yet to destroy Ukraine.

So the West is taking an extraordinary gamble with the fate of Ukraine, gambling that the madman, lunatic, mad Vlad won't use the weapons he has to destroy Ukraine and set the stage for escalation of the latter, which might lead to nuclear war.

How much propaganda is there in the world today in Russia, in Ukraine, in the West?

In the West, let me quote Graham Fuller, very highly placed in US intelligence, 1 of the top officials for decades, dealing mostly with Russia and Central Asia.

He recently said that in all the years of the Cold War, he's never seen any extreme Russophobia to the extent that he sees today.

I mean, the US has even cancelled Russian outlets, which means if you want to find out what Sergey Lavrov or the Russian officials are saying, you can't look it up on their own outlets.

You have to go through Al Jazeera, Indian state television, or someplace where they still allow Russian positions to be expressed?

And of course, the propaganda is just outlandish.

In Russia, of course, you expect total propaganda.

Any independent outlets, such as there were, have been crushed.

If the media is a source of inaccuracies and even lies, then how do we find the truth?

I don't regard the media as a source of inaccuracies and lies.

They do exist, But by and large, media reporting is reasonably accurate.

Reporters, the journalists themselves, in the past do courageous, honest work.

I've written about this for 50 years, my opinion hasn't changed.

But they do pick certain things and not other things.

There's selection, there's framing, there's ways of presenting things.

All of that forms a kind of propaganda system which you have to work your way through.

But it's rarely a matter of straight outright lying.

So there's a difference between propaganda and lying?

A propaganda system shapes and limits the material that's presented.

It may tell the truth within that framework.

So let me give you a concrete example which I wrote about extensively.

I have a book called Manufacturing Consent jointly with Edward Herman.

It's about his term, which I had accepted a propaganda model of the media.

A large part of the book is defense of the media, Defense of the Media Against Harsh Attacks by Freedom House, several volumes they published attacking the media, charging that the media were so adversarial and dishonest that they lost the war in Vietnam.

Well, it took the trouble of reading through the 2 volumes.

1 volume is charges, the next volume is evidence.

Turns out that all of the evidence is lies.

The media, in fact, were doing, the journalists were doing an honest, courageous work, but within a certain framework, a framework of assuming that the American cause was basically just, basically honorable, making mistakes, doing bad things, but all the idea of questioning that the United States was engaged in a major war crime, that's off the record.

So unfortunately, there was this crime and that crime which harmed their effort to do good and so on.

It all pretty well falls together and you can get a reasonable understanding of what's happening.

If you could sit down with Vladimir Putin and ask him a question or talk to him about an idea, what would you say?

I would walk out of the room, just as with almost any other leader.

Am I going to say, why did you carry out a crime that's comparable to the US invasion of Iraq and the Stalin-Hitler invasion of Poland?

Kennedy, say, would I ask, why did you radically escalate the war in Vietnam?

Launch the US Air Force, start authorizing a bomb, drive launch programs to drive villagers who you know are supporting the National Liberation Front, drive them into concentration camps to separate them from the forces they're defending.

Do you think the people who led us into the war in Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, The war in Ukraine are evil.

I mean, it's very hard to be in a position of leadership of a violent, aggressive power without carrying out evil acts.

I look at their actions, their statements, their policies, evaluate those.

Other families can evaluate their personalities.

Will there be a war between the US and China in the 21st century?

A war between the US and China would destroy the possibilities of organized life on Earth.

Unless the US and China reach an accommodation and work together and cooperatively, it's very unlikely that organized human society will survive.

Problems, destruction of the environment, pandemics, threat of nuclear war.

None of these decline of democratic functioning of an arena for rational discourse, none of these things have boundaries.

We either work together to overcome them, which we can do, or we'll all sink together.

That's the real question we should be asking.

What the United States is doing is not helping.

So the current US policy, which is perfectly open, nothing secret about it, is to what's called encircle China, the official word, with sentinel states, South Korea, Japan, Australia, which will be heavily armed, provided by Biden with precision weapons aimed at China, backed by major naval operations.

A huge naval operation just took place in the Pacific.

Many nations participating, RIMPAC didn't get reported here as far as I know, but an enormous operation threatening China.

All of this to encircle China, to continue with policies like that.

Somebody like Pelosi, just to probably make her look more, I don't know what her motives are, taking a highly provocative, stupid act opposed by the military, opposed by the White House.

Yes, acts like that, which of course, called forth a response of highly dangerous.

I mean, right Now, the last NATO summit, take a look at it.

For the first time, it invited to attend the countries that are in the Sentinel states surrounding China and circling China from the east.

And it in fact extended the range of NATO to what's called the Indo-Pacific region.

So all of us, by now the North Atlantic includes the whole Indo-Pacific region to try to ensure that we can overcome the so-called China threat.

Suddenly, we might ask exactly what the China threat is.

So, Former Prime Minister of Australia, Paul Keating, well-known international diplomat, had an article a while ago in the Australian press, That's right in the claws of the dragon, asking, going through what the China threat is.

He ran through the various claims, finally concluded the China threat is that China exists.

Europe does what the United States tells it to do, even if it doesn't like it.

There are 2 versions of the international order.

1 version is the UN-based international order, which theoretically we subscribe to, but we don't accept.

The UN-based international order is unacceptable to the United States because it bans US foreign policy.

It explicitly bans the threat or use of force in international affairs, except under circumstances that almost never arise.

Try to find a president who isn't engaged in the threat or use of force in international affairs.

Okay, so obviously we can't accept the UN-based international system, even though under the Constitution that's the supreme law of the land, it doesn't matter.

So the United States has what's called a rule-based international order.

That's acceptable because it's the United States that sets the rules.

So we want a rule-based international order where the US sets the rules.

In commentary in the United States, even in scholarship, it's almost

calling for a rule-based international order.

Of course it's propaganda, because of what's not said, and because of what's presupposed, an answer to an earlier question.

Well, China does not accept the rule-based international order.

So when the US imposes demands, Europe may not like them, but they follow them.

So take, for example, the US sanctions on Iran.

The US has to punish Iran because the United States unilaterally pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreements.

So in order to punish Iran for wrecking the agreements in violation of Security Council orders, we impose very harsh sanctions.

Europe strongly opposes the sanctions, condemned them harshly, but it adheres to them Because you don't disobey US orders.

They're not keeping to the rule-based international order.

You can hear the Secretary of State and others saying China is challenging our global hegemony.

They don't accept US global hegemony, especially in the waters off China.

I mean, internally, there's all kinds of repression, violence, and so on.

But first of all, it's not a threat to us.

And second, the US doesn't care about it, because it easily accepts and supports comparable crimes and atrocities internal to allies.

So yes, we should protest it, but without hypocrisy.

We support comparable things in all sorts of other places.

The leading recipient of US foreign aid is Israel, which is engaged in constant terror, violence, and repression, constant, almost daily.

Second leading recipient is Egypt, under the worst dictatorship in Egypt's history.

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Noam Chomsky: Putin, Ukraine, China, and Nuclear War | Lex Fridman Podcast #316