Transcription
When I talk about our civilization being better, it's a comparative analysis, not chauvinism. I come from a different society. I don't see Russians as others. I see myself as Russian, and my values to some extent are still from that place, and I borrow from that, and I borrow also from my Western heritage by virtue of my, you know, growing up and being educated here.
The point I'm trying to make is we have to compare to others. And I say to you, I would much rather live in a world where the West is dominant than the alternative. Now, what is the alternative? Many people who will tell you, "Well, the West is hypocritical." Yes, it is. "The West has an evil history." Yes, it has. They will then not articulate what it is that they're looking forward to.
And my argument is the multipolar world which is being so prominently advertised to you as the end of our hypocrisy and the end of our evilness and the solution to all the terrible things that we have done is an unstable structure which will result in the dominance of a different civilization which will impose its values on the world. And the question that we should all be asking ourselves is do we want that or do we want the West to continue to be the dominant force in the world? That is the choice. And anyone who tells you otherwise is either misleading you unintentionally or doing so deliberately.