by Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader Radio Hour
February 12, 2022
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/ukr ... oondoggle/
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 414 TRANSCRIPT
Steve Skrovan: Does anyone actually wanna go to war over Ukraine right now? The United States doesn't. We have no real national interest in Ukraine worth dying for. Russia doesn't. Economic sanctions and military mobilization could cripple them. Europe doesn't. Many European countries are dependent on Russian gas. Ukraine certainly doesn't. They would undoubtedly suffer the most casualties and highest economic costs. So why is [Vladimir] Putin sending troops to Russia's border with Ukraine? Why is [Joe] Biden moving troops into Europe under NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and threatening to impose sanctions on Russia?
Our guest today will be Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher and an editorial director of the Nation magazine and now columnist for the Washington Post. In three of her recent columns, “What a Sensible Ukraine Policy Would Look Like,” “Stop the Stumble Toward War with Russia,” and “The Exit From the Ukraine Crisis That's Hiding in Plain Sight”, she lays out the facts of our current Ukraine crisis and makes a case for peace....
David Feldman: Katrina vanden Heuvel has been visiting Moscow for 40 years, written a book about [Mikhail] Gorbachev and his reformers. She is also the editorial director and publisher of the Nation magazine and writes a weekly column for the Washington Post. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Katrina vanden Heuvel.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Thank you.
Ralph Nader: Welcome indeed, Katrina. We have a very serious audience who is quite skeptical of what the Western nations are now doing about Ukraine. And I think they also need to be aware, if they're not, that Napoleon invaded Russia; the German regimes invaded Russia in World War I and World War II, generating maybe 50 million deaths and untold devastation. And then the Western nations led by the United States created a military Alliance confronting the Soviet Union called NATO and also created a huge market for US corporate arms sales. So that's why the dictator Putin can think that he has a good deal of Russian worry behind him. So with that background, what is your take right now on Ukraine?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Thank you, Ralph. You know, it's interesting because we talk a lot about Putin and his authoritarianism, but it's across the establishment, the political establishment, Putin's blob that there is opposition to what you were talking about, which is the North American treaty alliance, NATO. [Boris] Yeltsin’s government opposed. Let me give what I think is the original sin as we look out at the very, very dangerous Ukraine crisis, perhaps as dangerous US-Russian confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. In 1990, he and [Ronald] Reagan ended the cold war. And in Germany, when there was German reunification in 1990, Gorbachev was promised by George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would not move “one inch eastward.” And if people doubt that, the National Security Archives in Washington has primary documents and has confirmed this, though it hasn't been covered in our newspapers of record.
NATO began to move eastward immediately. In three or four years, it had gobbled up more than 15, 20 countries; it's now 30 countries. And the epicenter of the new cold war is no longer in Berlin. It's on Russia's borders. NATO, as you pointed out, Ralph, is not a coffee klatch. It's not like the AARP. I used to say, it's not like a tea party. You can't say that anymore. This is a military alliance that was designed to counter the Soviet East European military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. When the Soviet Union ended, the Warsaw Pact ended. So the purpose of NATO has always been not clear except to those who are raking in the dollars, because you have to have military equipment compatible with the US and others. It's a big lobby group.
Now, in 1997, when [Bill] Clinton decided to keep expanding, you know, there was a debate in this country, Ralph, you may remember it. George Kennan, an esteemed diplomat, warned Thomas Friedman that this would be the gravest error, continue the Cold War. There was a debate in the Senate. Now Biden didn't vote against, but Senator [Bill] Bradley did. You had hardliners like Paul Nitze and [Edward] Teller opposing NATO expansion, but Clinton moved ahead. Yeltsin was a weak read and acceded to a lot of what Washington wanted.
So we are now here with NATO on Russia's borders. And I think the Russians said, we've been communicating to you for years and years.
[Ari Melber] I want to play a little bit of Putin. This was in an older interview. This is before the invasion, but goes to the mindset that you may understand. This was with our own NBC colleague Keir Simmons where he tries to make the argument that really he has to respond to NATO, that Russia is constantly on the defense, as he puts it. Take a look.
[President Vladimir Putin] What was the point of expanding NATO to the east and bringing this infrastructure to our borders? And all of this before saying that we're the ones who have been acting aggressively? Why? On what basis did Russia after the USSR collapsed present any threat to the United States or European countries? We voluntarily withdrew our troops from eastern Europe, and what did we get in response? We got in response infrastructure [inaudible] wars. And now you're saying that we're threatening to somebody.
[Ari Melber] You're an expert at getting to the roots of things, not taking it all at face value. Can you share with us your view from your time there, does he in any way believe some of this stuff, because he's closed off as you described, or when you get to these international issues is it still his version of propaganda, baiting, what in America we sometimes call trolling and constantly making it out as if he must respond because of what the West is doing?
[Andre Kozyrev] It's both....
-- Kremlin Vet: They’ll Overthrow Putin Before Giving Him ‘Bad News’ About Russian Setbacks In Ukraine, by Ari Melber, 3/9/22
And the final straw was 2008 when [George H. W.] Bush worked to fast track Ukraine and Georgia. And I think it's the Ukraine piece. I don't wanna allocate blame, but you know, there's blame to go around right now [with] the Russian troops massing. But this is not a new situation, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: When you say NATO expansion, this was not a military invasion of Eastern Europe. By expansion they went to Hungary and Poland, Czechoslovakia and others, and signed them up, right?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Here's the thing. People ask why shouldn't Ukraine as a sovereign nation be allowed to join NATO? Well, first of all, because of the territorial fighting in Ukraine. Right now, according to NATO's own charter, Ukraine couldn't join NATO. But NATO is a military alliance, Ralph. And, you know, in 1990, for a split second, there was an alternative security architecture on offer. George H. W.[and] Baker tamped it down pretty quickly, but someone I greatly admire, Gorbachev, had a vision, which is not unheard of that other institutions in Europe lead the way – not a military one. Because what we've done is militarize relations with Russia, which were already militarized.
And so I think one has to be very aware. NATO, for many people, sounds like a feudal organization. You've talked about this, Ralph. There is a kind of amnesia and a failure to remember history. And I think in that, there was a CNN reporter the other day who called one of our writers, Anatol Lieven, very good writer. And they were talking about the warm water port in Crimea, Sevastopol, and the reporter said, “Which side did the Soviet Union fight on in World War II?” It's kind of like, I understand why we don't get the full range of views, which is needed because there's a history hole here.
Ralph Nader: Well, in your Washington Post piece, you say, “Is there any way out of the exceedingly dangerous crisis?” I think it's more dangerous than most people have been writing about it. Because when Biden said only one man is gonna decide whether Russia is gonna invade Ukraine and that is Vladimir Putin. Well, the corollary to that is if Putin is humiliated, he may just flip and one man has got his finger on the nuclear trigger. We're playing Russian roulette here.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: It is very dangerous. We published a piece by the former head of Physicians for Social Responsibility about the nuclear. You have two nuclear powers involved here. I have to say, though, that this country, it's all Putin, Putin, Putin. Do not forget, I mean, there is a blob in Russia, there are political forces, even if it is an authoritarian country. A major general published a letter in Moscow two days ago, signed on by 15 colonels and generals, protesting Putin's lack of decisiveness. This is very dangerous. We see it in this country. The hawks are ascended. Diplomacy is the only way out, Ralph. And the offer in 2015 was called the Minsk Agreement. And it was agreed to for a brief period; there was a cease fire. The parties attached to it are Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany. The UN [United Nations] endorsed it. The OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] endorsed it. Samantha Power then at the UN thought it was the best option as did Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State. What it entails essentially is that the Donbas region and the Eastern part of Ukraine, the Russian speaking region where there are Russian troops or separatists, be given autonomous status within a federated society, language protection, the borders of Ukraine are sovereign, that Ukraine become a non-aligned country, almost like the Finland or Austrian State Treaty in 1955. And I think this provides for sovereign borders, independence, but not in NATO. There is an offer though, this idea, that there'd be a moratorium on NATO expansion, maybe in 15 years. And what's interesting about this, Ralph, I'll say just briefly, is that you do have three new leaders involved. Because when it last came up, it was [François] Hollande in France, [Angela] Merkel in Germany, and the chocolate oligarch, [Petro] Poroshenko in Ukraine. You do have a new leader in Ukraine, [Volodymyr] Zelensky, who at one point last week said enough with all this hot talk in Washington; it’s hurting the Ukrainian economy. You have [Emmanuel] Macron who is on his way out as French president, who's channeling his own [Charles] de Gaulle. And the new government in Germany, I think, is hopeful in terms of not being corrupt the way so many in this country say is because of the pipeline. That is a factor, but they've done business with Russia and they've had relations with Russia as a European power that are different than ours. So I think this agreement, the Minsk Agreement, the parties who had met in Paris two weeks ago, are meeting in Berlin this coming week; it's a possibility, but it needs space and it needs patience. And I think that is lack of supply in our political culture.
Ralph Nader: And why did it fall apart after 2015?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: It fell apart partly because there was a disagreement about what would happen first. Would the Russian separatists leave before the Ukrainian Kiev troops in that part of Ukraine, that region, leave? And then there was a disagreement about simple things but important like language protection. Because this is a Russian speaking part of Ukraine, Ralph. And one of the first things the new Kiev government did in 2014 was begin to impose language restrictions, that you couldn't study in Russian, or those kinds of things, which are very unsettling for people. But it did not last long, which is a problem, but it is back on offer. It is more of a crisis moment. So I think there are possibilities if there's a will and a persistence.
Ralph Nader: Well, there are other factors involved. Biden doesn't wanna appear weak. Putin doesn't wanna appear that he has to back down and be humiliated in front of the Russian people. And Biden wants to send a signal to China about not invading Taiwan. So there are a lot of other things going on. This reminds me of how World War I started with the assassination of Archduke in Sarajevo and Serbia. And then it went like lightning through a bunch of egos who all knew each other – the Czar, the Kaiser in Germany, France, England. They all knew each other. They had intermarriage with each other's families. But they had their egos involved. And, you know, 25 million people were killed in World War I.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: But you know, Ralph, it's so true. It is more reminiscent. I'm glad you brought up World War I or not. But there's often this misguided historical analogy to Munich, right? Diplomacy is appeasement. In fact, this is much more reminiscent of World War I, which is kind of the sleepwalking into war. And the war in Ukraine is in the trenches for now. I mean, it could escalate to tactical nuclear weapons, but it is trenches. It's similar to World War I. And people know each other, the intermarriage between Russia and Ukraine and the family relationships is why it's so deeply asymmetrical. The United States has no vital – not to be callous, but no vital national security interest in Ukraine. What we do need to remember is 15,000 civilians have already perished in the fighting. What I'm really worried about, Ralph, is not so much the sending of US and NATO troops to Eastern European countries ringing Ukraine, but we've already sent $3 billion worth of weapons into Ukraine in the last years. And there are at least a few thousand US advisors there to assist Ukrainians now with this equipment. And what if some, US soldiers are killed on the battlefield, the escalation –
Ralph Nader: That's right. That's part of the rumble to war. Then it becomes support to troops. Shut up, Americans, and keep shopping, which is what George W. Bush told us when he and [Dick] Cheney engaged in the criminal war and destruction of Iraq in 2003. I wanna quote a sentence from your article in the Washington Post. You say, “Minsk II is a compromise. As such, it requires hard choices on all sides. Ideally, the agreement would be accompanied by a treaty between Russian and United States and Europe guaranteeing neutrality for Ukraine similar to the enforced neutrality of Austria since the cold war’s early years.” And that raises a question we got from one of our listeners recently, who asked, “Why can't NATO declare Ukraine a neutral buffer zone?” It seems maybe that could be a compromise for all three parties involved.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: That is a very interesting question because I do think Ukraine's role, if it could be a stable, peaceful, and prosperous country, would be as a bridge between east and west. There's a history here that the protest in Ukraine 2013 began when the EU [European Union] had on offer to the then president an economic agreement. Putin had put in that why not Ukraine as a member of both the European association involved with Russia, but also the EU, a kind of tripartite. That was rejected by EU, by the then president.
That or the moratorium on NATO expansion vis-à-vis Ukraine. But I'm serious about the fact that there is a NATO charter, as you well know, Ralph, that Article V is that members would come to the defense of a NATO member under attack. But it's also the fact that you need to be territorially whole, which Ukraine is not now, to join.
Ralph Nader: That NATO provision is subject to the US Constitution. And if the Congress declares war, that NATO provision is inoperative. Congress here is like an inkblot. They're watching Biden threaten the harshest sanctions ever imposed by the United States on Russia and all the terrible impacts on the Russian people. Well, that happens to be illegal under international law, Katrina. You can't impose sanctions on the country with a disproportionate impact on the civilian population. And the civilian population would take the lion’s share of the brunt here. It wouldn't be Putin and his entourage. And there's no one saying to Biden, Hey, do you understand international law? Do you understand treaties? Do you understand Geneva conventions, which we’re a signatory to?” It's the same kind of a runaway rumble to war without knowing what the consequences are. It's as if they just want to humiliate Putin.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: So the [Congressional] Progressive Caucus is thinking hard about sanctions. It's maybe late, but sanctions are an act of war in many ways and counterproductive. They've been both illegal, counterproductive and lead to humanitarian catastrophe in most parts. But there's also another side of sanctions. It is a race to the bottom. You're right. In the Congress and the Senate right now, between Democrats, who just wanna wait if the war begins before sanctioning, and the Republicans, who are gung ho to start now, there is discussion about the authority to use military force and using the Constitution's war powers, because this is illegal in the sense of sending American men and women, even as special advisors. But sanctions play in different ways, Ralph, I mean, inside Russia, I've seen this. It has brought people together and made them more anti-American. It has strengthened Putin in some ways, because they have a $650 billion reserve. They've started producing things they didn't. And so it's counterproductive. I agree with you that they try to target Putin or his associates, but that's very tough. Very tough.
Ralph Nader: Well, the New York Times today reports that it's likely to be a long delayed standoff between the Western countries, US and Russia. What does that mean?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Well, it could be a game of bluff. I mean, I continue to think the more time that elapses, the more possibility for diplomacy and the more possibility for face-saving maneuvers. I mean, I think the fact – I was gonna say, Thom Friedman, who is a barometer for not much, but he gave an interview the other day where he believes that the Finland, Austria nonaligned proposal is a good one.
I think people are looking out and seeing – first of all, I think it's not a bad thing because I think we should not be a unipolar world. But you got China and Russia coming closer in different ways. They will continue to compete, but our policies are pushing them closer. Certainly, the National Security Strategy, Ralph, which came out about a year ago, right? It named Russia and China as our challenges, enemies. We are in a new world. We haven't even talked pandemic, Ralph. Think of the money that's being squandered. And famous bipartisanship in Washington, you think about this all the time, is betrayed through votes on this defense budget, which they added 25% to or something. Anyway…
Ralph Nader: With Democrats supporting it, they added $24 billion to the bloated, wasteful military budget--more than Biden and the Pentagon asked for. This is totally reckless.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: It's totally reckless.
Ralph Nader: Reckless behavior.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: And for people who think it's a jobs program, you could use that money in far more effective, productive ways, because it has been a jobs program. And you heard about this shareholder call with the big four defense companies. You know, they're salivating. And NATO, by the way, is part of that. But I think that you got the pandemic, you have climate crisis, you have global inequality, you have issues which need to be addressed, I will say, in this country, Ralph, the demonization, I have no brief for Putin. I've worked in Russia with women's groups, independent media. I've seen the suppression/repression of groups like Memorial. But what's happened is it's all Putin all the time. And we fail to understand that it's a country, where you can't understand Russia right now without understanding the ascendants of the Russian Orthodox Church or the fact that 40% of Putin’s edicts are not fulfilled. It's Putin, but it's also a country which has a lot of forces in it. The demonization of Putin is not a policy. It's an alibi for a policy. And it has also led to the ability to think about war. If you demonize something or someone or a country, it's easier to see why one would go to war. So I simply suggest we should understand that cold wars are not good for any progressives, any people who believe in the rule of law, because the space for dissent, for reimagining a different kind of foreign policy closes down in militarization.
Ralph Nader: Well, you have in your article a little light at the end of the tunnel here, when you say – it just came out a few days ago, listeners. You say, “In Paris last week, seven years after the Minsk II agreement, Ukraine and Russia held marathon eight-hour talks mediated by Germany and France. A new round of Minsk talks will be held in Berlin in the second week of February. “As we confront the worst US-Russian confrontation in decades, isn't it time for the United States to join with its allies to revive a path to a settlement that might lead to a stable peace.” What do you think now of these talks?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: I don't think anything very specific will come out of these talks in Berlin. The hope is that they continue in short order. Not delayed, delayed, delayed. But I do think there should be thought given to continuing the nuclear security process. And, you know, it's not sexy, but a new security architecture in Europe could be on the agenda. Because Gorbachev in 1987 gave one of the most remarkable speeches at the UN, talking about a common European home from Vladivostok in the east of Russia to Lisbon. And, you know, that's not farfetched, if there was a different – less militarized. Because NATO has militarized it. And again, I come back to that's not the way to move forward right now. But I do take hope that talks continue, and people know that this could be one of the great cataclysmic, catastrophic military actions. So the hope is no accidental shooting, no stumble into war and no hotheads,
Ralph Nader: There's none of that caution in the Biden regime. They've just sent several thousand US soldiers to various countries, Romania, Poland.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: I know.
Ralph Nader: They've got an Air Force squadron in Estonia. They're not letting Putin save face if he decides to back off because he's gonna lose a lot if he invades Ukraine. What kind of nonsense diplomacy is this when you don't show the adversary a way out?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: I think there may be talks to find a way for Putin to climb down. And I think there is a mixed – there's not a great balance, but they keep talking deterrence and diplomacy. They don't stop talking diplomacy, but the balance between deterrence and diplomacy does seem off. But there's an element of showing power with these troops. As I said, Ralph, I'm more worried about the weapons going into Ukraine and the special ops. I think the troops around ringing are kind of a show of power to get Putin to take seriously the diplomacy. But it is the case that this is not an administration… this is an administration that has been very – I would use the word – aggressive toward Ukraine. That was Biden's project, by the way, in the [Barack] Obama White House. He was considered the proconsul to Ukraine. We gotta have some new thinking about how to ensure that Ukraine become a sovereign, prosperous, stable country. And it's not gonna be through a war where they are conscripting or seeking troops up to 57 years old for men and there was a story about women fighting up to 60. That's inhumane in addition to the failure of military responses.
Ralph Nader: Well, if the shoe was on the other foot, you always have to do that in foreign policy.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Absolutely.
Ralph Nader: If we were invaded from the north in two wars and 50 million Americans were killed and there was a hostile power north and it surrounded us with a military alliance and it put soldiers in Cuba and Nicaragua, what do you think we would do? I mean…
Katrina vanden Heuvel: We would shout to the rooftop and what have we done, Ralph? You can see it. The Monroe Doctrine, the way we've policed our neighborhood over years is from Allan Nairn…
Ralph Nader: Yeah. We're about to blow up the world on the Cuban missiles crisis.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: And look at how we're handling Cuba now. We're decimating a small country for reasons not fully clear at all, and we're treating it like our backyard. And, I think what if you had Russian troops on the Canadian border or Russian troops in Mexico, that has been kind of put out there, there is an expression of strategic empathy. Putting yourself in the other’s shoes is not condoning, it's understanding. But I think there's been a degradation of diplomacy, Ralph, because it's viewed too often as appeasement and that is a very dangerous equivalence.
Ralph Nader: Empires know how to wage wars. They don't know how to wage peace. Proposals by then Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and before he was a Congressman Jim McGovern to have a Department of Peace to countervail this kind of rush to reckless increase in the risk of war. I wanna leave our listeners with this suggestion. Obama was gonna go into Syria. He thought that was a little bit of a stretch. So he said, “I want to go to Congress to get authority.” When that was publicized, millions of emails came in from left, right, conservative, liberal to their members of Congress saying, “Don't you dare.” I think it was 98-2 in terms of the predominant opposition. And I think, listeners, do your part, get to your senators and representatives and tell them, assert the constitutional authority of Congress, which is supreme over NATO's treaty, and which is much more likely to result in public hearings and a larger perspective on what's going on here before it's too late. Thank you very much, Katrina.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Thank you, Ralph.
**************
[Ari Melber] I want to play a little bit of Putin. This was in an older interview. This is before the invasion, but goes to the mindset that you may understand. This was with our own NBC colleague Keir Simmons where he tries to make the argument that really he has to respond to NATO, that Russia is constantly on the defense, as he puts it. Take a look.
[President Vladimir Putin] What was the point of expanding NATO to the east and bringing this infrastructure to our borders? And all of this before saying that we're the ones who have been acting aggressively? Why? On what basis did Russia after the USSR collapsed present any threat to the United States or European countries? We voluntarily withdrew our troops from eastern Europe, and what did we get in response? We got in response infrastructure [inaudible] wars. And now you're saying that we're threatening to somebody?
[Ari Melber] You're an expert at getting to the roots of things, not taking it all at face value. Can you share with us your view from your time there, does he in any way believe some of this stuff, because he's closed off as you described, or when you get to these international issues is it still his version of propaganda, baiting, what in America we sometimes call trolling and constantly making it out as if he must respond because of what the West is doing?
[Andre Kozyrev] It's both....
-- Kremlin Vet: They’ll Overthrow Putin Before Giving Him ‘Bad News’ About Russian Setbacks In Ukraine, by Ari Melber, 3/9/22