So why should you care? Why should anybody care? We live in America,
pretty peaceful place. We've got our own problems. We're fighting intellectual,
philosophical, political battles on every front. Why should anybody care about a war
on the other side of the planet. You can see, you can see
where Ukraine is, you can see where Russia is. It's far from Western
Europe, it's really far from the United States. Why should we care?
And I think the reason we should care is that while this conflict is happening
in a far away place, the reasons it's happening are relevant to every one
of us. Not only is the conflict the conflict about I think, good
and evil and justice, but it is a conflict that politically, ideologically,
philosophically is very relevant to the conflicts we all faced right here in the United
States and has real implications to whether we win or we lose the conflicts that
we're engaged in. In many respects, the enemy, the bad guys over
there, inspire and are very similar to at least some, not at all,
some of the enemies we have right here in the United States. I
think the war Ukraine is a conflict of civilizations, is a conflict of a
vision about the future, of the kind of political world we want to live
in, in the kind of world we want to live in. It is
a conflict that is challenging to Western civilization. It is a conflict that challenges
everything good that I think we have in our world. And to the extent
that Russia wins this conflict, to that extent, our horizon shrinks in terms
of the time we have to change the world. To the extent that Russia
fails, we buy some time to change our own world. Now, I
want to do just a little bit of terminology before I go on, because
I'm going to use some terminology that might be a little different than the way
some other people use it, different than the way I rand used it,
So I need to clarify that in advance. I'm gonna be talking about left
and right, but I'm gonna be talking about left and right differently than I
think often is discussed. For me, left is egalitarian collectivism with everything that
implies woke and everything else you want to add into that. I think you
understand what left is. But right, the way I'm going to use it
and the way today I think about it is nationalist, religious collectivism in that
sense, I don't believe objectivism is right. You can ask me about it
in the Q and A. I'm not going to get into a whole debate
right now about it, but that's how I'm going to use it when I
talk about the West. For the purposes of this talk. We could talk
about other purposes. You could use it a little differently. For the purposes
of this talk, I'm going to refer to Western Europe and the United States.
When I talk about Western civilization, I'm referring to the ideas of the
Enlightenment, the ideas that I believe have made the West the civilization, and
I three big ideas reason individualism and political liberty, political freedom, capitalism.
So that's the frame. Let's get into a discussion of the war. And
I want to start with really the causes of this war, the reason this
war happened, and the reason it happened when it happened. And here we're
going to go into kind of the mindset of the Russians and the mindset of
Vladimir Putin in particular because he is Russia for all intensive purposes. But first
a few words about Ukraine, because you can't understand the Russian perspective without understanding
Ukraine. Ukin became a dependent In nineteen ninety one, it declared its independence,
feeing itself of being part of the USSA. I'll show you maps afterwards
and you'll see, you'll see all that. And since then it's being in
a struggle, a push pust struggle between its own attraction, particularly in western
Ukraine, particularly in Kiev and to the west of Kiev, towards the West,
towards Europe, towards Western civilization, and a pulled to the east coming
from Russia trying to pull it into its domain, trying to make it a
part of Russia. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute
and Russia's perspective on Ukraine, but it's important to understand that Ukraine is in
this shift. Once in a while you get a president in Ukraine who's very
pro Russia. What has happened though, over the last twenty years, is
when that happens, usually there's some questions about the elections themselves. People go
out into the streets and demonstrate because they want to be pro Europe, not
on the Russian side, and there's a regime change, there's a consequence.
This has happened twice over the last twenty years. It happened in two thousand
and four with the Orange Revolution, and it happened in twenty fourteen with a
Maidan Maidon is the big square in the middle of Kiev where thousands, tens
of thousands of Ukrainians came to protest a pro Russian corrupt president. Violence ensued
and as a consequence, he was deposed and replaced by somebody who ultimately was
pro West and moved Ukraine further to the west. The trend over the last
twenty years as being westward. Ukraine has the desire, the will, the
interest becoming an integral part of Europe and adopting European values. It wants to
be a member ultimately of the EU, and now I think certainly wants to
be a member of NATO. But it's really important to understand that Ukraine was
moving westwards, becoming more like the West, and of all the things Ukraine
could do, this ultimately was the biggest threat to Russia. It's the culture
more than anything else. I've been to Kiev four or five times, I
can't remember exactly. I've given a lot of talks in Kiev. You might
not know this, but Atlas Shrug was the best selling novel in Kiev in
twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. It came out in three volumes. Every six
months they came out with a different volume, and all three volumes were best
sellers. You could go to the supermarket. It was in the bins,
you know, the discum bins where best sellers land up, and you could
find it there. Now I'm not suggesting because of this, Ukraine as some
you know, objectivist haven, and that's where the revolution is going to happen.
Ukraine politically, it is very corrupt. Ukraine politically is really problematic.
It has certain atheletarian tendencies all the presidents they have had. But the movement
was towards the West. That was the direction it was heading in. I
met a lot of young people in Ukraine who are passionate about making Ukraine Western
country. So that's important to know in terms of Russia's perspective, because what
does Russia think about the West. What is Russia's perspective on the West,
or Russia believes that the West fundamentally is decadent, weak and fragmented. I
want to I've got a lot of quotes, because I feel like if I
just say that, you know, I want to put it in Putin's woods,
say here's a little bit, and you find this in every speech that
he gives. Almost every speech that he gives, paragraphs like this appear.
Look what they're doing to their own people. It's all about the destruction of
the family, of culture, of national identity, perversion, and abuse of
children, including pedophilia, all of which are declared normal in their lives.
They are forcing the priests to bless same sex marriages, bless their hearts,
let them do as they please. But here is what I would like to
tell them. Look at the holy scriptures and the main books of the other
religions. They say it all, including that the family is the union of
a man and a woman. But these sacred tasks texts are now being questioned.
Reportedly, the Anglican Church is planning, just planning, to explore the
idea of a general gender neutral God. What is there to say, Father,
forgive them, for they do not know what they do. Millions of
people in the West realize that they are being led to a spiritual disaster.
Frankly, they elite a pear to have gone crazy. It looks like there
is no cure for that. But like I said, these are their problems.
Well, we must protect our children, which we will do. We
will protect our children from degradation and degeneration. For Boots in the West is
woke. That's it. It's everything, and he is standing up against it.
He is the bastion of a civilization standing up against the West, standing
up against the West degradation. And we'll come back to that wood degregation later.
The West is us a week. Puts In is engaged in two wars
in two thousand and eight in Georgia, where his forces invaded two sections of
Georgia. The West did basically nothing. In twenty fourteen, he took Crimea.
The West did nothing. That done Boss, the West did nothing.
And then he looks and he sees the Trump administration, the Biden administration,
pretty much of the administration before that. Just make a disaster out of Afghanistan.
Leave with our tail between our legs. The West is week, it's
the ad and it's fragmented. Everybody hates each other, nobody gets along.
Western Europe is everybody's fighting. And the relationship between the Western Europe and the
United states broken, So he sees the West as a decadent place, a
place that is failing, a place that is falling apart, a place that
is descending, not ascending. In addition, the West is hostile to Russia
and always has been, according to Putin, According to Putin and the philosophers.
He kind of he kind of follows. He has again putin in his
own words, they have only one objective, to prevent the development of Russia.
They're going to do it in the same way as they did it before,
without furnishing even a single pretext, doing it just because we exist.
Or in twenty team during the in his first speech in Cromea, he says,
the politics and for the containment of Russia, which continued throughout the eighteenth,
nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, continues today. There is constant attempt to
push us back into a corner because we have an independent position, because we
stand up for ourselves, or in our time, they started turning Ukraine into
anti Russia. Actually, this project is not new. People who are knowledgeable
about history, at least to some extent, realize that this project dates back
to the nineteenth century. The Astro Austro Hungarian Empire and Poland had conceived of
it for a purpose, that is, the deprived Russia of these historical territories
that are now called Ukraine. This is their goal. There is nothing new
here. They are repeating everything. So there's an ancient grievance. There's somehow
the West has interfered with Russia's ambitions and Russia's wise as an alternative civilization to
the West. So that's his view of the West. What's his view of
Russia. Well, the view of Russia is that Russia is special in a
kind of mystical sense. Russia has something unique. Indeed, every ethnic group,
supposedly, according to again the philosophers the Putin listens to, every ethnic
group has some kind of biological determined nature and ultimately culture, and Russia's is
truly unique. And it is Russia, and only Russia to conceive the West
from itself. It is the projection of Russia onto the West that is the
only hope the West has. Now we'll see that there are several Westerners who
believe this to be true. So, you know, a professor from Mosco
State University in an event, he says Russia's destiny is no less than quote,
to build herself up as a separate civilization and to think of herself as
the conservative savior of Europe. Russia is there to save Europe. It has
a mission, it has a destiny, it has a purpose. All this
adds up to something, right now, what are these values that Russia represents.
Well, these are conservative values. These are the values of the past.
These are the values of tradition. And Putin constantly talked about how he
is a true conservative, that what he wants is to is to leverage the
past to create a beautiful future for Russia. But it's all about tradition and
family and the proper role of male and female. If you read Putin's speeches,
you'll find a real obsession that he has with homosexuality. To him,
this is the real threat that Western decadences poses to Russia. Right, we
need to go back to Papa woeful Man, Papa woeful woman, and the
traditions of Christianity and the traditions of the past. So a complete rejection of
the West, rejection of reason for the sake of mysticism and religion, a
rejection of individualism. If you read some of the philosophers again that Putin either
reads from the past or who are current, like Dugan, who is a
very influential philosopher in Russia today. The one thing they think the West is
really evil about is the idea of the sovereignty of the individual. The idea
of individualism is a horror to them. It is about the collective, it
is about the state. It is about Russia. So let me just see.
So for Russia to manifest itself, for Russia to achieve its potential,
Russia must return to it's past. Russia must resurrect those traditions and that culture
which led in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century to a Russian empire.
And he has a vision for a Russian empire. Can we get the next
life? All right? There it is? That is the Russian Empire.
Now Russia already is a big country, the biggest in the world by far,
but empire is massive. So I'm gonna there we go, all right,
I was pressing the wrong button. Go figure the flow is straight.
All of this this is eastern Ukraine. Western Ukraine was part of the Austrian
Garian Empire, and parts of it were part of Poland. But all this
in the south, this is Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. This is
actually part of Turkey. This is part of Yuan. This is many stans
from Kazakhstan. It was Bekistan to many of the other stans. All of
the stans other than Afghanistan here a part of the Russian Empire all the way
to the east and to the borders with Mongolia and with China. Even Finland
did not exist. This is This is as of um just before the revolution
in nineteen seventeen. So this is at the at the height of what of
the size of the Russian Empire. But this is pretty similar to the way
it was during much of the nineteenth century supput and embraces. If you that
this is what Russia is capable of, this is what a true Russia looks
like. This is a manifestation of Russia. And if you take it one
step further, if you eat Dugan, then Dugan would say this is not
enough, but Russia to really achieve its historical role, it's histopical place among
the nations of the world. Russia, I'm going to extend to the Atlantic
and must dominate all of Europe. Now this sounds bizarre to us sitting here.
I know, it reminds me of of when the Islamists after nine to
eleven would say things like we want Islam to rule the world, and we
went, really, you know, that's kind of ridiculous. No nobody has
thinks those but they do. They do think those thoughts. The Muslims thought
that, the Islamis thought that the Russians, at least the Putin type Russians
really think this. Dugan writes extensively about this idea of Eurasia. You know,
I a country that spans from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the entire
scope, and again the manifestation of some kind of mystical Russian spirit, some
kind of ristical Russian destiny that is getting compassed this entire sphere. Just to
give you a sense, this is from a two thousand and five two thousand
and five speech. Actually, let me get that the next life first.
So this is the USSA, right, she can see the USSA preserved much
of the empire, not all of it, but all these little shaded colors
these are part of the USSA. So that part of one country, one
political regime. This number six is Ukraine, so this was Russia. These
all these declared independence in nineteen ninety one when the USSA fell. What is
Putin's response the fall of the USSA. This is in two thousand and five,
he says, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was
a major or the major Zuo political disaster of the century. Of ever,
all the horrors of the twentieth century, the thing that upsets him the most
is the fact that these were split off from Mother Russia. This is his
ambition, and when he comes to Ukraine, he's very clear. Talking to
US President George Bush on the sideline of a NATO summit in two thousand and
eight, he said, Ukraine is not even a state. What is Ukraine.
Part of its territories is Eastern Europe, but the greater part is a
gift from us. When the USSA was broken up. And then in twenty
twenty one, about seven months before the war started, eight months before the
wars started, Prutin actually wrote an essay, a long essay there was published
on the kremlins A website and the name of the essay was on the historical
unity of Russians and Ukrainians. And I'll just quote one sentence. The essay
is pretty repetitive. This captures it all, I think quote a spiritual human
and civilizational ties formed for centuries and have their origins in the same source.
Together, we Russians and Ukrainians have always been and will be many times stronger
and more successful, for we are one people. So why did Putin invade
Ukraine? Because he've used it as his It's a part of Russia, it's
one people. He've used it as essential part of a Russian empire. Ukraine
today he tried Georgia. Georgie's right here, George's number eight. Who knows
who else? Belarus is a ready in his pocket. He would love to
have his hands on Kazakhstan, which is an ally but not yet completely in
his control. One step at a time to resurrect this empire, one step
at a time, to get closer to the ultimate goal. And in the
meantime he can watch as the West descends into chaos, and maybe one day
he can actually fulfill the dream of going all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
Now you have to add one element to this, which I think is
important, and that is at the same time that Russia has this sense that
they have this destiny and they you know, they are the civilization that's going
to replace the West, and they are all importance. They're also failing,
and this is before the war. They're poor, significant poorer than Western Europe.
They have a lot of natural resources, but other than that very little.
They have a political system based on one man, a productive system,
a system, an economic system based on olligochs, based on mafia style theft,
based on people associated with the government getting their wealth, all of their
wealth from the government. They have a system that is based on violence.
I mean, on my show, on my You're One book show, I
have a running tally of Russian's falling out of windows, you know, oligochs,
dying and the mysterious ways. This is the methodology. This is how
you do competition in the Russian economy. You have your competitive falling out of
a window and you take over their business. And Putin himself, I think,
at the end of the day is very insecure, as any head of
the mafia would be insecure. You don't know who's going to stab you in
the back. Now, granted, Putin has notne a very good job as
surrounding himself with weak people. He's done this some purpose. He doesn't want
strong people around him. He's afraid of strong people. But you never know.
We just witnessed that last weekend. You never know exactly what will happen.
Who will stab you in the back, who will take you over.
It's at the same time as he has this grand vision for Russia, he's
also super insecure about himself, about his position and about Russia itself. He
could be killed at any moment, and he knows it. Put that all
into the mix, and what you get is an invasion of Ukraine. The
West is weak, the West won't respond. The West will just capitulate.
If I can do it fast, if I can take Kiev in a week
or two, what are they gonna do. Nothing some boycotts, some some
you know stuff, but nothing significant, nothing that really hurts us. We
get our own regime in Kiev. We turn Ukraine into a part of Russia,
or into a state that's completely subservient to Russia. And we've done a
job. And all this can happen very very quickly, because hey, we
have the second most powerful military on the planet. And it's a step in
the process of creating this destiny, and it's a step towards solidifying Putin's place
in history, solidifying his position as the head of Russia, silencing opposition,
unifying the country. You all know that war is a good tonic for the
people. It unifies people, gets people excited, it makes people patriotic,
and they will unify around Putin. And I think this was the thinking and
the days before the war was engaged in the expectation was that this would go
fast. They landed special forces troops not far outside of Kiev. They expected
to be able to take Kiev in less than a week. Didn't work out
that way. So how has it worked out? There? Wars being a
massive failure for Russia. I mean a massive failure at every front, from
every perspective. Militarily, we know that the assaultant Keya failed. They had
a retreat ultimately from all of northern Ukraine. Ultimately the Ukrainians kicked them out
of a vast area in the east, kicked them out of a vast area
in the south. So yes, they're still holding significant Ukrainian territory. AMYB.
We can get the next slide. But this is the second most powerful
military and it's being humiliated by Ukraine, which has a much smaller military.
Nobody considered them. If you looked at every military expert on any one of
the channels on television in the days when the war begun, everybody was predicting
that Ukraine would fold. The only difference was how quickly, days, weeks,
months, everybody thought it was over for Ukraine, with a few exceptions.
So this is what they now control. That's Kromea of course, this
is the south. They had a match, vast area. They were very
is to kal Kiev. Over here, all of this has been taken back
from the Russians. Militarily, they've been humiliated. Their weapons systems don't work.
They don't work anywhere near as well as they advertised. The American weapons
systems and the Western weapon systems more broadly, far more efficient, far more
productive. They've destroyed the weapon systems of the Russians. And if you think
about Russia as one of its sources of revenue, which it is, the
weapons industry. Has a weapons industry, exports weapons. It's a massive export
of weapons. Who's going to buy their weapons after seeing how they performed in
Ukraine. Indeed, India, which is one of the largest importers of Russian
weapons systems in the world. India has just come to the US asking to
buy US weapons. They've given up on the Russian weapons system. Even they're
buying Russian oil that they haven't given up on, but weapons systems they're not
buying. Economically, this has been horrific for Russia. The economy shrunk last
year, and the GDP numbers don't capture what's really going on there. Not
only are we talking about tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of casualties
dead and injured, of a whole generation of young men disabled, you're talking
about hundreds of thousands and those productive Russians leaving the country. They're now in
Georgia and Kazakhstan and in Europe and all over the world, but not in
Russia. But in addition, the Russian economy itself, quality of life,
stand up living have declined dramatically. The Russians are selling in their oil.
They keep selling their oil, but they're selling their oil way to India and
to China at significant discounts because that's the only way India and China are willing
to buy that oil. And they know they can squeeze the Russians because there's
a limited market for the oil because of the because of all the sanctions.
By the way, one of the aspects that gave them courage to go to
war, I think was this idea of energy dependence of the West. Right,
the West was dependent on Russia for energy. And one of the ways
in which they failed is the fact that it turned out it turned out that
Europe could manage without Russia. It turned out that there are other sources of
energy that if the Europeans put their mind to it, they can build l
en G facilities, liquidified natural gas and get natural gas in the Middle East
from the United States and not have to depend on all those pipelines from Russia.
Which again this is a massive strategic defeat for Russia, which depended on
the fact that the rest of the world is dependent on them. It's not,
and we just this will proved it. But other ways in which this
was a massive defeat. You know, some argue that Russia was worried about
NATO being stationed in Ukraine. Well, NATO now after the war is stationed
in Finland, which is closer than Ukraine along the border with Russia. You
know, I don't know what a drive is from the finished border to Saint
Petersburg. But it's short. Finland is a far bigger threat from a NATO
perspective to Russia than Ukraine ever was. Sweden is likely to join SENATO has
grown. Sweden and Finland actually make weapons, they actually have armies. They
could actually stand up to Russia. I mean, Ukrainians have stood up to
Russia. Anybody could stand up to Russia. Really, that's not to diminish
the Ukrainians. It's just to say so they failed with the good to NADO
Ukraine today. You know, they said they were going to Ukraine to demilitarize
it. Well they got the opposite. Ukraine has more militarized today than ever
before. They went to Ukraine to stop Ukraine from becoming too close to the
West. Ukraine is closer to the West than ever before, likely to be
fast checked into the EU once there was over, and potentially for NATO membership.
And then they're thinking about Europe and the United States and the fragmentation,
and we fight all the time and they won't do anything. Nothing has united
Europe more than this war. Countries that don't speak to each other on a
regular basis suddenly agree. Poland, which was kind of shunned by many European
countries. Suddenly everybody agrees with Poland about the necessity to combat the Russian risk.
This has been an incredibly unifying event for all of Europe and for European
US relationships. So we have now a much stronger West from the perspective of
Russia. And maybe in the most shocking of all is the fact that NATO
members in Europe, who never used to spend any money on military on defense,
and now substantially increasing their budgets. So Germany is committing to spending two
percent of a GDP on the military for the first time. Europe is going
to become much more independent militarily because of this war. So this has been
a complete disaster, something of course the Russians can't admit. But you saw
it last weekend with the Pukos in first he came on, he came on
a YouTube video and he told us that the war was not really about NATO
or anything like that. What he said the war was about just a little
you know, I didn't include this reason. He said, it was just
it's just the Russian moth are basically the Russian oligots wanting to steal all the
Ukrainian stuff, and that's why they went to war. It's the steal the
stuff. And if you look at all the industries in places like maliital In,
South Ukraine and other areas around Ukraine, all the equipment's gone, it's
all being transported to Russia. Everything's gone. They're stealing all their wealth,
everything they can get their hands on. But what we saw last weekend was,
in addition to everything else that has set Russia back, Putin has been
set back. What we saw last week when it was the first real challenge
to Putin in over twenty years. Putin's on thin ice. He is much
weaker today than he was when the war started. So Russia has failed.
It has failed to achieve all of its strategic goals except maybe for one,
and that is that it seems like it's friends in the West are still strong.
They're still supportive of Putin, they're still embracing call it the Russian way.
And this is maybe the most shocking thing about this war. Everything else
I kind of could get a grip on. But the mountains support Russia and
Putin have in this country and in Western Europe, but primarily in this country
is truly astounding and truly shocking. But then if you read Putin and you
read about how he's anti woke and how he's anti left, it kind of
starts fitting in. If your perspective on the world is right versus left,
and the left is really evil, and therefore anything you do to combat the
left is good, then Putin is your hero. He stands up to the
left, He talks to talk, and he walks the walk. Russia is
appealing to vast segments of the American right. Sadly, they like the authoritarianism,
the tough guy, the president who doesn't wear a shirt and rides a
horse. You think you think RFK is posing without a shirt on accidentally.
And by the way, this is left and right because RFK right. They
like the strength, the manliness of a Putin, the sheer force of his
character. He stands up to the West, he stands up to the leftists.
And there are many in this country who admire that. Don't believe me,
Let me read you for one of the most influential people underwrite in America
today, and that is Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson writes Prutin regards the current
West as decadent to the point of absolute unworthiness, particularly in culture and religious
front. But Putin tells his people that he sees us falling far too far
under the sway of ideas very similar to those that produced the revolutionary frenzy of
the Communist moment movement. This is the left. And then Jordan Peterson continues,
and we are degenerate or he says sorry, He says, this is
a question, and all we degenerate in a profoundly threatening manner. I think
the answer to that may well be yes. The idea that we are asconced
in a culture war has become a rhetorical commonplace. How serious is that war?
It is serious enough to increase the probability that Russia, say, will
be motivated to invade and potentially incapacitate Ukraine merely to keep the pathological West out
of that country. And he says, and Russia and Russians believe that they
have a moral duty, and they have the highest moral duty to oppose the
degenerate ideas, philosophy and theology of the West. And there's something about that
that is not wrong. We cannot do without the Russians on our side.
Here in the rest of the Western world. For Jordan Peterson, Russia is
part of the West. Indeed, Russia is not just part of the West.
Russia is a crucial part of the West. Russia is the part of
the good part of the West. The partisans associated in his mind with religion
and tradition and the past and authoritarianism. We can't do without that. Indeed,
for Jordan Peterson, for America to become right, for America to fix
itself, we must return to our Christian roots. We must return to religion.
And again here he is inspired by what he sees from Putin. He
says, there is every sign of a revival of Christianity in Russia, including
a veritable storm of church building and cathedral construction. Putin himself is a practicing
Christian, and it appears that he has been strongly influenced by such ideas.
The Russian leader frequently speaks of his country's role as a bulwark against the moral
decadence of the West, and he speaks in philosophical and theological terms to degree
unthinkable in a Western leader. So for Jordan Peterson, Russia is the ally
of those conservatives, of those in the right who are fighting the left and
those, of course, are the only two alternative they can imagine or they
are presented in the world. They love the unabashed nationalism of Russia, the
imperialism, the idea that the state is all important. And think about the
national conservatives, and they are the more moderates of some of these groups.
So the West, the West is threatened today. We know this if we
talk about Western civilization, if we talked about the ideas of reason, individualism,
capitalism. The West is under attack, under attack from the left and
under attack from the right. And we, who I think represent best what
Western civilization really is. Philosophically, we face a two front battle, a
two front battle facing the collectivists of Bosa, the mystics of both sides,
the statuss of both sides. The Ukraine Russia or the Russian War on Ukraine
is a manifestation of one of those battles that we are fighting today, the
battle we fight with the right. Russia represents for the right what kind of
an ideal state looks like hawkening back to all those traditional values and religious values
and mystical values to the extend Russia wins. I don't think that's possible at
this point. But to the extent that it could win, that will embolden
those elements on the right in the United States and in Europe, make them
stronger. They will give more support from Russia. Russia already funds many of
these political parties in places like Europe, the right wing nationalist parties, the
right wing religion in his parties. A Russian victory is a victory for the
new right. It is a victory for the worst kind of right. A
Russian loss doesn't guarantee us anything, but it buys us some time. It
buys us some time to fight these enemies that we must fight. It buys
us this time, buys us some time to educate the world about the alternative
to the left and the right, an alternative to the collectivism, the mysticism,
and the statism that they represent. It buys us some time to save
Western civilization. Thank you all right, I see a line of questions,
nikos Hi, I don't thank you very much. So the question is how
does this war ends? So on that part, on the territories which are
still occupied by Rossia, the red part, there's a significant part of the
population who would want to be in one way or the other. Part of
Rossia. So do you see any realistic way that this war would end and
that Ukraine would still be intact as it is to day? And is there
a chance it ever gets to NATO? Thank you? So is there a
chance that the war ends and Russia gets to keep the don't ask and Crimea
and maybe some other relatively Russian speaking parts of Ukraine. I think there's a
chance. And I think what Putin is really, what Putchin really is counting
on right now is still the weakness of the West. What is counting on
right now is the idea that the West will stop at some point giving weapons.
Let's say, I don't know, I can think of several Republican candidates
who might win the presidency and stop providing weapons to Ukraine. In you could
you could see elections in Germany flipping and a much more pro Russian government in
Germany rising, and other countries around Europe, and the Poles are alone because
the polls are not going to change. Of all the countries in Europe,
the country is most dedicated in its anti Russian I think, is Poland.
So you could see that if you can, and its strategy right now is
to drag this war out so that that is what he achieves, because he
can't win at this point, all he can do is drag it out so
that there's a change in government in some of these key countries like the United
States, and they negotiate some thing that allows Russia to keep Cromea and to
keep Dunnasko or that that dun Basso that area of Russia. But I militarily,
I think if the West provides provide Ukraine the weapons, I think I
think the Ukrainians are going to kick the Russians out of the entire area of
Ukraine. It's just the of what Ukraine was before this invasion. It's just
a question of time, whether they have the time, and it's a question
of whether the West will continue to support them. I'm not convinced the West
will again. I think they're serious cracks once you get elections. Marie La
penn is thought to be the leading candidate again in France. Mlcon is very
um uh, you know, unpopular. If she wins. Down the road,
if she gains and strengthen Malcorn needs to show that he's not. So
who knows what happens in Europe over the next year. That's what Putin is
counting on. He's going to drag his feet, He's gonna play defense,
so that Europe shifts and America shifts. Thank you very much. You spoke
about Dugan's and Puddin's idea to what extent you think general Russian mentality? I
mean, these people's ideas are representative of general and mentality of the Russians.
Right, we know that what is ultimately much more important is you know,
mentality of the nation, not the leaders that are ruling the country. So
if if they one day get rid of Putin, there will be prickles and
maybe even much you know, worse people. What is what is uh?
And we know that tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who
disagree with Putin left Russia. What remains there is it? Is it the
worse mentality than Putin? Is it the similar mentality? So? Or what
is it? Look? I think that we understand that it's intellectuals the shape
of culture, it's ideas the shape of culture, and Russian ideas the dominant
Russian ideas at least since the days of Dostoyevsky anti Western civilization years. If
you think about Dosteyevsky, I have some way this quote from Dostevsky about the
purpose of the Russian people is to save the West in the name of Christianity.
You'll see revival of Christianity in Russia, and that'll sweep through the West
and Russia. So this is not new, this is not ducan, this
is Dosteevsky right, one hundred and fifty years ago, one hundred and thirty
years ago. Whenever. Um, you know the number of intellectuals, the
number of philosophers since then who have repeated that kind of line and that kind
of mystical view of Russia and what it means, and it's significant. That
has to have an impact on the on the culture, on the on the
people in Russia. I ran at a you know, she said, it's
it's a it's a mystical collectivist culture and it'll you know, I don't know
if she said this, but she implied he would take decades to change that.
And indeed, when the Berlin Wall fell, many people said, well,
that's it, right, we won liberal democracy whatever that is one,
and Russia will just become part of the West. Well, no, it
became afia land where them mafia took over whole industries, and it became a
land of authoritarianism, mysticism, and collectivism, exactly what you'd expect from the
culture that has that has led to this point, that led them to become
the USSL. That wasn't an accident. It's not an accident that they became
the first real communist country. All of this is a consequence of the ideas
that are deeply embedded in the in Russian culture. And I think that so.
I think if Putin disappears, you get somebody as bad or maybe worse
for a while. Is the hope long term, of course there is,
because people have free will, they can't change. They are hundreds of thousands
of Russians who left because they wouldn't succumb to this kind of authoritarian government.
They could come back. You could see a real changeing. You could see
kind of a liberalization of Russia. But that's far fetched. I mean,
I think it's going to be really, really difficult to imagine a world in
which that happens. It doesn't look good for them, but I will say
this. I mean you could have said the same thing about Ukraine, because
Ukraine was so much under the influence of Russian culture and Ukraine has moved away,
So it is possible. It is possible. And you know, don't
you it's wanting to give up on people. There's always that potential. Thank
you, Ron, amazing talk. So you started with a premise that success
or failure of our enemies overseas impact the success or failure of our enemies here
at home. And I agree with you. And yet as Russia fails in
spectacular fashion, Putin's head of propaganda, Tucker called Carlson, is still on
the rise. Why what's it going to take for people like Tucker to be
held accountable? You know, I don't know. It's very depressing. Um,
something has happened over the last I don't know, since since Trump,
I think, and that is that people won't accept reality. They don't.
They just ignore it. They come up with conspiracy theories that explain everything,
right. Uh, And and you know, prigos and didn't it's not actually
an enemy of Putin. He's actually you know, this is all Putin doing
four D chess and there's a whole constellation there and this is all strengthening Putin.
It's making him stronger. I don't know. You can't even talk about
it because it's completely arbitrary to say it has no cognitive standing. There's nothing
to say about these things, um and Teca. Carson is a perpetuator of
some of the worst conspiracy theories I think today, and I think he is
completely divorced from reality from facts, and people don't seem to care, and
to the extend, the facts don't matter anymore. Yeah, it's it's it's
a. It's a that's the biggest problem I think of all the problems we
face today, it's an epistemological problem. People don't care about facts and about
reality and about truth. If we truly on a post truth error, then
it's over because all we have is truth, facts, reality, reason,
logic. What else is there? So, you know, I don't know.
My hope is that Russia loses so badly that they can't ignore it anymore.
But you know, the ability of human beings to rationalize and to evade
and to create stories, call them conspiracy theories is astounding to me, and
they manage to somehow do it anyway. I mean, if he loses,
they'll call that for d chess and actually he's going to do something. And
when you say, look, Finland has joined NATO. That's bad. It
doesn't even register with them. They can't even respond. So I don't I
don't know. If we knew, maybe we'd we'd have some good arguments to
convince some of those people. You know, Tucher Carson I think is just
a liar. I'm convinced he knows exactly what he's doing. This is a
marketing ploy he this is how he gets his audience. He knows what attracts
an audience. He says what he needs in order to attract an audience.
I think that was revealed in this lawsuit between Fox and Dominion, where he
was saying one thing on his text to other Fox employees and something completely else
on a during during uh, you know, after January sixth and and and
after the election. So, um, you know, Tucker Carson will do
what Techa Calson does. I mean, he's he's a he's a he's an
entertainer and he entertains. Um. It's the fact that he has such a
following, which is truly scary. But imagine what would have looked like if
Russia wins. That's my point. If Russia wins, it gives him so
much power. It gives him so much strength. It legitimizes everything he says,
even among people who might be on the fence. So it might because
if they lose, at least we have reality and outside right if you can
point at it. If they win, Taka becomes much more powerful than you
idiots, And that's scary. Great response, Thank you, yarn. We
have a question from the online audience. Sure does America's massive resource investment in
your grass military serve America's self interest? Look in a if we lived in
luz a fair America and the government was as small as and as limited as
we believe it should be, and it had any kind of semblance of a
strategic fagn policy, a real self interested faun policy, as I think we
understand it, then Russia would have never invaded Ukraine and this question would be
off the table. You would need it. Nobody would mess with America,
Nobody would mess with the West, and the West would be such an example
of a shining city on a hill. The game over. But the fact
is we live in a mixed economy. The fact is that the United States
spends huge quantities of money on all kinds of things that have nothing to do
with our interests. Of all the things the United States spend money on today,
is the ant is the money sent to Ukraine not in our self interest?
No, of course, it's in our self interest. It's a positive
investment in the security of the United States. It places a real limit on
Russian expansion as in a Russian imperialism. It is a statement about the value
of freedom and the value of liberty. I mean, as we understand it
in our mixed economy kind of sense. Right, most of the weapons we
are sending I mean this is important because I don't think people talk about this.
Most of the weapons we sending Ukraine or weapons we don't need. The
primary threat to the United States faces today from a strategic perspective is China.
We're not gonna go to war with Russia. Rush is not a threat.
As you can see, it's not a threat Ukraine. It's certainly it's not
a threat. I mean, Ukraine can beat it. Certainly not a threat
to the United States. We're probably not in our lifetime going to go back
to them, at least in force, you know, I think that's in
our culture. We're just not going back to them at least where we're going
to use these tanks and artillery pieces. A war with China, if such
a war happened, is an air war and and a sea war. It
is a navy and an air force enterprise. I mean, if if we
had a strategy, which we had we don't, haven't had a strategy since
World War Two. If we had a military found policy strategy, we would
be investing all our military resources right now in a navy and an air force
and then, by the way, strategic air defense systems to knock down hypersonic
and ballistic missiles out of the air. The idea that Israel can knock out
little projectiles that are shot within seconds milli seconds with the Iron Dome and we
are completely exposed to ballistic missiles that take minutes to get to us is bizarre
and absurd, and it just means we haven't invested in the technology enough.
We should be sealed. This country should be sealed so that nothing can hit
it. And it's I believe it's doable. It's just a matter of the
right technology and the right and investment in that technology and doing Israel just announced
the first it's the first weapon designed to knock down hypersonic missiles howpasonic missiles are
These missiles that go more than mach five, so really really fast and maneuverable.
And Israel now has a missile that will take those down. We're afraid
that China has a lot of these, So it's this is a huge step
towards defending ourselves against China. Those are the kind of things we should be
doing. More abrams, tanks, where are we gonna what are we going
to deploy them? More artillery pieces. We're not going to put tanks in
Taiwan. We're not gonna put artillery in Taiwan. You're gonna put missiles and
ships and airplanes out of Guam into Taiwan. If that becomes a rule,
so the whole strategy needs to shift. Then we got a bunch of army
equipment that we don't really need. Let somebody who can use it for a
good cause use it. And yes, from budgetary perspective, it costs sixty
three billion dollars or whatever it is, but a lot of it is not
going to be replaced, so a lot of it is not net an added
expense to the US. So yes, I think it is an American self
interest. It's I wish America at a strategy. I wish America could think
about these things. I wish America he understood what its self interest is and
how to deploy its resources in such a way. But given all the money
we spend around the world on horrible causes and on we have a basis one
hundred and twenty different countries with you know, American military all over the world
not acting in American self in just often. This is one cause that I
think is worthy of US support. If I may ask another America Center question,
what wouldn't be different in this situation if last presidential election the other guy
won, would he give them Russia moral sanction, claim they're heroes on both
sides, fly over to occupy a territory, to take a photo ofp with
a Bible, or just completely abandoned them like Hong Kong. I don't know,
so it's really hard to tell. But my guess is that he would
have abandoned Ukraine, that he would let the Russians have it, and he
probably would have negotiated some deal where you would have got a Russian figurehead in
Kiev and he would say I cut a deal, and I made a deal,
and he would have come off as a and that's what he's saying.
Now. I would meet with Putin, we'd we'd fix it all, just
like he fixed with North Korea. I mean, we'll just we'll just arrange
everything and everything will line up. And but ultimately, you know, there's
Donald Trump is I mean, Donald Trump would not is not going to do
anything different, um, in a positive sense. And I think I think
he would in a minute abandon the Europeans. You would say, this is
the European problem, let them deal with it. We don't need to be
involved. Um. So I think it would be quite a bit different,
I think in a negative sense. Yes, I mean I can't think of
anything fun policy wise it donald Trump did that was good other than maybe what
he did in Israel. But yeah, no reason to expect any better in
this in the circumstances. He'd probably also react to Putin's the threat of nuclear
warfare by bragging about our own, as if I would solve anything. So
yes, it's very close to my guess. I mean, I mean he's
look he if you saw his press conference with Putin when they met, I
forget where they met, um, I mean Putin was like overshadowed him.
Putin was like the man there, and it was like Trump was saying,
I don't believe my own security services. Like Billy Putchin. Putin is a
good guy. I like Puttin. I mean, that's that's that's how that
was our president. I mean, I'm not a big admire of Biden,
but the reality is that uncertain issues related to font policy. Both with the
God of China and with the God Ukraine. I think Biden has been better
than Trump would have ever been. I think Trump was a disaster when he
came to China. I think he emboldened them, he did all the wrong
things. I think Biden has actually done some good things with God to China,
Thank you very much, sir. For quite some time, Ukraine has
consistently ranked poorly in terms of economic freedom according to the Heritage Foundation, even
worse than Russia. Aside from that, the nation has faced many accusations of
corruption. With that being said, do you think it is wiser to simply
oppose to Russia rather than outright support and champion Ukraine. Yeah, there's no
question Ukraine is a corrupt country. It has its oligoques. You know,
Zelinsky was kind of a fresh face, but all indications were in the first
two years is that he was unfortunately succumbing to the same kind of corrupt system
and was not being as radical as I think many people who voted for him
would have liked him to be in terms of changing the system. The difference
is this the differences that the Ukrainian people have voted repeatedly and want the country
to move more towards becoming a Western country. So yes, it has a
political class and a political establishment that is corrupt and that is bad, and
those kind of political systems are very difficult to get rid of. You need
somebody truly committed to the cause, who really understands what they're doing in order
to do that. Georgia, the country of Georgia, actually managed to get
rid of that corruption amazingly. But that's because they had a unique circumstance where
they had a prime minister and a government that was uniquely committed to relatively free
markets, actually more committed than any other government I know off to free markets
for a while at least judges. You know, Ukraine just hasn't had that.
But the people want that, they want to move in that direction,
and I think in that extent. And again, I'd beat to Ukraine and
I've talked to people, I support those people. I'd be to Russia.
And look, I didn't want to say this, but because this is subjective,
completely subjective, but of all the countries I've been in the world,
and i'd be too, I don't know eighty maybe, Um, the place
where I felt least comfortable was Russia. I will take China over Russia any
day, in terms of a visitor, in terms of a tourist, in
terms of a lecture, in terms of any of these things, and in
terms of the people as a Russia's oppressive. It has an oppressive sense to
it. Ukraine didn't have that. Kia was vibrant and exciting, and young
people beaved like young people in the West in ways that you did not see
in Russia, at least I didn't see it. I'm you know again,
I'm speaking only from personal my experience. I would you know. So funny
story. So the first time I went there was a Saint Petersburg. And
the nice thing about that was the guy who introduced me was talking about iron
Van and he said, yes, he and Saint Petersburg. We need a
sculpture of iron Van and we need to call one of the boulevards after her
name. So she's definitely got a presence within Saint Petersburg and among sudden people
over there. But in the Q and A, somebody asked me, this
is probably twenty fifteen, fourteen, I don't know. Somebody asked me,
you want, so what do you think of Putin? I said, I
think he's a thug, And you could tell the room kind of fell a
little quiet, and everybody kind of backed up a little bit. And afterwards
I and I elaborated about this as a mafia economy and them off your political
system, and this is force and this is anti liberty and all of that.
People came up to me and said, you don't say that in Russia.
You just not a good idea. Don't don't do that again. Um
so yeah. So that's so I'm pro Ukraine. Not because I'm pro the
you know, the corruption, but because I think that they're moving in the
right direction. They wanted to move in the right direction, and I think
the culture was ready to move in that direction, and they were, you
know, I think the Mida. If you if you read up about Midon
in twenty fourteen. You know, they demonstrated full relative liberty for freedom.
Many of the protesters were killed. They stuck it out in that square over
the winter. They fought for their own freedom. They got rid of a
corrupt president. They replaced them with somebody better who started to move in the
right direction. Not at the speed we would want. But yeah, so,
so it's not just that I'm anti Russia, though that's certainly the emphasis.
The emphasis should be to be anti Russia will than to be pro Ukraine.
You said objectivism is not on the political right. Is the political compass
with the two axes and the four quadrants better? Or does it cause a
similar problem with us being confused with libertarians for example? And if so,
how do I introduce my political views when I'm asked about it in a situation
like a cocktail party, where there's not a lot of time to get into
well, existence exists, and you know, to go from metaphysics on up
to give a moral in the cocktail party is the ideal place to talk about
existence exists. You've got that cocktail right there in your hand, and it's
not oh, maybe there's poison, I don't know. No, Look,
my view is there's only one political spectrum. And I don't like the quadrants
and all that because because the terms, the way you define them is everything,
and they're define in ways that are not objective. But the politicalist victim
is individualism, collectivism, capitalism, statism. And I think it, folks,
when you get to collectivism, because there are many forms of collectivism.
There's only one form of individualism at the end of the day, but there
are many forms of collectivism, said folks, into left style collectivism and right
style collectivism, in the middle of the road, nothing in the style of
collectivism. You get all the different varieties, and then you get some people
who are not objectivists, who are generally on the individualist line and are quite
as consistently objective about what individual individualism means and what it applies to limited government
and how it But you get some people over they call the classical liberals maybe
right, that are a little bit on the individualism site. And then there's
us, and we're pity alone over here. There's not a lot of people
over here to have a true understanding what individualism is, because you cannot have
a proper political understanding of individualism without a proper understanding of individualism as a moral
concept, and therefore is egoism. So and that's why we're alone here,
because they know nobody else has that moral concept. So that to me is
the spectrum. And you know, and I think forty fifty years ago the
rights, there were elements of the right. There were significant elements, not
minor elements, significant elements of the right that believed in individual rights or at
least some view of individual rights, that were on this spectrum towards individualism.
So you could say the right represents ultimately individualism. I think those elements on
the right are so small today and the dominant of the right is collectivism.
That you use that terminology is just confusing. It's confusing in your own mind,
and I think it's confusing for the audience that doesn't quite understand it.
So you say, I'm not on the right as you understand it today,
and I mean on the left as you understand it today. I'm an individualist,
I'm a capitalist, I'm a free market guy. Thank nobody else is.
We have another question from the online audience. Okay, how can you
say that to the American right? Russia is the savior of traditions and religious
values. These values in the West are completely different from those of Russia.
I mean they're completely different in their minutia right, because they are Eastern Orthodox
Church and in the West were Protestant and Catholic. But the idea of the
whole of religion in one's life is the same. The idea of the insignificance
of the individual versus the collective is the same. Again, of these certain
elements in the West, the anti left. And this is the key.
Look, what seems to unite people on the right and and some good people
on the right who are willing to associate with the very bad elements on the
right is a position to the left. And what I think mostly attracts Jordan
Peterson to Putin is this idea that Putin really stands up to the left.
He's willing to talk the talk, he's willing to say it, he's willing
to advocate to Christian value. Yeah, we might disagree about whether when you
put the piece of thing in your mouth that's really the body of Christ or
just a metaphor for the body Christ, whatever the theologians want to debate,
right, but that's not what's important. What's important is is Christianity at the
center of life or isn't it is Christianity to guide us is, for example,
should homosexuality be banned legally or not? I mean, this is a
big deal for Putin. He mentions this in every single speech. And while
the American right often doesn't want to touch that because it's not the most the
topic that's most popular for them. When you dig a little deeper, watch
Matt Walsh or what's his name Knowles on Daily Wire? Thank you? On
the Daily Wire, you see exactly what they think. Right, they're the
worst of the worst. And this is not a Daily Wire Ben Shapiro,
who we've thought maybe it sometimes it's pretty good. These are the people in
his umbrella, right, his umbrella organization. These are the worst of the
worst. I mean, you know, so it's exactly the same values at
the end of the day, even if you know they have some theological differences
at some point. Indeed, I've seen some I've seen some articles criticizing people
on the right in America for supporting Putin because Putin's anti Catholic and and and
it's so important to you know, to the West. You know, most
of the intellectuals on the right tend to be Catholic. So it's how import
Catholicism so important. Putin's and tich Catholic scene must be anti West and nats
Day argument, But that's not an argument, and it can be argument.
We see the commonalities between in all of the mystics, between all these religionists
of various types, and in that sense there's no difference. So maybe I'm
mistaking the forest for the trees here. But do you think that nuclear non
proliferation efforts against US friendly countries by the US government has contributed to Russia feeling
emboldened to invade Ukraine? Good question. I think that's probably part of it.
The fact that we will not differentiate between good guys and bad guys.
Can have nukes, doesn't matter if you have good guys are bad guys,
I think is a real problem. I mean, you solve a lot of
problems in Asia. If Japan's, South Korean and Taiwan have nukes, a
lot of problems go away. But we can't conceive of that because we just
against proliferation no matter. If you could guys are bad guys, that's it.
You're done, and the same like we kind of know Israel has nukes,
but we don't want to acknowledge it. And because if we acknowledge it,
we'd have to say, oh bad Israel. Don't do that because we
we want it. We have an egalitarian view of this thing. And this
is part of the problem of not having a strategy visa v from policy,
not being able to identify allies, not being able to identify the good guys
versus identifying the bad guys. So so yes, I think that in Bold
is not just Russia, but all in Bold in China. Thank you for
a lectum um. I am born and raised in Ukraine and my parents from
Saint Petersburg. I also lived for eighteen years in Crimea. So for me
personally, it's the tragedy and I am ultimately anti war, so wild that
come my questions. Two questions. Possibly it is not as widely known information,
but both Joe Biden and Hunter Biden were officially wanted in Ukraine before twenty
twenty. In fact, the Ukrainian Federal Service As Bill released in twenty twenty
a large report on Biden family crimes. It is available online and has been
translated into English. It has shocking facts and numbers would you please comment on
Biden's family involvement, particularly involvement with Burhisma ownership of lithium minings in Ukraine and
making my homeland an ultimate money laundering machine. My second question, but must
follow the money and our military industrial complex reported hundred forty billion dollars earned since
the war started. Accordingly, proxy war in Afghanistan is over, another one
is started. So I don't have any new information about the Bidens, Barisma
and Ukraine. Would I be shocked if the Bidens got five million dollars from
Ukraine over Barisma and over that ten million dollar kid. That's the number.
The size of the thing doesn't matter, right, it's the principle. No,
I wouldn't be shocked at all. But am I shocked at any American
politician getting rich by cutting deals in all kinds of ways and all kinds of
means. No, I mean they're all corrupt. I'm sorry, but almost
all of them. Do you think Hillary Clinton got two hundred and fifty gets
two hundred fifty thousand dollars per speech because she's a good speaker, or anybody
cares what she has to say. People are buying access. This is how
it's done. Before. I'm sure her rates are way lower today than they
were before she ran for president. They expected her to win and they paid
her two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Every single one of these politicians is
rich. How did they get rich? Produce anything, don't create anything,
and they get rich. You know, I've used this example before. What's
a kus Kushner's Trump's brother in law. Nobody talks about this. This is
not in the media. It hit, It was a story a little bit
for a while, and then it disappeared because nobody wants to delve into these
things. Right, But Kaushner just raised a private equity fund, first private
equity fund he's ever raised in his life. Five billion dollars. That's a
lot of money. Guess who gave him two of the five? Well,
the Saudiast did. The Saudiast did. Now, why did the Saudiast give
him two billion dollars? Most of the investment committee, it was reported in
the media, most of the investment committee of the Saudi Investment Fund was against
it. Why because he had no experience, He's never done private equity.
Why didn't they insist giving him two billion dollars? Well, who was the
guy from the Trump administration who did all the deals in the Middle East,
Oh, Kushner. So is there a payoff here? I mean, personally
I think there is, but I can't prove it. Nobody can prove it.
So he can get away with it and he's just you can calculate in
your head what the fee income that he gets on the Saudist two billion dollars.
It makes him a very, very rich man. And they all like
this, all these rich politicians. Very few of them were born rich,
are born into wealth, but somehow they come out of the other side.
I mean, you see the house to Obama's bought. I mean, I'm
not saying they got a suitcase with fall of cash. But again they get
speaking engagement and they have contacts and they do consulting and they do things because
once you have a mixed economy, corruption is inevitable. Once you have a
big economy, you have all these pressure groups and they all push and pull
and most of it's legal but corrupt, and they fund and they have access,
and regulators become going to companies, and company vice presidents become regulators,
and it's everywhere. It's corruption is endemic to a mixed economy. There's just
no way around that. The only way to get rid of the corruption is
to get rid of the mixed economy. Was the second question, Oh,
the military industrial complex. Look, yeah, they're making a lot of money.
They make a lot of money during war. The only so called beneficiary
of war is the people who produced their weapons. Nobody else benefits because you
know, they're either dying or their tax money is being used and so on.
Um. But look, the problem in the United States today is not
that the military companies are making too much money. The problem in the United
States is not that was spending too much money on the military. The problem
in the United States is we spending too much money, period, and we're
running massive deficits and their way in excess of anything the military spends. And
the other problem is that when we spend money on the military, we spend
it in wasteful, non strategic ways. It's very hard to spend on the
military when you don't have a strategy on what you're trying to achieve. So
again, the military spending becomes pressure group who who gets to pressure? Who
gets to decide? And that's again the mixed economy. What we need is
a is a military I think could be a lot smaller than it is today,
focused on the strategic interests of the United States, that is ruthless and
brutal at doing what it's supposed to do. And you know there's a lot
in the military that is a necessary as a consequence, But that the reason
it's bloated is not because of the industrial military complex, although that's part of
it. It's because there's no strategy. There's no strategy, so anybody can
start. You know, I want a warship, and I want to this
ship, and I want that plane, and I want this tank and I
want that. Why not let's invest in all of it. Maybe it is
a strategy. No, I don't think there's a group out there trying to
build us all in conspiring behind there's no responsibility. No, because because at
the end of the day, um central planets like that, you know,
they can barely you know, do anything to design one of these complicated conspiracy
theories behind our backs. Way above the pay grade of any of these guys.
Thank you. We have another question from the Onlian audience. Okay,
what do you think the worst should do about this conflict? Send more weapons,
money, troops, No, I don't think we should send troops.
I don't think they're necessary. Um and I and I don't think NATO should
get into get involved directly because I do think there's a threat of of of
the use of nukes which could escalate in ways that would be very harmful to
everybody to to to to the west. Um. I think we should do
what we are doing now, which is support Ukraine militarily, support it more
importantly morally and uh and politically. But I do not I think NATO should
get directly into a direct conflict with Russia and is unless is absolutely necessary.
And I don't think it is him. You briefly touched on Dostoevsky and some
philosophers influencing Putin's regime, perhaps like Ivan Aline or Lev Gumiyev um And so
I would ask what you think the recurrent roots of Russian authoritarianism are, because
they've gone through several rebuilds and at least the twentieth century and before. Well,
I mean, I think I'm not an expert on Russian philosophy, but
it strikes me from reading going back to the Stefsky but Alien is supposed to
be very influential industry on Putin Dugan. I read it quite a bit on
du you know, I watched a bunch of interviews of Dugan and read a
little bit of Dugan. What unites it is a deep mysticism, a real
mysticism, right that we in the West find primitive and weird because it's not
exactly just Christian. It's interwoven with this special nature of the Russian people and
something unique about the Russian people that again, I think it's very far into
the way we, you know, look at the world. Um, a
sense of collectivism that comes from that kind of biological determinism. And as a
consequence, I think collectivism and osticism always lead to the need for a strong
man too, you know, um commune with the world of spirits and communicate
to us what needs to be done. So I think the a thubbatarianism is
kind of embedded in that mysticism and collectivism, you know. And I think
that unites all of them. From from dust Aski's writings, which are less
political, they're more cultural, but you see the threads in there all the
way to Dugan today. And Dugan is the worst of them because he's he's
complete eclectic I mean's and and and he's he's such a mystic. It's it's
he says stuff. Then you'd go really, it's just so bizarre. But
so I mean, but the thread, they're pretty consistent. Now they've being
more liberal in the traditional liberal sense thinkers in Russia, but they've always been
marginalized and they've never gotten a lot of traction. Thank you. Okay,
I think this one might be a big one. I think I've heard on
your show a few times say that a country should not exist if it can't
get its own people to volunteer to fight for it, or something like that.
Maybe it goes back to Ironran the reference. But like, there are
people in Russia, a lot of young people who don't want to fight this
war. They're being press ganged to be put to be taken off the street,
put into a uniform to go and sent out to fight and to die.
There are mobile creamatories for these soldiers. I mean, how horrible.
But what I was saying for, can you clarify about that? Sure?
And and just to be just to be accurate here, I mean Ukraine has
a draft as well. If you're you're not allowed to leave the country.
If you're mail and under a certain age, everybody's drafted into military. So
it's not like Ukraine is a is an emblem of liberty here with a god
to a draft, I said it. Don't please don't attribute to design Ran
because I think she'd agree with me. But I don't think she said this.
I said this or the God to Israel. People always tell me you're
you're full voluntary army. What will happen in Israel? If you have a
volunteer army, then not enough people will volunteer. And Israel has all these
enemies, and it's surrounded with enemies. And what I said was a country
where the people are not willing to fight for their own liberty, their own
freedom voluntarily is not a country that deserves to exist. So if Israel can't
raise an army to defend itself, then it won't exist, so be it.
But that doesn't give the authorities the right to force you to go serve
for cause you don't want to fight for. So that is the context.
Think that's true visual I think it's true of Ukraine. It's true of the
United States. Of course. Iron Ran was a huge opponent of the draft
in the United States. But even I think in a war where the enemy
was right here, not just in wars the unnecessary, like in Vietnam or
or Korea. I want to offer a comment and a thanks so and a
criticism. How long is this going to be? Very short? I promise
it's not a mini speech. I feel like he glossed over maybe the most
interesting, most important point that you made, which is we're buying time right.
And it feels like every other source that advocates for this war, they're
advocating for just stalemate. They just want to fight forever. It's bizarre,
and so I just want to thank you and actually whoever made it possible for
so many first timers to come and all the scholarships. It's been less than
twenty four hours and I've lost count of the number of first timers on scholarships
I've met. It's an unbelievable, benevolent act by the donors who made that
possible. You are thank you. Yeah, And it feels a little bit
like, you know, knowing that you know some portion of these people are
going to continue on, will join maybe the Ironmand University, actually become intellectuals
in this battle. It feels a little bit like maybe the start of an
intellectual Manhattan project. And I think that's the only way, as you say,
this can really be one. It's a war of ideas, and we're
leading the offense. No one else is. So thank you everybody. I
missed a criticism, but okay, maybe a little bit of the sin of
humility. All right, you're leading in the charge. In many ways,
you're the I think maybe the most problem public voice actually providing a moral foundation
for why this makes sense. Thank you, Thank you. When Russia invaded
I guess the most recent time. You know, usually everybody was outraged for
maybe a month, and then all of a sudden I started seeing these writing
wing people get triggered and be against the Ukraine in this war and pro Russia.
Did something happen to trigger that? First, I think they stayed quiet
because it was obviously Russia initiated, all right, this was an active,
you know, initiation of force. There's no question about that. Russia was
in the wrong. And in those first few days or for a few weeks,
they would have come off as too obviously pro the initiation of force,
and they I think they backed off a little bit. They also wanted to
see what would happen. I think they thought it would be quick and then
they could kind of celebrate. Right, Russia won and it was over,
and the West would have done nothing and it would have just it wouldn't have
it would have mattered. Oh, that's right. I thought we were going
to the thirty past. So and then the war stalled. Russia was not
being victorious. It wasn't happening quickly and there, and they started speaking up
because it's it's what they truly believed all along. And time had passed.
The American people had kind of forgotten about it a little bit. It wasn't
at the top of the headlines. The Russian aggression maybe was receding into further
into the back, and they felt more emboldened to come out and do this.
And and if if you're on Twitter, if you follow some of these
accounts, I mean, the number of people who are coming out as pro
Russia is truly astounding. And it's the one thing that unites one among many
things that unites kind of the New Rights and the fall Left. It's it,
you know, both on Russia side in this conflict. And it's not
an accident. If you think about the ideas that both sides represent. It
seemed to me that because like the mainstream was against Russia, that they became
pro Russia. Is this I mean, that is true. It's not so
much that the mainstream So I need, I need to end. But let
me say this. This is the part of the if you're if you you
know, if you're against the left, then you're against everything the left does.
And Biden supported Ukraine said must be wrong by definition, it must be
wrong if Biden did it. And if the mainstream media is reporting that Russia
is losing, then they must be winning because everything the mainstream media says is
exact opposite in reality. And that's become a guiding mentality, a guiding you
know, way in which people deal with reality these days, at least a
certain segment of the world out there. So yes, So at some point
they picked up that if you want to fight the left, you have to
be pro Russia. If you want to fight mainstream media, you have to
be pro Russia. That and and and I think that stimulated um stimulated the
growth of them. All right, thank you everybody,