Noam Chomsky: Putin, Ukraine, China, and Nuclear War

00:00:00.000 | "Will there be a war between US and China

00:00:03.280 | "in the 21st century?"

00:00:05.240 | - If there is, we're finished.

00:00:08.200 | A war between the US and China

00:00:11.800 | would destroy the possibilities of organized life on Earth.

00:00:16.600 | - The following is a conversation with Noam Chomsky,

00:00:21.440 | his second time on the podcast.

00:00:23.600 | This episode is focused on the war in Ukraine,

00:00:27.560 | and it is a departure from the way I usually do this podcast

00:00:31.120 | in several ways.

00:00:32.720 | Noam is a strong and healthy 93-year-old,

00:00:35.800 | but this conversation is remote, so be cautious.

00:00:39.240 | It is brief, only one hour.

00:00:43.040 | It is more of an interview than a conversation

00:00:45.480 | due to the limitations of our audio and video connection.

00:00:50.480 | I decided it's best to get Noam's clear thoughts

00:00:53.240 | on this war and the complicated geopolitics of today

00:00:56.920 | and the rest of the 21st century

00:00:59.280 | that is unrolling before us,

00:01:01.440 | with our decisions and actions fully capable

00:01:04.520 | of either helping humanity flourish

00:01:06.720 | or unleashing global destruction and suffering.

00:01:10.960 | As a brief aside, perhaps you know this,

00:01:13.560 | but let me mention that I traveled to Ukraine

00:01:16.720 | and saw, heard, felt things that are haunting

00:01:20.600 | and gave me a lot to think about.

00:01:23.080 | Because of that, I've been really struggling

00:01:24.880 | to edit the videos I recorded.

00:01:27.120 | I hope to finish it soon.

00:01:29.000 | I'm sorry for these delays,

00:01:30.760 | and I'm especially sorry to the people there

00:01:32.720 | who gave me their time, their story, their heart.

00:01:36.160 | Please be patient with me.

00:01:38.920 | I hope you understand.

00:01:40.080 | This is the Lex Riedman Podcast.

00:01:42.960 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:45.040 | in the description.

00:01:46.480 | And now, dear friends, here's Noam Chomsky.

00:01:50.080 | You have studied and criticized

00:01:52.840 | powerful leaders and nations

00:01:55.040 | in times of global conflict and struggles for power.

00:01:57.960 | So let me ask you,

00:02:00.640 | what do you think motivates Vladimir Putin?

00:02:03.640 | Is it power, legacy, fame, geopolitical influence,

00:02:07.280 | or the flourishing of a nation he loves and represents?

00:02:11.840 | I have no particular insight into Putin's mind.

00:02:18.360 | I can only watch the actions over the last 20, 25 years

00:02:23.360 | and read the statements.

00:02:27.280 | Took power about almost 25 years ago,

00:02:32.600 | has held it since as prime minister or president.

00:02:37.440 | His first task was to try to overcome the chaos and disarray

00:02:44.040 | of the 1990s.

00:02:49.040 | During the '90s, Gorbachev had a proposal.

00:02:56.960 | He called for a cooperative enterprise with the West.

00:03:04.520 | They would share an effort to rebuild

00:03:10.920 | what he called a common European home

00:03:14.600 | in which there would be no military alliances,

00:03:19.000 | just Russia, Western US accommodation

00:03:24.000 | with a move towards social democracy

00:03:27.800 | and former USSR

00:03:31.920 | and comparable moves in the United States.

00:03:36.400 | Well, that was quickly smashed.

00:03:39.160 | The United States had no interest in that.

00:03:41.920 | Clinton came along pretty soon, early '90s.

00:03:47.200 | Russia was induced to adopt what was called shock therapy,

00:03:53.680 | a harsh, quick market transformation

00:04:01.080 | which devastated the economy,

00:04:04.200 | created enormous social disarray,

00:04:07.160 | rise of what are called oligarchs, kleptocrats,

00:04:13.800 | high mortality.

00:04:17.880 | And Clinton started the policy of expanding NATO to the East

00:04:22.880 | in violation of firm, unambiguous promises

00:04:28.760 | to Gorbachev not to do so.

00:04:31.160 | Yeltsin, Putin's friend, opposed it.

00:04:35.640 | Other Russian leaders opposed it, but they didn't react.

00:04:39.920 | They accepted it.

00:04:42.240 | When Putin came in, he continued that policy.

00:04:46.000 | Meanwhile, did reconstruct the Russian economy.

00:04:49.960 | Russian society became a viable,

00:04:53.240 | deeply authoritarian society.

00:04:56.080 | Under his tight control,

00:04:59.520 | he himself organized a major kleptocracy

00:05:04.520 | with him in the middle, barely became very wealthy.

00:05:09.440 | On the international front,

00:05:10.960 | he pretty much continued the former policies.

00:05:14.160 | As US diplomats, practically every diplomat

00:05:19.160 | who had any contact with Russia

00:05:23.400 | had been dispatched there, knew about it,

00:05:26.320 | as they all warned from the '90s

00:05:28.840 | that what Clinton was doing, expanded by Bush,

00:05:33.840 | Bush too afterwards, was reckless and provocative,

00:05:39.480 | that Russia did have a clear red line before Putin,

00:05:44.560 | which he adhered to, namely no NATO membership

00:05:49.440 | for Ukraine and Georgia.

00:05:51.640 | This is pretty much how things went on

00:05:58.200 | through the 2000s, 2014, 2008.

00:06:03.200 | George Bush, President Bush did invite Ukraine

00:06:09.600 | to join NATO, that was vetoed by France and Germany,

00:06:14.440 | but under US pressure, it was kept on the agenda.

00:06:18.880 | The Russians continued to object to Western diplomats,

00:06:23.040 | including the present current head of the CIA,

00:06:27.880 | his predecessors warned that this was reckless,

00:06:32.160 | provocative, shouldn't be done, continued.

00:06:35.560 | Putin didn't do much, he stayed with it

00:06:40.320 | until pretty recently.

00:06:42.400 | After 2014, the uprising that threw out

00:06:47.400 | the former president who was pro-Russian,

00:06:53.560 | instituted anti-Russian laws,

00:06:57.720 | the United States and NATO began to,

00:07:01.360 | a policy of moving to effectively integrate Ukraine

00:07:06.360 | into the NATO command, joint military exercises,

00:07:13.080 | training, sending weapons and so on.

00:07:17.320 | Putin objected, other Russian leaders objected,

00:07:22.680 | they're unified on this, but didn't do much.

00:07:26.840 | Continued with the proposals that NATO,

00:07:31.840 | that Ukraine be excluded from NATO,

00:07:36.200 | and that there be some form of autonomy

00:07:40.640 | for the Donbass region.

00:07:43.360 | Meanwhile, in reaction to the uprising,

00:07:48.360 | the Maidan uprising, 2014, Russia moved in

00:07:53.080 | and took over Crimea, protecting its warm water base

00:07:58.080 | and major naval base.

00:08:01.440 | US objected and recognized it,

00:08:05.080 | but things continued without notable conflict.

00:08:10.080 | Won't go through all the details.

00:08:11.960 | When Joe Biden came in, he expanded the program

00:08:16.960 | of what US military journals call a de facto war,

00:08:22.520 | de facto integration of Ukraine within NATO.

00:08:26.680 | Developed, proposed September 2021,

00:08:32.520 | proposed enhanced program of preparation

00:08:36.760 | for NATO admission, extended with a formal statement

00:08:41.760 | in November, we're now practically up to the invasion.

00:08:48.680 | Putin's position hardened.

00:08:50.440 | France, mainly France, to an extent Germany,

00:08:55.920 | did make some moves towards possible negotiations.

00:09:00.920 | Putin dismissed them, moved on to the direct invasion.

00:09:07.000 | That's, what are his, to get back to your question,

00:09:14.560 | what motivates him?

00:09:16.840 | I presume what he's been saying all along,

00:09:20.120 | namely establishing his legacy as a leader

00:09:26.360 | who overcame the extensive destruction of Russia

00:09:31.360 | and massive weakening over it,

00:09:35.880 | restored his position as a world power,

00:09:39.000 | prevented Ukraine from entering NATO.

00:09:42.880 | May have further ambitions as to dominating

00:09:47.560 | and controlling Ukraine, very likely.

00:09:50.800 | There is a theory in the West

00:09:53.600 | that he suddenly became a total madman

00:09:57.280 | who wants to restore the great Russian empire.

00:10:01.600 | This is combined with gloating over the fact

00:10:07.760 | that the Russian military is a paper tiger

00:10:12.480 | that can't even conquer cities

00:10:15.760 | a couple of kilometers from the border,

00:10:18.600 | but defended not even by a regular army.

00:10:23.000 | But somehow along with this,

00:10:26.200 | he's planning to attack NATO powers, conquer Europe,

00:10:31.200 | who knows what.

00:10:32.960 | It's impossible to put all these concepts together.

00:10:36.800 | They're totally internally contradictory.

00:10:39.920 | So what's my judgment?

00:10:42.360 | I think what motivates him

00:10:45.520 | is what he's been demonstrating in his actions.

00:10:49.240 | Restore Russia as a great power,

00:10:53.120 | restore its economy, control it as a total dictatorship,

00:10:58.120 | enrich himself and his cronies,

00:11:04.040 | establish a legacy as a major figure in Russian history,

00:11:10.040 | make sure that Ukraine does not join NATO,

00:11:15.040 | and probably by now he's hardened the position,

00:11:20.040 | maintain Crimea and the southeastern corridor to Russia,

00:11:25.040 | and some ambiguous agreements about the Donbass region.

00:11:31.240 | That looks like his motivation.

00:11:35.960 | There's much speculation that goes beyond this,

00:11:39.160 | but it's very hard to reconcile

00:11:42.120 | with the assessment of the real world

00:11:47.120 | by the same people who are making the grandiose speculations.

00:11:52.200 | - Putin has been in power for 22 years.

00:11:57.800 | Do you think power has corrupted him?

00:11:59.680 | - I don't think anything's changed.

00:12:04.360 | It seems to me his policies

00:12:07.320 | are about the same as what they were.

00:12:09.280 | They've changed in response to changed circumstances.

00:12:14.280 | So very recently, right before the invasion,

00:12:18.640 | a few weeks before, for the first time,

00:12:22.480 | Putin announced recognition of the independence

00:12:27.480 | of the Donbass region.

00:12:30.400 | That's a stronger position than before,

00:12:33.040 | much stronger.

00:12:34.480 | Up till then, he had pretty much kept

00:12:36.640 | to the longstanding position of some kind of accommodation

00:12:41.640 | within a federal structure in which the Donbass region

00:12:47.360 | would have considerable autonomy.

00:12:49.920 | So that's a harshening of the position.

00:12:52.880 | - So even the human mind of Vladimir Putin, the man?

00:12:56.760 | - I can't read his mind.

00:12:59.120 | I can only see the policies that he's pursued

00:13:02.400 | and the statements that he's made.

00:13:04.720 | There are many people speculating about his mind.

00:13:08.600 | And as I say, these speculations are, first of all,

00:13:13.000 | not based on anything, never said anything

00:13:16.680 | about trying to conquer NATO.

00:13:19.480 | But more importantly, they are totally inconsistent

00:13:23.920 | with the analyses of Russian power

00:13:27.480 | by the same people who are making the speculations.

00:13:31.240 | So we see the same individual speculating

00:13:36.040 | about Putin's grandiose plans to become Peter the Great

00:13:41.040 | and conquer, start attacking NATO powers,

00:13:48.680 | on the one hand, saying that, on the other hand,

00:13:51.680 | gloating over the fact that his military power

00:13:54.960 | is so minuscule he can't even conquer

00:14:00.680 | towns a couple of miles from the border.

00:14:03.160 | Well, it's impossible to make sense of that position.

00:14:05.960 | - Why did Russia invade Ukraine on February 24th?

00:14:11.760 | Who do you think is to blame?

00:14:15.120 | Who do you place the blame on?

00:14:16.720 | - Well, who's to blame?

00:14:19.920 | Any power that commits aggression is to blame.

00:14:24.040 | So I continue to say, as I have been for many months,

00:14:29.800 | that the invasion, Putin's invasion of Ukraine

00:14:34.120 | is on a par with such acts of aggression

00:14:38.640 | as the US invasion of Iraq, the Stalin-Hitler invasion

00:14:43.640 | of Poland, other acts of supreme international crime

00:14:50.920 | under international law, aggression.

00:14:56.280 | Of course, he's to blame.

00:14:58.080 | - The US committed 6.9 billion in military assistance

00:15:01.600 | to Ukraine since the Russian invasion.

00:15:03.760 | Should US keep up with this support?

00:15:07.360 | - There are two questions.

00:15:10.120 | One has to do with providing support

00:15:13.560 | for defense against the invasion,

00:15:16.000 | which is certainly legitimate.

00:15:18.160 | The other is seeking ways to end the crime

00:15:22.840 | before even worse disasters arise,

00:15:27.920 | now that second part is not discussed in the West,

00:15:31.600 | barely discussed.

00:15:33.520 | Anyone who dares to discuss it is immediately subjected

00:15:37.880 | to a flood of invective and a hysterical condemnation.

00:15:42.880 | But if you're serious about Ukraine,

00:15:46.040 | there are two things you ask.

00:15:48.040 | One, what can we do to support Ukraine

00:15:52.160 | in defense against aggression?

00:15:54.560 | Second, how can we move to end the war

00:15:58.760 | before it leads to even worse destruction of Ukraine,

00:16:03.760 | more starvation worldwide, reversing the efforts,

00:16:08.840 | the limited efforts to deal with global warming,

00:16:12.240 | possibly moving up an escalation ladder to war,

00:16:16.200 | the nuclear war.

00:16:17.320 | That's the second half of the borrower phrase

00:16:23.720 | attributed to Winston Churchill.

00:16:25.840 | There's a lot of war, war, but no joy, jaw, joy.

00:16:32.320 | And there ought to be jaw, joy,

00:16:34.960 | if you care about Ukraine and the rest of the world.

00:16:37.760 | Can it be done?

00:16:40.080 | We don't know.

00:16:41.360 | Official US policy is to reject a diplomatic settlement,

00:16:46.360 | to move to weaken Russia severely

00:16:51.880 | so that it cannot carry out further aggression,

00:16:56.280 | but not do anything on the jaw, jaw side,

00:17:00.960 | not think of how to bring the crimes

00:17:05.040 | and atrocities to an end.

00:17:06.720 | That's the second part of the question.

00:17:10.360 | So yes, the US should continue

00:17:14.240 | with the kind of calibrated support

00:17:18.480 | that's been given the Pentagon wisely

00:17:22.840 | as vetoed initiatives to go well beyond support for defense

00:17:27.840 | up to attack on Russia.

00:17:34.960 | So for the Pentagon, which seems to be the dovish component

00:17:39.960 | in the US administration has vetoed plans,

00:17:44.400 | which very likely would lead on to nuclear war,

00:17:47.880 | which would destroy everything.

00:17:50.040 | So calibrated provision of weapons to blunt the offensive,

00:17:55.040 | allow Ukraine to defend itself.

00:17:58.280 | If sensible combined with efforts to see

00:18:04.560 | if something can be done to bring the crimes

00:18:09.120 | and atrocities to an end and avert

00:18:12.440 | the much worse consequences that are in store,

00:18:16.640 | that would be all instead the US only dealing with the first

00:18:21.440 | and all of our discussions limit themselves to the first

00:18:25.440 | in the United States and in Britain, not in Europe.

00:18:28.320 | - Do you worry about nuclear war in the 21st century?

00:18:33.080 | How do we avoid it?

00:18:35.040 | - Anyone who doesn't worry about nuclear war

00:18:38.680 | doesn't have a gray cell functioning.

00:18:41.160 | Of course, everyone is worried about nuclear war

00:18:44.680 | or should be.

00:18:46.120 | It's very easy to see how steps could be taken.

00:18:50.240 | Even been recommended that would lead to nuclear war.

00:18:54.000 | So you can read articles even by liberal commentators

00:18:59.840 | who say we should drop all the pretenses,

00:19:03.640 | just go to war against Russia.

00:19:05.200 | They have to be destroyed.

00:19:06.600 | You can see proposals coming from Congress,

00:19:13.560 | the leading figures saying we should establish

00:19:17.240 | a no fly zone.

00:19:19.320 | Pentagon objects, they point out correctly

00:19:23.640 | that to establish a no fly zone,

00:19:26.520 | you have to have control of the air,

00:19:29.880 | which means destroying Russian air defense systems,

00:19:34.880 | which happen to be inside Russia.

00:19:37.760 | We don't know that Russia won't react.

00:19:41.920 | Even the call now almost universal

00:19:46.520 | to ensure that Ukraine wins,

00:19:49.280 | drives out all the Russians,

00:19:51.760 | drives them out of the country,

00:19:53.920 | sounds nice on paper,

00:19:56.040 | but notice the assumption.

00:19:57.720 | The assumption is that Vladimir Putin,

00:20:02.320 | this madman who just seeks power and is out of control,

00:20:07.320 | will sit there quietly,

00:20:09.880 | accept defeat, slink away,

00:20:13.120 | not use the military means that of course he has

00:20:18.120 | to destroy Ukraine.

00:20:20.200 | One of the interesting comments that came out

00:20:23.120 | in today's long article,

00:20:26.760 | I think Washington Post reviewing a lot of leaks from,

00:20:31.760 | actually not leaks,

00:20:34.280 | actually presented by US intelligence and US leaders

00:20:38.240 | about the long buildup to the war.

00:20:41.200 | One of the points it made was surprised

00:20:44.240 | on the part of British and US leaders

00:20:48.040 | about Putin's strategy and his failure to adopt,

00:20:53.040 | to fight the war the way the US and Britain would,

00:20:56.920 | with real shock and awe,

00:20:59.480 | destruction of communication facilities,

00:21:02.680 | energy facilities and so on.

00:21:04.600 | They can't understand why he hasn't done all that.

00:21:07.800 | Well, could, if you wanna make it very likely

00:21:12.440 | that that'll happen,

00:21:14.280 | then insist on fighting until somehow Russia

00:21:19.280 | faces total defeat.

00:21:21.880 | Then it's a gamble,

00:21:25.280 | but if he's as crazy and insane as you claim,

00:21:29.080 | presumably we'll use weapons that he hasn't used yet

00:21:32.880 | to destroy Ukraine.

00:21:36.040 | So the West is taking an extraordinary gamble

00:21:40.280 | with the fate of Ukraine,

00:21:42.880 | gambling that the madman, lunatic,

00:21:47.040 | mad Vlad won't use the weapons he has to destroy Ukraine

00:21:52.040 | and set the stage for escalation of the latter,

00:21:56.800 | which might lead to nuclear war.

00:21:59.160 | It's quite a gamble.

00:22:00.640 | - How much propaganda is there in the world today,

00:22:03.200 | in Russia, in Ukraine, in the West?

00:22:05.640 | - It's extraordinary.

00:22:07.760 | In Russia, of course it's total.

00:22:11.720 | Ukraine is a different story.

00:22:14.320 | They're at war, expect propaganda.

00:22:17.880 | In the West, well, let me quote Graham Fuller,

00:22:22.880 | very highly placed in US intelligence,

00:22:28.400 | one of the top officials for decades,

00:22:32.440 | dealing mostly with Russia and Central Asia.

00:22:36.320 | He recently said that in all the years of the Cold War,

00:22:40.200 | he's never seen any extreme Russophobia

00:22:45.200 | to the extent that he sees today.

00:22:49.960 | That's pretty accurate.

00:22:51.280 | I mean, the US has even canceled Russian outlets,

00:23:02.120 | which means if you wanna find out what Sergey Lavrov,

00:23:07.120 | other Russian officials are saying,

00:23:10.560 | you can't look it up on their own outlets.

00:23:13.800 | You have to go through Al Jazeera,

00:23:18.120 | Indian state television or someplace

00:23:21.480 | where they still allow Russian positions to be expressed.

00:23:26.480 | And of course the propaganda is just outlandish.

00:23:31.000 | I think Fuller is quite correct on this.

00:23:34.640 | In Russia, of course, you expect total propaganda.

00:23:38.160 | There's nothing, any independent outlets,

00:23:43.160 | such as there were, have been crushed.

00:23:45.720 | - If the media is a source of inaccuracies and even lies,

00:23:51.760 | then how do we find the truth?

00:23:54.400 | - I don't regard the media as a source of inaccuracies

00:23:59.840 | and lies.

00:24:01.280 | They do exist, but by and large,

00:24:04.560 | media reporting is reasonably accurate.

00:24:09.200 | Reporters, the journalists themselves,

00:24:12.960 | as in the past do courageous, honest work.

00:24:17.960 | I've written about this for 50 years.

00:24:23.520 | My opinion hasn't changed,

00:24:26.800 | but they do pick certain things and not other things.

00:24:31.800 | There's selection, there's framing,

00:24:35.280 | there's ways of presenting things.

00:24:37.280 | All of that forms a kind of propaganda system,

00:24:43.560 | which you have to work your way through,

00:24:46.240 | but it's rarely a matter of straight outright lying.

00:24:50.280 | - So there's a difference between propaganda and lying.

00:24:54.560 | - Of course, a propaganda system shapes and limits

00:24:59.560 | the material that's presented.

00:25:02.960 | It may tell the truth within that framework.

00:25:05.520 | So let me give you a concrete example,

00:25:09.640 | which I wrote about extensively.

00:25:12.400 | I have a book called "Manufacturing Consent"

00:25:17.560 | jointly with Edward Herman.

00:25:20.880 | It's about his term,

00:25:23.360 | which I accepted a propaganda model of the media.

00:25:27.320 | A large part of the book is defense of the media,

00:25:31.240 | defense of the media against harsh attacks by Freedom House.

00:25:36.240 | Several volumes they've published attacking the media,

00:25:40.920 | charging that the media were so adversarial and dishonest

00:25:45.920 | that they lost the war in Vietnam.

00:25:48.600 | Well, I took the trouble of reading through the two volumes.

00:25:52.880 | One volume is charges, the next volume is evidence.

00:25:57.880 | Turns out that all of the evidence is lies.

00:26:02.440 | They had no evidence.

00:26:04.320 | They were just lying.

00:26:06.040 | The media, in fact, were doing,

00:26:07.760 | the journalists were doing an honest, courageous work,

00:26:12.640 | but within a certain framework,

00:26:16.960 | a framework of assuming that the American cause

00:26:21.000 | was basically just, basically honorable,

00:26:25.120 | making mistakes, doing bad things,

00:26:28.960 | but all the idea of questioning

00:26:32.960 | that the United States was engaged in a major war crime.

00:26:37.960 | That's off the record.

00:26:40.920 | So unfortunately, there was this crime and that crime,

00:26:44.840 | which harmed their effort to do good and so on.

00:26:49.840 | Well, that's not lying, it's propaganda.

00:26:53.360 | - So how do we find the truth?

00:26:54.960 | - How do we find the truth?

00:26:57.600 | That's what you have a brain for.

00:27:00.240 | It's not deep.

00:27:02.280 | It's quite shallow.

00:27:04.760 | It's not quantum physics.

00:27:07.440 | Put a little effort into it.

00:27:09.640 | Think about, look for other sources.

00:27:13.560 | Think a little about history.

00:27:15.600 | Look at the documentary record.

00:27:17.600 | It all pretty well falls together

00:27:20.880 | and you can get a reasonable understanding

00:27:23.600 | of what's happening.

00:27:25.200 | - If you could sit down with Vladimir Putin

00:27:27.400 | and ask him a question or talk to him about an idea,

00:27:32.720 | what would you say?

00:27:34.640 | - I would walk out of the room,

00:27:37.680 | just as with almost any other leader.

00:27:40.560 | I know what he's gonna say.

00:27:41.920 | I read the party line.

00:27:43.280 | I read his pronouncements.

00:27:45.160 | Doesn't wanna hear from me.

00:27:47.280 | Am I gonna say, "Why did you carry out a crime

00:27:51.000 | "that's comparable to the US invasion of Iraq

00:27:55.240 | "and the Stalin-Hitler invasion of Poland?"

00:27:58.840 | Am I gonna ask that question?

00:28:00.560 | If I met with John F. Kennedy, say,

00:28:06.600 | would I ask, "Why did you radically escalate

00:28:10.480 | "the war in Vietnam, launch the US Air Force,

00:28:14.600 | "start, authorize an A-bomb, drive launch programs

00:28:19.600 | "to drive the villagers who you know

00:28:23.200 | "are supporting the National Liberation Front,

00:28:26.520 | "drive them into concentration camps

00:28:29.520 | "to separate them from the forces they're defending?"

00:28:32.800 | Would I have asked him that?

00:28:34.200 | Of course not.

00:28:37.160 | - Do you think the people who led us

00:28:38.800 | into the war in Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq,

00:28:43.800 | the war in Ukraine, are evil?

00:28:49.800 | - I mean, it's very hard to be in a position of leadership

00:28:56.320 | of a violent, aggressive power

00:29:00.960 | without carrying out evil acts.

00:29:03.240 | Are the people evil?

00:29:08.080 | I mean, I'm not their moral advisors.

00:29:12.320 | I don't know anything about them.

00:29:13.640 | I look at their actions, their statements,

00:29:16.640 | their policies, evaluate those.

00:29:20.000 | Other families can evaluate their personalities.

00:29:24.360 | - Will there be a war between US and China

00:29:27.520 | in the 21st century?

00:29:29.440 | - If there is, we're finished, okay?

00:29:34.400 | A war between the US and China

00:29:38.000 | would destroy the possibilities of organized life on Earth.

00:29:43.000 | In fact, we can put it differently.

00:29:45.840 | Unless the US and China reach an accommodation

00:29:50.840 | and work together and cooperatively,

00:29:55.840 | it's very unlikely that organized human society will survive.

00:30:00.960 | We are facing enormous problems.

00:30:04.280 | Problems, destruction of the environment, pandemics,

00:30:10.200 | a threat of nuclear war.

00:30:15.200 | None of these decline of democratic functioning

00:30:20.200 | of an arena for rational discourse,

00:30:24.200 | and none of these things have boundaries.

00:30:26.800 | We either work together to overcome them,

00:30:30.600 | which we can do, or we'll all sink together.

00:30:34.440 | That's the real question we should be asking.

00:30:37.520 | What the United States is doing is not helping.

00:30:41.120 | So current US policy, which is perfectly open,

00:30:46.840 | nothing secret about it,

00:30:48.880 | is to what's called encircle China,

00:30:53.360 | it's the official word, with sentinel states.

00:30:58.240 | South Korea, Japan, Australia,

00:31:03.240 | which will be heavily armed,

00:31:07.800 | provided by Biden with precision weapons aimed at China,

00:31:13.760 | backed by major naval operations,

00:31:19.080 | huge naval operation just took place in the Pacific.

00:31:23.560 | Many nations participating,

00:31:25.480 | RIMPAC didn't get reported here as far as I know,

00:31:29.120 | but an enormous operation threatening China.

00:31:32.920 | All of this to encircle China,

00:31:36.240 | to continue with policies like that.

00:31:41.080 | Somebody like Pelosi, just to probably to make her look more,

00:31:47.240 | I don't know what her motives are,

00:31:53.800 | taking a highly provocative, stupid act

00:31:57.720 | opposed by the military, opposed by the White House.

00:32:02.360 | Yes, acts like that, which of course,

00:32:05.000 | called forth the response of highly dangerous.

00:32:09.080 | We don't have to do that.

00:32:11.360 | We don't have to increase the threat.

00:32:14.600 | I mean, right now, the last NATO summit, take a look at it.

00:32:20.080 | For the first time, it invited to attend countries

00:32:25.080 | that are in the sentinel states surrounding China,

00:32:30.800 | encircling China from the east.

00:32:32.720 | And it in fact extended the range of NATO

00:32:38.840 | to what's called the Indo-Pacific region.

00:32:42.000 | So all of us, by now the North Atlantic

00:32:44.680 | includes the whole Indo-Pacific region

00:32:48.040 | to try to ensure that we can overcome

00:32:51.440 | the so-called China threat.

00:32:55.120 | Suddenly we might ask exactly what the China threat is.

00:32:59.680 | It's done sometimes.

00:33:03.720 | So former Prime Minister of Australia, Paul Keating,

00:33:08.720 | well-known international diplomat,

00:33:12.440 | had an article a while ago in the Australian press.

00:33:16.280 | That's right in the claws of the dragon,

00:33:19.200 | asking, going through what the China threat is.

00:33:22.560 | He ran through the various claims, finally concluded,

00:33:26.920 | the China threat is that China exists.

00:33:29.680 | It exists, it does not follow US orders.

00:33:34.560 | It's not like Europe.

00:33:36.560 | Europe does what the United States tells it to do,

00:33:40.120 | even if it doesn't like it.

00:33:42.200 | China just ignores what the US says.

00:33:45.360 | There's a formal way of describing this.

00:33:50.040 | There are two versions of the international order.

00:33:54.200 | One version is the UN-based international order,

00:33:59.960 | which theoretically we subscribe to, but we don't accept.

00:34:04.920 | The UN-based international order

00:34:07.480 | is unacceptable to the United States

00:34:11.040 | because it bans US foreign policy.

00:34:15.280 | Literally, it explicitly bans the threat

00:34:19.920 | or use of force in international affairs,

00:34:24.360 | except under circumstances that almost never arise.

00:34:27.960 | Well, that's US foreign policy.

00:34:30.480 | Try to find the president who isn't engaged

00:34:33.480 | in the threat or use of force in international affairs.

00:34:37.040 | Okay, so obviously we can't accept

00:34:39.520 | the UN-based international system,

00:34:44.400 | even though under the Constitution,

00:34:46.440 | that's the supreme law of the land, but it doesn't matter.

00:34:50.120 | So the United States has what's called

00:34:52.960 | a rule-based international order.

00:34:56.720 | That's acceptable because it's the United States

00:35:00.840 | that sets the rules.

00:35:02.800 | So we want a rule-based international order

00:35:06.600 | where the US sets the rules.

00:35:08.480 | In commentary in the United States, even in scholarship,

00:35:14.880 | almost 100% calling for a rule-based international order.

00:35:19.880 | Is that false?

00:35:22.880 | No, it's true.

00:35:24.200 | Is it propaganda?

00:35:25.880 | Of course it's propaganda because of what's not said

00:35:29.840 | and because of what's presupposed.

00:35:32.120 | An answer to an earlier question.

00:35:34.800 | Well, China does not accept

00:35:37.840 | the rule-based international order.

00:35:40.600 | So when the US imposes demands,

00:35:43.800 | Europe may not like them, but they follow them.

00:35:47.520 | China ignores them.

00:35:50.720 | So take, for example, the US sanctions on Iran.

00:35:55.320 | The US has to punish Iran because the United States

00:36:01.560 | pulled out of the, unilaterally pulled out of the Ukraine,

00:36:06.000 | the Iran nuclear agreements.

00:36:09.120 | So in order to punish Iran for wrecking the agreements

00:36:14.120 | in violation of Security Council orders,

00:36:17.840 | we impose very harsh sanctions.

00:36:20.760 | Europe strongly opposes the sanctions,

00:36:24.560 | condemn them harshly, but it adheres to them

00:36:28.960 | because you don't disobey US orders.

00:36:35.400 | That's too dangerous.

00:36:37.200 | China ignores them.

00:36:39.400 | They're not keeping to the rule-based international order.

00:36:44.400 | Well, that's unacceptable.

00:36:46.720 | In fact, it's said pretty openly.

00:36:50.200 | You can hear the Secretary of State and others saying

00:36:54.120 | China is challenging our global hegemony.

00:36:58.760 | Yes, they are.

00:37:00.160 | They don't accept US global hegemony,

00:37:03.400 | especially in the waters off China.

00:37:06.840 | So that's a China threat.

00:37:09.720 | They do a lot of rotten things, China.

00:37:12.560 | I mean, internally, there's all kinds of repression,

00:37:15.080 | violence, and so on.

00:37:17.120 | But first of all, it's not a threat to us.

00:37:19.640 | And second, the US doesn't care about it

00:37:22.280 | because it easily accepts and supports

00:37:25.640 | comparable crimes and atrocities internal to allies.

00:37:30.560 | So yes, we should protest it, but without hypocrisy.

00:37:35.640 | We have no standing to protest it.

00:37:37.640 | We support comparable things in all sorts of other places.

00:37:42.320 | And just take a look at the US foreign aid.

00:37:45.400 | The leading recipient is US foreign aid is Israel,

00:37:50.760 | which is engaged in constant terror, violence,

00:37:54.200 | and repression, constant, almost daily.

00:37:57.800 | Second leading recipient is Egypt,

00:38:00.600 | under the worst dictatorship in Egypt's history.

00:38:05.440 | That's 60,000 people in jail,

00:38:09.240 | political prisoners, tortured, and so on.

00:38:12.320 | Do we care?

00:38:13.320 | No.

00:38:14.160 | Second leading recipient.

00:38:16.040 | I mean, what are we talking about?

00:38:18.560 | That's why most of the world just laughs at us.

00:38:21.080 | There's a lot of failure to understand here

00:38:26.520 | about why the global South doesn't join us

00:38:30.400 | in our proxy war against Russia,

00:38:35.040 | fighting Russia until it's severely weakened.

00:38:38.320 | They don't join us.

00:38:40.080 | Here, the question is what's wrong with them?

00:38:42.320 | Look into their minds to figure out what's wrong.

00:38:48.040 | They have a different attitude.

00:38:49.960 | They say, yes, we oppose the invasion of Ukraine,

00:38:54.960 | terrible crime, but what are you talking about?

00:38:58.600 | This is what you do to us all the time.

00:39:01.440 | You don't care about crimes like this.

00:39:04.080 | That's most of the global South.

00:39:06.720 | We can't comprehend that 'cause we're so insulated

00:39:11.040 | that we are just obviously right

00:39:13.440 | and everyone who doesn't go along must be wrong.

00:39:16.080 | - Do you think the United States as a global leader,

00:39:20.840 | as an empire, may collapse in this century?

00:39:24.280 | Why and how will it happen and how can we avoid it?

00:39:29.360 | - The United States can certainly harm itself severely.

00:39:34.360 | That's what we're doing right now.

00:39:39.840 | Right now, the greatest threat to the United States

00:39:43.720 | is internal countries tearing itself apart.

00:39:48.720 | I mean, I really don't have to run through it with you.

00:39:57.560 | Take a look at something as elementary as mortality.

00:40:02.560 | The United States is the only country.

00:40:05.960 | Outside of war, life expectancy is declining.

00:40:10.480 | Mortality is increasing.

00:40:12.480 | This doesn't happen anywhere.

00:40:14.000 | You take a look at health outcomes generally.

00:40:18.800 | They're among the worst among the developed societies

00:40:23.040 | and health spending is about twice as high

00:40:26.040 | as the developed societies.

00:40:28.360 | You look at the charts, all of this starts

00:40:30.920 | around the late 1970s, early '80s.

00:40:34.520 | To go back to that point, the United States

00:40:38.040 | was pretty much a normal developed country

00:40:41.800 | in terms of mortality, incarceration,

00:40:46.800 | health expenses, other measures.

00:40:50.400 | Since then, the United States has fallen off the chart.

00:40:54.080 | It's gone way off the chart.

00:40:57.040 | Well, that's the neoliberal assault of the last 40 years.

00:41:02.040 | It's had a major effect on the United States.

00:41:05.600 | It's left a lot of anger, resentment, violence.

00:41:10.560 | Meanwhile, the Republican Party

00:41:12.200 | has simply drifted off the spectrum.

00:41:15.480 | It's not a normal political party in any usual sense,

00:41:19.960 | not what it used to be.

00:41:21.680 | Its main policy is block anything

00:41:26.160 | in order to regain power.

00:41:27.840 | That's its policy.

00:41:29.080 | It's stated almost openly by McConnell,

00:41:32.760 | followed religiously by the entire Congress.

00:41:37.760 | That's not the acts of a political party.

00:41:43.360 | So of course, democracy's declined,

00:41:47.880 | violence has increased.

00:41:51.800 | The judgments, the decisions of the Supreme Court,

00:41:56.560 | the Court's the most reactionary court in memory.

00:42:00.480 | To go back to the 19th century,

00:42:02.400 | decision after decision is an effort

00:42:06.320 | to create a country of white supremacist

00:42:11.320 | Christian nationalists.

00:42:13.360 | I mean, it's scarcely hidden.

00:42:17.280 | If you read the opinions of Alito, Thomas,

00:42:22.000 | Gorsuch and others.

00:42:24.560 | So yes, we can destroy ourselves within.

00:42:31.800 | And in fact, the ways we're doing it are almost astonishing.

00:42:36.280 | So it's well known, for example,

00:42:38.280 | everybody knows that US infrastructure,

00:42:42.160 | the bridges, subways and so on is in terrible shape.

00:42:47.440 | Needs a lot of repair.

00:42:49.640 | The American Association of Engineers

00:42:51.880 | gives it a failing mark every year.

00:42:55.600 | All right, finally, Congress did pass

00:42:57.760 | a limited infrastructure bill.

00:43:01.160 | Say rebuild bridges and so on.

00:43:03.840 | It has to be called a China Competition Act.

00:43:07.120 | We can't rebuild their bridges

00:43:10.600 | 'cause they're falling apart.

00:43:12.800 | We have to rebuild their bridges to beat China.

00:43:16.840 | It's pathological.

00:43:18.080 | And that's what's happening inside the country.

00:43:23.160 | Take Thomas's decision in the recent case

00:43:29.240 | in which he invalidated a New York law.

00:43:34.920 | This is last October, a couple of weeks ago.

00:43:38.760 | Invalidated a New York law going back to 1913

00:43:43.920 | that required people to have some justification

00:43:48.320 | if they wanted to carry concealed weapons in public.

00:43:51.640 | He was through that with a very interesting decision.

00:43:56.120 | He said, the United States, he said,

00:43:59.800 | is such a decaying, collapsing, hateful society

00:44:04.800 | that people just have to have guns.

00:44:09.280 | I mean, how can you expect somebody

00:44:10.880 | to go to the grocery store without a gun

00:44:14.440 | in a country as disgusting and hideous as this one?

00:44:19.040 | It's essentially what he said.

00:44:20.560 | Those weren't his words, but they were the import.

00:44:24.240 | - What gives you hope about the United States,

00:44:29.400 | about the future of human civilization?

00:44:33.200 | - Human civilization will not survive

00:44:38.160 | unless the United States takes a lead,

00:44:42.680 | a leading position in dealing with and overcoming

00:44:47.680 | the very severe crises that we face.

00:44:51.320 | United States is the most powerful country,

00:44:54.000 | not only in the world, but in human history.

00:44:56.720 | There's nothing to compare with it.

00:44:59.120 | What the United States does has an overwhelming impact

00:45:04.120 | on what happens in the world.

00:45:07.280 | When the United States pulls out alone,

00:45:11.600 | pulls out of the Paris agreements

00:45:15.040 | on dealing with climate change

00:45:17.720 | and insists on maximizing the use of fossil fuels

00:45:22.720 | and dismantling the regulatory apparatus

00:45:27.360 | that provides some mitigation,

00:45:29.920 | when the United States does that, as it did under Trump,

00:45:33.200 | it's a blow to the future of civilization.

00:45:37.920 | When Republican states today, right now,

00:45:42.920 | say they're gonna punish corporations

00:45:47.480 | that seek to take climate change into account

00:45:51.840 | in their investments, the US is telling the world,

00:45:55.760 | we wanna destroy all of us.

00:45:57.920 | Again, not their words, but their import.

00:46:02.600 | That's what they mean.

00:46:04.400 | So as long as we have a political organization

00:46:09.400 | dedicated to gaining power at any cost,

00:46:14.000 | maximizing profit, no matter what the consequences,

00:46:18.240 | no future for human civilization.

00:46:21.440 | - Noam, thank you for talking today.

00:46:26.040 | Thank you for talking once again.

00:46:28.560 | And thank you for fighting

00:46:30.560 | for the future of human civilization.

00:46:33.040 | Again, thank you.

00:46:34.920 | - Thank you.

00:46:35.760 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

00:46:38.680 | with Noam Chomsky.

00:46:40.000 | To support this podcast,

00:46:41.280 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

00:46:44.280 | And now let me leave you with some words from Voltaire.

00:46:47.080 | "It is forbidden to kill.

00:46:49.920 | "Therefore all murderers are punished

00:46:52.600 | "unless they kill in large numbers

00:46:55.720 | "and to the sound of trumpets."

00:46:57.680 | Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

00:47:01.760 | (upbeat music)

00:47:04.340 | (upbeat music)

00:47:06.920 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

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

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