Noam Chomsky: Putin, Ukraine, China, and Nuclear War | Lex Fridman Podcast #316
will there be a war between us and china in the 21st century if there is we're finished 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 in 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 gnome is a strong and healthy 93 year old but this conversation is remote to be cautious it is brief only one hour 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 gnome'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 hope to finish it soon i'm sorry for these delays and i'm especially sorry to the people there who gave me their time their story their heart please be patient with me i hope you understand this is the lex friedman podcast 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 nation he loves and represents i have no particular insight into putin's mind i can only watch the actions over the last 20 25 years and read the statements took power about almost 25 years ago has held it since this prime minister or president his first task was to try to overcome the chaos and disarray of the 1990s during the 90s uh gorbachev had a proposal he uh 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 u.s accommodation with a move towards social democracy in a former ussr and comparable moves in the united states well that was quickly smashed 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 harsh quick market transformation which devastated the economy uh created enormous social or disarray uh 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 uh yeltsin putin's friend opposed it to other russian leaders opposed it but they didn't react they accepted it when putin came in he continued that policy meanwhile didn't 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 it pretty much continued the former policies as u.s diplomats practically every diplomat who had any contact with russia had been dispatched there knew about it as they all warned from the 90s that what clinton was doing expanded by his bush bush ii afterwards was reckless and provocative uh 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 uh 2014 2008 george bush president bush did invite ukraine to join nato that was vetoed by france and germany but under u.s pressure it was kept on the agenda the russians continued to object western diplomats including the present current head of the cia and his predecessors warned that this was reckless provocative shouldn't be done continued uh putin didn't do much he stayed with it until pretty recently after 2014 the uprising that uh throughout the former president who was pro-russian uh instituted anti-russian laws the united states and nato began to a policy of moving to effectively integrate ukraine into the nato command joint military exercises training sending weapons and so on uh putin objected other russian leaders objected their unit unified on this but didn't do much continued with the proposals that uh nato that ukraine be excluded from nato and that uh there be some form of uh autonomy for the dunbas region meanwhile in reaction to the uprising the maidan uprising 2014 russia moved in and took over crimea protecting its one warm water base and a major naval base us objected and recognized it but things continued without notable conflict won't go through all the details when joe biden came in he expanded the program of uh what u.s military journals call a de facto integration of ukraine within nato uh developed proposed september 2021 proposed enhanced program of preparation for the nato admission uh extended with a formal statement in november we're now practically up to the invasion putin's position hardened france mainly france to an extent germany did make some moves towards possible negotiations uh putin dismissed them moved on to the direct invasion uh that's what what are his to get back to your question what motivates him i presume what he's been saying all along uh namely establishing his legacy as a leader who uh overcame the extensive destruction of russia and 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 uh 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 uh 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 uh 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 so what's my judgment 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 uh establish a legacy as a major figure in russian history uh make sure that ukraine does not join nato and probably by now he's pardoned the position maintain crimea and the southeastern quarter of russia and some ambiguous agreements about the dunbas region that looks like his motivation there's much speculation that goes beyond this but it's very hard to reconcile with the uh the assessment of the real world by the same people who are making the uh grandiose uh speculations putin has been in power for 22 years do you think power has corrupted him i don't think anything's changed it seems to me as well his 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 unbest region that's a stronger position than before much stronger up till then he had pretty much kept to the long-standing position of some kind of accommodation within a federal structure in which the donbest region would have considerable autonomy so that's a portioning of the position so even the human mind of vladimir putin the man i can't read his mind 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 and 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 uh putin's grandiose plans to become peter the greats and conquer start attacking the nato powers on the one hand saying that on the other hand including over the fact that his military powers so miniscule he can't even conquer the 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 who do you think is to blame who do you place the blame on well who's to blame any power that commits aggression is to blame so i continue to say as i have been for many months that the invasion putin's invasion of ukraine is on a par with such acts of aggression as the u.s invasion of iraq the stalin hitler invasion of poland other acts of uh supreme international crime under 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 should us keep up with this support there are two questions one 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 uh immediately subjected to a flood of invective and hysterical condemnation but if you're serious about ukraine there are two things you ask one what can we do to support ukraine in defense against aggression second how can we end move to end the war before it leads to even worse destruction of ukraine more starvation worldwide reversing the efforts of limited efforts to deal with global warming possibly moving up an escalation adder to war the nuclear war that's the second half of the borrower phrase attributed to winston churchill uh there's a lot of war war but no joy jaw joy and there ought to be a joy if you care about ukraine and the rest of the world can it be done we don't know official u.s 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 georgia side not think of how to bring the crimes and atrocities to an end that's the second part of the question so yes the u.s should continue with the kind of calibrated support that's been given the pentagon wisely has vetoed the initiatives to go well beyond support for defense up to attack on russia so for the pentagon which seems to be the dovish component in the u.s 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 uh 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 u.s 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 anyone who doesn't worry about nuclear war doesn't have a grey cell functioning of course everyone is worried about nuclear wars or friday it's very easy to see how steps could be taken they've even been recommended that would lead the nuclear war so you can read articles even by liberal commentators who say we should uh drop all the pretenses just go to war against russia they have to be destroyed uh you can see proposals coming from congress the other 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 we don't know that russia won't react even the coal now almost universal to ensure that ukraine wins drives out all the russians drives them out of the country sounds nice on paper that 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 one of the interesting comments that came out in today's long article i think washington post reviewing a lot of leaks from uh actually not leaks actually presented by us intelligence and u.s leaders about the long build up to the war one of the points that made was surprised on the part of british and u.s leaders about putin's strategy and his failure to adopt to fight the war the way the u.s and britain would with real shock and awe destruction of communication facilities of energy facilities and so on they can't understand why he hasn't done all that well could if you want to make it very likely that that'll happen then insist on uh fighting until somehow russia faces total defeat then it's a gamble you know but if he's just crazy and insane as you claim presumably will 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 it's quite a gamble how much propaganda is there in the world today in russia in ukraine in the west it's extraordinary in russia of course it's total ukraine is a different story they're at war expect propaganda in the west well let me quote graham fuller very highly placed in u.s intelligence one 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 rustophotrus russiaphobia to the extent that he sees today that's pretty accurate i mean the us has even cancelled the russian outlets which means if you want to find out what sierra lover of the russian officials are saying you can't look it up on their own outlets you have to go through all jazeera indian state television or some place where they still allow russian positions to be expressed and of course the propaganda is just outlandish i think fuller is quite correct on this and russia of course you expected total propaganda there's nothing any uh 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 as a source of inaccuracies and lies they do exist but by and large media reporting is reasonably accurate uh reporters the journalists themselves does 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 uh 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 of course 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 have a book called manufacturing consent jointly with edward herman it's about the his term which i had accepted the 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 i took the trouble of reading through the two volumes one volume is charges the next volume is evidence turns out that all of the evidence is lies they had no evidence they were just lying 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 but 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 uh harmed their effort to do good and so on well that's not lying it's propaganda so how do we find the truth how do we find the truth that's what you have a brain for it's not deep it's quite shallow it's not quantum physics put a little effort into it think about uh look for other sources think a little about history look at the documentary record uh they're all pretty well fools together 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 i know what he's going to say i read the party line i read his pronouncements doesn't want to hear from me am i going to say why did you carry out a crime that's comparable to the u.s invasion of iraq and the stalin-hitler invasion of poland am i going to ask that question uh if i met with uh john f kennedy today would i ask why did you radically escalate the war in vietnam launch the u.s 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 the defending would have asked him then of course not 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 are the people evil i mean i'm not their moral advisors i don't know anything about them i look at their actions their statements their policies evaluate those their families can evaluate their personalities will there be a war between us and china in the 21st century if there is we're finished okay a war between the u.s and china would destroy the possibilities of organized life on earth in fact we can put it differently unless the us and china reach an accommodation and work together and cooperatively it's very unlikely that organized human society will survive we are facing enormous problems problems of the environment endemics uh threat of nuclear war none of these uh decline of democratic functioning of an arena for rational discourse and none of these things have boundaries we either work together to overcome it overcome them which we can do or will all sync together that's the real question we should be asking what the united states is doing is not helping uh so the current u.s policy which is perfectly open nothing secret about it is to what's called encircle china it's the official word with sentinel states uh south korea japan uh australia uh which will be heavily armed uh provided by biden with precision weapons aimed at china backed by a naval operations huge naval operation just took place in the pacific many nations participating rim bank didn't get reported here as far as i know but an enormous operation threatening china all of this to encircle china uh to continue with policies like that uh somebody like pelosi just to probably to make her look more i don't know what what her motives are taking a highly provocative stupid act opposed by the military opposed by the white house well yes acts like that which of course called forth the response of highly dangerous uh we don't have to do that we don't have to increase the threat i mean right now the last nato summit take a look at it for the first time it invited uh to attend the countries that are in the the sentinel states surrounding china encircling china from the east uh 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 fortunately we might ask exactly what the china threat is it's done sometimes so former prime minister of australia full heating well-known international diplomat i had an article a while ago in the australian press that's right in the clause 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 it exists it does not follow u.s orders it's not like europe europe does what the united states tells it to do even if it doesn't like it china just ignores what the us is now there's a formal way of describing this there are two versions of the international order one 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 u.s foreign policy literally it explicitly bans the threat or use of force in international affairs except under circumstances that almost never arise well that's u.s foreign policy try to find the 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 uh international system even though under the constitution that's the supreme law of the land that 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 u.s hits the rules in commentary in the united states even in scholarship almost 100 calling for a rule-based international order is that false no it's true is it propaganda of course it's propaganda because of what's not said not because of what's presupposed an answer to an earlier question well china does not accept the rule-based international order so when the u.s imposes demands you may not like them but they follow them china ignores them so take for example the uh u.s sanctions on iran the u.s has to punish iran because the united states pulled out of the unilaterally pulled out of the ukraine the iran nuclear agreements so in order to punish the for error wrecking the agreements in violation of security council orders we impose very harsh sanctions the europe strongly opposes the sanctions condemned them harshly but it it adheres to them because you don't disobey u.s orders that's too dangerous china ignores them they're not keeping to the rule-based international order well that's unacceptable in fact it's said pretty openly you can hear the secretary of state and others saying china is challenging our global hegemony yes they are they don't accept u.s global hegemony especially in the waters of china so that's the training through they do a lot of rotten things china i mean internally there's all kind of repression violence and so on but first of all that's not a threat to us and second the u.s 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 have no standing to protest it we supported comparable things and all sorts of other places and just take a look at the us foreign aid the leading recipient is uf 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 about 60 000 people in jail political prisoners tortured and so on do we care no second leading recipient i mean what are we talking about that's why the most of the world just laughs at us you go to there's a lot of uh failure to understand here about why the global south doesn't join us in our uh proxy war against russia fighting russia until it's severely weakened they don't join us here the question is what's wrong with them they look into their minds to figure out what's wrong and they have a different attitude they say yes we oppose the invasion of ukraine terrible crime but what are you talking about this is what you do to us all the time you don't care about crimes like this that's most of the global self we can't comprehend that because we're so insulated that we are just obviously right and everyone who doesn't go along must be wrong do you think the united states as a global leader as an empire may collapse in this century why and how will it happen and how can we avoid it the united states it can certainly harm itself severely that's what we're doing right now right now the greatest threat to the united states is internal countries tearing itself apart uh i mean i really don't have to run through it with you take a look at something as elementary as mortality the united states the only country outside of war life expectancy is declining mortality is increasing this doesn't happen anywhere you take a look at health outcomes generally they're among the worst among the developed societies and health spending is about twice as high as the developed societies you look at the charts all of this starts around the ninth late 1970s early 80s to that if you go back to that point the united states was pretty much a normal developed country in terms of mortality incarceration health expenses other measures since then the united states has fallen off the chart it's gone way off the chart well that's the neoliberal assault of the last 40 years it's had a major effect on the united states it's left a lot of anger resentment violence meanwhile the republican party has simply drifted off the spectrum it's not a normal political party in any usual sense not what it used to be its uh main policy is block anything in order to regain power that's its policy you know stated almost openly by mcconnell followed religiously by the entire leader the entire congress it's not it's that's not the act of a political party it's uh so of course democracies declined the violence is increased the judgments the decisions of the supreme court very the court's the most reactionary court in memory to go back to the 19th century uh decision after decision is an effort to create a country of white supremacist christian nationalists i mean scarcely hidden if you read the opinions of alito thomas gorsuch and others what's uh so yes we can destroy ourselves within and in fact the ways we're doing it are almost astonishing so it's well known for example everybody knows that u.s infrastructure bridges subways and so on is in terrible shape it needs a lot of repair the american association of engineers gives it a failing mark every year all right finally congress did pass a limited infrastructure bill say rebuild bridges and so on it has to be called a china competition act we can't rebuild their bridges because they're falling apart we have to rebuild their bridges to beat china it's pathological and that's what's happening inside the country uh take good thomas's uh decision in the recent case in which he invalidated a new york law this is last october a couple one couple weeks ago and validated a new york law going back to 1913 that required people to have some uh justification if they wanted to carry concealed weapons in public he was through that with a very interesting decision he said the united states he said is such a decaying collapsing hateful society that people just have to have guns i mean how can you expect somebody to go to the grocery store without a gun in a country as disgusting and hideous as this one it's essentially what he said those weren't his words but they were the imports what gives you hope about the united states about the future of human civilization human civilization will not survive unless the united states takes a lead the leading position in dealing with and overcoming the very severe crises that we face the united states the most powerful country not only in the world but in human history there's nothing to compare with it what the united states does has an overwhelming impact on what happens in the world when the united states pulls out alone pulls out of the paris agreements on dealing with climate change and insists on maximizing the use of fossil fuels and dismantling the regulatory apparatus that provides some mitigation when the united states does that as it did under trump it's a blow to the future of civilization when republican states today right now say they're going to punish corporations that seek to take climate change into account in their investments the u.s is telling the world we want to destroy all of us again not their words but their import that's what they mean so as long as we have a political organization dedicated to gaining power at any cost maximizing profit no matter what the consequences no future for human civilization noam thank you for talking today thank you for talking once again and thank you for fighting for the future of human civilization again thank you thank you thanks for listening to this conversation with noam chomsky to support this podcast please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you some words from voltaire it is forbidden to kill therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets thank you for listening and hope to see you next time you