Journalist Andrew Cockburn & Historian Timothy Snyder on Ukraine, Russia, NATO Expansion & Sanctions
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- Опубліковано 28 лют 2022
- Ukraine's government has accused Russia of war crimes for deliberately targeting civilians during its invasion of Ukraine and is reporting troops from Belarus have joined Russia's invasion. Despite resistance in Ukraine to the Russian military, Yale history professor Timothy Synder says Russia will soon enter "a much more horrifying stage of this war." We also speak with veteran journalist Andrew Cockburn, Washington editor for Harper's magazine, who says international sanctions imposed on Russia are having repercussions in Western countries which have industries dependent on Russian supplies. "We've sanctioned ourselves, as well," says Cockburn, author of "The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine." The two also discuss the history of the region and what role NATO's expansion played in the current crisis. Cockburn says the United States and its allies broke promises made in the 1990s not to expand the military alliance into Eastern Europe, setting the stage for an eventual confrontation. "What Putin has done is absolutely disgraceful, but it's kind of easy to understand. There has been sustained efforts to push NATO forward," he says. But Snyder says the focus on NATO ignores the agency of leaders in Ukraine and elsewhere who have the right to seek their own arrangements. "It's very important to remember that the world isn't just about Washington and Moscow. It's also about other sovereign states and other peoples who can express their desires and have their own foreign policies," says Snyder.
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One question. Where are the sanctions for Israel and Saudi Arabia???
Exactly.
International Law is a rather ethereal creature...it assumes bulky and imposing corporeal form when official enemies misbehave , but then fades into shadowy nothingness when the US lays waste to Iraq, including bombing campaigns against cities of the type Putin is barely doing.
Just to head off any criticism from people without elementary logic skills: Putin is a criminal and in an ideal world would be in jail with Bush and Blair.
Lolololol....really good point !
Answer: there are none. We do hope that this WWIII (i.e. the World vs Putin) will change how things go in the future, there has been plenty of outrage of Israel war against the Palenstine and SA too. That said, "whataboutism" is mute, just because we don't stop every evil does NOT mean we can't stop ONE of them.
@@edwardjones2202 and every other American president Post WW2
@@murraymadness4674 no, point is you stop no evil, that isnt in the American interest to stop
Its pointing out hypocrisy not whattaboutism
It's interesting how very few people know about US missiles being in Turkey was the catalyst for missiles in Cuba and removing both was the deal.
Yes, it was agreed that both nations would remove their nukes except the USA's nuclear missiles are still in Turkey. As is the norm, the USA made a deal and then broke the deal.
There is HUGE FRENZY OF PROPAGANDA against Russia. Wow!!! Try to intelligently reason with people and most just can't see it.
@@baronharkonnen1217 hahaha and Soviet nuclear missiles are still un Moscow and have Every single European capital in their range
@@baronharkonnen1217 The USSR is gone. Putin is a psychotic dictator who wants to recreate the Soviet Union. He is a murderous tyrant.
That's what the movie claimed
I'm an ethnic Russian born in Donetsk (yeah, that one) living in Argentina since 1997. I've been following both internal Russian and international politics, with special attention to USA since quite a few years now.
As I watched this video, I felt triggered to express a couple of thoughts. Tymothy Snyder is a smart guy, but his words quite transparently reflect a view rooted in the American exceptionalism and contaminated with militarism appologetics in some way or another. Unfortunately, from my perspective his interpretation can only be read as an oversimplified statement "deep down, USA=good guys on the world stage, while Russia=bad guys", that is more or less the message.
Eastern European countries wanted to join NATO? That is true, and it's understandable. USSR opressed them in many ways that might be discussed at length as a topic in and of itself. However, the Cold War reached at the end of the 80's a point where USA and the West essentially achieved a significant win against their counterpart. On various fronts. On basically most relevant fronts: ideological, economical, sociopolitical and one might even say to a certain degree ethical too. And a real threat of a nuclear war was luckily avoided in 1962. Now...he is saying that the USA were NOT interested in accepting the Eastern Eruopean countries into NATO but simply had to, because... they felt... pressured to such a degree so that they simply had to "concede that"...?? Come on...Does anyone even believe that? The hypocrisy can be smelled through my laptop screen right here, Mr Snyder.
I say USA wasn't content with the achievement. They wanted more. They needed to politically and economically humiliate and essentially annihilate post-soviet Russia, I assume hoping it would disintegrate into several post-Russia states that could then be easily controlled, dealt with. They decided to push on, to keep betting on the Cold War strategy of dealing with Russia in the language of hostility, contempt and most importantly militarism, even after the collapse of the USSR. Had there been a genuine desire to prevent Russian imperialism to bounce back, to show its ugly face back (and please note, I agree that it was and it is ugly), a different strategy would and should have been adopted by the US governments in the 90's and 2000's.
Putin is in large part a US making, a foreseeable enough collateral effect. It seems tome USA wrongly assumed that because a 70 year old long social experiment called USSR ultimately failed on the post-Russian Empire space, Russia as a concept, a statehood with over 600 years of history with 100% autocratic rule all along would simply collapse into nothingness, without a realistic chance to resurge...under the best of stimuli there is for autocratic regimes to come to life in the first place: that is continuous hostility/pressure from outside?? Russians had been brainwashed by Soviet propaganda during decades, yet they (we) are not morons, and most were willing to change their minds about the USA and the West being "the dreadful enemy" after USSR collapsed, people there really believed something better was coming in the post-Soviet period and a peaceful relationship with the USA and the West could be built, with Russia maybe integrating into "the West".
Nevertheless, the USA reminded them that the communists were not so wrong about a couple of things, after all. "A Putin" was simply bound to occur at some moment or another, and he was simply bound to grow into the autocratic aggressive leader we are witnessing now. Bothe during and after his consolidation of the police state in Russia characterized by a transparently autocratic power, the strategy USA and the West kept towards Russia all along was based on the same old language of Cold War, instead of concentrating on truly integrating Russia into "The West" after 1991, and also weakening Putin's position inside the country after 2000, by means of the "soft power". His regime is increasingly unpopular with the younger generations (millenials and beyond), even DESPITE the unwise US foreign policies, precisely because of the dose of "soft power" that still affects Russian population, the non-military influence on Russia from the West. And THAT should have been the main focus of the efforts to prevent and/or remove Putin from the global political stage, not by means of encircling Russia with American/NATO bases and adding new members.
The big problem is... America never truly was and is not about "the soft power". I call bullshit on the American government and establishment. There is much hypocrisy regarding the issue of the current war. We would arguably need to substitute USA for "some sort of Sweden" in the role of the "most powerful nation" in its "standoff" with Russia to make real progress...
I want to clarify, that I personally don't want a war in Ukraine, I don't hate on Ukranians whom I see as first and foremost fellow human beings, I have a mixed feeling of pain, shame, anger and impotence about what is happening... I most certainly don't want a nuclear war. I also don't want Russia having someone like Putin in charge and I will even go further: I would personally be ok with Russia disintegrating into a dozen new smaller countries for that matter, as long as the world turns into a safer and better place to live in. At this point, though I unequivocally condemn and by no means support the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, I'm fairly conviced that Putin and his regime are by far NOT the only culprits here, even when such a stance might now seem morally justified and emotionally tempting.
PS: Hope this madness ends soon and a peace agreement is reached between Russia and Ukraine, that the world will not ultimately plunge into a nuclear war, a real WW3. And that later on, some significant positive changes take place that would lead to the world becoming a bit better place for humans to live in than it currently is. Though it is really hard to believe...
Fantastic account and thoughts! You hit the nail on the head. American exceptionalists see the USA as good, others as bad when clearly the USA has been the worst.
Neither guest mentioned US’ role. This is a proxy war; US has had Russia in crosshairs for decades.
I agree with most of what you said. And I would add the US did plant the seeds for this mess when it sent in Milton Friedman's Chicago Boys to push their "Economic Shock Therapy" on Russia. As far as I have read, Gorbachev wanted remake Russia into a Norway style mixed economy and instead the US pushed it into the kleptocracy of oligarchs it is today. And the NATO would have been wise to honor the verbal promise of George HW Bush not to expand eastward.
That being said, Ukraine has every right to make whatever alliances it wants. Of course so does Cuba, Syria, and Venezuela.
@@annlouise526 Russia isn't a democracy and it's run by a mad man with superior hypersonic nuclear weapons. What the hell do you expect?
@@JoebooSauce So who governs the world order? You cannot pretend the CCP and Putin won't fill the vacuum with their autocratic values. You'll beg for the US to come back. But you live in an unreality. Until it strikes you like the Ukrainians. Some people don't learn until they're dead.
"Open season on hypocrisy" truer words were never spoken 👌🏽
I'm asking for a friend 😂 I'd hang out with this Guy 😂
@@publicpm8809 you are right, really when you running a country(Ukraine) that is sandwiched between 2 superpowers you(President) needs to have some brainpower plus political experience and play your cards right, not start learning on the job with no previous POLITICAL experience. Zelensky has NO political experience, NIL, a wrong person for a very difficult job. What is happening now in his own country is now being BLOWN up.
@@yttean98 he'd damn good playing a piano!
Facts!
@Slump When it's all said and done, the USA has no moral authority here. I mean where were the crushing sanctions against the US when it invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen etc?
Russia is not playing the American game of smashing everything to pieces, and given that they have to pick up the pieces this is a wise strategy.
They stated form start that their goal is to remove Ukraine's military and neo-nazi battalions and politicians. Not the civilians nor cities!
This is the main reason they do not use bombers or hardly any air force. Look at their operation in Syria, where they were ruthless against ISIS, and their air force was extremely active. Here it is mostly ground units, artillery, choppers and cruise missiles.
Since Ukraine acquired Soviet tanks and other tech after break-up, their tech looks identical to Russian, and MSM knowing that Western viewers cannot tell the difference simply make verbal claims that this or that tank is Russian, when in reality it is Ukrainian. A lie, that is designed to trigger a fake viewpoint in the masses.
@@digimaks You mean Putin wants to remove a government that defies him and would rather exist as a democracy than a puppet state within the orbit of a repressive regime. Because even if there was this preponderance of neo-nazis that exist in Putin's fantasies, he would leave the most Hitlerian types in power provided they were loyal to him.
finally! a debate w fundamentally different perspectives on a program. bravo for bringing in diverging perspectives.
Yes, but it felt like they gave the professor's opinions short shrift. It's almost like Democracy Now is playing the role of Russian apologists. Now I think there is some merit to NATO's role in causing Russia some security concerns, but in the final analysis Russia invaded a sovereign nation, and it seems that their decision to invade may have been for reasons other than security, i.e., resources.
I wish they’d allotted a 1-2hr block for this so there could actually be a proper debate. Cockburn and Snyder have different political perspectives on who is mainly to blame for the crisis and how we should think about the conflict going forward, but there wasn’t enough time for politeness to subside so they could lay into each other a little for the sake of public edification
@@meshzzizk Snyder is simply and absolutely tuned in to the wavelength that this is operating on, because he's an actual (incredibly deep) historian of the region as well as someone with daily personal ties on the ground. Cockburn is entirely theoretical, and operating from the unemotional space that provides. Cockburn could laugh here. Snyder could not. The rest of the cast just is waiting to cluck their tongues at the U.S.
What you just saw from Snyder was almost superhuman in its self control. The bottom line statement that I'm sure he'd love to shake everyone on that screen by the lapels and shout is "YOU, OR PUTIN, OR THE U.S. DON'T GET TO SAY WHAT IS OR IS NOT UKRAINE"
He did make the point. I don't know how he did it without breaking. Especially as he knows (and the world will see...is seeing) what horrors lie behind the kind of stateless void Putin is seeking to create.
Dr. Cohen, may he rest in peace, called it exactly like it is, but no one cared. And here we are...
People are free to leave Kiev on a protected highway to the border, trains are running a schedule, phones/internet, power & water ok, instead of weapons send food & water.
By sending weapons and opening the door for foreign fighters aka mercenaries, NATO as led by the US has shown very clearly what they hope the endgame will be: a bloodbath and another foreverwar.
It's a proxy war and I don't think the main instigators care about Ukraine or Ukrainians, sorry.
@@joycesim Of course they don't; however, the USA would just waste Kiev & mop up, the Russians are encircling with Chinese coordination in diplomacy, the cost to the West for these game plays I see the pincer points taking about half of Ukraine.
They're playing Go, ever do that to where you could win ?
Better learn fast a good idea.
Heard US Col. MacGregor mount that possibility. However he's an outsider in US military policy, so not sure how levelheadedness will get through to the neocons.
I heard Ukraine army won't allow men to evacuate, but put them in troops to fight the Russians.
'... I actually think that what's going on here is that the West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path. And the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked...'
--- John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago (2015)
@carlykpdx really? It seemed more like an acknowledgement that is the inevitable outcome and NATO/US and Russia tryna to play “great power” games
@carlykpdx hmm I suppose maybe you’re reading what saw a critique of post Soviet western/NATO provocation as Russian apologism?
@carlykpdx I was impressed by the predictive power of what was said.
Ukraine is like a small kid, egged on by other kids to go poking someone much bigger. Then when the bigger one starts pounding the smaller one, the prodders disappear into the crowd.
The 'West' will not go to WWIII over Ukraine but that didn't stop NATO/US from nudging them toward their current troubles.
@carlykpdx yeah basically the realist argument is abrogating Ukrainian peoples' sovereignty because Putin feels threatened about IRBMs or w/e the fuck
It was a garbage argument then, and it's garbage now, even if it did correctly predict Putin's approach to interstate relations.
@carlykpdx You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!
I have to give DN some credit for its finally putting balanced view in display, unlike corp sponsored media.
I like listening and considering alternative points of view, but I do wish Amy Goodman would remember that Russia is part of Europe (@ 14:26).
Balanced? It’s a U.S. hit piece like every other. I thought it was gonna be about Russia 🥲
@@kristinamelnichenko5775 hit piece, by comparing this so far methodical and lax invasion compared to our Iraq invasions? Sounded a bit more like a us hit piece. But the comparison so far is true. More bombs dropped im first oersian gulf war then on all europe during ww2!
Most of the civilian infrastructure has been destroyed by the Ukrainian nazi army.
@@kristinamelnichenko5775 Perhaps it is simply that putin believes he is losing his virility so he needs to show the world he can still get a stiffy by invading another sovereign country.
Ukraine does not want to be ruled by tyranny. They have the right to chart their own course and future!
This is Fake News
You wanna say the same of Cuba? Lol. Ever heard of the Monroe doctrine?
@@stenyethanmathews945 Explain?.
That’s good rhetoric. And in theory it’s true. But…. “Sovereignty” is determined by however the US (and to a lesser extent, it’s junior EU partners), feels about you. Period. Surely you know this. ???
Did you say that when Bush Jr ILLEGALLY invaded Iraq???
Great discussion with Andrew Cockburn and accurate prediction of current events from the late, great Stephen Cohen.
I as mining engineer worked with soviet experts in a Indian coal mine.they were of donbass Ukraine Russia Uzbekistan. The years 1985 to 1990 .we found all very hard working sincere. But they r enemy each other
"Open season on hypocrisy"
Putin talking points & Putins actions
Leonard Nimoy:
"Madness has no purpose or reason, but it has a goal."
The best military expert is Scott Ritter whom you have had on your show. He understands Russian military tactics, and explains it well.
Invite Scott Ritter on your show.
Watch Scott Ritter’s interview on Mint Press News recently. It’s so enlightening!
@Marco Guajardo Thank you. He cleanly laid out everything in the first 15 minutes itself.
He was right, and in a relatively small group of those who were, about WMD in Iraq.
Important note people should know: He's a convicted child sex offender.
@@pluribus_unum That reminds me of the rape charge on Julian Assange. This is a known CIA tactic.
Before every attack on them Native Americans were called "not a nation" likewise, even though the US had signed treaties with them precisely AS sovereign nations since the beginning.
Ooh, can I play?
Genghis Khan still holds the record for annihialating the largest percentage of the human population to this day.
Do you learn this type of info from outside reading?
@@naveennandigum8630 Nope, strictly from my phone, movies and video games.
We treated Russia as the successor state in every regard, only when it comes to keeping a promise that gets in the way we act like Russia is a whole different thing. Mr Snyder, this is just embarassing logic. The NATO expansion is not a thing that happened against anybodies will, the US agreed and supported it in order to expand their influence in a region that they just knew would provoke Russia.
Acting like this happened against the will of the US or other NATO Members is again just embarassing to claim. Many said it already, the US provoked the Russians and hoped their bluff was keeping Putin from invasion. The Ukranian people are paying for the gamble of US foreign policy.
It is even hard to believe they actually really gambled, the US did it themselves before, even Putin did it already *twice*, in Georgia and the Krim. Trying to make us believe they did not expect Putin to invade is actually insulting to us as peoples of Europe.
And this has now proven @TimothyDSyder consistent warnings in his books, etc that the alert he has been raising regarding fascism (I consider Putin one, yes) has been well advised. I hope that you don't dispute that part of his contribution, Mr Kandlbinder. We need more historians, psychologists and cultural experts in management roles at the State Dept and the DOD; this Russian war proves it!
Steven Cohen is such a loss to american consciousness and intellectual integrity.
You are bang on bulls eye
NATO Expansion is Americas UK New world order Causing World Conflict Both are becoming so intaginistic They are Causing Wars
Corruption Money
Stage one of this war started 8 years ago, when the government of Ukraine killed some 14,000 civilians in eastern Ukraine through aerial bombardment.
You mean those people that took up arms against the Ukraine government and declared a civil war?
@@murraymadness4674 They were full qualified fascist armed by America warmonger John McCain 👍🏽
@@murraymadness4674 A violent overthrow of the elected government by right-wing anti-Russian nationalists/Fascists. Many of 'those people' were raped, tortured, maimed and killed by the likes of the Tornado battalion.
Rather when some Russian thugs armed by Putin pretended to be Ukrainians while staging a revolt against the Ukrainian govt.
Lies.
Democracy Now! PLEASE arrange a debate between Tymothy Snyder and Scott Ritter! It would restore my faith in you're ability to have the highest level of informed conversation.
Scott Ritter doesn't have a clue. His video on the Patriot system was so full of errors that Habitual Line Crosser (a Patriot Master Gunner) concluded he isn't worth listening to about military matters.
How nobel of US citizens to be willing to sacrifice universal healthcare,child care a15 dollar minimum wage and much more in order to send billions of dollars worth of arms overseas.
And affordable education. But maybe Americans can now go and study in Ukraine. I heard they had great med schools
A question for the citizens of the USA:
What would have Kennedy done, if instead of turning around, the Soviets, would've not only remained in Cuba, but would've surrounded the USA with nuclear weapons.??
Why is it SO HARD to see the other side's perspective..??
We're in 2022. You have all the info at your fingertips.!!
Which nation nuked twice another nation..? Russia..?
Where was it forbidden to question what happened in 9/11? In Russia..?
What happened to building 7? Where's one picture of the plane that hit the pentagon..??..
We were told that all the highjackers were from Saudi Arabia..
But invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, Syria, Yemen...
To end up supporting Al Qaeda (Al Nusrah) in Syria..??!
Now a the president of Ukraine from Jewish origins, is supported by neo Nazis..??!
WHAT IS GOING ON..?
UNLESS THERE'S ABSOLUTE TRANSPARENCY, WE'RE DOOMED
The very few will keep benefiting from the spilled blood of the many innocents....
In a free democracy WE CAN'T BE INFORMED WHO ARE THE FEW INDIVIDUALS THAT PROFIT GREATLY FROM THIS WARS..??
THEN, EXACTLY FOR WHAT, ARE WE RISKING THE EARTH..???!!
So far, the facts; first objective accomplished: Nord Stream 2 cancelled..!!!
What's next?
Hunter's Biden old job....??!!!
2+2=4
✌️🍀
Excelent!👍
The Russians were actually installing nuclear missiles in cuba, not just talking about an alliance. A better analogy would be the US invading Mexico because it wanted to ally with China. (Bay of Pigs anyone?)
@@thoughtvirus9854 A better analogy would be if Canada was in an alliance with China, and our puppet in Mexico was deposed, so we attacked Mexico and blamed it on the China-Canada alliance.
Because while NATO has never invaded a country, Russia seems intent on only doing that.
Putin hates the expansion of NATO the way a criminal hates the expansion of the police. And for the same reasons. Because their crimes are curtailed.
@@nosuchthing8 Afghanistan? Iraq? Libya? Syria? Yemen? Somalia?..
Timothy Snyder is an excellent historian of every kind of fascism except contemporary and historical Ameropathic Fascism.
Bingo
Lmfao! Yes!
Have you read On Tyranny?
No he call us out here in the US as well
You are a liar
He called The GOP a fascist openly .
Putin's Putz
19:00 Andrew Cockburn: "NATO exists to deal with the instability that its own existence creates" 🤔
Except NATO has kept the peace in Western Europe since the end of WW2. No members have ever gone to war with each other. Soviet aggression never expanded beyond the Eastern block. No member has ever expressed desire to leave the alliance. And no new members from the former Eastern block or Soviet states has ever devolved into civil war the way Yugoslavia did. NATO is not the cause of instability, it is an answer to instability.
@@shawncrawford3146 Except that NATO has been murdering people in Iraq, Libya, Syria. Wasn't it a European defensive alliance? Key members of NATO cause death and destruction everywhere it goes.
@@litesp NATO was persuaded by Putin & Bush to have a more active role in Syria, Iraq. NATO is a defensive alliance created to keep Europe safe. It’s done so. Eastern Block countries chose to join NATO, they weren’t forced. Watch as neutral counties like Finland & Sweden apply to join now.
@@litesp You mean to target the United States, and that’s fair. NATO charter 5 was only ever invoked after9/11. It’s a defense pact only.
@Palemo Rigo If you opposed the actions of the US in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria...etc. Then you must oppose Russia's actions in Ukraine. If not the double standard is yours.
Cockburn obviously more knowledgeable, articulate and objective than Snyder. Snyder didn’t even answer the question on US response in Cuba crisis. He only addressed how it was resolved.
laughable
@@user-vk7cp1op9p prefers Putin? These men are old enough not to engage in personality contests.
You have one well informed and balanced journalist and one so-called historian who is an advocate for the Information War being conducted by the corporate media in conjunction with the U.S. Government.
When Prof. Snyder states it was the Eastern European nations pushing their inclusion in NATO, he neglects to add that each of their militaries then had to be upgraded to NATO's standards and with compatible systems; all of which raised NATOS's military budget to well over that of Russia's. That meant big profits for the arms manufacturers. Kinda like how fraudulent FDA emergency use permits for non-clinically safety tested "vaccines" meant Pfizer made a profit of over 62 billion ... which came in time to replace their lost profits from their opiate sales; curtailed by public outcry and the Taliban's prohibition on Big Pharming opiates there to drive down the cost of opiate extracts purchased from Tanzania by flooding the world market with opium extracts. The banality of Big Phascism ... eh?.
Jimmy Dore !
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Well, no argument about which of these two contributors is compromised. I’ve never heard the expansion of Nato described thus. All NATO had to do was reject additional applications.
right? this guy cockburn sounds like he is paid by russia today.
Exactly and for the other guests to act like America wasn't7 the aggressor by trying to Circle Russia and China with our nukes was completely disingenuous...
They explicitly rejected ukraine for decades now what more should they have done?? Step out of Alaska to let hero Putin reclaim that too?
@@tmsphere when did they explicitly reject Ukraine? Just as recently as last year, Biden said Ukraine would be on track for membership if they "cleaned up their corruption". And a big reason Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 was because the US pushed for Georgia and Ukraine membership at the Bucharest summit, despite Germany and France protesting.
The fact that US pumping in enormous weapon to Ukraine is a clear indication of US intervention on Russian internal affairs..Putin knew that Nato is an organization created by US and beckoning former soviet country to join Nato and encircling Russia is a provocation.
Thank you Dr. Snyder.
To answer Timothy Snyder: the time for a compromise was when Russia asked to negotiate and reach an agreement, all from December 2021 and almost tiil the end of February 2022. Why wasn't this done? Like Kennedy did with Khrushchev?
A good question: the invasion was easily avoidable through diplomacy. My only answer is that some within and around the US government actively wanted Russia to invade, and others were too stupid to see the Trump/Democrat/neocon policy spinning out of control.
How Russia asked to negotiate? By refusing to be a part of the negotiations? It was Russia who refused to talk to Ukraine.
@@sylwiatime 8 years of Minks agreement....refused by one side. Google this. I am against the war but we need to keep context and history in perspective - or else, there will be more wars. I fear we are in danger of seeing the end of the world, never thought I would say this but things are really bad. Worse than meets the eye though what meets the eye is already horrendous.
@@sylwiatime my view - stop all wars, demilitarize all countries, join/organize peace movement everywhere, disband the military everywhere, direct all military spending to education and cancer research (my closest friend is dying of multiple myeloma as we speak - no cure). speak up for peace and against all wars!
@@sylwiatime what you are doing is gaslighting the truth
12:40
Timothy Synder - _You know, it’s not my job to tell people in Africa what nations they belong to or Canadians whether they belong to a nation or not._
Actually, Europeans did that, during their so-called "Scramble for Africa." They carved up the continent, and in doing so, people were told what nations they belonged to. Oddly enough, many of those nations exist today. Hawaiians did not get to decide if they were part of the U.S., nor did Mexico (c/o Texas). Canary Islands did not belong to Spain, but subsequently the Islanders were told that they belong to that Country. The Chagos Islanders' lands did not belong to the British, but the British told them where they belonged, or did not belong.
Yes, still Snyder is right it's not his job. Some people did it, it doesn't follow it was good or other people agree with them. Also, when talking about European countries invaded by Russia now or in the past, usually those countries had nothing to do with Africa. Ukraine never colonized another country. It was, for centuries, colonized by others.
@@sylwiatime
It is not the question of whether Snyder was right, from a purely rational standpoint, but rather, from the standpoint of the naiveté implicit in his claim; that's what I was driving at. Russia isn't the first nor the last to unilaterally invade another nation, whatever the merit may be.
I highly doubt that Russia's goal here is to "reinvent the wheel", since Ukraine already exists as an independent state. Putin more likely wants to just replace the country's leadership with a more "neighborly" one, as a way to ameliorate Moscow's current security concerns about its surroundings.
Synder's claim makes it seem like Russia's action is anomalous, when it has so many precedences. This is where my examples of "nation-building" kick in; the examples weren't meant to have any direct links with Ukraine's historiograhy. Since Snyder himself brought up Africa, I thought it was only fitting to make my counterpoint using the African example, among others.
@@Lamin_G Actually, it is anomalous to replace a country's democratically elected govt with a puppet regime. I'm not saying it has never been done, I'm saying whenever it was done it was seen as something evil.
@@sylwiatime
You are simply confusing "anomaly" with "morality" and offering it as a faux counterpoint.
If history is replete with one set of people invading another set of people's space, then one incident among multiple cannot be deemed an exception to the rule. The analytical framework of "morality" is not one and same with the analytical framework of "anamoly".
@@Lamin_G Nope
Please have more enlightening discussions about history like this. And even if DN may not like republicans, make an exception for Col. Lawrence Wilkerson and invite him on the show. He was the former chief of staff under Powell. But he has changed a lot and taken a direction that isn’t approved by the GOP nor by the democrats: to say it’s time to roll back NATO. He has no illusions about Putin but clearly sees the expansion of NATO as the biggest blunder in post ww2 American strategy. That’s what I would call a real conservative, and a real Anti-imperialist.
Wilkerson has been on previoius DN! shows, and would serve well as an analyst of this current crises.
Col. Wilkerson always has great analysis and unlike Colin Powell, Col. Wilkerson has in a way atoned for his involvement in the war on Iraq by speaking against U.S. militarism, the war machine and try to find peaceful solutions. Colin Powell never did that and that's what sets him apart which is why the mainstream press will never have him on as a panelist or an analyst.
Larry Wilkerson has “gone dark” over the last 2 yrs. I wonder why. His perspective on geopolitics is useful. He has a great presentation on China
@@dipthongthathongthongthong9691 He's often on the Analysis-news. It's a UA-cam channel run by John Jay who used to be the one who started Real News Network. Something happened with John Jay and the Real News Network a few years back that led to his departure from it and he started the Analysis-news. Larry Wilkerson was just a guest on it a couple of days ago.
100%
Thank you for a well thought out interview with differing perspectives.
I'm sickened by the sheer hypocrisy and lack of introspection regarding the history of unwarranted interventions by Western nations. All cheered on by purposeful propagandized reporting by media outlets and ignorant opportunistic politicians.
what are you smoking? putin is ordering killing of innocent civilians in Ukraine. He literally IS a nazi.
Exactly
@@paulandrewmonson How is that different from Saudi or China? Or the brutal occupation in Palestine?
You're willing to act against Russia. Great. All for that. Now what to do with all the "Nazis" we've supported, kept in power and profited immensely from? All steeped in blood and oppression of course...
and if ukraine is accepted into the EU but not nato, what then? Would the EU turn a blind eye on any foreign invasion of a fellow EU member country?
@@hitreset0291 No one knows.
The EU charter doesn't specifically mention military intervention, although not intervening would surely kill the EU project.
It's interesting to read contributors describing this as 'two perspectives'. I listened to this and when I compared the two it was like watching an undergraduate debating with their professor. Cockburn's take was biased and shockingly sparse. In contrast Snyder was precise and forensic, offering context and depth to Cockburn's trivial editorialising.
The real tragedy is that a summary (it isn't even an analysis) such as that offered by Cockburn is precisely the sort of thing that will appeal on social media and play to the preconceptions of the 'NATO = Baaaad' crowd, whereas the work of Snyder is simply too nuanced and long form for them to digest. Cockburn succeeds because he is trivial. He understands his audience.
I couldn't agree with you more
Funny how they always say democratic Ukraine but never mention the coup in 2014 by Victoria Nuland.
Also didnt they put the opposition in jail?
Why should I bother listening to historians if now I learn there was never a verbal agreement between NATO and Gorbachev to not absorb the Soviet bloc? Amazing this Snyder guy. We need to get our children to learn their Algebra and Calculus and not bother with the magical thinking of the Social Sciences at all.
History departments are for teaching propagandists.
Der Spiegel uncovered some evidence apparently recently, there’s a paper trail. They do take minutes of meetings after all.
Why then his psychologising history with terms like “abusive”? Kindergarten sandpit analysis when discussing a situation in which Nuclear weapons on both sides are the concern.
When Prof Snyder says "Putin's language regarding NATO changed", I wish he would have expounded on that. I think that's a very relevant point considering his previous statements about how Putin cooperated with NATO before.
Yeah, most people noted the change when Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. The speculation is that it was driven in part by Putin's belief that the USA was directly behind the pro-democracy protests in Russia which occurred at that time.
For a Professor, Mr.Snyder lacks in sharper arguments. His worst one was the allegation that it was Europe's eastern countries that asked for the expansion of NATO. The answer to him is, had NATO a word to be kept, it should have denied that all along.
And congratulations to the DN team that managed not to let the hesitating Mr. Cockburn fall off his sense.
There are many Indian students there. One of them died today in the bombing by Putin, so yes civilians are definitely getting hurt
They been hurting for 8 years . It didn't start last week.
Missing from the westerm narrative.
On the 2nd of November 2021, a man named Dimitry Yarosh was named advisor to the Ukrainian army chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Yarosh is neonazi troop commander and terrorists groups organizer at the pay of Western Intelligence.
Yarosh coordinated the Jihadis and NeoNazi troops who attacked Chechnya in 2007.
He is the man who, under cover of orchestrated protests at the maidian, loosed his neonazi shock troops on both police and protesters to create the smoke needed to murder Yanukovich who had to run for his life.
He is the man who sicked the Azov shocked troopers in Donbass to wontonly shell, infiltrate and murder which Putin refers to as "genocide".
His appointment as adviser to the army chief, coupled with the mountains of armements the US/NATO had been pumping into Ukraine the last couple of years and ramped up recently, signaled something ominous for the Donbass and Russi that Putin had little choice but to confront. The decision to go this deep into Ukraine was to cut the armaments supply line to the neonazi shock troops while they are decapitated them inside the country.
The regular street knowing little to nothing about thereal issues are understandably confronting the Russian "invader".
I anticipate that Putin is not going to stop until those groups are put out of commission for the threat they represent to Russia is too great, especially with Zelenski made to publicly speak of going nuclear.
Putin was forced into action.
Now the US/NATO doubling down on arming their extremists terrorists to create an urban quigmire for Russians, which adds up to an ominous development for Ukraine.
They armed isis too.
Strange how barbaric terrorists follow to the letter the American foreign policy and attack whomever America, says, is next.
John McCain visited a few years back, always a bad sign for a country sovereign to the national banking system of America.
Exactly!
Scott Ritter spelled out at the outset what the strategy is likely to be.
lmfao. Do you know what the Dunning-Krueger effect is?
Interesting alternative reality Timothy Snyder has created for himself.
Timothy Snyder is right in every account in this instance.
Atonishing
@@sylwiatime He is a stooge. Fails to mentions literal nazi groups that were provided weapons by US. Fails to mention 2014 coup by US to overthrow their then democratically elected government.
@@neon_trotsky Why should he mention Russian propaganda?
@@sylwiatime Because its the truth....i hope you go to Ukraine to fight along with the nazis
In my home country, Poland, WWII ended only in 1991 when the soviet army left our territory. We still have a Russian military territory, Kaliningrad, as a neighbour though - nothing historic/ethnic/whatever about it - its only purpose is to secure Russia's access to the Baltic sea. Of course, we opposed US wars in the Middle East but at the same time - the US is one of a few countries that have never invaded us and that actually actively supported Poland's independence during WWII. We're paying a huge price for your outdated aeroplanes and tanks, we're getting constantly bamboozled by your offset plans until a few years ago we couldn't even travel to the US like the rest of Europeans, but what other choice do we, neighbours of Russia, have?
If the US hasn’t invaded you yet, they just haven’t figured out what you have worth stealing. Have patience - it will happen eventually - you, too, can become “free and Democratic”, just like all of Latin American, most Middle Eastern, and now many African countries.
Lithuania was a historic ally of Crimea and Russia
@@paulkestyn518 LOL no it was not
@@paulkestyn518 LOL
@@jacktenrec63 read about house of kestutis.
interesting too that, how historian sees certain event thro their own eyes. Each Nation have a right to decided on their own faith who they want to build alliance with such as join NATO without giving due consideration of their neighbouring countries. Then the question of RIGHTS. How many Western Leaders can accept the fact that Iran and North Korea have their right to form an alliance to build Nuclear warheads for their own National defence. ?? 🤔🤐
How Iran or North Korea are "nations"? How do you know what the nations living in those countries would choose for themselves if they could make their own choice?
@@sylwiatime Are they not Nations to you???? Hahaha
@@alel8315 Of course not. They're not states representing the will of their nations. Is it so difficult to realise that not every country is democratic, and where it's not it doesn't represent the will of the nation that lives there?
@@sylwiatime interesting too that, how historian sees certain event thro their own eyes.🤔🤐
Thanks very much for some objectivity in this whole mess.
Tim just said, without saying it directly that, Andrew is lying… good stuff
Look at Timothy talk. Look at his eyes. Look at the dry mouth. He is the one that is not quite telling the truth, or giving us "his" truth.
Didn’t Cuba also want the USSR’s help?
The break away rebel Russian populated region of Eastern Ukraine sought Russia's help because of massacres and shelling of their civilian populations by the right wing ultra nationalist party installed by a coup backed by the CIA during the Obama administration in 2014. The Ukraine reneged on the Minsk Agreement that stated they would stop attacking the ethnic Russians there.
@@buttafan4010 more like buffoon
@@vallee7966 more like Nazbol Buffoon*
@@vallee7966 umad?
Excellent discussion. Very balanced and insightful.
Balanced?! They had a Putin hater on one side.
@@csisco11 LOL go be triggered somewhere else
Sorry, I get triggered by stupid comments.
Timothy Snyder is quite bias about the expansion of NATO, refusing the comparison to the cuba missile crisis, failed to mention NATO began to see russia as a target in the 2000s when russia really wanted to integrate with the west at that time. Why NATO still exist at that time? It needed an enemy,
Is Amy aware the war started 8 years ago ?
Russia may be trying to keep Ukrainian infrastructure intact which would be the reason for not doing the extensive bombing the US did in its invasion of Iraq. The US had no intention of absorbing Iraq into part of its own country like Russia plans with Ukraine. It is more economical to not destroy what you will need later.
We bombed Iraq into the stone age. All the infrastructure used by the Iraqi people as they suffered under a dictatorship installed by a CIA coup in 1960 during the Eisenhower administration. Mosul is now in radioactive ruins.
So if a nation is not defined by history how do you validate Israel and it's claim to land and state
it is bound by history and united for a common future
It's called hypocrisy. These pseudo intellectuals always use double standards.
Thank you a lot for your calm reasonable analysis.
russians didnt cut off the gas or internet or electricity to ukraine or eu
Why would they cut off the gas when it's the only thing left making money for them
Such a stark difference in analysis between the materially grounded lens of tracing historical continuity of antagonistic interests (ie _politics_ , cui bono?) from Cockburn and the rhetorical cudgels of largely nebulous normative nonsense from Snyder.
I mean even in their book titles, this is clear, like lol "The Road to Unfreedom" (freedom _for whom_ and what purpose?).
I was thinking similarly. Cockburn was the only guest with anything relevant to say. The others were all effectively pro new cold war propagandists. A pity that besieged Democracy Now is incapable of more than token critical issue journalism in the face of present geopolitical convolutions; giving so much time to Snyder's American exceptionalist ethno-supremacist crypto-imperialism, like the rest of broadcast media within the American Information Iron Curtain.
go read his book, it might spark your brain cells.
@@oliversmith9200
Loving the hyphenated mic-drops.
You do understand that the Cold War was all about the kind of realpolitik balance of power stuff that these leftist putin apologists argue for.
Good for Juan re his first question. Exactly. Anyone who saw the Shock and Awe destruction of 2003 has noticed this.
"We believe that the eastward expansion of NATO is a mistake and a serious one at that,"
-Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet president, told reporters at a 1997 news conference with US President Bill Clinton in Helsinki, where the two signed a statement on arms control.
"In the current environment, it is not in the best interest of NATO or the US that [Eastern European] states be granted full NATO membership and its security guarantees," according to a State Department memorandum in 1990, while those states were still emerging from Soviet control as the Warsaw Pact disintegrated. [We] do not, in any case, wish to organize an anti-Soviet coalition whose frontier is the Soviet border; Such a coalition would be perceived very negatively by the Soviets."
Russia's sensitivities over NATO's possible eastward expansion were well known.
"No matter how nuanced, if NATO adopts a policy which envisions expansion into Central and Eastern Europe without holding the door open to Russia, it would be universally interpreted in Moscow as directed against Russia."
-US diplomat James Collins wrote in a State Department cable in 1993.
-DW News
Author William Noah Glucroft | Date 23.02.2022
The van is on its way. Pack yer toothbrush.
@@r4ybc
The True Story of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America
Fears of Communism during the Cold War spurred psychological research, pop culture hits, and unethical experiments in the CIA.
Edgar Hoover referred to thought-control repeatedly in his book Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It.
Journalist Edward Hunter described how Mao Zedong’s Red Army used terrifying ancient techniques to turn the Chinese people into mindless, Communist automatons. He called this hypnotic process “brainwashing,” a word-for-word translation from xi-nao, the Mandarin words for wash (xi) and brain (nao), and warned about the dangerous applications it could have.
It wasn’t the first time fears of Communism and mind control had seeped into the American public. In 1946 the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was so worried about the spread of Communism that it proposed removing liberals, socialists, and communists from places like schools, libraries, newspapers, and entertainment. Hunter’s inflammatory rhetoric didn’t immediately have a huge impact-until three years into the Korean War when American prisoners of war began confessing to outlandish crimes.
-Smithsonian MAGAZINE BY Lorraine Boissoneault / May 22, 2017
Boy! Harvard sure knows how to hire them and prep them to speak publicly as mouthpieces of empire!! Way to go Amy Goodman!!!
Snyder disgraces the halls of Yale, not Harvard.
@@litesp oh! Thanks! I stand corrected!!! And yes, there is a HUGE difference!! (sarc)
You heard it here first folx - Russia had a love-in with NATO until Putin came along, according to Timothy Snyder. LOL! 21:00 LOL ~ LOL
Translation: until Russia started getting up from being on its knees. US stopped enjoying the relationship afterwards.
Snyder personifies the criticisms the Russians have been leveling at Americans. The American world view is self serving. The question is whether or not it was in America's interest to expand NATO knowing that it would eventually lead to war? All throughout the Cold War the words Russian and Soviet were synonyms. His way of thinking parsing Russian vs Soviet; is an attempt to legitimize NATO expansion. This thinking has now wrought consequences and is causing the destruction of Ukraine and possibly the world.
Did you hear what he said about NATO expansion? After Soviet collapse in 1991, the NATO expansion was driven by former Eastern Block countries clamoring to join it. Listen again? Based on what Putin’s doing, obviously a good call.
@@vallee7966 Did you read my question? Do you understand my question? "The question is whether or not it was in America's interest to expand NATO knowing that it would eventually lead to war?"
So, yes I did listen. Now Again do you understand my question?
@@vallee7966 Did you hear what he said about the Ukraine being a nation? Completely false and you won't understand why the conflict if you believe Synder.
@@cecaloather8701 you are out to lunch. Where you get your info? Faux News? Simply regurgitating Tucker’s vomit? SMH!
@@TheTalkWatcher I reject the “America’s interest in NATO’s expansion”, did you listen to Timothy Snyder? Did you understand what he said? NATO expansion was driven by former Eastern Block countries clamoring to join NATO, not anything else. Perhaps you should listen again? This idea of “legitimizing” NATO expansion is really laughable. The real question is: are sovereign, independent nations “allowed” to join any defensive organization & choose their own path, without Putin’s permission?
Thank you.
Well done Timothy Snider for speaking the truth. Two wrongs doesnt make it wrong. The Americans wronged on their wars, and so did the Russians, whether during the Soviet Union or today under Putin.
'Two wrongs don't make it wrong'?
American hypocrisy, racism and double standards is most outstanding.
Snyder seems to all but ignore Putin's own instincts about Nato's creeping proximity to Russia's borders. Putin has undoubtedly also watched Washington's military MO all over the globe in nation after nation since WWII.. So trust is simply not there for Putin. He expects the doublecross.
I used to trust and respect historians because they present facts, not opinions. Not any more. After all, they may need to serve people
This so called 'Historian' is full of caca. He is lying thru his tobacco stained teeth.
article 5 says we will defend any nato country under attack. i don't follow the logic that the west didn't start the nato expansion progress - unless you're saying they're ignorant of the implications
Thank you, Timothy Snyder, for giving a clear, and truthful analysis of the situation in Ukraine with a detailed back history.
far from that actually. No coup in 2014 Ukraine? The docs were declassified a few years ago, regarding promises made to Gorbachev.
Snyder is a typical western liar how many nazi affiliates are in Ukraine? The fact that Ukraine is led by a clown doesn't mean democracy!
It seems the US military industrial complex has more leverage now than in 1962.
Very informative. It never hurts to have multiple perspectives. I hope learning is never portrayed as disloyalty, as in fascist suppression.
5:11 Official media portrayal of Ukraine war vs How the U.S. does war, and other Hypocrisies 10:45 Russia's Initial Strategic Premise: Russians and Ukrainians are One People 11:19 Stage 1: Russia's first strike to eliminate the Ukrainian government fails 11:50 Stage 2: Expect the full force of the land and air power of the Russian army to bear upon Ukraine so that the war becomes more intensely horrific 12:24 Is it justified to say that Ukraine and Russia are one nation, as postulated by Putin? 13:41 Language that denies the sovereignty of a nation, is the language that signals the assumed right to overrun or destroy that nation 14:31 2014 (prediction): NATO expansion in Eastern Europe will eventually lead to war with Russia
Very well said.
as Prof Snyder pointed out, the Eastern European nations ASKED to join Nato, for defense from Russia. Did you even watch this video?
@@paulandrewmonson What's your beef with me saying, "Very informative. It never hurts to have multiple perspectives. I hope learning is never portrayed as disloyalty, as in fascist suppression."? The rest is just an outline of the video that "I watched", yes. From what I gather from a video of another scholar on this topic, John Mearsheimer, what you are pointing to describes "benign hegemony",
The NATO expansion didn’t lead to war. This is what is blinding people to this selective view because somehow it serves the antiAmericanism sentiment. Russia was going to, and Putin and his political philosophers have been writing about this goal, and that is to return Russia to the old USSR, and recover the countries they lost. This discussion should expand into the ideas of these political scientists Putin is following. This is a lot more than just what was discussed here.
@@paulandrewmonson , well said. And there was no deal with the Russians as the Harper reporter here said. At the time of that discussion, no one knew the Soviet Union was going to fall. So this deal he said there was, was not. There wasn’t any of the sort. There are not two viewpoints here because Snyder actually corrected their error.
Really good conversation
Great content. War is a racket. Thanks DN. Peace is prosperity!
Greetings from Israel. Maybe the peace fairy will wave her magic wand and end all war.
@@RachelDerGolem We're sick of your do nothing dialectic. Israel must bring in Muslim and Christian refugees from Africa! Stop the racism!
Snyder said it so nice! a nation should be able to decide for itself. I did not see Ukrainians voting overweeningly to be russia....
So I suppose you will allow Crimea and the Donbass to decide for themselves and leave Kiev rule too?
No way you are convincing me that the Donbass wants to under Kiev after being shelled at for 8 years
@@cecaloather8701 so they had a democratic vote, they said we wanna be part of the heaven that is mommy ruskia, and the Ukrainians said no! You are going to stay in hell, with us! Is that how it went down in your deranged world where putin killing people 'cause he feels a threat of he and his boys not sucking on the russian peasants anymore? The way I know it, they had one of those russian democratic votes, the 'vote putin or fly out the window' votes, that seem to be so popular in russia. Somehow only putin wins those.... russians must not be good flyers....
Snyders argument is plain wrong and unserious in real political terms. He says that history is not about competing power blocks. Yes it is. Its about them and their allies. Secondly, just because a country can choose about its future, it doesnt mean they can mass upp weapons and join an offensive military alliance, which is perceived as a threat by the bordering country. Ukraine has totally ignored simple , basic geopolitical realities and now they are payng the price.
Important perspective in these times.
While it's true that NATO enlargement is one element in the confrontation between it and Russia, I think for anyone who cares about democracy and international law the principle of independent countries choosing their own peaceful path should override the wishes of 'spheres of influence' by countries like Russia and the US. Cuba, Venezuela, etc should be free to choose their policies without US interference, just like countries like Ukraine and Georgia should be free to do the same without being invaded by an undemocratic, authoritarian ruler who has fantasies of regional domination.
How did both countries end up hating each other so much ?
@@chris1806 Which two?
More time for THIS discussion. Linking history with what's playing out in real time while comparing + contrasting racial imperialism as it unfolds
This historian is an establishment shill.
@@PikachooUpYou He actually said "agency." I guess your comment is one explanation.
Thinking of that "Liberal Democracy is worth fighting for" article in Atlantic from the day Kabul fell which might've seemed hysterical then but as many IR experts who've had actual lived experiences in former Warsaw Pact regimes pointed out, Kabul was the cherry on top of a decade of IR disasters. There has never been a time in history when a Great Power had decayed out & the vacuum hadn't been filled by a progressively worse Great Power. Kabul signaled America was truly finished. It was the greenlight for the Autocratic International to be on the march. They're not gonna stop in Ukraine either. Taiwan is next. Then Finland.Thinking of that "Liberal Democracy is worth fighting for" article in Atlantic from the day Kabul fell which might've seemed hysterical then but as many IR experts who've had actual lived experiences in former Warsaw Pact regimes pointed out, Kabul was the cherry on top of a decade of IR disasters. There has never been a time in history when a Great Power had decayed out & the vacuum hadn't been filled by a progressively worse Great Power. Kabul signaled America was truly finished. It was the greenlight for the Autocratic International to be on the march. They're not gonna stop in Ukraine either. Taiwan is next. Then Finland.
Putin said the dissolution of the ussr needs to be corrected. That has nothing to do with nato.
Exactly! What don't these people get? Do you not believe Putin when he says Finland and Sweden are next, and he wants to recreate the Russian Empire prior to 1917? You don't negotiate with terrorists and lunatics
Maybe he doesn't want to blanket bomb and giving time for evacuation of civilians or possibility of peace through negotiations.. if fuel was never added to t he fire and continue to mb negotiations may have been successful .
Putin could've negotiated back in 2014.
"It came from the East Europeans," and the Americans/Pentagon/ NATO were very unhappy with it?
Amen. When Russia sent missiles to Cuba, we lost our shit. Even though we had the Jupiter system in Turkey, Italy et al, pointed right at Moscow. And after we'd already attempted the Bay of Pigs invasion. Yes, Kennedy did remove them in a quid pro quo, but he was planning to - and did - replace them with the more deadly sub-based Polaris missiles.
When the Sandinista's bought MiG-21's - after we blocked their purchase of French Mirages - again, we lost our shit and practically destroyed Nicaragua.
Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Columbia, and now Venezuela. Like the man said our 'ledger is dripping with blood' - and that's just Central/South America.
All those countries had the sovereign right to choose their form of government and with whom to ally - or so one would think.
@@jones1351 - Right! Intellectuals like Timothy Snyder think people like me, just a blue collar worker with little "official" education, are too stupid to think for themselves!
Keeping it real. Real news.
'They understand that if there are massive casualties among the Ukrainian people that will not be looked upon kindly even by the Russian population'. This analysis hasn't aged too well. And it's only a couple of weeks old!
History not forget what eu did to Africa they did the same thing 👁👁👁👁👁👁
Timothy Snyder is the best guest this show has ever had.
DN, may I suggest you interview John Meirshimer on the Ukraine crisis.
What's the point of that. His entire thesis is that Putin is an intelligent man and would never invade Ukraine. This argument is about who believes and trusts Putin and who doesn't. While saying his troops were simply doing exercises he accused Biden of troublemaking for giving solemn warnings of Putins intent. What a complete hypocrite, but history shows no one can trust Putin. Even his own troops had no idea of his real plans. God help his troops. Putin certainly won't.
This is worth shearing...
Thank you, Professor Snyder!
It has been my impression that "NATO promised not to expand and then it did, making Russia nervous" was too simplistic, but now I see why. Given that Putin is so radically dishonest and controlling, my gut feeling is that his real objection to Ukraine joining NATO is that as soon as it does so, it is officially out of his reach.
Don't you think your interpretation of "once Ukraine joins NATO it is officially out of [Putin's] reach" is a bit "too simplistic?"
Nato countries can’t afford the war with Russia (in economical sense and to save us from ww3) so they don’t wanna fight the war. If they are willing to fight for Ukraine, they could have admitted Ukraine into NATO as soon as Putin started the attack. There is literally nothing that prevents nato from doing it other than those consequences they need to suffer from fighting Russia, which takes us back to the question whether nato countries are willing to fight for Ukraine. It is as simple as that.
NATO’s eastward creep has been a serious Russian security concern for over 30 years - Yeltsin passionately advocated for the dissolution of NATO and claimed that its enlargement would be “nothing but humiliation for Russia” and “a betrayal of the Russian people”. Putin may be a charlatan and Russia’s concerns may not be solid justifications for war, but no Russian leader would ever tolerate Ukraine joining NATO.
@@stenyethanmathews945 Well, what do you expect from gut feelings, and romance/ bodice ripper novels perhaps?
@@DreBourbeau Why not? Because it hurt their feelings? Or did they think that NATO would actually invade Russia? Not realistic, and as far as I know NATO never had any plans to (no strategic goal, for one reason) while the Soviet plans for contouring Western Europe are well known.
NATO prevented Russian incursion into Western Europe for decades. I only wish it could have helped Hungary in '56 and Czechoslovakia in '68 without starting WW3. The people of those countries suffered dearly for merely being neighbors to Russia, and that's a fact.
20 min.
Thank you for speaking the truth.
What an amazing segment.
"A nation is a people with a common or shared sense of what the future holds and what they should be doing about it." Prof. Snyder
a meaningless statement...more descriptive of a facist state, something the professor decries. Strange!
@@thomashahn631 That's harsh. It could be one thing or another, this future. But, the interesting idea in this definition is that this collective identity in this scenario leaves open a version not bound by skin color or even a language. Just a shared vision of an aspired future, possibly all inclusive and that transcends cultures, so quite beautiful and totally the opposite of fascism, actually. Ergo, you are wrong. It is a definition of a kind of shared identity with a unique identifier, this creative imagined tomorrow that, potentially, brings many different people together. And this notion alone makes it an actual 'thing' - or meaningful.
Yup, he's a legit covert fascist
Then we are not a nation. We’re a collection of teenagers.
@@josiechaney9010 Huh? Would you mind expanding a little on that thought?
Synder totally discounts what happened in 2014.
You haven't read much of Snyder's work then?
@@jezdavis1865 he fails to recognize that the u.s. helped violently overthrow a democratically elected president, making the kiev regime illegitimate.
This didnt age well for mr Cokburn
Andrew is a good guest
Snyder, read you book Black Earth. It's great stuff. Now I listen to your spinning of the narrative about Nato expansion. I must say that you twist the facts. Outrageously so.
No need for right wing historians. We get plenty of that everywhere else. His one sided view doesn't bring any perspective.
You're absolutely right. Good lord!
As always excellent reporting.
Good n balanced. U hear the voice from both sides.of a view.....
I'm Canadian and mr. Cowan is the best God bless him may he rest in peace.
Agreed! Was pleasantly surprised he made an appearance (I believe it's Cohen though, just to clarify).
21:20
Timothy Snyder argued that one must distinguish between what someone says and what said someone does. Fair enough, but he went onto say that Russia never considered Ukraine to be a threat. That's a red-herring, since the threat does not come from Ukraine itself, but from NATO. The combination of Ukraine's location and alliance with NATO renders it a threat.
Mr Snyder also charged that Moscow had a different motive than that expressed in its reachout for diplomacy. Snyder predicated this on Russia's war tactics, i.e. it pursued the "destruction of the Ukrainian state."
However, Putin openly expressed his objectives, which were two-fold: demilitarization & denazification. Accordingly, demilitarization would wipe out Ukraine's military apparatus, namely both equipment and supply channels. This, if we take Putin's pretext for war seriously, would ensure that the Russian-backed Donbas areas will not be threatened by the Ukraine govt in the future. Denazification would entail the removal of the Kyiv-based leadership. So, why these 2 objectives?
Since this military operation did not pursue combat against the separatist areas of Donetsk & Luhansk, which are still part of greater Ukraine, this operation couldn't have been about the destruction of the "Ukraine State." These areas are clearly not much of a security concern for Moscow.
The military operation is, however, focused on the areas outside of the separatists strongholds of the Donbas area. If so, as the military operations signal, this fits in neatly with Moscow's professed security concerns, namely, NATO's expansion.
The denazification will not only ensure that Ukraine's govt no longer threatened the Russian-allied Donbas areas, but also the effective end of Ukraine's NATO membership. An end to a NATO membershp would ensure that Ukraine did not become a staging ground for "offensive" missile systems.
All in all, the 2 military objectives fit in neatly with the 2 key security concerns that Moscow pursued for diplomacy but were instantly rejected by NATO. Contrary to Mr Snyder, these 2 key concerns do give Putin "agency".
Great discussion
Great discussion and info.
Thank you.