Kind: captions
Language: en
we've got to have strategic empathy
about Putin as well we've got to
understand how the guy thinks and why he
thinks like he does
you know he he has got his own context
in his own frame and his own rationale
and he is rational he is a rational
actor in his own context we've got to
understand that we've got to understand
that he would take offense at something
and he would take action over something
it doesn't mean to say that you know we
are necessary to blame by taking actions
but we are to blame and we don't
understand the consequences of things
that we do and act accordingly or you
know take preventative action or
recognize that something might happen as
a result of something what is the
probability that Russia attacks Ukraine
with the tactical nuclear weapon
the following is a conversation with
Fiona Hill a presidential advisor and
foreign policy expert specializing in
Russia she has served the bush Obama and
Trump administrations including being a
top advisor on Russia to Donald Trump
she has made it to the White House from
humble beginnings in the north of
England a story she tells in her book
there's nothing for you here
this is the Lex Friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's Fiona Hill
you came from Humble beginning in a coal
mining town in Northeast England so what
were some formative moments in your
young life that made you the woman you
are today
I was born in 1965 and it was the period
where the whole coal sector in Britain
was in Decline already
and you know basically my father by the
time I came along had lost his job
multiple times every coal mine he worked
in was closing down he was looking
constantly further work and he had no
qualifications because at age 14 he'd
gone down the mines his father had gone
down the mines at 13 his great
grandfather you know around the same
kind of age I mean you had a lot of
people you know at different points
going down coal mines at 12 13 you know
14 they didn't get educated beyond that
period because the expectation was pay
you're going to go down the mine like
everybody else in your family
although they didn't really have any
other qualifications
to you know basically find another job
Beyond something in manual labor so I
worked in a steel works that didn't work
out a brickworks that closed down and
then he went to work in the local
hospital part of the National Health
Service in the United Kingdom as a
porter an orderly supposedly somebody's
just pushing people around there was no
opportunity to retrain so the big issue
in my family was education you've got to
have one you know you've got to have
some qualifications the world is
changing it's changing really quickly
and for you to kind of keep up with it
you're going to have to
get educated and find a way out of this
I'm very early on my father had
basically said to me there's nothing for
you here
you're going to have to if you want to
get ahead and he didn't have any kind of
idea that as a girl I wouldn't I mean
actually in many respects I think I've
benefited from being a girl rather than
a boy there was no expectation that I
would go into industry uh there was you
know some kind of idea that maybe I you
know if I got qualifications I could be
a nurse my mother was a midwife and so
she'd at age 16 left school and gone to
train as a nurse and then as a midwife I
had other relatives who'd gone to teach
you know in local schools and so there
was an idea that you know women could
get educated and there was a kind of a
range of things that you could do but
the expectation then was
go out there do something with your life
but also a sense that you'd probably
have to leave so all of that was
circling around me particularly in my
teenage years as I mean I was trying to
find my way through life and looking
forward
first of all what does that even look
like uh getting educated given the
context of that place you don't know
there's a whole world of mystery out
there so how do you figure out what to
actually do out there what was there
moments formative moments either
challenging or just inspiring where you
wondered about what you want to be
where you want to go yeah I don't want
me to a number of things I mean I think
like a lot of kids you know you you talk
to people and particularly from Blue
Collar background you said what did you
want to do boys might say I wanted to be
a fireman you know or you got you know
kind of I at one point is a little girl
I wanted to be a nurse and I had little
nurses uniform like my mother I didn't
really know what that meant but you know
I used to go around pretending to be a
nurse I even had a little magazine
called nurse Nancy and I used to read
this and you know kind of that was one
of the formative ideas we also it was a
rural area semi-rural area and you know
I'd be out in the the fields all the
time and I'd watch Farmers you know with
their animals and I'd see vets coming
along and you know watching people deal
with a livestock and there was a kind of
a famous story at the time about a vet
called James Harriet um it became here
in the United States as well and was a
lot of TV mini series he'd written a
book and he was the vet for my uh one of
my uh great aunt's dogs and people were
always talking about him and I thought
oh I could be a vet and then one day I
saw one of the local vets with his hand
up the back side of a cow in a field and
he got his hands stuck and the cow was
kicking him and I thought yeah maybe
maybe not actually no I don't think I
wanted to be a vet so I cycle through
all of these things about okay I could
get an education but the whole sense was
you had to apply your education it
wasn't an education for Education sick
it was an education to do something and
when I was about 14 or 15 my local
Member of Parliament came to the school
and it was one of these you know pep
talks for kids in these you know
deprived areas he had been quite
prominent in local education and now he
was a member of parliament he himself
had come from a really hard Scrabble
background and had risen up through
education had even gone to Oxford and
done philosophy politics and economics
and he basically told my class even
though it was highly unlikely any of us
were really going to get ahead and go to
Elite institutions look you can get an
education you don't have to be held back
by your circumstances but if you do get
an education it's a privilege and you
need to do something with it
so then I'm thinking
well what could I do okay an education
is a qualifications to do something most
people around me I didn't I knew didn't
have careers I mean my dad didn't really
have a career he had jobs my mom you
know thought of her nursing as a career
though and it genuinely was and she was
out there trying to help women uh
survive childbirth my mother had these
horrific stories you know basically over
the dining room table I wish he'd stop
she'd leave out her nursing books and
I'd tell you if everyone had had my mum
as a as a mother there'd be no there'd
be no reproduction on the planet it was
just this Grim horrific stories of
breached births and fistulas and all
kinds of Horrors that my sister and I
would just go oh my God you know what
please stop
so I thought well you know I don't
necessarily want to go in that um in
that direction but it was the timing
that really cinched things for me
I was very lucky that the region that I
grew up County Durham despite the
massive Decline de-industrialization and
the complete collapse of uh the local
government system around me still
maintained money for education and they
also paid for exchanges and we had
exchange programs with cities in Germany
and France also in Russia in Costa Rama
near Yaris level for example no textile
Town similar you know down in its kind
of region but you know quite historic in
the Russian context in fact the original
uh birthplace of the Romanov Dynasty and
customer just as County Durham and it
was quite a distinguished historic area
in the in the British context and so it
was an idea that I could go on exchanges
I could learn languages I studied German
I studied French
and then in 1983
there was the warsker
basically provoked by the Euro methyl
crisis so the station of new categories
of strategic nuclear weapons and
intermediate nuclear weapons in Western
Europe and in Eastern Europe during the
height of the Cold War and the zero
Missile Crisis over ss-20 and Pershing
missiles went on from 1977 so when I was
about 11 or 12 you know all the way
through into the later part of the 1980s
and in 1983 we came extraordinarily
close
to a nuclear conflict it was very much
another rerun of the Cuban Missile
Crisis of 1962 so 20 years on same kind
of thing the Soviets misread although I
didn't know this at the time I know a
lot of this you know after the fact but
the tension was palpable but what
happened was the Soviets misread the
intentions of a series of exercises uh
operation Able Archer that the United
States was conducting and actually
thought that the United States might be
preparing for a first nuclear strike and
that then set up a whole set of literal
chain reactions in the Soviet Union
eventually it was recognized that you
know all of this was really based on
misperceptions and of course you know
that later led to negotiations between
Gorbachev and Reagan for the
intermediate nuclear forces the INF
treaty but in 1983 that tension was just
acute and for as a teenager we were
basically being prepped the whole time
for
um the inevitability of nukaramageddon
there were TV series films in the United
States and the UK threads the day after
we had all these public service
announcements telling us to seek
Sanctuary or cover and the inevitability
of a nuclear blast and you know my house
was so small they said look for a room
without a window there were no rooms
without Windows my dad put on these
really thick curtains over the window
you know and said if there was a nuclear
flash you know we'd have to you know get
down on the floor not look up but the
curtains would help and we were like
this is ridiculous dad and we would all
try to see if we could squeeze in the uh
space under the stairs a cupboard Under
the Stairs like Harry Potter I was all
just you know totally nuts or go or you
had to throw yourself in a ditch if you
were outside
and I thought well this this isn't going
to work and one of my great uncles who
had fought in World War II said well
look you're good at languages Fiona why
didn't you go and study Russian try to
figure it out figure out why the
Russians are trying to blow us up
because you know during the go talk to
them they're exactly during World War II
yeah the United Kingdom the United
States and the Soviet Union had all been
wartime allies and my uncle Charlie
thought well there's something gone
wrong here maybe you can figure it out
and as you said you'd go talk to them so
I thought okay I'll study Russian so
that's really how this came about I
thought well it's applying education
I'll just do my very best to understand
everything I possibly can about the
Russian language and the Soviet Union
and I'll see what I can do and I thought
well maybe I could become a translator
so I had visions of myself sitting
around you know listening to things in a
big headset and in a basically
translating perhaps at some you know
future Arms Control Summit
so how did the journey
continue with learning Russian
I mean this early dream of being a
translator and thinking how can I
actually uh help understand or maybe
help even deeper way with this conflict
that threatens the existence of the
human species
um how did it actually continue
well I mean I read everything I also
actually possibly could about you know
nuclear weapons and nuclear war and you
know it started to try to teach myself
you know Russian a little bit it was a
losing context of nuclear war it was
very much in the context of nuclear this
particular point but also in historical
context because I knew that the United
States and the United Kingdom and the
Soviet Union had been more time allies
in World War II so try to understand all
of that and also
um you know I like many other people I
read you know Russian literature in
Translation I'd read War and Peace and
you know I'd love the book actually I
mean particularly the you know the story
parts of it I wasn't one really at that
at that time when I was a teenager I
thought Tolstoy went on a bit you know
in terms of his theories of the great
man and of history and you know kind of
social change though now I appreciate it
more but when I was about 14 I was like
this man needed an editor you know could
you have just gone on with the story
from an amazing story what an incredible
you know kind of book this is I still
think he needs another book I think his
wife tried didn't you but um he got
quite upset with her and then I kind of
thought to myself well how do I how do I
study Russian because there were very
few schools in my uh region you know
given the impoverishment of the region
where you could study Russian so I would
have to take Russian from scratch
and this is where things get really
quite interesting
because there were opportunities to
study
um Russian at universities but I would
need to have first of all an intensive
Russian language course in the summer
and I didn't have the money for that
and the period is around the miners
strike in the United Kingdom in 1984.
now the miners of County Durham that
very interestingly had exchanges and
ties with the miners of donbass going
back to the 1920s
and as I studied Russian history I
discovered there was lots of contacts
between you know Bolshevik Soviet Union
the early period after the Russian
Revolution but even before that during
the Imperial period in Russia between
the northern England and the Russian
Empire and the old industrial areas
basically big industrial areas like the
northeast of England and places like Don
bass were built up at the same time
Often by the same sets of industrialists
and danetsk in the donbass region used
to be called husicka because it was
established by a Welsh industrialist who
brought in miners from Wales to help you
know kind of develop the coal mines
there and also the the steel works and
others that you know were gearing about
all the time and so I got very
fascinated in all these linkages and you
know famous writers from the early parts
of the Soviet Union like give Guinea
zamyasin worked in the shipyards in
Newcastle upon Tyne and there was just
this whole set of connections
and in 1984
when the miners strike took place the
miners of donbass along with other
miners from famous coal regions like
Duro Valley for example in Germany or
mine is in Poland
sent money in solidarity to the miners
of County Durham and they've been these
exchanges as I said going back and forth
since the 1920s formal exchanges between
miners you know the region the miners
unions
and I um heard again from the same uh
great uncle who told me to study Russian
that there were actually scholarships of
the children of miners it could be
former miners as well for their
education and I should go along to the
miners Hall Players called Red Hills
where the the minders of country Durham
had actually pulled all of their
resources and built up their own
Parliament and their own you know kind
of players that they could talk among
themselves to figure out how to enhance
the welfare and well-being of their
communities and they'd put money aside
for education for minors there was all
kinds of lecture series from the miners
and all kinds of other activities
supporting soccer teams and artistic
circles and writing circles for example
people like George Orwell you know were
involved in some of these writers
circles in other parts of Britain and
Mining communities for example and so uh
they told me I could you know go along
and basically apply for a grant to go to
study Russian so I show up and it was
the easiest you know application I've
ever come across that just asked me to
my dad came along with me they asked me
to verify you know that my dad had been
a minor and they looked up his
employment record on little cards you
know kind of a little a little tray
somewhere and then they asked me how
much I needed you know to uh basically
pay for the travel and some of the basic
expenses for the um
the study and they wrote me a check
and so thanks to the miners of donbath
and this money that was deposited with
the miners of County Durham with the
Durham miners Association I got the
money to study Russian for the first
time uh before I embarked on my studies
at University as you're speaking now
it's reminding me that there's a
different way to look both at history
and a geography in the different places
is
um
you know this is an industrial region
that's right and it echoes in the
experience of living there
is more captured not by Moscow or Kiev
but by at least historically but by just
being a mining town and Industry that's
right in the place itself yeah yeah I
mean there are places in the United
States and Appalachia and West Virginia
and in Pennsylvania like the Lehigh
Valley that have the same sense of place
on the northeast of England you know was
the Cradle of the Industrial Revolution
it was the Industrial version of the
silica of Silicon Valley which has its
own
I would say Contours and frames and when
you come to those industrial areas your
previous identities get submerged in
that larger framework I've always looked
at the world through that lens of being
you know someone from the working class
the blue collar communities from a very
specific place with lots of historical
and economic connotations
and it's also a Melting Pot which is the
problems that the donbass has
experienced uh over you know the last 30
years that people came from all over the
place to work that of course it was a a
population that one might say is
indigenous you know might have gone back
centuries there but they would have been
you know in the smaller rural farming
communities just like it was the same in
the northeast of England
and people in the case of the northeast
of England came from Wales they came
from further in the south of England the
Midlands they came from Scotland they
came from Ireland
um I have all of that Heritage in my own
personal background
and you've got a different identity
unless when somebody else tries to
impose a den an identity like on you
from the outside that things go awry and
I think that that's kind of what we've
really seen in the case of Don bass it's
a place it's a part in many respects
historically and in terms of its
Evolution and development over time and
you know particularly in the case of you
know Russia uh the Russians have tried
to say well look you know because most
people speak Russia there as the lingua
Franca I mean in the northeast of
England because everyone spoke English
but lots of people were Irish speakers
you know garlic Irish speakers or you
know some of them might have um
certainly been Welsh speakers there was
lots of Welsh miners who spoke Welsh as
their first language who came there you
know but they but they created a an
identity it's the same in Belfast in
Ulster you know the northern province of
um of the you know the whole of the
Irish Island another part of Ireland
that is still part of the United Kingdom
that was also a heavily industrialized
area
um High manufacturing Mass manufacturing
shipbuilding for example people came
from all over there too which is why
when Ireland uh got its independence in
the United Kingdom
Ulster Belfast and that whole region you
know kind of clung on because it was
again that Melting Pot it was kind of
intertwined with the larger industrial
economy and had a very different
identity and so that you know for me
growing up in such a specific place with
such a
special in many respects Heritage gave
me a different perspective on things
when I first went to the Soviet Union in
1987 to study there I actually went to a
translators Institute what was then
called The Morris serez which is now the
Institute of foreign languages
um I was immediately struck by how
similar everything was to the north of
England
because it was just like one big book in
class culture that sort of broken out
onto the national stage everything in
northern England was nationalized
we had British steel British coal
British Rail British shipbuilding
because after World War II the private
sector had been devastated and the state
had to step in and of course the Soviet
Union is one great big giant
nationalized economy when I get there
and it's just the people's attitudes and
outlooks are the same people didn't work
for themselves they always worked for
somebody else and it had a quite a a
distortion on the way that people looked
at the world do you still speak Russian
I do yeah
it would be a big mystery for everybody
and you have an advantage on me because
your native language as well for people
wondering the the English speakers in
the audience you're really missing a lot
from the few sentences we said there
um yeah it's it's a fascinating language
that stretches actually geographically
across a very large part of this world
so there you are in 1987 an exchange
student in the Soviet Union what was
that world like well that was was
absolutely fascinating in that period
because it's the period
That's just around the time of the peak
of perestroika and mikhil Gorbachev's uh
role as president
um while he wasn't quite present at that
point it's all Secretary General of the
Communist part of the Soviet Union
trying to transform the whole place
so I arrived there in September of 1987.
just as Gorbachev and Reagan sign the
INF treaty just within you know kind of
weeks of them about to sign that which
really ends that whole period that had
shaped my entire teenage years of the
end of the euromissile crisis by finally
having agreement on you know basically
the reduction and constraints on
intermediate nuclear forces
and also at this point Gorbachev is
opening the Soviet Union up so we got
all kinds of opportunities to travel in
ways that we wouldn't have done before
um not just you know in Moscow which is
where I was studying its translates into
people to the Caucasus to Central Asia I
went all the way to uh habarovsk in the
the Russian Far East all the way around
you know kind of Moscow and there was at
this point it was also the uh Krish
which has become very important now this
is the anniversary the thousandth
anniversary of the christianization of
um of Russia which of course has become
a massive Obsession of Vladimir Putin's
but you know 988 because I was there 87
to 88 and at this point the Russian
Orthodox Church is undergoing a Revival
from being repressed during the Soviet
period you suddenly have the church
stepping out as a non-governmental
organization and engaging in discussions
with people about the future of religion
uh so that
um was you know something that I wasn't
expecting to to witness
also I mean being in Moscow this is the
cultural capital of a vast Empire at
this point I'd never lived in a major
city before it's the first big city I
lived in I'd never been to the Opera you
know I I the first time I got an opera
it's at the ball joy and I'd never seen
a ballet I mean I was not exactly
steeped in high classical culture when
you're kind of growing up in a in a
mining region you know there's very
limited opportunities for this kind of
thing I've been in an abuse Orchestra
and a used choir my parents signed me up
property everything you know they
possibly could education wise but it
wasn't exactly any exposure to this so
you know I was kind of a standard by the
sort of wealth of the cultural
experience that one could have in Moscow
but the main thing was I was really
struck by how the Soviet Union was on
its last legs because this was Moscow
you know I got this image about what it
would look like I was quite to be honest
terrified at first about what I would
see there if you know the big nuclear
superpower and as soon as I got there it
was just this like as if a huge weight
that I'd been carrying around for years
in my teenage years just disappeared
because it's just ordinary people in
ordinary players not doing great this is
the period
of you know what they call deficit you
know so the period of deficits but
there's no food in the shops there was
you know very little in terms of
Commodities because the
um supply and demand parts of the
economic equation were out of whack
because there's a total Central planning
you know you'd go into you know a shop
that was supposed to sell boots and
there'd be just one pile of boots all in
the same size in the same color I
actually looked out because once I was
in this um Hungarian boot shop that was
right next to where my hall of residence
was and I was looking for new pair of
boots and every single pair of boots in
the shop were my size
and they're all women's boots they're
not men's boots at all you know because
if it's been a nervous supply of boots
and that size production but you could
really kind of see here that there was
something wrong and you know in the
north of England everything was closed
down the shops were shuttered because
there was no demand because everybody
lost their jobs it was massive
employment you know when I went off to
University in 1984 90 youth unemployment
in the UK meaning that when kids left
school they didn't have something else
to go on to unless they got to
University or vocational training or an
apprenticeship and most people were
still looking you know kind of months
out of leaving school and so shops were
closing because people didn't have any
money you know I had 50 male
unemployment in some of the towns as
there's still works closed down and the
the wagon works for the railways for
example in my area but in Moscow people
in theory did have money but there was
just there was nothing to buy the also
the place was falling apart literally I
saw massive sinkholes open up in the
street balconies fall off buildings you
know one accident after another
and then there was you know this real
kind of sense even though the vibrancy
and excitement and hope of the Gorbachev
period a real sense of the the Soviet
Union had lost its way and of course it
was only a year or so after I left from
that Exchange program and I'd already
started with my degree program in Soviet
studies at talford that the Soviet Union
basically unraveled and it really did
unravel it wasn't like it collapsed it
was basically that there were so many
debates that garbage offered sparked off
about how to reform the country how to
put it on a different path that you know
no one was in agreement and it was
basically all these fights and uh deep
debates and disputes among the elites of
the center as well as you know basically
a loss of faith in the system in the
periphery and among the general
population that in fact pulled it apart
and of course in 1991
you get um
Boris Yeltsin as the head of the Russian
Federation then a constituent part of
the Soviet Union together with the
presidents of Ukraine and Belarus all of
these being individual
parts of the Soviet Union getting
together and agreeing and essentially
ending it and gorbachevino so basically
I'm there at the the peak of this whole
kind of period of experimentation and
thinking about the future and within a
couple of years it's all kind of gone
and it's on a different track entirely
well I wonder if we re-ran the 20th
century a thousand times if how many
times the Soviet Union will collapse
yeah I wonder about that too and I also
wondered about what would have happened
if it didn't collapse and Gorbachev had
found a different direction
I mean you know we see a very divisive
time now in American history the United
States of America has very different
cultures very different uh beliefs
ideologies within those States but those
are that's that's kind of the strength
of America's there's these little
Laboratories of ideas until though that
they don't keep together I mean I've had
colleagues who have described what's
happening in the west right now was a
kind of soft secession with States you
know going off in their own Direction
well you know these kinds of conceptions
that we have now are divisions between
red and blue States because of the
fracturing of our politics
and I'd always thought that that
wouldn't be possible in somewhere like
the United States or um you know many
other countries as well because it
wasn't that ethnic
um uh Dimension but in fact many of our
the way that people talk about politics
has given it that kind of appearance in
many respects because look I mean we
know from the Soviet Union and the
Soviet period and from where you're from
you know originally in Ukraine that
language is not the man to signify of
identity and that identity can take all
kinds of of other forms that's really
interesting I mean but
there has to be a deep grievance of some
kind if you took a poll in any other
states in the United States I think a
very small minority people would want to
actually succeed uh even in Texas where
I spend a lot of my time yeah
I I just I think that there is a common
kind of pride of nation
you know there's a a lot of people
complain about government and about how
the country's going the way people
complain about the weather when it's
raining they say oh this stupid weather
it's raining again but really what they
mean is
we're in the smoke together there's a
together there that I I also feel that
when I go around because I mean I've
spent a lot of time since I've
um my book my book last October and this
last year going around I find I find the
same feeling but you know when I
traveled around the Soviet Union
back in the late 1980s I didn't get any
kind of sense that people wanted to see
the end of the Soviet Union either it
was an elite project
there's a a really good book called
Collapse by vladislav zubuck who is a
professor
um at um London School of Economics at
LLC and zubock is pretty much my age and
he's from you know the former Soviet
Union is Russian and I mean he describes
it very quite aptly about how it was
kind of the elites you know that
basically decided to pull the Soviet
Union apart and there was a risk of that
you know here as well when you get
parties on politics and people
forgetting you know they're Americans
and they are all in this together like a
lot of the population thing but they
think that their own you know narrower
parties aren't ideological precepts you
know camp for more and in the Civic case
of course was also a power play
you know in a way that actually can't
quite play out in the United States
because it was the equivalent of
Governors in many respects who got
together three of them you know in the
case of
um the heads of Russia Ukraine and
Belarus who then you know got rid of you
know the basically their Central
um the central figure of Michael
Gorbachev it would be a little difficult
to do that the dynamic is not the same
but it does worry me of having seen all
of that close up
in the late 1980s and the early 90s and
I was I spent you know a lot of time in
the uh in Russia uh as well as in
Ukraine and caucus and Central Asia and
you know other places after the collapse
of the Soviet Union but that you you
kind of see the same Elite divisions
here in the United States pulling
in you know in different uh in different
directions and straining you know the
overall body politic and the way that
National politics gets imposed on local
politics and where's that it certainly
wasn't when I first came to the US in
1989 I didn't honestly in 1989 when I
first came here I didn't know anybody's
political affiliation I mean I rarely
knew their religious affiliation and and
you know obviously race was a was a
major phenomenon here that was a shock
to me when I when I first came but many
of the kind of the class Regional
Geographic you know kind of political
Dimensions that I've seen in other
places I didn't see them at play in the
same way then as I do now
and you take a lot of Pride to this day
of being nonpartisan
that said
so you served uh
for the George W bush Barack Obama and
Donald Trump Administrations
uh always specializing
in uh Eurasia and Russia
you were the top presidential advisor to
president
former president Donald Trump on Russia
and Europe and famously testified in his
first impeachment trial in uh 2019
saying
I take great pride in the fact that I'm
nonpartisan foreign policy expert so
given that context what does nonpartisan
mean to you
well it means being very careful about
not putting any kind of ideological lens
on anything you know that I'm analyzing
and looking at or saying about foreign
policy for one thing but also not taking
you know kind of one stance of one party
over another either to be honest I've
I've always found American politics
somewhat confounding because both the
Democratic and the Republican Party are
pretty big tents some of their
coalitions you know in Europe it's
actually kind of in some respects easier
to navigate the parameters of political
parties because you you know have quite
clear platforms
um you know there's also a longer
history in many respects obviously I
mean there's a long history here in the
United States as a development of the
parties you know going back to the late
18th century but in the United Kingdom
you know for example in the 20th century
the development of the mass parties you
know it's quite easy to get a handle on
you know at one point in the UK for
example the parties were real genuine
Mass parties with people who are
properly members and took part in
regular meetings and Paid Dues and you
know it was easy to kind of see what
they stood for and the same in Europe
you know when you look at France and in
Germany and Western Germany of course
Italy and elsewhere here in the United
States it's kind of pretty amorphous you
know the fact that you could kind of
register you know randomly it seems to
be a democratic Republican I trumped it
at one point is Democrat next thing is
Republican and then you kind of usurp a
party apparatus but you don't have to be
you're not vetted in any way you're not
kind of you know but they don't check
you out to see if you have ideological
coherence you know you could have
someone like Bernie Sanders on the other
side on the left you know basically
calling himself a socialist and you know
running for the the Democratic uh
presidential nomination so you know kind
of in many respects parties in the
United States are much more loose
movements and I think you can you know
it's almost like a kind of an A La Carte
menu of different things and that people
can pick upon pick out and it's more
over time as I've noticed
um become more like a kind of an
affiliation even with a sporting team I
mean I get very shocked by the way that
people say well I couldn't do this
because you know that's my side and I
couldn't do anything and I couldn't
support someone for the other side I
mean I have a a relative in my extended
family here who
um is a
um you know died in the more Republican
and on you know family holiday there's a
book on their table said 100 reasons for
voting for a Democrat and I said hey are
you um thinking of Shifting party
affiliation then I opened the book and
it's blank it was pretty funny I had to
laugh I thought well there you go then
there's just there's no way that you
know people can pull themselves out of
these frames so for me it's very
important to have that independence of
thought I think you can be politically
engaged on the issues but you know
basically without taking you know a
stance that's defined by some
ideological ideology or some sense of
kind of parties on affiliation
I think I tweeted about this maybe not
eloquently in the statement if I
remember correctly was something like
if you honestly can't find a good thing
that Donald Trump did or a good thing
that Joe Biden did
you're not
uh you're not thinking about ideas
you just picked the tribe I mean it was
more eloquent than that but it was it
was um is basically this is a really
good test to see are you actually
thinking about like how to solve
problems versus like your dread team or
blue team like a sporting team can you
find a good idea of Donald Trump's that
you like
if you're somebody who's against Donald
Trump and like acknowledge it to
yourself probably oh that's a good idea
I'm glad he said that or he's even
asking the right kinds of questions
which he often often actually I mean
obviously put them in a way that most of
us wouldn't have done but there was
often kind of questions about why is
this happening why are we doing this and
you know we have to challenge ourselves
all the time so yeah actually why are we
doing that and then you have to and
really inspect it and say whether it's
actually worth continuing that way or
they should be doing something
differently now he had a more kind of
destructive quality to those kinds of
questions you know about maybe it's the
real estate developer in him that's you
know taking a big wrecking ball to all
of these kinds of you know sacred
edifices and things like that but often
if you really paid attention he was
asking a valid set of questions about
why do we continue to do things like
this now we didn't often have answers
about what he was going to do in
response but those questions still had
to be asked and we shouldn't be just
rejecting them you know out of turn
and you know the the another strength
the thing that people often that
criticize Donald Trump will say is the
weakness is his uh lack of Civility
can be a strength because I I feel like
sometimes bureaucracy functions on
excessive civility
like uh actually I've seen this it's not
just it's bureaucracy in all forms like
um
in tech companies as they grow
everybody kind of you know you're
getting pretty good salary everyone's is
everyone's comfortable and there's a
meeting and you discuss
how to move stuff forward and like you
don't want to be the in the room
that says what this is why are we doing
this this way this is
um on this could be unethical this is
hurting the world this is totally a dumb
idea like I mean I could give specific
examples that I have on my mind
currently that are technical but the
point is oftentimes the person that's
needed in that room is an yeah
that's why Steve Jobs worked so Elon
Musk works you have to roll in that's
what first principles thinking looks
like the one bit when it doesn't work is
when they start name calling you know
kind of inciting violence against you
know the people that we disagree with so
that was kind of a problem because I
mean often one you know I when I was in
the administration I had all of Europe
in my portfolio as well as Russia and
there were many times when you know we
were dealing with our European
colleagues where he was asking some
pretty valid questions about well why
should we do this if you're doing that
you know for example the the Nordstrom 2
pipeline the United States has been
opposed to Europe's Reliance on gas and
oil exports from uh Russia you know the
Soviet Union since the 70s and 80s and
Trump kept pushing this out idea about
so why are we you know spending so much
money on NATO and NATO defense and we're
all talking about this if y'all then you
know basically paying billions you know
to Russia for gas isn't this you know
contradictory and of course it was but
it was the way that he did it and I
actually uh you know one instance had a
discussion with a European Defense uh
Minister who basically said to me look
he's saying exactly the same things as
people said before him including you
know Former Defense secretary Gates it's
just the way he says it you know so they
took offense and then as a result of
that they wouldn't take action because
they took offense at what he said so it
was a kind of then a way of could you
find some other means of
you know massaging this communication to
kind of make it effective which we would
always try to focus on because it's it's
a kind of the it was the the delivery
yeah but but the actual message was was
often spot on or in those kinds of
issues I mean he was actually
highlighting you know these ridiculous
discrepancies between what people said
and what they actually did
it's the the delivery the Charisma in
the room too I'm also understanding the
power of that of a leader it's not just
about what you do at a podium
but in in a room with advisors how you
talk about stuff how you convince other
leaders yeah you don't do it through
gratuities insults and excitement to
violence that's one of the things you
just say you don't get anywhere on that
well I mean it's possible
tough measures and maximum pressure
often though it does work right because
there were you know often times where
you know that kind of Relentless you
know nagging about something are
constantly raising it actually did have
results where it hadn't previously right
so there's you know the maximum pressure
if it you know kind of kept on it in the
right way and you know often when we
were you know coming in behind on
pushing on issues you know related to
Nato or you know other
things in this same sphere it would
actually have an effect
it just doesn't get talked about because
it gets overshadowed by you know all of
the other kind of stuff around this and
um the way that you know he interacted
with people and uh treated people
what was uh the heart the key insights
to your testimony and that impeachment
look I think there is a straight line
between that whole series of episodes
and the current war in Ukraine
because Vladimir Putin and the people
around him in the Kremlin
concluded that the US did not care one
little bit about Ukraine and it was just
a game
the trumpet was personal game he was
basically trying to get
Vladimir zielinsky to do him a personal
favor related to his desire to stay on
in um in power
in the 2020 election
and generally they just thought that we
were using Ukraine as some kind of proxy
or some kind of instrument within our
own domestic Politics as that's what it
looked like
and I think that he knows the result of
that
Putin you know took
the idea where that he could you know do
whatever he wanted we were constantly
being asked even prior to this by people
around
uh Putin like you know Nikolai Patricia
of the head of the national you know
security uh Council equivalent in Russia
we met with frequently what's Ukraine to
you we don't get it you know why do you
even care so they thought that we
weren't serious that we weren't serious
about Ukraine's territorial integrity
and its independence or or it is the
National Security player and Putin also
thought that he could just manipulate
the political space in the United States
actually could because what was he was
doing was seeding uh all this dissent
and uh fueling you know already uh in a
debate inside of uh U.S politics the
kinds of you know things that we see
just kind of coming out now this kind of
idea that Ukraine was a burden that
Ukraine was you know basically just
trying to extract things uh from the
United States the Ukraine had somehow
played inside of U.S politics Trump was
convinced that the ukrainians had done
something against him that they had
intervened in the elections and that was
kind of you know a combination of people
around him trying to find excuses to you
know kind of what had happened in the
election to kind of divert attention
away from Russia's interference in 2016
and the Russians themselves poisoning
the world uh against Ukraine so you had
a kind of a Confluence of circumstances
there and what I was trying to get
across
in that uh testimony was the National
Security imperative of basically getting
our act together here and separating out
what was going on in our domestic
politics from what was happening in our
national security and foreign policy I
mean I think we contributed
in that whole mess around the
impeachment but just the whole parallel
policies around Ukraine to the war that
we now have
confronting signaling the value we place
in peace and stability in that part of
the world or the reverse by saying we
don't care yeah we seem to not care it
was just
but I mean the the U.S role in that war
is very complicated one that's one one
that's one of the variables
um just on that testimony
did it
in part break your heart that you had to
testify
essentially against the president of the
United States
or is that not how you saw it
I don't think I would describe it in
that way I think what I was was deeply
disappointed by what I saw happening
in the American political space I didn't
expect it
look I was a starry-eyed immigrant
I came to the United States with all of
these expectations of what the place
would be I'd already been disabused of
you know some of the
um let's just say Rosie uh perspectives
are held in the United States I'd been
shocked by uh the depths of
racial
problems it doesn't even sum up the
problems we have in the United States I
mean I I couldn't get my head around it
when I first came I mean I'd read about
you know slavery in American history but
I hadn't fully fathomed you know really
the kind of the way that was ripping
apart the United States I mean I had to
read Alex's you know to talk Phil and
he'd commented on this and it obviously
hadn't you know kind of changed to the
expect the way that one would have
expect all this time you know from the
18th you know Century onwards so that
was kind of one thing that you know that
I realized the Civil Rights uh movement
and all of these you know acts of
expansion of suffrage and everything
else were imperfect at best you know and
I was born in 65 the same same time as
the Civil Rights Act it was heck of a
long way still to go so I wasn't let's
just say you know as
Starry Eyed about everything as I'd been
before but I really saw an incredible
competence and professionalism in you
know the US government it was gonna and
the election system and the Integrity of
it and I mean I really saw that I saw
that the the United States was the gold
standard for you know kind of some of
its you know institutions and I worked
in the National Intelligence Council and
I'd seen the way that the United States
had tried to address the problems that
it had um at first and it was just whole
botched uh analysis of Iraq and this
terrible strategic blunder of
um honestly a crime in my view of
invading Iraq and but the way that
people were trying to to deal with that
in the aftermath I mean I went into the
National Intelligence Council and the
dni the director the officer Director of
National Intelligence when they were
coming to terms with what had gone wrong
in the whole analysis about Iraq in 2003
you know in the whole work of people
trying to pull together after 9 11 and
to learn all of the lessons from all of
this and I saw you know just really
genuine striving and deliberation about
what had gone wrong what lesson could we
learn from this and then suddenly I
found myself in this I couldn't
redescribe another word it's totally
crazy locking glass thinking of you know
Alice in Wonderland Alice Through the
Looking Glass version
of American politics
I mean I'd seen everything starting to
unravel over a kind of a period of time
before I'd been asked to be in the
administration but I did not expect it
to be that bad I honestly didn't
I mean I had been warned you know by
people that this was you know kind of
really a very serious term that the
United States had taken but I really
thought that National Security would
still be uppermost in people's minds and
it was when a lot of the people that I
work with but what I found you know if
you want to use that in a term of
heartbreaking was the way in which all
of these principles
but I uh really bought into and tried to
uphold in the United States uh
government and then the things that we
were trying to do with me and my
colleagues was just being thrown out the
window
and that you know I would have to step
up
in defense of them and in defense of my
colleagues who were being lambasted and
you know criticized and given death
threats were actually standing up and
doing their own jobs in particular on
the topic of Ukraine uh not just on
Ukraine but a national security overall
so I mean I'd gone through this whole
period even before we got to that point
I'm seeing non-partisan government
officials being attacked from all sides
left and right and but especially the
right and being basically accused of
being partisan hacks in a deep State yes
coup plotters you know you name it
they're um
patriotism being questioned as well I
know a lot of people I work with in
government like myself naturalized
Americans a lot of them are immigrants
many were refugees and many people had
fought and and was uh on behalf of the
United States and Iraq and Afghanistan
being blown up and you know they put
their lives on the line they'd put their
family lives on the line you know
because they believed in America and
they were just they were reflections of
Americans from all kinds of works of
works of life is what really made you
know that cliche of America great it
wasn't you know whatever it was it was
being you know banded around in these
crude crass political terms it was just
the strength of an incredible set of
people who've come together from all
kinds of places and decided that they're
going to make a go of it and that
they're going to you know try to work
towards the whole bit of idea of the
Preamble of the Constitution towards a
more perfect union and I you know I saw
people doing that every single day
despite all of the things that they
could criticize about the United States
still believing in what they were doing
and believing in the promise of the
country which is what I felt like and
then here we were people would just
treating it like a game and they were
treating people like dirt and they were
just playing games with people's lives I
mean we all had death threats you know
people's you know whole careers which
were not just careers for their own
self-aggrandizement but for careers of
Public Service trying to give something
back were being shattered
and I've found you know I just thought
to myself I'm not gonna let that happen
because you know I've come from well
they're going to send me back to Bishop
Auckland in County Durham fine I'm
totally fine to go back you know because
I could do something back there but I'm
not going to let this happen I've made
this choice to come to America I'm all
in
and and these guys are just behaving
like a bunch of idiots and the ruining
us you know they're ruining it for
everybody so the personal attacks and
uncompetent hard-working passionate
people who have loved what they do in
their heart similar stuff I've seen
for virologists and biologists so
colleagues basically scientists in the
time of covid when there's a bunch of
cynicism and there was just personal
attacks including death threats on uh
people that's that you know work on
viruses work yeah are they going around
you know but basically
um with protective gear on okay somebody
shoots them in the street that's just
absurd but
let me zoom out from the individual
people yeah and actually look at the
situations that we saw in the
in the
the George W bush Obama and Donald Trump
presidencies
and I'd like to sort of criticize each
uh by the not the the treatment of
individual people but by the results
right yeah I think that's fair yeah so
if you look at George W bush and maybe
you can give me insights this is what's
fascinating to me when you have
extremely competent
uh smart hard-working
well-intentioned people how do we as a
system uh make mistakes in foreign
policy so the big mistake uh you can
characterize in different ways but in
George W bush is invading Iraq yeah or
maybe how it was invaded or maybe how
the decision process was made to invade
it uh again Afghanistan but
but maybe not the invasion but details
around like having a plan about you know
how to withdraw all that kind of stuff
then Barack Obama
to me similarly is is the man who came
to fame early on for being somebody who
was against a rare voice against the
invasion of Iraq which was actually a a
brief thing to do at that time
and nevertheless he and I mean I don't
know the numbers but I think he was the
president for eight years over increased
drone attacks increa like ever
everything from a foreign policy
perspective uh the the
military-industrial complex that machine
grew in power under him not shrunk and
did not withdraw
from Afghanistan and then
um with Donald Trump the criticisms that
you're presenting sort of uh the the
personal attacks the chaos the
partisanship of people that are supposed
to be nonpartisan so that you know if
you do sort of the Steel Man the chaos
to to make the case for chaos maybe we
need to shake up the machine
throw a wrench into the engine into the
gears and then every individual gear is
going to be very upset with that because
it's the wrench it's not it's not it's
an inefficient process but maybe it
leads uh for government it forces the
the system as a whole not the
individuals but the system to reconsider
how things are done so obviously all of
those things
uh the actual results are not that
impressive
could have done that on the
lot I'm all one for Quest and trying to
shake things up as well and do things
different
stuff but but you know the question is
if you bring the whole system down with
nothing ideas of putting it to play it's
like I mean I'm like many people I've
studied the Bolshevik Revolution and you
know many others as well and you know
kind of what's what you know what's the
pattern here you know that actually fits
into what you're talking about here is
the kind of rigidity of thought on the
part of revolutionaries in many cases as
well and also narcissism
in fact I think it takes a pretty you
know strong sense of yourself you know
kind of and owning yourself to want to
be present in the United States for
example we see that in you know many of
our presidents have been narcissists to
different you know kind of degrees you
think about Lenin you know for example
and people can go back and read about
Lenin he formed his views about 18 and
he never shook them off he never evolved
he he didn't have any kind of diversity
of thought
and on when systems go awry it's when
they don't bring in different
perspectives
and so you know Trump have you brought
in different perspectives and actually
listen to them and not just you know
believe that he himself knew better than
anyone else and then tried to divide
everybody against each other would have
been a different matter it's a tragedy
of a completely and utterly lost set of
opportunities because of the flaws in
his own nature
because I mean again there was all kinds
of things that he could have done to
shake things up and so many people
around him remained completely
disappointed and of course he divided
and pitted people against each other you
know creating so much factionalism in
American politics that you know people
have forgotten they're Americans they
think that they're red or blue you know
parts of teams and you know if you go
back over history that's a kind of a
recipe for for war and you know internal
conflict you go back to you know the
Byzantine empire for example there's a
famous episode of the Nikki riots uh in
uh Constantinople where the whole city
gets trashed because the greens the Reds
the blues and these various sporting
teams in the Hippodrome get whipped up
by political forces and the you know
they pull the place apart and that's you
know kind of where we've been heading on
some of these trajectories but the other
point is when you look back you know at
Bush and a bummer as well there's a very
narrow circle of decision making you
know Bush period it's the focus on the
executive branch
um with uh Dick Cheney is the vice
president being very fixated on it and
Obama it's you know he and you know kind
of the Bright Young things around him
you know from himself as you know kind
of intellectually
um you know one might uh say arrogance
in many respects you know he was very
smart guy and you know he's convinced
that he has and he ruminates over all
things but he's the person who makes you
know a lot of decisions
and
um basically George W bush used to call
himself the decider as well right I mean
they're all the people who make the
decisions it's not always as
consultative as you might think it is
and for Trump it's like I'm not
listening to anybody at all you know
it's just me and whatever it is that I'm
walking up today and I've decided to do
so I think you know the problem with all
of our systems why we don't get results
is because we don't draw upon you know
the diversity of opinion and all the
ideas of you know people out there like
you do that in science I mean one I mean
all my friends and relatives are in
science they've got this incredible
collaborations with people you know
across the world I mean how did we get
to these vaccines for the curve advice
because of this incredible years of
collaboration and of you know sharing
results and sharing on ideas and our
whole system has become ossified you
know we think about the Congressional
system for example as well and there's
you know this kind of Rapid you know
turnover that you have in uh Congress
every two years you know there's no
incentive for people you know basically
to work with others they're constantly
campaigning they're constantly trying to
appeal so whatever their base is and
they don't really care about you know
some do you know of their constituents
but a lot of people don't and the Senate
it's all kind of focused on the game of
uh of legislation uh for so many people
as well not focusing again on that kind
of sense about what are we doing like
scientists to kind of work together you
know for the good of the country to push
things along and also our government
also is siled there's not a lot of
mechanisms for bringing people together
they ought to be in things like the
National Security Council the National
Intelligence Council actually did that
quite successfully at times for analysis
that I saw but we don't have you know we
have it within the National Institutes
of Health but we saw the CDC breakdown
on this you know kind of front we we
don't have sufficient of those
institutions that bring people together
from all kinds of different backgrounds
you know one of the other problems that
we've had with government with the
federal government over you know state
and local government is it actually
quite small people think that the
federal government's huge because we've
got personal service in the military
tree that are part of it but your actual
federal government employees is a very
small number
and you know the senior executive
service part of that is the older white
guys you know who kind of come up all
the way over the last you know several
decades we have a really hard time
bringing in younger people into that
kind of government service and that's
their political hacks you know and they
want to you know kind of or they're kind
of looking for power and you know sort
of influence
we have a hard time getting people like
yourself and other you know younger
people kind of coming in
to make a career out of public service
and also retaining them because you know
people with Incredible skills often get
poached away into the private sector and
you know a lot of the people that I work
with the National Security side are now
what all kinds of you know high-end uh
political consultancies or they've gone
to Silicon Valley and they've they've
gone to this place in that place because
after a time as a younger person they're
not you know rising up particularly
quickly because there's a pretty rigid
way of looking at the the hierarchies
and the promotion schemes and they're
also getting lambasted by everybody
people like ah you know public servants
they're not really public servants
there's this whole lack and loss
um of a kind of a faith in public
service
and you know the last few years I've
really done a lot of damage we need to
revitalize
uh our government system to get better
results we need to bring more people in
even if it's you know for a period of
time not just through expensive
contracts for you know the the big
Consulting companies and you know other
entities that do government work out
there but getting into people in for a
period of time expending expanding some
of these management fellowships and the
White House fellows and you know
bringing in you know scientists uh you
know from the outside giving you know
that that kind of opportunity for
collaboration that we see in other
spheres I think that's actually one of
the biggest roles
for a president that
for some reason during the election
that's never talked about is how good
are you at hiring yeah and and creating
a culture of like attracting the right I
mean basically Chief hire when you think
of a CEO
like the great CEOs are
I mean maybe people don't talk about it
that often but they do more often for
CEOs than they do for presidents it's
like how good are you building a team
well we make it really difficult because
the political process I mean and also
because we have so many political
appointments we ought to have less to be
honest I mean we look at other
governments around the world you know
that are smaller it's much easier for
them to hire people in yeah you know
some of the most successful governments
are much smaller and it's not that I say
that you know the government is
necessarily too big but it's just
thinking about each unit in a different
way we shouldn't be having so many
political appointments we should kind of
find more professional appointments more
non-parties on appointments because you
know with every single Administration
that we've had over the last but the
span of presidency they have jobs that
are unfulfilled because they can't get
their candidates through Congress and
the Senate because of all the kind of
political games that are being played I
know loads of people have just been held
up because it's just on the whim of you
know some member of Congress even though
that the actual position that they want
is really Technical and doesn't really
care about what you know what political
you know Preference they particularly
have so I think we have to try to look
at the whole system of governments in
the way that we would over you know
other professional
sectors and to try to think about this
as just as you said there that this is a
government that's actually running our
country this is an operating system and
you wouldn't operate it like that if you
were you know looking at in any kind of
rational way it shouldn't be so
ideologically or parties untainted so
you're at every level anyway so I would
actually just make a bid for a more
non-partisan approach to a lot of the
parts of government you can still kind
of bring in you know the political and
premature but also you have to explain
to people writ large in America as well
that this is your government yeah and
that actually you could also be part of
this yeah things like the small business
administration the US Department of
Agriculture you know all these kind of
things that actually people interact
with but they don't even know it the
Postal Service you know all of these
things I mean people actually when you
ask them about uh different functions of
government they have a lot of support
for the National Park Service you know
for example it's just when you talk
about government in an abstract where
like oh yeah no too much bloated you
know not efficient and effective but if
you kind of bring it down more to the
kind of local and federal levels that's
kind of you know when people really see
it and if people could see kind of
themselves reflected and many of the
people have gone into public service I
think that they would yeah they have a
lot more support for it more like
Superstars like uh
individuals that are like big on social
media big in the public eye and having
fun with it and showing cool stuff that
it's not there's right now a lot of
people see government as basically
partisan Warfare and then
it just it makes it unpleasant to do the
job it makes it uninspiring for people
looking in from outside about what's
going on inside government all of it the
whole thing but you you are you know
just
with all due respect you're pretty rare
individual in terms of non-partisanship
like it's just actually your whole life
story The The Humbling aspect of of your
upbringing and everything like that uh
do you think it's possible to have a lot
of nonpartisan
experts in government like can you be a
top presidential advisor on Russia
for 10 years for 15 years and remain
nonpartisan I think you can I don't
think that's advisable though by the way
because I mean I don't think anybody
should be there you know so your first
advice is to fire yourself afterwards
you should you should definitely have
terminal it's just like you shouldn't
everything right I mean it's just like
tenure in universities
yeah you kind of you know we do we have
natural term limits but you know you're
kind of um you know basically bottling
it up for other people I mean you know
what I'm trying to do now I'm 57 now
um and I always try to work with you
know people from different generations
to me just like
you know I've really benefited from
these you know kind of mentorships of
people older you can you know Mentor up
and well and Mentor down I mean I would
you know try to get you know people from
different backgrounds and different
generations to work together in teams
honestly I'd like to more team networked
uh kind of approach to things not the
kind of things that you get again in
science right I mean all these ideas are
going to come from all kinds of
different perspectives age and
experience does count for something but
you know fresh ideas and coming in and
looking at a problem from a different
perspective and seeing something that
somebody else hasn't seen before I mean
I just you know kind of love working in
a an environment with all kinds of
different people and people who don't
agree with you you need people to take
you on and say absolute that's crap you
know kind of where did you come up with
that from and go hang on well explain to
me why you think so and then you know
you have this kind of iterative process
back and forth I mean I would always
encourage my colleagues to tell me when
they thought it was wrong I mean
sometimes I didn't agree because I
didn't see the the
um you know the reasoning but other
times I'm like they're right I you know
but that was a complete mistake I I need
to admit that and you know kind of we
need to figure out a different way of
doing things but at one point I do want
to get across is there were a lot of
people who were non-partisan that I
worked with I mean honestly and most of
the jobs that I had up until more
recently I had no idea about people's
political affiliation it's just when you
get into this kind of Highly charged
partisan environment they kind of force
people you know to make decisions and
when you have you know one political
party of political fashion that's trying
to usurp power it does make it quite
difficult I mean that's the situation
that we're in right now and you know
we're seeing some of the things
happening since I've seen and studied in
other settings or seen for myself
happening you know when you have
um a president who wants to cling on to
power you know you've got you've got to
call that out you know is that a
partisan act or is that a kind of you
know defense of that larger uh political
system that that you're part of you know
so I think we've got to recognize that
even if you're not partisan you can be
politically engaged and you know
sometimes you just have to stand up
there and speak out which is you know
what I did what others did as well none
of those people who spoke out you know
can initially saw that as a partisan act
even if some of them since then have
decided to make political choices they
hadn't made before because in the
situation actually forced people into
you know taking sites it's very hard to
still stay above The Fray when you've
got you know someone who's trying to
perpetrate a coup yeah just to linger on
that I think it's hard and it's the
courageous thing to do to criticize a
president and not fall into partisanship
after because the whole world will
assume if you criticize Donald Trump
that you're clearly
uh a Democrat and so they will just
everybody will criticize you for being a
Democrat and then so you're now stuck in
that so you're going to just Embrace
that role but to still walk the
nonpartisan route after the criticism
that's the hard Road uh so not let the
criticisms break you into uh
you know into a certain kind of
ideological set of positions I mean our
political system needs revitalization we
need to be taking a long hard look at
ourselves here and I think what people
are calling out for look there's a vast
with a population of like me who were
unaffiliated you know maybe some lean in
One Direction Over another and you know
unaffiliated doesn't mean you don't have
views about things and political
opinions and you know you may sound
quite extreme on you know some of those
you know by the from a left or right
right perspective what people are
looking for is kind of an articulation
you know things in a kind of a clear way
that they can get a handle on and
they're also looking for a
representation somebody's going to be
there on you know for you you know not
part of a kind of a rigid team that
you're excluded from you're the ins and
the outs or what people are looking at
now they're looking at that in the
workplace because they're not finding
that
in politics you're actually getting
workers you know pushing the people talk
about the rise of the workers people
just saying hang on a sec you know the
most important space that I'm in right
now
is my workplace because that's where my
benefits are from they're not coming
from the state I mean that's the
peculiarity of the United States system
you know the Britain you've got the
National Health Service and you've got
all the kind of national wide benefits
you know you're not Tethered to your
employer like you are in the United
States but here now we're asking people
you know people are pushing
for more representation they're asking
to be represented within their workplace
be it Starbucks where Boris deserve you
know no the Starbucks employees are
trying to unionize we have unions among
our research assistants the bookings
institution where I am you know kind of
teaching assistants in big universities
doing the same kind of thing as well
because they won't have their boys heard
they want to kind of play a larger role
they want to have change and they're
often pushing their companies or the
institutions they work for to make that
change because they don't see it
happening
um uh in the political sphere this is
not just enough to go out there and
protest in the street but if you want
something to happen that's why you're
seeing big corporations playing a bigger
role as well
yeah and of course there's you know this
is the longest discussion there's also
criticisms of that mechanisms of unions
that to achieve the giving of a voice to
a people this goes back to my own
experience growing up in northern
England
the Durham miners
that I was part of for Generations you
know first person in my family not in
the mines on my dad's side
um they created their own Association it
wasn't a union person at the very
beginning later they became part of the
national minders Union they lost their
autonomy and Independence as a result of
that but what they did was they pulled
their resources they set up their own
Parliament so they could all get
together literally they built a
parliament and it you know opened in
like the same time as World War one and
where they all got together because they
didn't have the vote they didn't have
suffrage at the time because they didn't
have any money you know so they didn't
compare the tax and they you know they
couldn't run for Parliament and this is
you know the kind of the origins of the
organized labor parties later but they
create this Association so they could
talk about how they could deal with
things of their own communities and have
a voice in the things that mattered you
know education you know improving their
work conditions it wasn't like what you
think about some kind of like big
political Trade union with you know
left-wing you know kind of ideas in fact
they actually tried to root out later
after the Bolshevik Revolution in the
Soviet Union even when they were still
having ties with players like the minds
of Don bass in the 1920s trotskyites and
you know kind of londonists and you know
Communists they were more focused on how
to improve their own well-being you know
what they call the welfare they had some
welfare societies where they were kind
of trying to think and that's kind of
what Baristas in Starbucks want or
workers in Amazon they're talking about
their own well-being it's not just about
pay and work conditions it's about what
it means to be part of this large entity
because you're not feeling that same
kind of connection
to politics you know at the moment
because you know you're being told by a
representative sorry I don't represent
you because you didn't vote for me you
know if you're not a Democrat you're not
Republican you're not red you know
you're not blue you're not mine and so
people are saying well I'm in this
workplus this is kind of my Collective
you know this is this is you know
therefore this is what I'm gonna have to
try to push to make change so I mean
this is kind of happening here and we
have to you know realize that you know
we've kind of gone and we're full circle
back to that you know kind of period of
the early emergence of sort of mass
labor and you know the way that that's
where the political parties that we know
today and you know the kind of early
unions came out of as well this sort of
feeling of a mass Society but where
people weren't really able to
get together and Implement uh or push
for change you know with unions at a
small scale and a local scale it's like
every good idea
on a small scale can become a bad idea
in a large on a large scale so like uh
marriage is a beautiful thing but at a
large scale it becomes the marriage
industrial complex that tries to make
money off of it combined with the
lawyers that try to make money off the
divorce uh it just becomes there you go
caricature of a thing or like uh
Christmas in the holidays it's like it's
just I I don't disagree but what I'm
saying is there's K-pop people are
basically looking for something here and
you know kind of this is why I mean I
myself them start to think about much
more local you know kind of solutions to
a lot of these you know kind of problems
it's again the teamed networked approach
and the impeachment
looking back because you're part of it
you get the experience that do you think
they strengthened or weakened this
nation
I think it weakened in many respects
just the way that it was conducted I
mean there's a new book coming out by a
couple of journalists in the Washington
Post I haven't actually seen it yet but
I really did you know kind of worry that
myself that it became a spectacle
and although it actually I think in many
respects was important in terms of an
exercise of civic responsibility and you
know give people a big massive lesson in
Civics everyone's kind of running out
and looking up the whole process of
impeachment and what that meant and
Congressional prerogatives I was as well
I was you know like running off myself
and you know trying to learn an enormous
amount about it because I was in the
middle of a lot of this
that it didn't ultimately show
responsibility and accountability
and that in itself was kind of was
weakened because
on on you know both sides there was a
lot of parties on politics
uh I mean I think that there was a
dereliction of Duty uh in many respects
I mean especially I have to say on the
part of Republican members of Congress
um who were you know kind of they should
have been embracing you know congress's
prerogatives you could have you know
kind of basically done this in a in
something of a different way but the
whole thing is because it was this
larger atmosphere of polarized I'm not
even polarized fractured fractured
politics and I was deeply disappointed I
have to say and many of the members of
Congress on uh the Republican side
there's a lot of grandstanding that I
really didn't like one bit on the
Democratic side either and and not
admitting to mistakes and you know not
kind of addressing head-on you know the
fact that they'd you know kind of been
pushing for you know Trump to be
impeached and you know talking about
them and being an illegitimate president
you know kind of right from the the very
beginning and that you know as a result
a lot of people just saw this this is
kind of a continuation of you know
political games you know coming out of
uh the 2016 election but on the
Republican side it was just a game there
was people I knew who were you know
being basically you know one point one
of them winked at me you know in the
middle of this you know kind of
impeachment it's just like don't take
this personally you know this is there's
the game this is a game and I just
thought this isn't a game and that's why
I think that it you know kind of
weakened because I mean again on the
outside it it weakened us the whole
process we can does in the eyes of the
world because again the United States
was the gold standard and I do think I
mean again in the in the terms of the
larger population although a lot of
people you did actually see the system
you know standing up trying to do
something to help people account but
there's always that element of circus
and a big political game and people
being careless with the country but I do
think that the Democrats
were the instigators of the circus so as
uh
it's perhaps subtle but there's a
there's a different way you talk about
issues or concerns about accountability
when you care about your country when
you love your country when you love the
ideals and when you uh versus when you
just want to win and stick it to the
other side I agree I mean there were
people who um I actually thought managed
that that made it about the country
rather than about themselves
yeah there were a lot of those who did a
lot of grandstanding yeah and that's
that's another problem of our political
incentive structures the the kind of
sense of accountability and
responsibility tends to be personal you
know people whether people decide to do
it or not it's not institutional if that
makes sense we've added kind of a
breakdown of that kind of that sense now
I took an oath of office and I'm
assuming that most of them did too you
know I had to be sworn in you know when
I I took those positions I took that
seriously but I already took an oath of
citizenship there's you know presumably
you did too you know you kind of started
to become an American citizen it's not
something you take on lightly
and you know that's why I felt this deep
sense of responsibility all the time
which is why I went into the
administration in the first place I mean
I got a lot of flack for it because you
know I thought well look I've been asked
and there's a real issue here after the
Russian interference and you know the
whole influence operation in the 2016
elections and I knew what was going on
and I should do something
you know if not me then you know okay
someone else will go and do it but can I
live with myself just sitting on the
sidelines and criticizing what people
are doing you know and kind of you know
worrying about this or am I actually
going to muck in there and you know just
go and do something it's like seeing
your house on fire and you see that you
know okay this is pretty awful and
dangerous but I could go in there and
and do something
to clarify the house on fire meaning
the Cyber War that's going on or cyber
attacks the Cyber City well in the 2016
you know when the Russians had
interfered in the election you know I I
mean basically this was a huge National
Security crisis and our politics we've
gone mad as a result of it and we in
fact we were making the situation worse
and I thought that I could you know kind
of at the time but maybe I could do
something here I could try to clarify I
could you know work with others who I
knew in the government from previous
stints in the government to push back
against this and try to make sure it
didn't happen again and look and I also
didn't have this you know mad you know
kind of crazy ideological view of Russia
either I mean I knew the players I knew
the people I've been studying a long
time and quite calm about it I don't
take it personally it's not kind of an
extension of self it's you know
something I've spent a long time trying
to understand for myself going back to
that very beginning of my with the
Russians trying to blow us up there must
be an explanation there was it was a
very complicated and complex explanation
it wasn't as simple as how it sounded
and also there's a long tail to 2016 you
know Putin's perceptions the kind of
things that he thought were going on the
the you know the whole way that
what they did was actually fairly
straightforward they've done this before
in the Soviet period during the Cold War
classic influence operation it just did
gone beyond the bounds of anything they
could have anticipated because of social
media and just a Confluence of
circumstances in the United States as
well we were very fragile and vulnerable
and I remember at one point having a
discussion with the Russian ambassador
where you know we were complaining about
the Russian intervention he said are you
telling me that the United States is a
Banana Republic that it's so vulnerable
to these kinds of efforts he actually
looked genuinely mystified although I
mean I'm obviously was probably you know
part of a you know kind of political
shtick there but he had a point the
United States had never been that
vulnerable as it suddenly was in 2016.
and in the time that I was in government
and going back to what you asked about
the whole impeachment and the whole
exercise in uh in Congress
that vulnerability was as Stark as it
you know ever could be our domestic
politics were as much a part of the
problem as anything else there were the
kindling to all of the kind of the fires
Putin didn't start any of this other
kind of problems domestically just took
advantage of them and you know basically
added a bit of a next settlement here
and there
yeah the interference I mean that's a
much longer discussion
because uh it's also for me technically
fascinating
um I've been playing with the idea of
just launching like a million Bots but
that are doing just positive stuff and
just being kind yeah I was kind of
wondering if is it possible to do
something on this skill that's positive
because you know a lot of people seem to
be able to use all of this for pretty
negative effect you've got to kind of
hope that you could do this use the Sim
networks for for positive effects I
think that's actually where a lot of the
war I think uh from the original hackers
to today
what gives people like me and I think a
lot of people that in the hacking
Community pleasure is to do something
difficult break through the systems
and uh do the ethical thing right so do
the um because if there's something
broken about the system you want to
break through all the rules and do
something that you know in your heart is
the right thing to do I mean that's what
um Aaron Schwartz did with the releasing
journals and Publications that were
behind pay walls to the public
yeah but to me it's fascinating because
I I maybe you can actually educate me
but um
I felt that the Russian interference
in terms of social engineering in terms
of bots all that kind of stuff I feel
like there was more used for political
bickering than to actually understand
the national security problem because uh
I would like to know the actual numbers
involved in the influence I would like
to I mean obviously hopefully people Now
understand that better that are trying
to defend the National Security of this
country but it just it felt like
like for example if I launch one bot
and then and then just contact somebody
at the New York Times saying I launched
this one bot they'll just say uh
MIT
scientists hacks you know and then
well that's the spread but that's
exactly what happened it was you know
kind of I think that you know Putin and
surround him
understood because again propaganda
State they spend an awful lot of time
thinking about how you you know
basically put out your own content and
how you get maximum effect through
performance Putin himself is a you know
political pop performance artist I mean
Trump understood exactly the same thing
they were actually operating in parallel
not in collusion but in parallel you
know basically Trump understood how to
get lots of free air time you know how
to get himself a percentage of attention
Putin you know did that through a kind
of I think a less organic kind of way
you know a lot of people working around
him remember that's the old you know
Bolshevik I did prop and you know kind
of then the whole Soviet propaganda
machine and you know Putin kind of
growing up in that kind of environment
and having you know the kind of the
Kremlin press office and all the kind of
people around him got kind of a massive
machine knew how did that worked I mean
they haven't done you know what the
Chinese did in Russia it was like you
know blocking everything and having a
big fire while it was kind of putting
out lots of content getting into the you
know the sort of center of attention
Trump's doing the same kind of thing and
the Russians understood that you know if
you put a bit of things out there and
then you call up the New York Times and
people are going to run with it and what
they wanted was the perception that they
had actually sweared the election they
loved it this was the huge mistake of
the Democrats and everything and I kept
trying to push against this no they did
not elect Donald Trump Americans elected
uh Donald Trump and you know the
Electoral College was a key part
Vladimir Putin didn't make that up
you know and basically I also remember
um you know at one point the um Russian
Ambassador you know talking to me about
when we were doing the standard you know
here we are we're lodging our complaint
about the interference you know he
didn't he basically said well we didn't
you know kind of invent Comey and you
know basically the you know the decision
to reopen you know Hillary Clinton's
emails or you know kind of uh Anthony
Weiner and you know kind of his
um you know emails on uh his uh computer
and I was like yeah
he's right I mean you know there were
plenty of things in our own system that
created chaos and tipped the election
not you know kind of what the Russians
did but you know it's obviously easier
to blame the Russians and blame yourself
when you know things are kind of oh oh
those random forces and those random
factors because people couldn't
understand what had happened
in 2016 there was no hanging Chads like
2000 where there was you know kind of a
technical uh problem that actually you
know ended up with the intervention the
Supreme Court There Was You Know pure
and simple the Electoral College at work
and a candidate that nobody expected
including the Republicans in the
primaries you know to end up getting
kind of elected or put forward in a
different 2016 suddenly becoming the
president and they needed a meta
explanation it was much better to say
Vladimir Putin had done it and Vladimir
Putin had been other Kremlin guys were
like oh my God yeah fantastic champagne
Cox popping this is great our Chaos
Agent they knew they hadn't done it but
they'd love to take credit for it and so
you know the very fact that other people
couldn't explain these complex dynamics
of themselves
basically dovetails beautifully with
Vladimir Putin's
uh attempts to be the kind of the
Kremlin Gremlin in the system
and he's you know basically was taking
advantage of that forevermore and I
wanted you know to basically try to
work with us to cut through that and the
thing is then you know people lost faith
in the Integrity of the election system
because people were out there you know
suggesting that the Russians had
actually distorted the elections people
written books about that they said you
know that they hacked the system when
you know they were trying to hack our
minds but again we were the fertile soul
for this I mean we know this from
Russian history the role the Bolsheviks
you know the the whole
1920s and 1930s with Stalin the fellow
Travelers and the you know socialist you
know International I mean the Russians
and the Soviets have been at this for
years about kind of pulling you know
kind of people along and into kind of a
broader friend but it didn't mean
that they were influencing you know
directly the politics of of countries
you know writ large the plenty of
interventions it's just that we were
somehow it was like it was a Confluence
of event a perfect storm We Were Somehow
exquisitely vulnerable because of things
that we had done to ourselves it was
what Americans were doing to themselves
that was the issue you think that's the
bigger threat than large-scale bought
armies
those can be as well obviously they do
have an impact but it's it's how people
process information it's kind of like
the lack of critical thinking I'm just
not on the internet to that extent I'm
going looking for information I'm not on
social media I'm into social media but
not by myself you know I don't put
myself out there I'm not I've got a
Twitter feeder you don't have a Twitter
one yeah but there is
you know I have all kinds of strange
things it's feeling Health cup which I
kind of like you know occasionally have
people send things to me so many fans
it's hilarious but what I what I what I
try to do is just be really critical I
mean my you know my mum sends me stuff
like what is this yeah
it's just you know your own mother can
be as much of an agent of misinformation
as you know kind of Vladimir Putin oh
yeah I mean we're all you know kind of
we all have to really think about what
it is we're reading there's one thing
for my childhood that was really
important I mean I always think every
kid in school should have this my next
door neighbor
um who were was um he was actually very
active in the in the labor party and he
was you know kind of really interested
in the way that opinion you know shaped
people's political views and he was well
she was a native Welsh speaker so you
know he was always trying to explore
English and how you know there was kind
of the reach of you know the English
culture and you know kind of How It's
kind of shaping the way that people
thought and he used to read every single
newspaper you know from all the
different spectrums which is quite easy
to do you know back in the 70s and 80s
because there weren't that many in the
UK context and every Sunday would get
all the different Sunday papers from all
the different kind of ideological
Vantage points and then when I got to be
a teenager he'd invite me to look at
them with him
because it was my godfather and he was
just an incredible guy and he was just
super interesting and you know kind of
culturally you know an outsider always
kind of looking in and he basically runs
through you know what the guardian
looked at the Observer The Daily Mail
the sun you know kind of all of these
you know the telegraph all of these
newspapers and how you could tell you
know their different Vantage points and
of course it's complicated to do that
now I mean in this you know incredibly
extensive media space I look at what it
is that they're saying and then I tried
to you know read around it and then you
know look at what other people are
saying and why they're saying it and who
are they what's their context and that
was kind of busy what I was taught to
look at and and I think everybody should
have that and certainly that's something
that people in politics that are in
charge of directing policy should should
be doing they should be not getting lost
in uh
in the sort of the hysteria that can be
created like it does seem that the
American system somehow not the
political system just humans love drama
we're very good like the hunter Biden
laptop Story We there's always like one
two three stories somehow that we just
pick that we're just gonna this is the
stuff we're gonna
fight about
for this election and everyone's got an
opinion on it everybody yeah yeah
exactly and it's the most important like
Hillary Clinton's emails Russians packed
the election yeah we had John podesta's
pasta recipes for a while you know that
we were kind of all obsessing over I
don't know people running out and trying
them out you know something like that
and there's fun uh I mean there's all
the best conspiracy theories about
Giuliani there's I just love it we just
pick a random story sometimes it's
ridiculous and it detracts from what the
larger question should be which is about
the family members of you know senior
officials and mothers they should be
anywhere near any of the issues that
they're you know there's ethics there's
government ethics and things there you
know kind of across the ball but there's
a bigger story in there but that becomes
a distraction it's a look over there you
know the oldest trick in the book you
know kind of idea
yes politicians are really good at that
because it detects from the larger
question because every single member of
Congress and you know government
official their family should be nowhere
near anything they're doing
well that I could push back and disagree
on I I mean well it depends on what they
did if they're making money out of it
you know and kind of basically being in
business is what I mean you know if this
is a this is
so it's not you know Hunter Biden on his
own it's you know kind of basically the
kids of you know the Trump family the
bitter you name it yeah in general like
that I just think
it's funny like there's a lot of
families that
you know they work very closely together
do business together it's very
successful I get very weird about that
it it just feels like you're not in fact
I don't even like hiring or working with
friends
uh initially you make friends with the
people you work with that's right no I
have to I have the same worries as well
because it kind of clouds you know I
would encourage you know my daughter to
do something completely different right
not going to the same field now look
it's different if you're you know in
science or you know mathematics or
something like this and you know maybe
you know kind of you've got a family
member you're kind of building on some
of their theories and ideas you know if
Albert Einstein had a you know kind of
an offspring it was a mathematics and
took you know his father's thinking you
know further that would be very
different but if it's you know kind of
you're in business and other things and
it's just you know it's the nepotism
problem that you know one has there well
it says that too yeah that's what they
do if they're not people aren't coming
and building on the ideas in a
constructive web right but even for son
daughter of Einstein You want to think
outside the box of the previous person
I'm meaning but I mean it's just but
they shouldn't be sort of told no sorry
you can't go and study math because you
know whatever physics you know because
of but a lot of that you can't actually
make it into law well you could I
suppose but honestly if you do that kind
of thing you should be transparent there
should be just an honesty body it gets
back to what I was talking about before
we need diversity of views and diversity
of thinking and you can't have other
things just like being partisan or you
know uh
rooting just for a team you know if
something's going to Cloud your judgment
or a constrain the way you think about
things and become you know kind of a
barrier to moving on out look that's
what we see in the system around Putin
it's kind of kleptocratic and it's uh
you know it's filled with nepotism all
of the kind of like the people who you
kind of see out there in prominent
positions of the sons or Daughters of
including a Putin himself I mean that's
when a system has degenerated and that's
going to kind of and I suppose in a way
this is a symbol of the degeneration of
the system but again it's just a
diversion from you know kind of the
bigger issues and bigger implications of
things that we're discussing
so Critics on the left often use the
straw man of TDS Trump derangement
syndrome
uh why does Donald Trump arouse so much
emotion in people
it's just the nature of the person I
mean I don't feel particularly emotional
about him
um I mean he's kind of a
he's a very flawed guy to be honest on
this may seem bizarre I felt sorry for
him
because this guy is so vulnerable
so wrapped upon himself
that that I mean he's just exquisitely
open to manipulation and I saw people
taking advantage of him all the time he
has zero self-awareness
I mean I kept thinking to myself my God
if this guy didn't have this Entourage
around him how would he function
I mean I felt sorry for us as well I
mean that he ended up being our
President because that should not have
happened I mean in terms of character
and in terms of fit for fit for the job
although I saw this you know kind of
over a period of time but I didn't feel
you know kind of
any you know
ah
sense of derangement you know kind of
around him I didn't drive me nuts in
that way I just became I was just very
worried about you know the kind of the
impact that he was having on on many
particular issues here's the important
thing so what I noticed that people that
criticized Donald Trump
is they get caught up in the momentum of
it and they're unable to see
um
first of all let's start with some
ground truth which is
approximately
half the country voted for the guy
right yep and more voted in 2020 than
voted in 2016. yeah
and I I just I just feel like people
don't load that in when they're honestly
a lot of those people
didn't vote for
him and his personality and often
first time and second time
and they could disassociate
you know kind of the all of the kind of
features of Donald Trump that drives
other people nuts from you know what
they thought that an actual fact he
could achieve in terms of it wasn't just
this kind of sense about well I couldn't
possibly vote for Democrats sometimes
it's just like well look you shake
things up and we need things to check to
be shoken up and um some people might
have voted them for personality see this
one yeah some of them know some of them
did as well but I'm just saying that not
all of them did either that's the thing
but yeah I can't say I'm just I'm just
saying anecdotally I know people have
voted me because he's him from the
Charisma and and others who wrote it
because he's shaking things up and you
know he's keeping people on their toes
and you know kind of we need that you
know idea but the way to avoid Trump
derangement syndrome to me me as a
doctor I'm sort of prescribing to the
patients uh on this syndrome this uh
this issue is I feel like you have to
empathize
with the people you have to imagine your
mind all the different like um
strengths that the people who have voted
for Donald Trump see
and really understand it really feel it
like walk around with it and then
criticize like I just feel like people
get lost in this bubble of criticism in
their own head I don't forget like the
tribe you're in or whatever in their own
head they're not able to see like half
this country that we're a part of voted
for the person same with Biden half the
country voted for the guy the people
that are criticizing Biden and they're
doing this the way Biden is currently
criticized
is not based on policy
uh is based on personal stuff similar
like to Trump yeah I know it is I mean
that's what people do look I think part
of that is
I mean I look at first of all I want to
say I completely agree with you about
understanding my own people are coming
from and I think it's very important for
people to listen to other people and
their views I try to do that all the
time try to learn from that you know I
mean everybody's got a a perspective and
a context we all live in a certain
context we're all living in history our
own personal histories matter a lot and
also the larger context the environment
in which we're living in and where we
live and who we live with and you know
the kinds of lives that we lead as well
those are all extraordinarily important
I mean I know that from you know myself
everything you know that I've done in my
life has been shipped by where I came
from who I was my family and the way
that we looked at things you can't take
yourself out of that I mean you can do
it in some you know like a science or
something else but you know it's still
your own views and maybe some of the
ideas that you have and pursuing an
experiment might have been shipped by
your larger context you know depending
on what it is that you work on but the
other thing is the niche of the
political system
the presidential election is like
a personality contest a beauty contest
it's like a kind of a referendum on you
know one person or another
it's kind of like what we see in Russia
honesty with you know Putin or not Putin
or Putin and put before you know it's
all about Putin and you know what do you
think about Putin it's not about what
the President should be doing and you
know kind of what their policies are
that's kind of the bizareness of the US
political system look we've just seen
this happening in the United Kingdom
you've got this core of a couple of
thousand a couple hundred thousand
rather uh people in the conservative
party have just voted for you know three
leaders in a row the rest of the country
is and then they're just looking at you
know whether they like that personality
and you know what they said to them
rather than what they're necessarily
going to do for the country
I mean which is you know kind of pretty
absurd and I mean again the presidency
is a weird hybrid in the United States
you know we were talking before about
it's the person should be running the
country to the chief executive or the
prime minister in another setting but we
don't think of it like that you know we
often think about whether we like the
guy or not so you know we'd like to hang
out with him all the you know one of my
younger relatives and I said so why did
you vote for Trump he said well he was
great it was funny how much of his
rallies I got you know all kind of
charged up and I said could you see
yourself voting for Biden always Two
Worlds and I simply no he's only just a
little bit you know kind of older than
Trump or is you know the same emergency
grandma do you think your Grandma's old
no no not at all but it's just this kind
of perception he's boring you know so
there's people are actually sometimes
you know basically being you know kind
of uh motivated by just a feeling you
know kind of that kind of sense because
that's the sort of nature of the you
know the presidency it's this kind of
how you feel about yourself as an
American or how you feel about the
country writ large the kind of a symbol
of the state look at you know in Britney
you had you know Queen Elizabeth II and
everyone body you know seem to for the
most part not everyone I guess but most
people respected her as a person as a
personality as a kind of symbol of the
state even if they actually didn't
really like the institution of the
monarchy there was something you know
kind of about that particular
personality that you were able to you
know kind of relate to in that context
but only the United States we've got all
that rolled into one the head of state
the symbol of the state the kind of
queen the king the kind of idea the
chief executive the kind of prime
ministerial role and then the Commander
in Chief of the military it's all things
you know kind of at once but ultimately
for a lot of people it's just how we
feel about that person oh I couldn't
cover up for them because of this or I
couldn't vote for them because of that
and in 2016
I know Hillary Clinton actually did win
the election in terms of the popular
vote so it wasn't that you know kind of
people wouldn't vote for a woman I mean
more people voted for her
on the popular level not obviously you
know through the Electoral College in
the Electoral College vote so it wasn't
just you know gender or something like
that but it was an awful lot of things
for people found Trump attractive
because he was sticking up the big
middle finger to The Establishment he's
an anti-establishment change character
there's a lot of people voted for Barack
Obama for the same reason and voted for
Trump we know that phenomenon what was
the 11 you know 12 of people you know so
they could vote for some completely
totally different vertically different
people because that sense of change and
Charisma I mean I had people who I knew
voted for Trump but would have voted for
a bummer again if he'd run again
uh because they just like the way that
he spoke they like the way that you know
because they said um I mean this is all
my own anecdotal things dude about one
of my relatives that I could listen to
Obama all day every day I just love the
way he sounded I love the way he looked
you know I was just like the whole thing
about him and then say about Trump while
he was exciting it was interesting you
know he was kind of like you know
whipping it up there you know so there's
this just this kind of feeling you know
we always say about you know could you
have a beer with this person and people
a lot people decide they couldn't have
one with Hillary Clinton and you know
maybe they could go off and have one
with Barack Obama and uh with uh Donald
Trump didn't want to have one with Joe
Biden you know for example and remember
George W bush didn't drink so he
wouldn't have had a beer with him he'd
have gone out and got a soda or
something with him but you know there's
this there's that kind of element of
just that sort of personal connection in
the way that the whole presidential
election is set up it's less about the
parties
it says about the platforms it's more
about the person
yeah and picking one side and like
sticking with your person really like a
sport team yeah it is yeah what do you
think about Vladimir Putin the man and
the leader
let's actually look at the full you've
written a lot about him the the recent
Vladimir Putin and the the full context
of his life
um let's zoom out and look at the last
20 plus years of his rule
in what ways has he been good for Russia
in what ways bad
well if you look to the
you know on the uh overall Ledger you
would have actually said that he
made a lot of achievements from Russia
now there was of course the pretty
black period of the war in chechnya but
you know he didn't start that that was
Boris Yeltsin that was obviously a
pretty catastrophic uh event but if you
look at then other parts of the Ledger
of what Putin was doing you know from
the 2000s you know onwards he stabilized
the Russian economy uh brought back you
know kind of confidence uh and and the
Russian economy and financial system he
built up a pretty impressive team of
technocrats rather than the central bank
and the economics and you know Finance
Ministries who
um you know really got the country back
into ship again and solvent paid off all
of the debts and you know really started
to
um build the country back up again
domestically
and you know the first couple of terms
again putting chechnya you know to one
side which is a little hard because I
mean there was a lot of atrocities and I
have to say that you know he was pretty
involved in all of that because the FSB
which he'd headed previously you know
was in charge of wrapping up chechnya
and it created you know kind of a of a
very strange sort of system of fealty
almost a feudal system in the kind of
relationship between uh Putin at the top
and khadira Francesca there was quite a
lot of distortions you know kind of as a
result of that in the way that the
Russian Federation was run you know a
lot more of an emphasis on the security
services for example but there was a lot
of pragmatism you know opening up the
country for business
um you know basically extending
relationships I would say that you know
by the end of those first couple of
terms of uh Putin Russians were living
their best lives
um you know there was a lot of
opportunity for people uh people the
labor you know was being paid for they
weren't being taxed the taxes were
coming out of the extractive industries
uh there was you know kind of a I guess
a sense of much more political pluralism
um but it wasn't the kind of the chaos
of the Elton period
and then you see a shift
and it's pretty much when he comes back
into Power again
in 2011 2012.
and that's when we see a kind of a
different phase emerging
and you know part of it is the the
larger International environment where
Putin is himself has become kind of
convinced of the United States is out to
to get him and part of it goes back to
the decision on the part of the United
States to invade Iraq in 2003
there's also you know the recognition of
Kosovo in 2008 and you know the whole
kind of machinations around all kinds of
you know other issues of NATO expansion
and elsewhere but Iraq in 2003 and this
kind of whole idea after that that the
United States is in the business of
regime change and perhaps you know has
him in his crosshairs as well
but there's also then kind of I think a
sense of building crisis after the
financial crisis and the Great Recession
2008 2009 because I think Putin up until
then believed in you know the whole idea
of the Global Financial system and that
Russia was prospering and that Russia
you know part of the G8 actually could
be genuinely one of the you know the
major economic and financial powers
and then suddenly he realizes that in
the west is incompetent that you know we
totally mismanaged the economy of our
own the financial crash in the United
States the kind of blowing up of the uh
of the the housing bubble and that we
were feckless
and that we that had global
reverberations
and he's prime minister of course you
know in this kind of period but then you
know and I think that that kind of
compels him to kind of come back into
the presidency and try to kind of uh
take things under control again in 2011
2012 and after that he goes into kind of
a much more sort of focused role where
he sees the United States as a as a big
bigger problem
and he also
you know starts to you know kind of
focus on also uh the domestic uh
environment because his return to the
presidency is met by protests and he
genuinely seems to believe because again
this is very similar to belief here in
the United States that Donald Trump
couldn't possibly be related by
Americans there somehow was some kind of
external inter interference because the
Russians interfered and had an impact
Putin himself thinks at that time it's
one of the reasons why he interferes in
our elections later that the United
States and others had interfere because
he knew that people weren't that
thrilled about him coming back it kind
of like the Medvedev period and the
protests and Moscow and Saint Petersburg
and other major cities he starts to
believe we're instigated by the west by
the outside
because of you know funding for
um transparency in elections and you
know all of the ngos and others you know
they're operating State departments
Embassy funding you know the and the you
know the whole attitudes of God is back
you know kind of thing
and so after that we see Putin going on
a very different footing it's also
somewhere in that period
2011-2012 we start to kind of obsess
about Ukraine
and he's always you know I think being
kind of steeped in that whole view of
Russian history I mean I heard at that
time I was in I've written about this
and many of the things that you know
I've written about Putin that in that
same time frame I'm going to all these
conferences in Russia where Putin is and
peskov his uh uh press secretary and
they talk about him reading Russian
history I think is this in this kind of
poo that he formulates this idea
of
the necessity
of reconstituting the Russian World the
Russian Empire he's obviously been very
interested in this he's always said of
course at the collapse of the Soviet
Union was the great catastrophe of 20th
century but also the collapse of the
Russian Empire before it and he starts
to be critical about lending the
Bolsheviks and he starts to do all this
talking about Ukraine
as
the same country ukrainians and Russians
being one and the same and this is where
the Ledger flips because I mean the
initial question you asked me is about
has Russia has Putin been good for
Russia or not and this is where we get
into the uh focal point of uh or the
point where he's not focusing on the
prosperity instability and future of
Russia but he starts to obsess about the
past
and you start to take things in a very
different direction he starts to clamp
down at home because of the rise of
opposition and the fact that he knows
that his you know brand is not the same
as it was before his popularity is not
the same as it was before because he's
already gone over that you know that
period in
anybody's you know professional and you
know political life that you know if you
stay around long enough people get a bit
sick of you you know it's just we talked
about that before should you stay you
know kind of in any job for a long
period of time you need refreshing and
you know kind of Putin is you know
starting to look like he's going to be
there forever and people are not happy
about that and would like the chance as
well to kind of move on and move up and
you know with him and still in place
that's not going to be uh particularly
possible and that you know it's around
the time when he starts to make that
decision of annexing Crimea and that's
when the whole thing flips in my view
the annexation of Crimea in 2014 is the
beginning of the end
of you know Vladimir Putin being a
positive force within Russia because if
you
pay very close attention
to his speech on the annexation of
Crimea
in March of 2014 you see all the
foreshadowing of you know where we are
now it's already of kind of his view of
kind of his obsessions his historical
obsessions his view of himself has been
kind of fused with the state that kind
of a modern Czar and his idea that the
West is up to get him and it becomes
after that almost a kind of like a
Messianic Mission you know to turn
things in a different direction
and who are the key people
to you in in this
evolution of the human being of the
leader is it patriciaf is it showing you
the minister of defense is it like you
mentioned pescal the press secretary uh
what role do some of the others like
lavrov play
I think it's more rich ER context I mean
individuals may also in that context but
it's just kind of like the shared
worldview and if you go back to the
early 1990s immediately after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union when
Yeltsin you know and
uh the uh has come to pass me crane
Bellerose pull it apart there was an
awful lot of people who you know wanted
to maintain the Soviet Union not just
Putin I mean you remember after uh
Gorbachev tried to have the new Union
treaty
um in um 1991 and there was the
emergency committee set up the coup
against Gorbachev it was because they
were worried he was going too far and
unraveling you know the union then as
well they were opposed to his reforms
there's always been a kind of a very
strong nationalist contingent that
became Russian nationalists over time
rather than Soviet you know hardliners
who you know basically want to maintain
the Empire the Union in some form and in
the very early part of the 1990s there
was a lot of pressure put on Ukraine and
all the other former Soviet republics
now independent states by people around
you know melushkov for example in Moscow
by you know other forces in the Russian
uh Duma not just you know vladimirovsky
and others but you know really serious
you know kind of what we would call him
like right wing you know nationalist
forces but it's you know pervasive in
the system and it's especially
perversive in the kg being in the
security sector and that's where Putin
comes out of remember Putin also was of
the opinion that one of the biggest
mistakes the Bolsheviks made was getting
rid of the Orthodox Church as an
instrument of the state
and so there's this kind of
restorationist wing within the security
services and the state apparatus the
ones who kind of bring back Russian
Orthodoxy as a state instrument an
instrument of state power and they were
kind of you know looking all the time
about strengthening the state uh the
executive the the presidency and and so
it's everybody who takes part in that
and it's also where there's more power
honestly and they see Putin as their
vehicle for power I think people like
Sergey kirienko I knew kirienko back in
the 90s I mean my God that guy's all in
or like Dimitri medvedith
you know who was you know a warmer
fuzzier version of Putin certainly had a
totally different perspective wasn't in
the KGB did you say warmer fuzzy fuzzier
version yeah I mean he's kind of like he
was literally a warm personality I don't
know if he watched him during the
September 30th annexation the guy had
all kinds of facial twitches and looked
so rigid and stiff that he looks like he
might implode I mean that wasn't you
know how he was you know earlier in his
career and he you know had a different
view of Paris Striker we always have to
remember that Putin was not in Russia
during parastrike he was in Dresden
watching the um East German State Fall
Apart and you know dealing with the
starsy in a kind of place where you
weren't getting a lot of information
about what was happening in West Germany
or even what was happening back home in
perestroika and he has that kind of
group of people around him the Patra
chefs and botany cuffs and others and
Sergey van off and others you know from
you know the different configurations of
his administration who have come out of
that same kind of mindset and are kind
of you know wanting to put everything
back together again so there's a lot of
enablers there's a lot of you know power
Seekers and there are a lot of people
who you know think the same as him as
well he is a man of his times a man of
his context
you as a top advisor yourself and and a
scholar of Putin do you think it
actually now in his inner circle are
there people he trusts there are people
he trusts for some things
but I don't think there's people who
trust for everything I don't think it's
the kind of person who tells anyone
everything at all I don't think he's got
something ever deeply confides I know
he'll he's he's com he I think he
compartmentalizes things he's often said
that the only person who trust is
himself
I think that's probably true he's the
kind of person who keeps his own counsel
I mean people talk about Kovalchuk for
example or you know kind of some of the
other people who are you know friends uh
with him that kind of go back to his
time in Saint Petersburg you know at
various points he seem to you know spend
a lot of time you know way back when
talking to people who are you know
people think of kind of more moderating
forces like Alexia kudrin but you know
it doesn't seem to be interacting you
know with them you know there are
obviously aspects of his personal life
you know does he
speak to his daughters does he you know
speak to you know kind of
lovers you know kind of in a way of
people speculate about you know kind of
who might be confide in but I would
greatly doubt that he would have deep
political discussions with them he's a
very guarded uh very careful person what
about sources of information then so
trust a deep understanding about
military strategies with
um for certain conflicts like the war in
Ukraine or even special
uh subsets of the war in Ukraine or any
kind of military operations getting
clear information deeply suspicious you
know of
under of information
and I think in a part of of the problems
that you know we see with Putin now
I mean I've come from isolation during
covet I'm I'm really convinced that you
know like many of us
you know a lot of Putin's views have
hardened
and the way that he looks at the world
have been
shuddered in very dark Ways by the
experience of this pandemic
you know obviously he was in a bubble
different kind of bubble for most of us
I mean most of us are not bubbles with
multiple you know kind of palaces and
you know kind of the Kremlin
but you know we've seen you know so much
obviously a lot of this is staged that
isolation you know they're kind of
making it very clear that he's the Tsar
the guy who is in charge making all the
decisions you know one end of the table
and everybody else is at the other end
but you know it's very difficult then to
bring you know information to him in
that way he used to have a lot of
information bundled for him in the old
days by the presidential Administration
I mean I know that because it was a lot
more open in the past and I have a lot
of meetings with people in the
presidential Administration who brought
outside you know would say all Source
information you know for him and you
know kind of funneled in information
from different think tanks and
you know different viewpoints and
maybe a kind of more eclectic
Diversified set of information you would
meet with people you know you've heard
all the stories about where he had once
called a Masha gessen you know and had a
you know come in you know obviously a
you know a very different character as a
journalist and a Critic you know we've
heard about benedictive from Echo
Muscovy the you know the radio program
the the editor who uh Putin would you
know talk to and consult with he he'd
Reach Out people
um like Elizabeth alexieva for example
the head of Memorial he had some respect
for her and would you know sometimes
just you know talk to her you know for
example all of that seems to have
come to a halt
and I think I think a lot of us worry I
mean us who you know watch Putin about
what kind of information is he getting
you know is it is it just the
information that he's seeking and
Gathering himself that fits into his
worldview and his framework we're all
guilty of that of looking for things it
gets to our social media preferences are
people just bring into him things that
they think he wants to hear like the
algorithm you know kind of like the
Kremlin working in that regard was he
himself you know tapping into sorts of
information that he absolutely wants and
remember he is not a military guy
he's a not preserved and he was sort of
trained in operations and you know
contingency planning
Sergey the defense minister as a civil
engineer was the former minister of
emergencies it wasn't a military planner
you know somebody like um the head of
the
Chiefs of Staff maybe a military guy you
know in this you know case from the Army
but he's also somebody who's in a
different part the churn of command he's
not somebody who would spontaneously
start you know telling Putin things and
Putin you know comes out of the FSB out
of the KGB of the Soviet era and he
knows the way that you know intelligence
get filtered and worked he's probably
somebody wants to consume raw
intelligence he doesn't probably want to
hear anybody else's analysis and he
survived in the past of you know picking
things up from people you know I've
taken part in all of these meetings with
him gone for hours because he's just
collecting he's collecting information
he's sussing people out he wants to know
the questions they ask he learned
something about the questions that
people ask the way that they ask them
you know so he's kind of soliciting
information himself and if he's cut off
from that information
you know because of circumstances
then you know how is he formulating
things in his head and again getting
into you can't get into his head but you
can understand the context in which he's
operating and that's where you worry
because he clearly made this decision to
invade Ukraine behind the back of most
of his security establishment
you think so oh I think it's pretty
apparent oh what uh what would the
security establishment will be well that
would be the larger you know thinking
the funneling in information from the uh
presidential Administration from the
National Security
it's like you know he made that decision
and then you know having worked in these
kinds of environments and it's not that
dissimilar you filter information up so
think about you know you and I are
talking for hours here
um if if you were my you know uh
basically
um you know senior official and I'm your
briefer I might only get 20 minutes with
you
and you might be just like you know
looking at your watch the whole time and
thinking hang on a second I've got to go
and I've got this meeting and I've got
that meeting and yeah your point you're
not going to wait there so I give this
long explanation I've got to get to the
point and then I've got to then choose
for myself what's the information I'm
going to impart to you out of the 20
things I think are important
you know okay I've got 20 minutes maybe
I only get two minutes maybe you know
you get called out and somebody you know
kind of interrupts something happens I'm
gonna get one minute two minutes yeah I
mean I want to remember I had to give a
presentation when I was in government
you know to um Henry Kissinger you know
for that defense policy board and we
plan bloody weeks on this thing you know
PowerPoints were created teams of people
were brought together
and you know people were practicing this
we had all these you know different
people there and I said look Henry
Kissinger is an academic and former
professor and you know I happened to you
know I'm gonna watch him in action he's
gonna like
you know five seconds in if we'll if
we're lucky we get that far ask us a
question and just throw off our entire
presentation what is it that we want to
convey and that's exactly what happened
and then you know people aren't really
prepared what they wanted to convey and
they're you know they'd be prepared uh
you know a nice sort of fulsome you know
PowerPoint like approach we never even
got there and so God knows what you know
he took away from it at the end of it
and that's you know think about Putin
he's going to be kind of impatient he's
you know we see the televised things
where he you know kind of sits at a
table a bit like you know people won't
necessarily see us here and he puts his
hands on the tip and he looks across at
the person who says so tell me
you know what's the main things I need
to know and of course the person's mind
probably goes blank you know with the
kind of the thought of like oh God
what's the main thing yeah and they go
and they start well Vladimir
vladimirovich and you know they they
start the kind of you know they're
revving up you know to get to the point
and then he cuts them off so you think
about that and then you think about well
what information has he got and then how
does he process it and is he suspicious
of it does he not believe it
and what inside of his own history then
you know leads him to make one judgment
over another he clearly thought the
acronyms would fall apart in five
seconds
we don't know if he clearly thought that
but that there was a uh
high probability maybe I mean I think he
pretty much thought it because I think
he thought that you know kind of his
silencer wasn't very popular there was
an awful lot of you know pro-russian
sentiment and whatever where he thinks
that is because people are Russian
speakers and that you know they're kind
of you know in polling that you know
they're expressed Affinity with Russia I
mean certainly in Crimea
um that worked out because a majority of
the population had you know higher
Sentiments of feelings of affinity with
Russia and you know obviously you know
that that kind of they got traction
there but it's more complicated we
talked about donbass before about being
a you know kind of Melting Pot when you
know they tried the same thing in donbas
Donetsk because it tried in Crimea in
2014 didn't kind of pan out in fact you
know a whole war broke out they tried
you know to kind of in
um uh you know many of the major cities
in our under attack including Odessa to
kind of ferment you know pro-russian
movements and they're completely and
ugly fell apart so Putin was thinking
and I'm pretty sure based on polling and
the FSB having infiltrated you know an
awful lot of the Ukrainian hierarchies
we're now seeing is quite apparent with
some of the dismissals in Ukraine he was
pretty sure that you know kind of he
would get traction and that it would be
like 1956 in Hungary or 1968 and check
as if I can remember he comes out of the
and drop-off uh Levy as it's called the
kind of cohort of people who come and
under under the KGB under Yuri and drop
off and you're on top of us presided
over a lot of these anti-discidant you
know kind of movements inside of Russia
itself and how you suppress opposition
but also over you know how you deal with
um you know kind of the uprisings in you
know Czechoslovakia and Hungary and
there's all these lessons from this that
you know you can put everything back in
the box and yeah there might be a bit of
violence and a bit of fighting but
ultimately you you think you've got the
political figures and you decapitate the
opposition so they thought you've let
you know zielinski would run away yeah
kovich ran away but you know Bob was
kind of a bit you know sort of a
different set of circumstances and they
thought that all of the local
governments would you know kind of
capitulate because they had enough
Russians and inverted commas in there
again mistaking language
and you know kind of positive Affinity
towards Russia for identity or how
people would react in the time and not
understanding people's
you know linkages and you know kind of
importance of place the way that people
feel about who they are in a certain set
of circumstances in a place
but the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is
unlike anything
that he was ever involved with so but I
don't think he thought it would be you
know because it's this kind of if he
looks back into the past you're right
though he wasn't involved in 68 or 56 or
what happened in the 1980s in Poland but
there's a very wide front and it's the
capital and I mean this isn't going for
this isn't chitch now this isn't you
know kind of Syria or for example this
is a major Innovation exactly like a lot
it's large to the size it was more like
Afghanistan but they didn't realize that
because again ukrainians are us this is
kind of inability to think that people
might think differently and might want
something different and that 30 years of
Independence actually has an impact on
people and there's psyches and
if I look back to the 1990s I mean I
remember being in seminars in at Harvard
at the time and we were doing a lot of
research on
you know what was happening in you know
the former Soviet Union at the time
because the early 1990s just after the
you know the whole place fell apart
and there was already under Yelps in
this kind of idea of Russians abroad
Russians in the near abroad Russian
speakers and the need to bring them back
in
and I remember you know we had seminars
at the time when we talked about at some
point there'd be some people in Russia
that would actually believe that
those Russian speakers needed to be
brought back into Russia but that the
people who spoke Russia might have moved
on because they certainly had other
opportunities in other windows on the
world I mean look what's happened in
Scotland you know for example most
people in Scotland speak English
the Scottish language is not the
standard bearer of Scottish identity
there's just it's almost a civic
identity a different identity than not
just national identity just like you see
in Ukraine and there's lots of English
people that have moved to Scotland and
now think of themselves as Scottish and
Brazilians or Italians and you know all
kinds of people who've moved in there um
it's a smaller population obviously it's
not the scale of uh Ukraine but
you know people feel differently and
there's been a Devolution of power and
when brexit happened you know Scotland
didn't want to go along with that at all
and wanted to kind of still be you know
having a window on Europe and that's
kind of historic and lots of people in
Ukraine have locked west not East
you know it depends on where you are not
not just in
uh lavif you know or somewhere like that
but also in Kiev and and how to keep you
know was kind of predominantly a
russian-speaking city but harcave was
also the center of Ukrainian culture and
Ukrainian literature you know different
points people have different views I
grew up in the north of England we don't
feel like the south of England there's
been a massive divide between north and
south and England for Millennia not just
centuries so you know people feel
differently depending on where they live
and you know kind of where they grew up
and Putin just
didn't see that so he didn't see that
well hold on a second let me sort of
push back at the fact that I don't think
any of this is obvious so first of all
zelansky before the war was unpopular oh
it was what was it 38 something like
that
Liberty yeah
yeah let me uh sort of make the case
that the the calculation here
uh is is very difficult if you were to
pull
every citizen of Ukraine and ask them
what do you think happens if Russia
invades
just like actually each put each
individual Ukrainian in a one-on-one
meeting with Putin and say what do you
think happens
I honestly think most of them will say
that they will agree
with a prediction that the government
would flee with collapse and the the
country won't Unite
uh around the cause because of the
factions because of all the different
parties involved because of the
popularity might have said the same
thing about the Soviet Union when Hitler
invaded in 1941
you see the problem is Putin always
reads history from one perspective over
another I think most countries
basically rise to their own defense
so this is actually one of the first
times that Russia has been on the
offensive
rather than on the defensive
you know so there's kind of a bit of a
flip there
I mean obviously Afghanistan but you
know that was more complicated because
it was operative it's also supposed to
be an intervention right I mean it
wasn't supposed to be to Annex
Afghanistan it was to right try to you
know prop up you know kind of our
reinstall of you know a leader there
Syria you were in there to you know help
your guy Bashar al-assad you know turn
away the opposition chechnya was a
debacle the chechens fought back big
time and it was only by didn't of you
know a horrible violent persistence
and ruthlessness and nasty dirty tricks
that
um you know kind of Putin prevailed
there but and then you know you wonder
did he Prevail because what happened
in a church now sometimes describes the
most independent part of the Russian
Federation and ramazan khadirov and it
plays power games in Moscow yeah his
predecessors
um even his father and others wouldn't
have done that
and you know before that the dayaf and
mosgardev I mean they were willing to
make a compromise but you know they
wouldn't have had you know the same
position that uh khadira has had so you
know I think that again it's it's your
perspective and where you stand and what
which bit of History you start to read
and that's why I said that you know I
kind of think Putin
it's again it's the information the word
that he processes it I think most
Russians also can't believe that they've
done something wrong on Ukraine I mean
maybe at this point things are changing
a bit but that's why there was you know
so much kind of support for this in a
right way I mean I have Russian friends
again I said but look what you know was
happening and done yet look what was um
you know the ukrainians were doing to
our guys
you know look what was happening to
Russian speakers
you know we were Defenders
we were not you know we're not Invaders
I think you know again the special
military operation you know idea now I
think it's flipping obviously in the way
that with the war going on there but
Putin wasn't you know kind of looking at
what would happen
I mean most of the kind of Glory parts
of Russian history when you kind of go
in you know you chase Napoleon back to
Paris or you chased the Germans back to
Berlin you put the flag above the
reichstag that's a very different set of
Affairs only been fighting a defensive
one you've been invaded from a world
where you invade someone else
and even the most fractured populations
like you had in the Soviet Union the
point rally round and you know World War
One the the fell apart I mean the Czar
didn't manage to Rally everybody around
when the whole thing fell apart
and World War II Stalin had to you know
revive nationalism
including in the republics in Central
Asia and elsewhere to revive nationalism
and Ukraine suddenly found nationalism
you know in a kind of Senses that's
really interesting thing because it's
not it's not obvious especially what
ukrainians went through in the 1930s
it's not obvious that that I mean my
grandfather was Ukrainian and he was
proud to fight
a Ukrainian Jew he was proud to fight
and willing to die for his country it
wasn't like his country then was the
Soviet Union the Soviet Union right
sorry to clarify but he might fight now
for his country Ukraine yes but it I'm
just like uh lingering and the point you
made it was not obvious
that that United feeling would be there
no and again it wouldn't have been
obvious with the Soviet Union so yeah
that's what I'm saying sorry I was
referring to my grandfather with the
Soviet Union we're both saying the exact
same thing yeah no yeah it's a really
powerful thing because I take it because
you take history as it happened
you don't realize it's going to happen
differently it's kind of it's fast it's
that whole counterfactual right yeah
yeah because I mean if you if you've
kind of that's that's why we all need in
the United States to really examine our
own history
because you know there's a lot of
lessons from that
but you know we we should treat very
cautiously it doesn't mean that you know
history repeats or even Rhymes you know
the old Axiom all the time but there are
a lot of things that you can take away
differently from
putting a different perspective in a
different slant on the same set of
events I mean I was used to wonder like
how many books can be written on the
French Revolution or even on the Russian
Revolution you know I studied with
Richard pipes I remember he was really
offended after he'd written his grip
microserpas on the Russian Revolution
two volumes other people would you know
kind of write about the Russian
Revolution so I've written it all and I
thought well actually maybe I haven't
you know it's like that might be some
completely different angle there that
you haven't really thought of and that's
Putin you know I remember peskov saying
Putin reads history all the time Russian
history and I thought well maybe she'd
read some world history you know maybe
he should you know kind of uh read some
European authors on Russian history not
just you know reading La manosa for you
know Russian
um historians on Russian history because
you might see something from a very
different perspective and look in the
United States made a massive mistake in
Vietnam right
I mean there's so Vietnam is kind of
weak manipulated by you know kind of
external forces China's Soviet Union
but the Vietnamese fought for their own
country
they suddenly became Vietnamese and Ho
Chi Minh became you know gonna basically
a kind of a wartime fighter and leader
you know in a way that you know perhaps
people wouldn't have understood either
you said uh you know it's these men have
massive mistake uh in Vietnam in that
for some reason sprung a thought in my
head
as the United States since World War II
uh had anything that's not a mistake in
terms of military operations uh abroad
um I I suppose all the ones that are
successes
we don't even know about probably so
it's like very fast military operations
I mean Korea is divided I mean I don't
know if it's successful but you know you
know kind of I mean there was a solution
found that you know some people are
promoting you know in this case as well
of a sort of division and a you know the
DMZ and you know one side over the other
and you know kind of perpetuating a
division which
particularly successful but if you think
about World War one and World War II the
United States came in you know on some
very specific sets of circumstances in
World War one they did kind of come in
to help you know kind of liberate you
know parts of Europe France and you know
kind of this is the UK and you know
everything else Great Britain and the
war towards the end of it World War II
you know if there was that whole debate
about whether the United States should
even be part of the war I mean we know
it wasn't thought to you know overturn
the Holocaust and all of the kind of
things you kind of wish it would be
fought for but it was because of Pearl
Harbor and you know the Japanese pulling
in but I mean ultimately
it was easy to explain
why you were there you know particularly
after Pearl Harbor and what had happened
it was harder to explain Vietnam and
career and you know many that there
wasn't that's kind of going to be a
problem for Putin that's why there is a
problem for Putin all of his
explanations of
being questioned
you know started off on NATO or this or
that or the other and you know kind of
all liberating you know Ukraine from
Nazis or you know kind of basically
stopping the persecution of Russian
speakers and all of this has now got
lost in just this horrific destruction
and that's what happened in Vietnam as
well
I became you know a a great degradation
of the Russian military with atrocities
and you know people wondering why on
Earth the United States was in Vietnam
I mean even that kind of happened in
Britain in the colonial you know kind of
pivot as well why was the United Kingdom
doing you know committing atrocities and
you know kind of basically fighting
these colonial wars
Northern Ireland why was the United
Kingdom still
you know kind of military occupying
Island Cyprus there's all kinds of you
know instances where we look at these
things because what Russia is doing now
Putin is trying to occupy
another country irrespective of you know
kind of the historical linkages and you
know the kind of the larger meta
narratives that he's trying to put
forward there
what brawl did the United States play in
the lead up and the actual invasion of
um of Ukraine by Russia a lot of people
say that I mean obviously Vladimir Putin
says that part of the reason the
invasion had to happen is because of
security concerns over the expansion of
NATO
and
there is a lot of people that say that
this was provoked by NATO
do you think there's some legitimacy to
that case
look I think the whole situation here is
very complicated you have to take a much
longer view than you know what happened
in you know 2008 with the open door for
Ukraine and Georgia which actually by
the way I thought was a strategic
blunder just to be very clear because it
wasn't any kind of thinking through
about what the implications of that
would be and you know what would
actually mean for your current security
and also bearing in mind what you know
Putin had already said about NATO
expansion they they came on the wake of
the uh recognition by the United States
pretty unilaterally of Kosovo and it
also comes in the work of Laura
mentioned before the inversion of Iraq
which really is very
important for understanding Putin's
psyche
so I think you know we have to go back
you know much further than it's not just
talking about kind of NATO and what that
means
NATO is part of the whole
package of Ukraine going in a different
direction from Russia just as though is
the European Union remember the
annexation of Crimea comes after
Ukraine has sought an Association group
agreement with the European Union
not with an Airtel at that particular
Point even though you know the EU on the
security common security defense policy
um basically house all kinds of
connections with NATO you know various
different levels in European security
front it was all about Europe and
going on a different economic and
political and ultimately legal path
because if you have
an association agreement eventually you
get into the aqui committee turn and it
just transforms the country completely
and Ukraine is no longer the Ukraine of
the Soviet period or the Russian Empire
period it becomes you know on a
different trajectory like Czech Republic
Slovakia Poland you know another country
becomes a different place it moves into
a different space and that's part of it
but if you go back again
to the period at the very beginning of
the 1990s after the dissolution of the
Soviet Union well there's no discussion
about NATO at that point in NATO
enlargement
there is a lot of pressure again as I've
said before by nationalist elements on
Ukraine trying to bring it back in the
fold
and wanting to make what was then you
know this mechanism for divorce more of
a mechanism for remanaged Commonwealth
of independent states
and in the early 1990s when
Ukraine became an independent state it
inherited that nuclear Arsenal from the
Soviet Union basically whatever was
stationed or positioned in Ukrainian
territory at the time became Ukraine's
strategic and you know kind of basically
intermediate and tactical nuclear
weapons and you know in the United
States at the time you know we had all
this Panic about
what was going to happen with all of
that I mean I think you know I was a
scientist and you know kind of
technically it would have been difficult
for Ukraine to actually use this I mean
the targeting was you know done
centrally they were actually stationed
there but nonetheless Ukraine like
Belarus and Kazakhstan to become nuclear
powers
and you know ashkata the former U.S
defense I could use just died tragically
and Dave was talking about
um you know uh uh talking together today
was part of a whole team of Americans
and and others who
you know tried to work with Ukraine
Belarus and Kazakhstan to get them to
give up the nuclear weapons
and back in the early period of that 93
you go back and I mean I was writing
about this at the time I wrote a report
called Back in the USSR which is you
know kind of on the website the Kennedy
School with some other colleagues
and we were monitoring how there was all
these accusations coming out of of
Moscow the defense um Ministry and the
Duma the the Parliament and others that
Ukraine was trying to find a way of
making a dirty bomb using its nuclear
weapons you know becoming a menace um
and you know kind of Ukraine might have
to be brought to order
so a lot of the Dynamics we're seeing
now were happening then irrespective of
NATO
basically the the problem was always
Ukraine getting away Yeltsin himself
when he unraveled the Soviet Union
didn't really want it to unravel but he
didn't have the wherewithal to bring you
know the countries back again Russia was
weak after the collapse of the Soviet
Union its economy imploded
um it had to give sovereignty to all of
these constituent parts of the Russian
Federation in terms of the sort of
devolution of authority it had the war
in chechnya which Yeltsin stupidly
sparked off in
1994. you had Tata Stan one of the the
regions the old Rich regions
um you know basically resting out a kind
of a a bilateral treaty with Moscow you
had the whole place was kind of seemed
like it was falling apart so that you
know you couldn't do anything on Ukraine
because you didn't have the wherewithal
to do it and then when you know kind of
basically Russia starts to get its act
back together again all of these
security
nationalist types who had never wanted
Ukraine or Belarus some older or
anywhere else to kind of move away they
didn't worry that much about Central
Asia to be frank but they know they did
one and you know the um the core States
in their view to come back and Moldova
was part of that even it's not Slavic
but you know they wanted Belarus and
Northern Kazakhstan and probably
Kazakhstan as well which wasn't really
thought about being part of Central Asia
back in the fold as close as possible so
anything that gave those countries an
alternative was seen as negative
uh it you know could have been an
association with China you know of them
joining you know kind of an association
with Latin America or Africa or
something else like that but of course
NATO has all of those larger
connotations of it being you know the
Cold War uh opposing entity and Putin
has always seen NATO as being the direct
correlation of the Warsaw Pact which is
in other words just something dominated
completely by the United States
now that of course is my getting back to
Trump again Trump was always going you
know to the Europeans if this is really
supposed to be collective security in a
mutual defense pact why are you guys not
paying you know why does the United
States pay for everything but you know
NATO was actually conceived as
collective defense you know Mutual
Security and it was set up by you know
the United States along with the UK and
France and you know Germany and turkey
and you know other countries and we see
that now with the entry of Finland and
Sweden they didn't have to join it or
they didn't want to join it a long time
they wanted to partner with it just like
Israel and the other countries partner
with um NATO but once they thought that
their security was really at risk they
wanted to be part of it
and so you know kind of you're now
really seeing you know that Nate was
something other than just being
um you know a creature or an instrument
of the United States but that's how
Putin always saw it so you know what
this debate about Metro is all about or
Russia being provoked
is wanting to kind of return to an old
superpower
bipolar relationship where everything is
negotiated with the United States it's
to try to deny that Ukraine or Belarus
well Belarus has been absorbed by this
point you know by Russia or Moldova or
Kazakhstan or any of the other countries
have any kind of agency not even Poland
or Hungary or you know kind of France
and Britain
for years and years and years
senior people like Putin and people
around the Kremlin have demanded a
return to the kind of what they call the
little concert of Europe or the concert
of Vienna where the big guys
which now means the United States and
Russia just sit down and thrash
everything out
and so I mean Putin by saying look it
was provoked it's the United States it's
NATO it's a proxy war or it's it's this
or it's that or this is going to be a
nuclear confrontation it's like the
Cuban Missile Crisis the Euro Missile
Crisis it's basically just saying you
know I want to go back to when the
Soviet Union the United States worked
things out I want to go back to the
whole you know period of the 1980s when
Gorbachev and Reagan just kind of got
together and figured things out or even
better back to Yalta Potsdam and Tehran
and the big you know meetings
at the end of World War II where we
resolved the whole future security we've
had a war we've had the Cold War now
we've got another War we've got a real
war Hot War we've got a war in Ukraine
it should be the United States and
Russia that sort this out so this is
where we see the United States waffling
about as well trying to kind of like
figure out how to handle this because
it has to be handled in a way that
Ukraine has agency because if Ukraine
doesn't have urgency and nobody else has
urgency either nobody else has any kind
of decision-making power
and you know we have an environment in
which Putin thinks that there's only
really three players there's the United
States and Russia and China and maybe
even occasion might be India and perhaps
Brazil or some other South Africa or
some other country like maybe the brics
at some point but you know ultimately
it's like the oldest big Powers resolve
everything and so this war is also about
Russia's right Putin's right you know to
determine things you know strong man to
strong man big country to Big Country
and you know determine you know where
things happen next that's why he's
talking about things being provoked it's
being the United States fault but aren't
there parts of the United States
establishment that likes that kind of
three-party view of the world oh there's
always going to be people who like that
part that
which of course there is
but then they don't necessarily dominate
that's the kind of thing that people
kind of think about I mean you know
Putin can you know read you know all the
various articles and hear the kind of
pronouncements of people but you know
this gets back to you know the way that
the United States operates
you know put Putin saw that you know
Trump wanted to have a you know top-down
you know vertical of power
and other presidents have wanted to have
that but the United States is a pretty
messy place and we have all kinds of
different viewpoints now of course we
know that in Russia everything even
criticism the Kremlin is usually fairly
orchestrated usually to kind of flush
out you know what people think about
things when we had these hardliners
saying you know we needed more
destruction of Ukraine not less and that
you know the Army wasn't doing enough it
was in many respects you know kind of
encouraged by the Kremlin and to see how
people would react to that you know to
kind of actually create a constituency
for you know being more ruthless uh than
you had before because you know they
wanted to clamp down in the United
States I mean I can say whatever I want
it doesn't mean that I'm speaking on
behalf of the White House
and you know even if I have been an
advisor to this president that president
and the other doesn't mean I'm you know
basically speaking on behalf of the US
government but this is kind of always an
assumption from the Russians that you
know when people
you know say this and people do Advocate
one thing or over another that they're
you know it's operating there's a lot of
mirror Imaging thinking that you know
we're operating in the same kind of way
so yes there are of course
constituencies who think like that and
would love it you know to be back to
that and there are many people out there
with their own peace plans all kinds of
people you know up there yeah to push
this there does seem to be uh the engine
of the military-industrial complex seems
to give some fuel to the Hawks and they
seem to create momentum in government
yeah but other people do too I mean
there's always you know kind of a check
I mean again you believe in the tension
of ideas because I think there was a lot
of attention I mean I've seen it I've
seen it inside of the government now you
know and people can push back and that's
why I speak out and I try to lay it out
so that everybody can you know kind of
figure out for themselves I said the
same to you as I say to everybody this
is how I see the situation and you know
this is you know how we can analyze it
here now look do I think that we've
handled you know the whole Russia
account you know fears
well no we haven't I mean we've we've
we've taken our eyes off the ball many
times we've fail to understand the way
that people like Putin think you know
you talked earlier about you know we
need to have empathy for you know all
the people who like Trump or like Biden
and some other thing we've got to have
strategic empathy about Putin as well
we've got to understand how the guy
thinks and why he thinks like he does
you know he he has got his own context
and his own frame and his own rationale
and he is rational he is a rational
actor in his own context we've got to
understand that we've got to understand
that he would take offense at something
and he would take action over something
it doesn't mean to say that you know we
are necessary to blame by taking actions
but we are to blame when we don't
understand the consequences of things
that we do and act accordingly or you
know take preventative action or
recognize that something might happen as
a result of something so you've been in
the room with Putin
um let me ask you for some advice
and it's also just a good philosophical
question for you or for me if I have a
conversation with Vladimir Putin right
now can you advise on what questions
topics ideas to talk through to him as
the leader to him as a human what would
you like to understand about his mind
about his thinking
well I said that
it tries to you know reverse things he
wants to hear the questions that that
people have
because remember
he himself at different points has been
a recruiter which is you know the way
that you're operating now as well right
you're asking an awful lot of questions
your questions also betray you know
often the times that we're where you're
thinking about things you know the kind
of context
um
you know kind of any kind of dialogue
like this reveals a lot about the you
know the other person yeah and I've
actually often you know noticed in these
settings that Putin likes to have a lot
of give and take so I think he would
actually enjoy having a conversation you
know with you but again he would always
be trying to
influence you inform and influence
that's kind of you know part of the way
that he always operates
so what you would have to you know be
trying to think about so what is it that
you would want to elicit information
from him you're trying to understand the
guy's worldview and what we're trying to
also understand is if there's any room
there where he might compromise on
something
you know so if your goal was to go in
there you know to talk about Ukraine at
this particular moment
I mean one of the problems that I've
often seen in the sort of the meetings
we've had with Putin just ends up in
sort of mutual recriminations
you know kind of know well what about
what you've done or no you've done that
about you know and um there's always
this what about it I mean it often said
well your thing that I've done this but
you've done that the United States
invaded Iraq what's the difference
between you know what I'm doing and all
of the things that you've been doing
here
I mean what you would have to try to do
is kind of elicit information about why
or what he is thinking about this
particular moment in time and why he
thinks it
yeah the what about USM is a is a
failure case I think that shows
from all the interviews I've seen that
with him that just shows that he doesn't
trust the person on the other side no he
doesn't right but I I I'm not cynical
like people's they they seem to think
he's some kind of KGB agent that doesn't
trust anybody I disagree I think
everybody's human
and from my perspective I'm worried
about
what I've seen is I think whether it's
covid whether it's
uh
are there aspects that I'm not aware of
leading up to the invasion he seems to
be less willing to have uh charismatic
back and forth dialogue yeah an open
discussion you know actually you know I
said you asked me before about you know
that issue of trust and he often says he
only trusts himself
and I said you know he's often in a
distrustful of people but he just trusts
some people for certain things where he
knows it's within their competence
yeah so
he has people he trusts to do things
because you know he knows they'll do
them and he knows that they'll do them
well which is why you know he has his
you know old buddies from you know Saint
Petersburg because he's known for a very
long time and he knows that they want
you know try to pull a fast one over him
but he also knows their strengths and
their weaknesses and what they can be
trusted to do I mean he's learning that
you know some of the people in the
military that he you know thought were
competent or people on other things are
not right that they're and eating tends
to actually have a lot of loyalty to
people as well or he also kind of thinks
it's best to keep him inside the tent
and outside and he moves them around you
know he kind of okay you know he gives
them multiple chances to redeem
themselves if they don't it's not like
he hasn't done in I mean yeah there is a
lot of that in the system but the people
that he's worked with for a long time
you know he moves them around to
something else perhaps where they can do
less harm although you know we've often
see that he he has quite a small Cadre
of people that he's reliant on and but
you know they're not up to the task
which is kind of what's Happening Here
but he also in the past has been more
straightforward just like you were
saying here more pragmatic
and I think you know if you were engaged
with him in Russian while you're
actually literally speaking the same
language because there's so much Lost in
Translation I used to jump outside of my
skin listening to some of the phone
calls because you know the way that they
kind of relayed you know with an
interpreter oh because you listen to the
translation no because I know I'm
listening to the Russian and the
translation in the translation you know
in real time and I haven't been here to
translators Institute it's pretty
difficult look an interpret is a trend
in the moment to do something you know
the synchronic the the Synchro the the
synchronized or the real-time
translation
it's a translation is an art as well as
a skill
if you're doing simultaneous translation
that's the word in English you know
synchronous in Russian you're you're
kind of focused in the moment on the
fragments of of the discussion trying to
render it as accurately as you possibly
can
and when you come out of that you you
can't relay the entire conversation
and often you know what translators do
is they you know they take this little
shorthander like journalists do and
afterwards you know they they've just
been caught up in the moment and they
haven't got the big picture
consecutive translation is different you
know kind of you're trying to convey the
whole mood of like big chunks of
dialogue that have already been there
but you know sometimes you might not get
that right either and it breaks up the
flow of the discussion that's terrible
and and often it's you know the kind of
the person who translates it's different
you know some of our best translated as
a woman
but you know hearing a woman's voice
you know translating a guy who has a
particular guy's way of speaking and a
macho way of speaking and a crude way of
speaking it'll be that Putin or I've
seen that happen with uh erdogan the
president of Turkey you know and it gets
translated by a much more refined you
know female speaker you've just lost the
whole thing
and you know many of the translators on
the Russian side are not competent in
English in the way that you would hope
they are they're not it's not just that
they're not native speakers they're just
not trained to the same high standards
they used to be in the past yes and you
just go you lose the new ones you use
the you use the feel you know you almost
need you know kind of the interpretive
actor you know doing you know the kind
of the uh the interpretations like you
need to match it as much as you can in
the way that you you know do voiceovers
and film the best way to talk to Putin
is one-on-one
in his own language I want to have a
really great friend um here who is one
of the best interpreters of Putin is
often Us by the you know the media
um to interpret phone which is just a he
was at the Institute that I was I mean I
know him from that kind of period and he
is just excellent just like Pavel
pashinka was absolutely phenomenal
interpreting Gorbachev now he didn't
always interpret him accurately because
Gorbachev made lots of grammatical gaffs
and sometimes was you know Gorbachev
himself would joke that palashinko you
know spoke better for Gorbachev than
Gorbachev could himself but Putin is
actually quite precise and careful in
the word that he speaks because a lot of
Menace sometimes the things deliberately
other times there's lots of humor and
he's telling a joke for a particular
reason and a lot of it is I mean he
actually uses the richness of the
Russian language and the crudity of
language that can't be conveyed official
Expressions yeah facial expressions body
language the word that he sits back in
the chair and slouches the the kind of
the way that he makes fun of people and
he you know kind of uses irony just some
of it's just lost and it needs to be
conveyed it the depth of humor and wit
I've met quite a few like political
leaders like that in the speak only
Russian when I was traveling Ukraine
um
I I don't know how you translate that I
think it's almost uh the other person
that reminds me like that a little bit
is Obama
there's Obama had a wit and an
intelligence but like uh he would Smile
as he said something that add a lot to
it like uh like that he's trolling you
or he's being sarcastic or like I don't
it's me converting it to words it's
obvious that all English speakers if
they listen to Obama but if you had to
translate to a different language I
think you're going to lose a lot of that
yeah I mean when I watched um the I mean
I watched many of Putin's speech just
you know just in Russian not looking at
any of the you know the subtitles or
anything and it's just watching the word
that is body language is at the at the
time when he's saying things the whether
you smoke he'll sneer he'll laugh he'll
he'll ad-lib you know kind of from
something that obviously kind of you
know wasn't there on the prepared uh
Speech and it's really critical and you
know kind of a lot some people speak you
know like trump it just needs kind of
just
words
Putin the words are very important
Trumpets the atmosphere it's the the
kind of the way you feel about things
it's the buzz you get you know it's
revving people up it's the kind of
slogans and Putin is you know peace
conveying a lot and what he's saying
that I think I mean of course I don't
know much because I only speak Russian
and English but I have in English or
Russian have not met
almost anyone ever
as interesting in conversation as Putin
the I think he shines not in speeches
but in interactions with others yeah
when you watch those interviews and
things with him and I've you know been
at many of these sessions it's been
hours of him parrying questions and it's
like watching um a boxer sparring you
know the kind of training bout
yeah come on give me another one you
know and it's kind of like and he Prides
himself and and he's made mistakes
often but the the breadth of you know
the issues that he's often covered has
been interested has been fascinating I
used to just take you know kind of
really detailed notes about this because
you learn a term but it's not about his
worldview again
I mean he does live in a certain box
like we all do
and you know again his World experience
is not as extensive as you know you
would hope it would be but that's why
you have to really pay attention that's
where we've messed up
that's where we haven't really paid a
lot of attention to what he's been
saying he's been telegraphing
this
grievances dissatisfaction this I'm
gonna do something for years
and the thing is during war time
the combined with propaganda and the
narratives
of resentment and grievance that you dig
in on those like
maybe you start out not believing it but
you're sure it's all gonna believe it
eventually well you convince yourself
over time yeah look the longer
you're in a position like Putin 22 years
now coming on 23 years could be out
there for 36 years
you become more and more rigid I mean
this is again you know something that
you see in history you know you look at
you know people through history of move
from kind of being kind of left-wing and
you know in the perspective to hard
right they kind of have a kind of a sort
of an ossification or a rigidity emerges
in their views I mean again I used to
have these arguments with Professor
price Bob Lennon because he would talk
about lenasia but he didn't change his
mind from being 18. have you not thought
about that I mean it's like we're not
formed fully formed in individuals at
our team you know we don't know anything
we know something but not everything I
mean and obviously the younger context
you know the kind of the way that you
kind of grow up the players you grew up
the things that happened you the traumas
you have I mean all of these have an
impact but then if you don't grow beyond
all of that and Putin's been stuck in
place since 2000 when it became
president he's not out and about you
know kind of being a man of the people
and I you know he's not doing the kind
of things he used to do yeah he gets out
there and he goes to Kazakhstan and you
know got him Tajikistan and he goes to
China and he does this nothing and
Jacoby he didn't go anywhere I mean very
few places and so he got he's got stuck
and I that worries me a lot because you
could see before that he you know had a
bit more of flexibility of thought
and that's why nobody should be in
players forever you should always kind
of like get out there and go out there
and learn a new skill you know kind of
you need some he needs to sort of you
know he needed to get out more and do
something different you had an
interesting point you've made that both
Lionel Messi and uh Putin are thinking
about
they're just politicians they're
thinking about the 2024 election which
is coming up for both of them yeah I've
said that in some of the other
interviews yeah that's true that's so
interesting yeah I mean because that
election is going to be pretty much at
the same time as the U.S election also
oh those will be before I mean because
sometime in that you know early part of
the year for the presidential election
yeah and also I don't know if you know
about U.S elections but they actually
last way longer we're in it now aren't
we you know already yeah it's starting
so there's going to be a significant
overlap
um yeah you know you think that actually
comes into play in their calculus I
think it was one of the reasons why
Putin invaded in February of 2022
because it was gonna be two years I mean
thought it'd be over by March of 2022
and you've got two years to prepare for
you know the election and you've got a
big boost you know not only you've got a
boost from Crimea I mean I didn't
mention that before I mean one of the
reasons for inverting Crimea and alexing
or invading Ukraine the first time Alex
in Crimea it was look what happened to
his ratings they went from kind of
declining and it was still pretty good
you know by anybody's standards too just
rocketing off into the stratosphere I
mean I didn't really meet anybody in
Russia who thought that Alex in Crimea
was you know kind of a bad thing
I mean even you know kind of people who
opposed putting on so many other things
Crimea was you know Klim Nash they kept
saying you know this is kind of you know
we got it back you know it should never
have gone away it was ours you know and
but you know this is more complex and he
wasn't I don't think at the time
planning on annexing all of Ukraine uh
when he went in this special military
operation he was going to try to turn it
into what Belarus has become a part of a
you know bring back the Commonwealth of
independent states or the union then a
new Union with Belarus and Ukraine and
Russia over time but certainly you know
remove Ukraine as a major factor
independent Factor on the world stage
and you know consolidate Crimea and
maybe you know kind of incorporate
daniette's you know kind of that was
that was also a possibility but it
wasn't
it wasn't in his intention and etiquette
to have something on this kind of scale
he wanted to get on with them preparing
for what was going to be he would think
the cake walk the shoe-in of the next
presidential election I mean last time
around he had to invite a bit of
competition with this person who's
reputed to be his goddaughter because
Cindy subject you know to put a bit of
you know a kind of entertainment for
people
you know the sex time around you know
maybe he wasn't really planning on
running you know against any other you
know serious opposition he was just
going to have the Acclaim of you know
the kind of the great leader like
President XI
um in China you know Putin you know was
basically I think you know he also hoped
that he would be able to devolve some
Authority away you know kind of so he's
more like the you know the supreme
leader kind of figure the Tsar like
figure the Monarch and then you know
other people get on with the chief
executive prime minister or running the
country and he could kind of like step
back and just enjoy this you know maybe
there was going to be again a new Union
of Belarus Russia and
um than Ukraine and some you know
fashion and he'd preside over that
speaking of our position you've
criticized the famed Putin critic Alex
in navalny
what's the nature of your criticism well
hasn't really been a kind of a criticism
in the way that you know people have
implied but more just reminding people
that navalny isn't some stooge of the
West as other people have you know kind
of depicted him in the in the Russian
firmament you know saying that this is
kind of you know he's pro-western he's a
Russian Nationalist and a Russian
Patriot you know in the past uh he's
articulated you know things are not sort
of dissimilar from some of the people
around Putin and it's more just
reminding people that you know just
because you kind of see somebody you
know as a kind of in an opposition
figure or somebody who might be more
palatable from you know your perspective
looking from the West
they're not always going to be you know
what you think they are and Alexander
Valley is a Russian and you know in a
particular Russian context he's
different from Putin but he wouldn't
necessarily you know kind of run you
know the Russian system in words that we
were like
so that's it's kind of it's not a kind
of a criticism it's more of a critique
of the way that we look at things you
know I think it's a mistake to always
you know say oh this is pro-western or
this is a you know liberal I mean what
the heck does that mean pro-western I
mean he's a Russian he's a Russian
Nationalist and a Russian Patriot and
he's often you know been you know quite
critical about the immigration
um he's had some negative views about
you know one part remember said don't
feed the caucuses you know kind of
played upon some of the you know the
racial and ethnic tensions inside of you
know Russia itself as well now he is a
pluralist and then he's kind of and he
wants to have you know different uh
set of political actors there but he
also isn't promoting Revolution he's not
Lenin he's not wanting to bring down the
state
he wants to kind of you know change
the people who are in charge that's what
he's being basically focused on and you
know he might have
and have things done do things that you
know we elsewhere might not like and I
guess the bigger picture there is
it's not trivial to know that if you
place another human in power
to replace the current human and power
that things are going to be better they
could be a lot worse because
there's a momentum to a system a system
is bigger than just this leader even
when that leader has a huge amount of
power that's absolutely right and you
know he grew up in that you know same
system now he's younger than Putin so
he's got a different generational
perspective
and he's not wedded to the Soviet Union
uh or you know kind of some concept of
the Russian Empire he doesn't seem to
spend a lot of time I don't know what
he's doing you know in jail but he's
probably not sitting around you know
reading romanosov and you know the kind
of the great kind of tracks of Russian
history could be actually but I mean I
think you know navalny has a different
worldview on a different perspective
just like Medved if was different you
know in his time in presidency in mid
some you know changes and some
Innovations there but don't think that
they're going to be radically different
because look Gorbachev I mean he was
so different from andropov and chilienko
now this is the person
but he was also constrained by the
system and he wanted to have change but
he wanted evolutionary change he didn't
know how to do it but he didn't want to
bring the whole system down look a crush
off when he came in you know after that
whole period of
you know about everybody trying to
figure out what to do after Stalin had
died and there was all this kind of back
and forth and eventually Kristoff
emerges and you know he tries to make
changes to the system but he's also a
creature of a very specific context he's
grown up in the same system and it you
know kind of brings all kinds of
elements of chaos there into the whole
thing and you know gets into a standoff
of the United States
that we know is the Cuban Missile Crisis
and eventually you know gets removed you
know we're looking at what's happening
in the United Kingdom right now you know
they've just churned through three
uh Prime Ministers and actually five
prime ministers in you know kind of as
many years but all of those prime
ministers have come out of the context
of the conservative party in the whole
you know kind of just shades of you know
the same thing they've all come out of
the same academic and you know kind of
privileged backgrounds even uh Rishi
sunak the new um prime minister is the
first you know Indian or anglo-indian uh
prime minister and British history it
was a kind of phenomenal you know kind
of as a child of in Indian immigrants
but also um
a person of great privilege from the
same academic and party background as
the others you know so there are always
differences with those human beings but
those contexts matter a lot what is the
probability that Russia attacks Ukraine
with the tactical nuclear weapon
well Putin's definitely been thinking
about it right I mean he's the kind of
person if he's got an instrument he
wants to figure out how to use it you
know we look at polonium we look at
novichok you know we look at all kinds
of things you know that he's also
presided over in Syria he has you know
put in charge of the war in Ukraine now
uh General civilikin is known as general
Armageddon you know the kind of person
who you know pretty much facilitated the
use of chemical weapons in Syria you
know for example so you know don't think
that Putin you know hasn't thought about
how ruthless he can possibly be the
question is really the calculation it's
his estimation of the probability that
will get the desired effect
we keep talking about this idea of
escalate de-escalate that's not what the
Russians you know how they call it but
it's the whole idea that you do
something really outrageous to get
everybody else to back off yeah now when
you talked about the precedent that the
United States set of detonating uh the
nuclear weapons in Hiroshima Nagasaki
what you know he obviously meant the
president of using nuclear weapons of
course which of course we would then say
well we should then how the Imp
permissibility of ever doing that again
but what he's talking about is the
precedent of escalating to such an
accident that you stopped the war
because he reads that saying well you
know the US dropped the bombs on
Hiroshima Nagasaki the war was brought
to a quick conclusion and of course
there's a huge debate in America about
whether it was necessary to do that
whether the war was ending anywhere did
that really you know kind of uh change
the minds of the Japanese High command I
mean did all kind of books uh and being
written about that
and of course you know the revulsion
that people felt um in the wake of that
was just you know just the shock of of
what actually happened and we've spent
you know 70 years you know basically
Coming to Terms of the fact that we did
something like that you know the fire
bombing you know we've also looked at
all the bombing you know in Vietnam and
everywhere and you know the the all
these massive bombing campaigns are
realizing they actually often had the
opposite effect Hiroshima Nagasaki might
have uh contributed and there's a lot of
you know scholarship suggesting it did
to the end of the war but all of the big
bombing campaigns the destruction
actually prolonged was because they made
people fight back as we're kind of
seeing in the case of Ukraine so Putin
has to calculate the probability that if
he uses some tactical nuclear weapon
that it will get the desired effect
which is get us to capitulate and
Ukraine to capitulate it us to
capitulate meaning the United States and
the Europeans not supporting Ukraine
anymore pushing towards the negotiating
table negotiating Ukraine away and
Ukraine is saying okay we give up like
um happened in Hiroshima Nagasaki in
Japan ton so it's it's his calculation
you know as much as anything else which
is really important he said we have to
show him that he won't get that out of
it it's kind of less our probability and
you know kind of the odds of it it's
just how he calculates that probability
oh they're getting what he wants I mean
I guess that's how the game of poker
works it's your your probability and
your estimate of their probability and
your estimate of their estimate of your
probability and yeah so it goes on yeah
uh I think he has two tools right so one
is actually the actual use of nuclear
weapons and then the threat of these oh
the threat is very effective and the
more real you make the threat that's
right so if they get uh the more you
approach the actual use I get very close
to you there's already using Chernobyl
is that aparisia and then usual cranes
the other nuclear reactors so he's using
civilian nuclear actors as a dirty bomb
so you know it's ironic that he has Sega
his defense minister calling people
obviously the ukraines are going to use
a dirty bomb they're already doing it I
mean what what what is um you know kind
of more destructive and stirring up all
the radioactive dust and Chernobyl as
you send your troops through you know
for example or shelling you know the the
Chernobyl plants and the sarcophagus and
putting it at risk and that Parisian
you've got the international atomic
energy agency running out there in a
panic and you know kind of also trying
to intervene in the conflict so you're
putting you know civilian nuclear uh
reactors at risk I mean that also has a
great added effect of cutting off
Ukraine's power supply because
zaparisian predicted it was the opposite
a third of them Ukraine's power
generation or some you know really high
percentage job but I'd have to go back
and you know take a look at that but
that's a twofer you know it's a kind of
a double effect there of undermining uh
Power Generation also frightening
Germans and others who've already been
very worried about nuclear power and you
know increasing your leverage on that
energy front but also scaring people uh
from the perspective of uh the use of
nuclear weapon those reactors also
become a nuclear weapon tactically
deployed and as you said that the
discussion of using a nuclear weapon and
engendering all those fears and he's
already got an effect everyone's running
around talking about the Cuban Missile
Crisis and secret diplomacy and how we
negotiate away Ukraine in return for not
blowing up a nuclear weapon so he's got
a lot of people obviously talking about
that so sorry for the difficult and uh
direct question it could be for you
directly or more like uh do you think we
have a plan for this what happens if he
does
drop a nuclear
weapon do you have a sense that the
United States
has a good plan
I know we're talking about it I think we
probably have several plans because it
depends on what where when how
but that don't and also don't these
things happen very quickly
well there's also signaling and sign and
signs of um of movement there I mean I
want to be very you know kind of careful
about this but and the thing is it's
also very important that we do this with
other nuclear Powers so the other thing
that's different
from how it might have been in the past
and particularly different from the
Cuban Missile Crisis near a missile
crisis we're not the only nuclear
players
China I mean has emerging nuclear
Arsenal now
um Less on the Strategic side but
building it up uh but very much on the
intermediate uh range and Tactical
Kim Jong-un is firing off weapons left
right and Center at the moment in North
Korea we've got other Rogue States
Putin's behaving like a rogue State just
to be very clear and this is what we've
got with Kim Jong-un in North Korea
we've also got India and Pakistan and
we've got other states that we're not
supposed to talk about that we now have
nuclear capacities and others that would
like to have nuclear capacity and the
whole questioner here is about ulcer
proliferation getting back to that time
when Ukraine had nuclear weapons at
least there on its television sort of
Belarus and Kazakhstan you've got to
wonder was it wise for them to give it
up we were worried about you know kind
of loose nukes nuclear weapons you know
kind of uh getting out of hand
proliferation at the time we wanted
fewer nuclear Powers Russia wanted that
too now we're going to have more we've
got more and what Putin is saying is
well that was stupid if you turn to give
up the nuclear weapons in fact my
colleagues and I back in our report Back
in the USSR kind of suggest they
shouldn't give them up
and that's why we had the um butter
patch memorandum that's why the United
States the United Kingdom in particular
have you know basically some
responsibility and obligation going back
to 1994 when they promised Ukraine that
gave up the nuclear weapons that
territorial integrity and sovereignty
would remain intact some obligation to
actually do something to step up if we
step back from that this is the thing
that people are not talking about
you know what about nuclear
proliferation if you're South Korea or
Japan you know you're any other country
that's kind of worrying about your
neighbors
um and you know what might happen to you
I mean just like India and Pakistan are
both like well you know we've got to
kind of keep our strategic nuclear
balance here everything is up for
questions Saudis don't want a nuclear
weapon the Turks already want one
they've talked about one for years you
know why should the Iranians be the only
one with an Islamic nuclear weapon you
know and if if we know that you know
Iran has
break up capacity now the Saudis and all
the other you know states that are in
opposition to Iran well I also want to
have some nuclear capacity in the United
States before wanted to maintain
everything under the nuclear umbrella
you know one of the reasons why Sweden
and Finland are joining NATO is because
of suddenly all of these nuclear threats
Sweden was actually the Lost country on
the planet to want to have nuclear
weapons they were actually pushing for a
ban on nuclear weapons in the United
Nations now that Putin's doing the
nuclear cyber rattling
you know they're talking about joining
and on the verge of joining a nuclear
Alliance you know see what what's
happening here so we have to make it
more and more difficult for Putin to
even contemplate that that's why people
are saying this is reckless this is
irresponsible Putin is actually making
the world less safe for himself down the
line either but he's thinking short term
here he's thinking what can I do what do
I actually have you can also destroy
lots of infrastructure as he's doing
you can use subversion you know we're
worried about all of the undersea cables
all these weird things happening you
know off orkney or in the Mediterranean
or you know all these other things that
are happening not dream to pipelines
other infrastructure there's all kinds
of other things that he can do as well
here it's not just you know again
there's a civilian nuclear threat
of blowing up you know one of the
reactors
now it's got to be sure about where the
wind turns and the wind blows
and there's all kinds of things to you
know factor in here but Putin is
definitely sitting around
calculating with other people what can I
do to turn this around I mean he still
thinks that he can win this
or in other words he can oh he can end
it in on his terms Crimea done yet
and you know capitulation all recognized
as being part of Russia
oh he can freeze it and then you know
kind of figure about where it goes from
there what other pressure he can put on
I mean I'm sure he's confident to get
rid of zelenski and and he can Prevail
over us I mean look I mean the UK is
going through Prime Ministers you know
faster than I'm changing my socks you
know so it's like uh you know he can you
know Prevail on the um you know
basically he can
it can have an impact on the political
scene in Europe and elsewhere I mean
again everyone's talking about winter
coming and I know Putin's thinking yeah
great I've you know destroyed the
infrastructure of
you're worried about the winter
well yeah but I mean look the other
thing is that is to start
economy suggest
we've got the home front to think about
as well Putin has declared war on us
they did that on September 30th he's
done it at other points as well we've
just not paid attention but it pretty
much pretty explicit in September 30th I
mean go back and watch that speech
and you know he
is gambling that you know people will go
back you know to basically taking
Russian gas and oil but it's not going
to be that simple as well and do people
and then you know the question has to be
do we really kind of think he's going to
play a fair after that well he's kind of
also shown that he can leverage that
it's such a complicated world it is
complicated it's very complicated it's
never I mean this it feels like things
are heating up
like
and China
is very quiet right now because they're
watching what happens I mean for
president she
you know is trying to consolidate his
power even further after the party
Congress but he doesn't want to look
like he made a mistake by bucking Putin
I mean he thought Putin was also going
to be you know
Ukraine would probably be open for
massive Chinese investment China was the
largest investor in Ukraine
before the wall
largest single investor I mean the EU
was bigger of course how do you hope the
war ends in Ukraine
well I mean I I do hope and you know
with a ceasefire and negotiated solution
but it has to be with Russia
compromising on something and that's not
where we are right now do you think both
sides might be willing to compromise
most wars always end in that way I mean
nobody's ever happy but they don't seem
to either side like legitimately doesn't
want to compromise right now yeah
because somebody look the thing is that
um for Ukraine right now anything is a
compromise at its expense right yeah
fast devastation
unbelievable casualty rates
biggest Refugee crisis since World War
II Russia's just said sorry this is our
territories not just Crimea I think
there could have been a negotiation over
that
but you know danette's coming we've got
all kinds of formulas we've had all the
way through history of you know putting
things under a kind of guardianship
receivership of territory the United
Nations all kinds of different ways of
formulating that we could have easily
been creative but Russia's basically
saying sorry we've taken this and any
other negotiations just you recognizing
this for us not doing more destruction I
mean that is not the basis for
negotiation
and you know having you know kind of
people come and just sort of laying
those terms down is not a starting
position
I think Russia
is also you know in a in a dilemma of
its own making now because Putin has
made it very difficult you know to
compromise just by everything that he
said
now for Ukraine they've already won
a great moral political and Military
victory
it's just hard to see it right at the
particular moment they've done what the
Finns did in the winter War which the
Finns were devastated by the winter War
as well but they pushed them back
now the fins lost a lot of territory
there's corellia and you know huge
spares of territory but
they got to be Finland
and I know now they're you know joining
NATO but they've been part of the EU the
question is how to
you know get Ukraine to be
Ukraine in a success
but you know is and that's the challenge
now again they've already won
psychologically politically militarily
because Putin doesn't
succeeded in what he wanted to do but he
has succeeded in completely and utterly
devastating them and this is the kind of
the old muscovite
the old Russian imperial old server
mentality you know going all the way
back to when the muscovites were the bag
men for the you know the horde the for
the Mongols it was destruction you know
you don't play with us we'll destroy you
you know people talk about it as Mafia
but it's older you know all you have to
go does you go and see tarkovsky's Andre
Rubio I mean I remember you know seeing
that film when I was first as a student
in Moscow and just being whoa this is so
brutal
I mean this is just unremittingly brutal
because the whole point is
that you show people who's the Boss
the destruction is the point of things
as well
because
you know you are emphasizing your
domination
and that's what Putin is doing right now
is saying okay you want to go in a
different direction so be it but I'm
Gonna Make You Suffer remember when
hodokowsky got out of
um the penal colony when Putin let him
out eventually he said he suffered
enough
but he suffered for 10 11 years
I don't think Putin feels that Ukraine
has suffered enough at this point or we
have suffered so there's a part of this
Invasion there's punishment for
something yeah it's medieval
I mean look we're all capable of the
same things right there was a lot of
Destruction and that's what Assad was
like in Syria like his father
you destroy because you teach him a
lesson
and look Britain did that in the
colonial era I mean all the history of
British colonialism is exactly the same
you know up until recent times brutality
teaching people you know if teaching
them a lesson you have to suffer the US
did it I mean we did it with the Native
Americans you know we did it all over
the place you know as well this is kind
of what big you know states do
at different points in history just that
you know Russia's not moved on from that
I mean we've learned some lessons late I
hope you know we're fully internalized
them of you know things that we've done
you know kind of past the United States
ideally are trying to do better and most
of Europe's trying to do better as well
think about France in Algeria you know
again you know we can see this in many
different settings
but I think you know for Putin right now
he hasn't taught all of us sufficient a
lesson
I just I talked to hundreds of people in
Ukraine and um
the tough thing
they're inspiring things that there's a
Unity the tough thing is
a lot of them speak intensely of hate
towards not just Russia but Russians
Russians that's how Europeans felt about
Germany and Germans at the end of World
War II
and uh generational hate like well I
don't think that hate is gonna pass well
it might it might well take a generation
I mean I won when I was a kid in the 70s
I went on exchanges to Germany
and that was like you know 30 years more
than 30 years after the end of the war
my grandfather had fought in World War
One or wouldn't speak to my parents when
they sent me on a
um then we hadn't thought World War II
we fought World War one he hated the
Germans
and he and he did not want me going you
know to Germany as an ex-gen student he
refused to meet you know kind of the
German kid who you know came to stay at
my house you know for example I mean it
takes a long time to and it takes a long
time to get over that but but you do I
mean and we have we have in Europe and
that was the whole point
of you know all that kind of exercise of
European Unity after World War II now
the big challenge is
what do we do with Russia because a lot
of people are talking now we can't have
European security without Russia that
people are saying we can't have a Europe
you know kind of with Russia
you know so how do we deal with this we
we've got to basically kind of it's
gonna be like Japan and Germany after
World War II after this just the level
of the atrocities that have been carried
out as you said the level of hatred
but we found a way of doing it
now it a lot of it will require change
on the part of Russia as well and
Russians and really thinking about this
I mean Gorbachev before tried to do in
the late 1980s with the black spots in
with glass slots with openness and
talking about Russian history just kind
of never sort of withered on the vine as
time went on
what gives you hope about the future
well my hope comes into the fact that
we've done things before that we've got
ourselves out of tough times and we've
overcome stuff and in people because I
meet amazing people you just talked
about hundreds of people that you've met
with in Ukraine
and you know people all think
differently contexts and circumstances
change and people can evolve some people
get stuck Putin's got stuck but people
can evolve
and you know I do think that if we all
pull together and we've seen this in so
many contexts we can find solutions to
things just like we get back again to
our discussion about scientists and just
the kind of amazing breakthroughs of
you know what we did on covid or done on
you know kind of other you know diseases
and things and look there there is some
similarities there's a pathology around
war and conflict
years ago in the 1990s I worked on you
know a lot of the projects that were
funded by the Carnegie Corporation of
the United States under the then
presidency of David Hamburg who was a
scientist and actually did see a lot of
parallels between the sort of like the
pathology of disease and you know kind
of the the
pestilence you know of conflict kind of
idea and of course these you know
parallels had to be very careful because
you know they're not neat but there was
kind of like an idea in there and how do
you sort of treat this how do you deal
with this
and we did come up with all kinds of of
ideas and you know things that are still
out there we've created institutions
that have helped to keep the peace we
just have neglected them allowed them to
degrade just like the United Nations and
you know we've created problems inside
of them like the veto power of the
permanent powers on the
U.N security Council but we can change
that he's just gonna have a will and I
do think out there there are sufficient
people with a will and we've just got to
get people mobilized I mean I'm always
amazed by how people can mobilize
themselves around a crisis remember
Winston Churchill I don't quite all the
time because I can never remember half
his quotes but I do remember the one
about never let a good crisis go to
waste and I always think that that you
know yeah that we should we shouldn't
let this crisis go to waste and
something else can come out of this just
like in Ukraine like we've worried
before about corruption in Ukraine the
influence of the oligarchs we've got to
run oligarchs here in the US we need to
you know deal with as well but this is a
chance to do it differently
yeah it really is a chance to do things
differently and a part of that is young
people I have to ask you and as young
people I mean I'm feeling a bit on the
older side now but I still feel I've got
you know a bit of you know kind of Youth
within me at 57 I'm not battled but I'm
not that young but we have to work
together with younger and older people
come together in coalitions of you know
across Generations you remind me of of
uh kids who just graduated college and
say and I I'm I feel old
so yeah no I don't actually feel old but
it is a number Edge and you know when
you know you kind of think about when I
was I thought you don't like math yeah
like things like that yeah but I find it
interesting but you know when I was I
remember when I was a little kid I kept
thinking about the year 2000 and I
thought oh my God I'll be dead I'll be
35.
that's 22 years ago
you've overcome a lot of struggle in
your life
uh based on different reasons as you
write about uh
class being one of them
your funny sounding accent being another
or just a representation of class
um but in general
through all of that to be at the White
House
to be one of the most powerful voices
in the world what advice would you give
from grounded in your life story to
somebody who's young somebody who's in
high school in college thinking of how
they can have a big positive impact on
the world well we all have a voice
right we all have agency we all actually
have the ability to do something and you
can you know start small in your local
community or you know even in your own
classroom just helping you know somebody
else out or speaking up and advocating
on behalf of things
you know when I was a I was like about
11 years old I got involved with the
kids on Save the whales you know we had
all this you know kind of we were hardly
Greta sunberg but we you know we kind of
got together in a kind of network
writing to people and you know trying to
raise money to you know help save the
world now actually the whales of the
world are doing somewhat better I can't
say that that was because of me and my
network but you know it was kind of a
way of organizing and you know kind of
joining in at a larger movement
everybody can be part of something
bigger the the thing is is it's all
about working together with others and
giving other people a chance as well I
think you know one thing is that our
voices
have more impact when they're Amplified
they don't have to be the voices of
Discord or the voices of hate
you know you've been you know trying to
do this with your podcast you know kind
of give people a voice give them a kind
of platform and you know get them to
join in with other people
and you know one of the things I've been
trying to do is you know kind of go and
talk to just as many people as I
possibly can and say look you know we
can all do something here
we can all you know lend our voices to a
cause that we care deeply about we can
be kind to each other we can give other
people a chance we can kind of speak out
while we see that you know something is
wrong and we can try to you know explain
things to people and and what I'm trying
to do at the moment is just sort of
explain you know what I've learned about
things and you know hope that that helps
people make informed judgments of their
own and that you know kind of maybe take
things further and learn something more
it's like kind of like building up on
you know the knowledge
you know that that I have you know to
try to Impossible and everybody can do
that different ways you can kind of like
reach back you know if you're 14 help
somebody who's seven if you're 21 help
somebody who's 14. you know kind of if
in you know the kind of uh my age now
I'm always trying to you know reach back
and
you know work with uh younger people
listen to younger people help them out
make connections uh for them listen to
what they have to say about something
try to incorporate that and you know
things that I'm saying as well the main
point is that we've all got a voice
we've all got agency and it always works
better when we work together with other
people but sometimes you can feel pretty
hopeless you can feel
I mean there's low points you seem to
have a kind of uh Restless energy a
drive to you or there are low points in
in the beginning when
um
in your early days when you're trying to
get the education where it may have not
been cleared to you that you could be at
all successful yeah they're always
they're always but I mean there were
lots of points where I was just
despondent but then you know I'd meet
somebody who would just suddenly turn
things around I was this a lot called
was I out there looking for it you know
sometimes you know you just if you're
open and receptive to you know kind of
uh hearing something from someone else I
mean I you know often times when I felt
so despondent you know in such a black
mood I didn't think I'd be able to go on
and then I'd have a chance conversation
with somebody I mean I want to remember
you know I was sitting on a bench it was
probably 11 or 12 just crying my eyes
out just really upset and an old lady
just came and sat next to me put a arm
around me said oh it's all right pet
what's the matter you know it can't be
that bad can it and it was just this
human embrace it's like somebody
you know just basically reaching out to
me that snapped me out of it and I
thought you know here's somebody just
you know she didn't know who I was she
just felt really bad that I was you know
sitting you know crying and I mean I
can't even remember what it was about
anymore you know now it just seems
inconsequential at the time I probably
thought my life was at an end just you
know sometimes people making eye contact
with him in the street and saying
something to you can kind of pull you
out of something
and you know it's kind of a I think you
just have to open yourself up to the
prospect that not everyone's bad just
like you're saying before that there's
you know good in everybody even during
you know that really difficult period of
impeachment you know I was trying to
listen very carefully to people and I
thought we always we still have
something in common here we need to
remember that
you know kind of when people are kind of
forgetting who they are or you know the
context and they're operating there's
always something that can you know can
pull you back again there's always that
kind of thread so I'm sure you were
probably attacked
by a lot of people
and you're still able to keep that
optimism that well I kept it into kind
of perspective like when I was a kid I
mean things were mentioned before I got
bullied you know kind of again and I try
to understand why they're doing this
one of the most amazing things
that happened you know really on was my
my dad was a pretty incredible person
and he would always open my eyes to
something I was getting bullied really
nastly by a girl at school and my dad
started asking me questions about her
and one day my dad's been gonna go for a
walk
and my Town's very small remember it's
very depressed really you know deprived
area and we go to this housing estate
public housing place that's not too far
away from where I live and it's really
you know kind of one of the most
run-down places and already run down
players my dad like knocks on the door
and I said what are we doing Dad and I
said he said we're going off to you know
we're going to visit somebody an old
family friend uh I think even though you
know a distant relative a knock on the
door this old man answers the door and
he's oh Alfie my dad's name is alfalfi
you know kind of oh fancy seeing you we
haven't seen you come on in have a cup
of tea what are you doing today I'm just
walking past my daughter we're going for
a trip then we're going for it we're
going for a walk and then suddenly I see
that girl and she's in the kitchen and
I'm thinking oh my God bloody hell you
know British expression what's this and
it turns out that Dad had figured out
who she was
and he knew her grandfather and she was
living with her grandfather and she'd
been abandoned by her parents and she
was living in you know pretty dire
circumstances and she'd been getting
raised by a grandfather and she was just
miserable
and the reason she was bullying me was
to make herself feel better yeah and
after that she never bullied me again I
mean we didn't even talk
because there was a connection murdered
and suddenly she realized that her
grandfather who was the only person she
had
knew my dad and there was some they were
friends or they were even family some
you know kind of relationship that I
mean I I was related to half of north of
England I had no idea how we were
related you know everybody was some
relative because people have lived there
for Generations together this very small
area and that turned things around so
just remember you might have and that's
kind of suddenly talked to me there's
always a reason why somebody's doing
something a lot of the times they're
really unhappy with themselves sometimes
there's someone else going on their
lives sometimes they just don't know
Benny better and I shouldn't take it
personally because I don't have a
personal connection with half these
people who are up there saying that they
want this not to happen to me
well thank you for the kindness and
empathy you still carrying your heart I
can see it through all the you must have
gone through in the in the recent couple
of years it's really inspiring to see
that and thank you for everything you've
done for the work you've written and for
the work you continue to write and to do
it this seems like a really really
difficult time for human civilization on
a topic that you're a world expert in so
um don't mess it up no I know about that
do everybody have that let's just let's
just keep it together right yeah
exactly let's keep it together your
words have a lot of power right now so
it's a it's a really really tricky time
so thank you so much given how valuable
your time is to sit down with me today
it was on honor it's a privilege and a
pleasure to talk to you as well no thank
you
thanks for listening to this
conversation with Fiona Hill to support
this podcast please check out our
sponsors in the description and now let
me leave you some words from John
Steinbeck
power does not corrupt fear corrupts
perhaps the fear of the loss of power
thank you for listening I hope to see
you next time