Transcription
And Applebomb. Welcome to Dutch of Trendy Program.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> First question is about uh something that happened pretty recently. Um uh Senator Lindsey Graham said that he played golf with Donald Trump and Donald Trump told him allegedly that it's time to impose these mega sanctions that are waiting in the Senate on Russia. Do you think that something really shifted in Washington?
>> So I can't predict how Donald Trump will behave or react in any given moment because he isn't someone who has a strategy. He doesn't think geopolitically. He doesn't think strategically. He makes decisions on the spur of the moment depending on who he's speaking to and whether he perceives himself to be winning. Um, it's true that the Senate, Graham, and more than, as I understand it, 80 other senators are willing to sign a bill that would increase sanctions pretty dramatically. Uh, and it's true that people around Donald, some people around Donald Trump want him to do this, but he has other forces and other interests around him, too. There's there are people around him who want him to do a deal with Putin because it might be personally financially beneficial to themselves or maybe to the president. Uh there are people in the MAGA movement who are actively pro-Russian. And so we'll just have to see who wins the argument.
You seriously think that uh Donald Trump could sign some kind of deal with Vladimir Putin which will be also personally beneficial to him in which money or
>> Well, we know such things have been proposed or we're rumored that such things have been proposed. Um, but of course no I don't know whether he would do that or not.
>> Why Trump is so patient with Putin? He knows him since quite a long time. He was president already and he dealt with him. Um, why is he so so gentle with Putin until now? What's your explanation?
>> People have been asking this question for a decade.
>> Um, there was a major investigation during Trump's first presidency into the sources of Russian influence on the Trump campaign and it was wasn't inconclusive. Showed that there was influence, but they were never able to prove that Trump was criminally um involved or that there was a that there was a criminal involvement. Um, we know that Trump has had Russian connections for more than 30 years. He's had Russian investment into his business. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is all documented. Um, we know that he has had positive thoughts about Russia. We know he's felt very negative about US alliances for a long time. It's in his books from more than a decade ago. It's in in the 1980s he took out big magazine newspaper sorry advertisements arguing that the US was wasting money on alliances. So all these instincts have been in place even before Putin came to power since he's in power. Uh uh Trump is someone who's very impressed by people who operate without checks and balances, without restrictions, without courts, without journalists. He admires that kind of power. So my guess is that he's positively um
>> Disposed
>> Disposed to the Russians anyway and that he's personally impressed with Putin. I don't know obviously what their personal interactions are like, but Putin is a trained KGB officer. He would know how to find somebody's weaknesses and somebody's um he would know how to find the way to to manipulate someone and persuade them that he's his friend. Certainly, it's the case that Trump believes Putin to be his friend and he has said that he's used that word.
>> Isn't it just a way of telling his own audience that he controls everything? I don't can he seriously believe that Putin be his friend?
>> I think he seriously believes that he doesn't use that word about other people. I mean he doesn't use it about you know other leaders but he does use it about Putin.
>> Um, your guess what will happen if Trump realizes or if Putin behaves in such a way that Trump will have to realize there's going to be no deal on Ukraine on on whatever with Putin. What's going to be the
>> Well, we are at that moment now. Um, so it's the Russians have never said that they want a deal. They have never said they want a ceasefire. They have never said that if we give them Crimea, they will stop the war, which is the idea that many many think tank writers and journalists and statesmen seem to believe. They've never accepted that as as a as a possible ending to the war. Um, that not only have they not stopped fighting since Trump came to office recently, the Russians have actually increased uh their attacks especially on civilians, on cities, on civilian infrastructure, on Kiev, on Nimro, on Kharkiv. Uh, so they show absolutely no signs whatsoever of wanting to end the war. Um, and Trump, I mean, this has been obvious for many days. Uh, Trump has still not reacted. So you tell me. I mean, I I don't know what he what will he do if the Russians don't begin to end the war. It's he's doing what he's it's what he's doing now and he's doing nothing.
>> It's interesting that many people were saying that he Trump does not have empathy that it's not part of his psyche of his character. And then we see him speaking to a Ukrainian journalist uh during a press conference in in H after the NATO summit and suddenly he seems quite warm and disposed and empathetic. Uh, what do you think that maybe something moved him psychologically recently?
>> I could not have any way of answering that. Um, he he clearly has no empathy for many people. He speaks of his opponents as vermin. He talks about immigrants in the United States as poisoning the blood of the nation, which is this is the language that Hitler used. So he's somebody who is very um immune to cruelty and not bothered by by um by by civilian casualties. So I doubt very much that one incident has changed him, but who knows?
Uh, Putin uh there are debates about especially in this sort of Russia Russia watchers community in it. What are Putin's ultimate goals in Ukraine? How do you see them? Is it conquering the whole of Ukraine? Is it putting uh a puppet government uh in Kiev and having it as a protectorate essentially? Um, is it destroying NATO? Is it all three? How do you see his strategy?
>> So I think Putin has three goals in Ukraine
>> And he has strategy as opposed to Trump.
>> Putin absolutely has a strategy. So he and he has three three goals. Um, they overlap a little bit. Number one is an imperial goal. Uh, he would like to resurrect the Russian Empire uh which with himself as as the leader of it. This will be his role in history. And towards that end he would like to see Ukraine whether it's a puppet government or whether it's fully part of Russia. I don't know. But he would like to uh erase Ukrainianness. He would like Ukraine to cease to exist as a nation. Uh, and he would like Ukraine to be one way or another incorporated back into the Russian Empire. As I say, whether in what format that is, I don't know that it really matters. Um, his original goal, as we know, was to conquer Kiev in three days and take the rest of the country in six weeks. And that was that was the plan. That plan has failed. So now we're on plan B, which is to undermine and destroy the country as much as possible. So that's his first goal. His second goal is to destroy the set of ideas that propelled the Ukrainian revolution of 2014. So this was when he saw the Maidon of that year. This was people waving EU flags and carrying slogans against corruption and calling for the end of an autocratic president who was pulling Ukraine in the direction of Russia. Um, when that revolution succeeded and in other words when the president president Yanukovich fled the country this for Putin was a kind of alarm bell because this of course is the kind of uh the kind of revolution that he is most afraid of. You know, it's the kind of revolution you almost had in 2010 or 2011. Uh, it's the language of anti-corruption is the language that Lexi Noli used. Um, this language of of of not just of democracy but rule of law, transparency, accountability, anti-corruption, this is the language that's most damaging and dangerous to him. And he sees Ukraine that the need to destroy Ukraine is also partly about destroying that language and the appeal of that language in Russia. So it's also in his in his idea. It's a kind of war of ideas. Uh, the third the third element of it is is global. I mean Putin does have a geopolitical strategy and his strategy is to undermine the international law and rules of the world as they were established after the second world war. So UN charter
>> Not even after the cold war after the second
>> Second world war. No, the UN charter that was that was um which guarantees sovereignty of nations, you know, in their borders. Um, Geneva Conventions on warfare. Warfare is not supposed to be aimed at civilians. Uh, UN Convention on Genocide, uh, which means that you're not meant to cease to destroy or undermine um the the the existence of of a nation. All these things he would like to show that they don't count it for anything. They don't mean anything. He can destroy them and undermine them with impunity and he can get away with it. And that's of course um his he he sometimes speaks I mean it's a little bit vague but he talks about the multipolar world that he wants to live in. Multipolar is either a word that means nothing really. I mean clearly a multipolar world where there are many powers. Obviously that's what we have. But I think he means something different. He means a world in which uh might makes right and in which strong countries can invade weaker ones and big countries can dominate smaller ones. Uh, and that this is the world he would like to inhabit. Not one where these rules and UN and US and and and and other things stand in his way. So this these I think are his goals. I mean personal you know um political but also global.
>> Isn't it a paradox? Because in a multiple world, Russia will not be the strongest pole if you compare it to, let's say, China
>> Or India
>> Or India or the United States. So why do you want it?
>> Well, he he he's building up his military. He's um you know, he he's he's creating new areas in which he has power. I mean the the the power of the influence campaigns that the Russians run um in which they really um you know they began the idea of a of a kind of um use using using the internet for global influence to destroy um to destroy and undermine and divide their neighbors. Uh, I think he imagines that he'll have a big role especially if he can conquer Ukraine and take Ukraine's resources.
Which campaign in your view of these influence campaigns or many of course which was the most successful for the Kremlin?
>> I it's hard for I I there there are no precise measurements. I mean I think you know the campaign to build up and help create the AFD in Germany. This is very successful um given given that it you know what what large support it now has. Um, but you know, there have been Russian attempts to influence elections in in in Britain, in France. The Brexit campaign in the UK, I didn't I wouldn't give I don't give uh full credit to the Russians for doing these things and the Brexit campaign was was indigenous and it was mostly British. I mean, so so I don't I don't think the Russians have this decisive role, but they certainly put money and effort and and thought into into expanding some of these cakes. Of course, they campaigned to elect Donald Trump in 2016.
>> All these influence campaigns, whether it concerns the the the right or the left, because also their
>> So of course they have some far left. Um, why do you think it came the time when Russia or whatever external players let's put it like that uh can successfully help these political forces that wouldn't have happened probably 15 years ago. What happened over the last 15 20 years which now helps the Kremlin to help these forces.
>> The most important thing that happened is the shift of political conversation from real life to the online world and also the correspondent shift of western pol not just western politics but democratic politics everywhere from arguments about policy to arguments about identity. Um, and the the the the the fact that we now have a global information space meant that there was suddenly much easier for anybody to intervene anywhere actually. Um, obviously you know going back to the history of the Soviet Union the the the you know Soviet propagandists ran campaigns in Western democracies all the time. I mean starting from from the 1920s. Uh, but the the internet gives them the possibility of reaching people in ways that wasn't possible before. I mean, and if you think about it, that's the element that ties all these places together. I mean, so I live part of the time in Poland and I live part of the time in the United States. These are countries that have absolutely nothing to do with one each, you know, with one another. They're not similar in demographics. They're not similar in economics. Um, they're not similar in history, in anything. And yet it is really remarkable how similar the political language is and can be in both places. And I think that's a phenomenon not of you know not of real life but of the fact that there that that politics are conducted on the internet in similar ways in both places.
>> Um, don't you think that uh the success don't you think that the success of such campaigns now in the world is also you say that it's a globalized world but also that it is a globalized consumer world because the Soviets could run whatever campaign they wanted to whichever campaign they wanted to but if you don't have milk on the shelves and they have to wait for five years to buy a car uh then there's not much you can sell now everyone is a consumer And that maybe helps because there are elements to to to Hungary and to the United States and to Brazil and whatever Russia for that
>> Maybe. But I think it's the it's the way that language is used and can affect people online that is that's really the thing that's the same. You know, there's also a big difference between the past and the present. In the Soviet era the Soviet Union was promoting something. You know, their vision of the world, their idea of the great communist future, and we could compare what they said to the reality, you know, so there was clearly a gap between what they who they said they were and what they were really doing. Actually, Putin doesn't really promote his model, you know. He doesn't say he doesn't spend a lot of time talking about how great Russia is and how, I don't know, Lithuania and Spain should be like Russia. And nobody really thinks that. What it's it's an entirely negative form of propaganda. It's about it's and it's about promoting cynicism, promoting nihilism, promoting apathy, persuading people to be to dislike their so-called establishment, to dislike their political systems. It's a it's a negative campaign rather than a positive one. And that's turns out to be a little harder to fight.
>> Um, do you think Putin personally realizes it after living so many years in isolation? Uh, by the way this this idea that Putin was one in 200 let's say one or two or three >> and then he became different after the minute speech. Uh, so what do you think? Did he change or is he is he what he always was?
>> So I to be clear I never thought he was a great reformer or a great friend and I w and particularly was bothered from the very beginning by the language he used about himself. He talked about himself as a checkist. Um, one of the first things he did when he took over the FSB was put up a portrait of Yuran Dropoff, who was famous, for those of your listeners who don't know, was famous for his repression of dissident in the 1980s. Um, and so I never had much hope that he was some kind of Democrat. Uh, I, you know, I do think he may have changed strategies. I mean, obviously in the in the early 2000s he found it useful to be friendly with the West. He wanted Russia to be part of the G7 and briefly it was the G8 and he had you know he sought some kind of accommodation or joint projects anyway with with American and and and European leaders. Um, and so but but you know, was he always a Russian imperialist? Yes, of course he was. We know that from the story of the speech in the early 1990s of, you know, the story of the president of Estonia who gave a speech at a um at a dinner in Hamburg and who talked about how happy he was that Estonia was once again part of the Western world. Uh, but he was very worried at that this is 1994. He was very worried about the signs of a resurgent Russian imperialism that that might destroy this this this wonderful new Europe. And the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg who was then Vladimir Putin famously got up and walked out of the room. So this is this is going back many decades. So he is somebody who has had Russian imperial ambitions at least that long. He's had criminal connections from the 90s. Um, so he's somebody who's whose whose cynicism and greed have dominated everything that he's done from the very beginning. You know, as I you're you're right, many people chose not to see that. They chose to imagine that he was, you know, he was somebody we can do business with. But but of you know, and he did, as I say, he changed his tactics, but he was always the same person. I think
>> I think one of the mistakes also was that many people thought that because Putin and the the antouto rash is antourageous the the Russian elite for lack of a better word uh became so rich uh because of that they will not uh promote some kind of foreign military adventures because they want to remain rich. So such regimes always also care about perpetuation uh of on permanency. How does that square with the war which significantly isolated Russia or they think that they will manage to transcend? They will they will be patient and they will win in the end. I I don't have a full answer to why the Russian elite has gone along with a war that has been so damaging both for themselves personally but also for their country or why they have allowed a million Russians to be killed or wounded or why they've allowed their country's you know wealth to be undermined. I I I don't have a I don't have a full explanation for it. Um, it's clearly some combination of fear and um, reluctance to defy Putin and perhaps nationalism. I mean, maybe they maybe they go along with some part of this vision um, this uh, of of the reborn Russian Empire. I that that's that would be my only guess.
What in your view the West doesn't get doesn't understand about Putin's Russia and the way it's ruled and about its rulers and what does Putin in your view does not understand about the West?
>> I think that the West doesn't understand the um the extremism of Putinism you know that as I say They keep imagining that there's a deal to be done, that if we just give Crimea to Russia, then he'll stop fighting. Um, and I don't think they understand that his goals are much broader and more ambitious. Um, and and and that those goals involve the destruction of of um of of the transatlantic alliance and of maybe even of the European Union. Uh, so I think they just haven't quite understood how broad those goals are. Um, and therefore they haven't understood the need to um you know that that that be well that before there's going to be any end to the war Putin will have to lose it or he will at least have to be convinced that it can't be won. And so the path to peace is through convincing Putin that he won't win the war that it's that it's hopeless. And there I don't see right now and I I I leave open the possibility of change. People do change their minds and you know these are very capricious people and whimsical people. Um, I don't leave I leave open the possibility of something different happening but right now the only thing I can I can see that if you really really want peace then you must arm Ukraine and defend it until Putin realizes the war is is over. Uh, so I think that's the main thing that Westerners don't understand.
>> And what does Putin not understand?
>> So Putin has underestimated from the beginning from the beginning he's first of all underestimated the Ukrainians. He knows very little about modern Ukraine. He doesn't know who they are. Uh, he doesn't he didn't understand that you know the Ukrainians Ukrainian government is a genuine elected government. It has support. Um, and that the Ukrainian national identity is real and that the Ukrainians will fight back as long as they can. And that will that includes fighting a guerilla war if Kiev were to fall. So I think he has he's not he failed to understand Ukraine. I think I didn't he I don't think he's been to Ukraine in many years and he certainly had no contact with modern Ukrainians. So he's imagining Ukrainians from some Soviet pir some Ukrainian communist he met 30 years ago. He has no idea um what is modern Ukraine. I think he also
>> Well, he met Yanukovich Kuchma and uh and and you shouldn't go for that.
>> Sure. But he but but that's that makes my point. Um, but I also I also think that he doesn't um, you know, he really underestimated the ability and willingness of Europe and the United States to help Ukraine. Um, and he has underestimated the power of the um, of the ideas of it's not just democracy, it's also about unity and integrity that that do motivate at least a part of the West and Western leaders. And he has he's consistently underestimated them and he's consistently got things wrong.
>> Then why if we look especially at Europe uh countries with similar histories of oppression of Soviet Russian and Soviet occupation for that matter um react so differently to uh Putin's war. I mean the best examples of course are Slovakia and Hungary.
>> No, they're they're they're different. Hungary is very important because to understand about Hungary, you you need to understand that Victor Orbons is leader of a country that is failing economically. Um, that is badly in need of money and and investment and he and his party is in need of money and investment and he believes now that he will get it from Russia and China not from Europe. So Hungary So Hungary is the decision of one leader uh who has made this decision to to be to back Russia and he backs Russia. I mean, it's not a there's it's not very nuanced. Um, Slovakia is a little bit more complicated. I think it's also about money. It's also about FSO's allegiance to Orban. It's about his fear of of of Slovak courts and and Slovak civil society. Um, and it's and it's less clear to me that he'll stick to some kind of line. But Orban is a Orban is simply has has made a decision to switch sides. By the way, you can see um huge protests on the streets of Budapest against him. So it's not it's not that he's not all Hungarians agree with him.
>> And what can be done about it externally. You don't expel countries from NATO and the European Union.
>> I mean, I'm not in charge of NATO and the European Union, but if I were, yeah, I would have found a way to suspend Hungary's voting rights. I mean, Hungary is not is not an ally anymore. Hungary is not a is not acting as a as a in good faith as a member of the EU and I would I would have suspended them. But um, you know, one doesn't want to kick them out because there are other Hungarians and there's a there's at least more than half the population would like him to go.
>> What could the West do externally apart from supporting Ukraine all the way and and imposing more sanctions? Uh, are there other things which you think other ways of impacting Russia and Russian regime that are missing?
>> Well, we we've never had an information campaign to Russia directed at Russians. Um, you know, we had a we have a we have sanctions, but we didn't have an information campaign to accompany the sanctions. We didn't explain our sanctions. Um, you know, we we have backed Ukraine, and we don't really tell the Russians why we've backed Ukraine. Now, you know, the Russians spend uh millions and millions of dollars um as do other autocratic countries examining and analyzing and thinking about ways to influence us. And we spend, as far as I know, almost nothing on thinking about ways to influence Russia or reach Russians or speak to Russians or have conversations with Russians.
>> It's difficult admittedly because of VPNs and and bans on certain social media and so forth.
>> Sure. It's difficult, but it's it it wouldn't have to be impossible. Um, on the contrary, when the Trump administration, the second Trump administration began, one of the first things they did was to disband the global engagement center, which was a very small program inside the State Department, which merely identified and and exposed uh in the last few years, it had been identifying and exposing Russian disinformation campaigns mostly in the global south, mostly in Latin America and Africa and elsewhere, also in Europe. Uh, and and yet the Trump administration doesn't even want to do that. So we have made no effort at all to speak to Russians or engage Russians in any way.
>> Last year in Germany and I think it was called the peace prize of Germany, right? Uh, you said that roughly uh quoting you, peace does not have to mean pacifism because pacifism is very frequently u a way of appeasing dictators, appeasing aggressors. Do you think that the European moment has come? Do you think that the Europeans, for lack of a better word, saw the light?
>> I think many did. Yes. I mean, I, you know, I don't I can't speak. It's a very large continent and there are a lot of people on it, many of whom don't care one way or the other. Uh, but certainly the current leadership of Europe, if you look at France, if you look at Germany, if you look at uh the UK, if you look at Poland, if you look at Scandinavia, if you look at the Baltic states, if you look at the Netherlands, Um, uh, you know, if you look at NATO leadership, uh, even if you look at Italy, if you look at Greece, uh, you know, there is a there is there is a genuine, I think, understanding of the threat that Russia poses, not just to Ukraine, but to Europe itself. And there is a shift towards thinking differently about defense. Um, both in terms of spending money but also thinking about what we buy and what how we spend the money. Um, this is a you can we already know this is a very very different kind of war from any war that anyone has ever fought before. Um, it's a very high-tech drone war. Um, one in which a lot of equipment that people bought for decades, you know, tanks and helicopters is not useful anymore. And I hear a lot of conversations now about how do we begin to think differently about defense? How do we begin to prepare to defend Ukraine? How do we prepare to defend ourselves? And I I think the message is getting through.
>> Isn't it a paradox that on the one hand Donald Trump did quite a few things that would please Vladimir Putin? On the other hand was one of the main sort of backers of this huge like I think it's you can call it a major rearmament program on the European continent. Isn't it paradoxical?
>> It's not because Trump doesn't have a strategy. So he wouldn't have thought about that as a you know he would have he's not thinking um I want Trump I want Putin to win nor is he thinking I want Putin to lose. That's not really how he thinks. He thinks about himself. How does how will he come out of it? How can he be seen as the person who ends this war somehow? Um, and the what Europe does with its defense is a is a is a separate issue.
>> Do you think that this idea of getting a Nobel Peace Prize is very important to
>> Oh yeah.
>> I think it's it's a factor.
>> No, no, I think it's real. I mean his sons recently wrote something about it. I mean they they care. They imagine him as a great leader and peacemaker and they don't have an idea of how to achieve peace but yes that's what they want.
Coming back to where we began to the United States, if someone looks from the outside at the current state of affairs in the US, one sees one sees I'm not saying it is necessarily so, but one sees on the one hand the Republican party which is enthralled to the president which is afraid to offend uh his popular base if you wish. And then you have the democratic party which does not seem to be able to produce any kind of visionary leaders that will appeal to widest waves of the population. And uh you see only people with well you see them with leftwing views which will not be appealing to the majority of the Americans. What is going to happen next? Because we were always told by political scientists that American politics is so dynamic that everything turns essentially uh in a matter of 5 seconds.
>> That that's true. Although you're also making this mistake that almost every European I talk to makes, which is that you forget that America does not have a job for leader of the opposition. There is it's not a parliamentary system. There is no single person who's going to be the leader. Um, and there won't be until we have primaries for the next presidential campaign, whenever it is two or three years from now. Um, so, so what you want is the emergence of some figure, but that's not going to happen. What you have instead is about 10 people, 10 to a dozen people who are beginning to build really big constituencies. And the ones who get sometimes the most attention are the ones on the left, you know, AOC or the mayor of New York, by the way,
>> Alexandria Kaziocortez,
>> Right? Yes. Alexander Okazio or the mayor, the new one of the candidates for mayor of New York, who and by the way, mayor of New York has never been a position that leads into national politics. Never. It just happens to be, you know, a very loud election. Um, but you're you're not seeing Chris Murphy, who's a a senator from Connecticut, who's on air all the time, who speaks constantly, who's who's building a really important narrative um about the excesses of of of billionaires and and so on. Um, you're not paying attention to Pete Budajic. You're not who has an equally large online following. Um, there is maybe as I said a dozen half a dozen senators and governors from different states who are also building uh support. Governor of Kentucky, Governor of Illinois, Governor of Pennsylvania.
>> We are all talking Democrats, right?
>> I'm talking these are Democrats. These are Democrats. So um, there you know, there we had some weeks ago we had the largest national demonstration. This was the no kings demonstration um against Donald Trump which is the largest demonstration that there has ever been in American history though it with the most numbers of people in all 50 states. So it's not quite fair to say that there is nothing happening.
>> And Republicans are there people that you see now that are preparing to eventually challenge Donald Trump?
>> Uh, nobody will challenge Donald Trump before his term is over. Um, but clearly there are people who will want to be president after him. Um, and I imagine the main candidate right now is the vice president. Um, there are two or three leading Republicans, a couple of senators who have made clear that they're going to begin to dissent more. One of them is the governor of excuse me, senator from North Carolina, Tom Tillis, who has announced that he's not going to run for office in 18 months and instead he's going to spend the next 18 months saying, he says, saying what I think, which we assume to mean is being more critical. We have two or three others who have who have certainly at least made passage of legislation for Donald Trump very difficult. So, we are beginning to see that, too.
I spoke to one of the insiders of the in the Republican party who said that in his view and he's no Trump fan in his view uh very soon the American people the American electorate uh would like to see and especially the Republican electorate would like to see more calm style of leadership more professionalism uh more expertise if you wish do you agree that this could be the demand soon. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking.
>> I don't know. I mean, this was clearly why Joe Biden was elected in 2020.
>> Um, because people were sick of Donald Trump uh and then they elected Donald Trump again in 2024. So predicting how the American elector will feel in a year or two is is is not very useful. Um, as I said, we we are now at a moment when politics and voting is is much less to do with policies. In other words, it's, you know, we used to have a competition between the center left and the center right in the United States about how many how high taxes are or how big is the welfare state or how much money we spend on the roads or how much money we spend on on health care. And those issues are now secondary to questions of which identity group do you belong to and who which candidates represent your definition of yourself. Um, and that makes politics much more volatile and unpredictable and it allows for the rise of candidates like Donald Trump who don't really have policies or or who do he has policies I suppose he has instincts rather than rather than rather than real policies. Um, because that's not why people are voting. People are voting based on who makes them feel like a member of the winning group.
>> Last question. You describe in your book Autocracy Incorporated the rise of autocracies across the globe and this is China. This is Iran. This is Putin. This they're very different.
>> Are they all enemies of the West or some can be turned into temporary allies? The second question, what do you think should be the principles in this modern age of identity politics of global information space and so what should the West do to be able to face this challenge and probably to win?
>> Um, so the this is a group of nations who as you say they don't have a common ideology you know communist China, nationalist Russia and theocratic Iran are all very different. Um, I don't think that as a group they necessarily all see themselves at war with the West or with the democratic world although some of them do. Um, but they do identify this language of western democracy. So um accountability, transparency above all the rule of law, um the idea of independent courts, the idea of free media, they identify those ideas as threatening to them and to their kind of power. And that's the thing that links, you know, Bolivarian socialist Venezuela with communist China and and the Iranian mullis is they all find this kind of language to be a threat to them and they understand that they need to defeat it both at home and wherever else they can find it. They need to undermine it wherever wherever it comes from. Um, and that that's that's the thing that they that they most have in common. I don't think it's I don't think it's personal towards any particular country or person maybe. Not not as a group anyway. Um, in my in my mind to fight back against it we need firstly to tackle some of the big weaknesses in our own society. I we need to I we need to um push back against this world of shell companies and tax havens and um we need to tax our wealthiest people the same way that other people are taxed. Uh, we need to eliminate this world of dark money which both creates corruption but also funds the worst you know the worst aspects of our political systems. Um, we could as as a group of democratic nations we could fight back against kiptocracy much more effectively than than we could one-on-one. Um, and we also need to look at regulating the internet. And by regulation I do not mean censorship. I just mean um making transparent the rules. Um, thinking about what forms of social media we could have that aren't manipulated immediately by advertising companies um and and and and giving people access to evidence-based conversation and um you know, and and and better information. I mean all those are actually the sources of our own internal weakness and defeating those or fixing those would go a long way towards helping solve the problem.
>> And Applebomb, thank you very much. Thank you.