Stephen Kotkin: Putin, Zelenskyy, and War in Ukraine

Lex Fridman (01:33.800)

the land of my ancestors, where they suffered but flourished

Lex Fridman (01:38.480)

and eventually gave birth to say the old me.

Lex Fridman (01:44.480)

I need to hear directly the pain, anger and hope

Stephen Kotkin (01:47.600)

from both Ukrainians and Russians.

Lex Fridman (01:51.320)

I won't give details to my travel plans

Stephen Kotkin (01:53.120)

in terms of location and timing,

Lex Fridman (01:55.200)

but the trip is very soon.

Stephen Kotkin (01:57.840)

Whatever happens, I'm truly grateful for every day I'm alive

Lex Fridman (02:03.480)

and I hope to spend each such day

Stephen Kotkin (02:05.400)

adding a bit of love to the world.

Lex Fridman (02:08.400)

I love you all.

Stephen Kotkin (02:10.200)

This is the Lex Friedman podcast.

Lex Fridman (02:12.040)

And now, dear friends, here's Stephen Kotkin.

Stephen Kotkin (02:17.520)

You are one of the great historians of our time

Lex Fridman (02:20.200)

specializing in the man, the leader,

Stephen Kotkin (02:22.680)

the historical figure of Stalin.

Lex Fridman (02:24.680)

So let me ask a challenging question.

Stephen Kotkin (02:27.760)

If you can perhaps think about the echo of 80 years

Lex Fridman (02:34.760)

between Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Putin,

Lex Fridman (02:38.120)

what are the similarities and differences

Lex Fridman (02:40.160)

between the man and the historical figure,

Lex Fridman (02:42.600)

the historical trajectory of Stalin and Putin?

Lex Fridman (02:46.720)

Thank you, Lex.

Stephen Kotkin (02:47.560)

It's very nice to be here again with you.

Lex Fridman (02:51.400)

It's been a while.

Stephen Kotkin (02:52.400)

Good to see you.

Lex Fridman (02:53.240)

Yeah, good to see you as well.

Stephen Kotkin (02:54.240)

You're looking good.

Lex Fridman (02:55.520)

You as well.

Stephen Kotkin (02:56.360)

I see this podcast stuff is doing you right.

Lex Fridman (02:59.160)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (03:00.480)

So we can't really put very easily Vladimir Putin

Lex Fridman (03:05.000)

in the same sentence with Joseph Stalin.

Stephen Kotkin (03:07.240)

Stalin is a singular figure

Lex Fridman (03:10.640)

and his category is really small.

Stephen Kotkin (03:14.000)

Hitler, Mao, that's really about it.

Lex Fridman (03:18.440)

And even in that category, Stalin is the dominant figure,

Stephen Kotkin (03:22.760)

both by how long he was in power

Lex Fridman (03:25.680)

and also by the amount of power,

Stephen Kotkin (03:27.680)

the military industrial complex he helped build

Lex Fridman (03:30.280)

and commanded.

Lex Fridman (03:32.240)

So Putin can't be compared to that.

Lex Fridman (03:34.560)

However, Putin's in the same building as Stalin.

Stephen Kotkin (03:39.000)

He uses some of the same offices as Stalin used.

Lex Fridman (03:43.240)

On some of those television broadcasts

Stephen Kotkin (03:46.520)

that we see of Putin at meetings

Lex Fridman (03:48.480)

and Putin inside the Kremlin,

Stephen Kotkin (03:51.840)

Stalin used to sit in those rooms

Lex Fridman (03:53.640)

and hold meetings in those rooms.

Stephen Kotkin (03:55.400)

That's the Imperial Senate

Lex Fridman (03:57.680)

built by Catherine the Great in 18th century building.

Stephen Kotkin (04:01.160)

Built by Catherine the Great in 18th century building

Lex Fridman (04:04.640)

inside the Kremlin.

Stephen Kotkin (04:06.720)

It's a dome building and you can see it on the panorama,

Lex Fridman (04:12.600)

the top of the building,

Stephen Kotkin (04:13.440)

at least you can see it on the panorama

Lex Fridman (04:15.200)

when you look over the Kremlin wall

Stephen Kotkin (04:17.000)

from many sites inside Moscow.

Lex Fridman (04:21.320)

So if he's not comparable to Stalin,

Stephen Kotkin (04:26.120)

he still works, as I said, in those same buildings,

Lex Fridman (04:28.880)

those same offices, partly.

Lex Fridman (04:31.800)

And so therefore, he's got some of the problems

Lex Fridman (04:34.800)

that Stalin had,

Stephen Kotkin (04:36.080)

which was managing Russian power in the world

Lex Fridman (04:39.640)

from a position of weakness vis a vis the West,

Lex Fridman (04:43.600)

but from an ambition, a grandiosity, in fact.

Lex Fridman (04:49.480)

And so this combination of weakness and grandeur, right?

Stephen Kotkin (04:54.840)

Of not being as strong as the West,

Lex Fridman (04:56.960)

but aspiring to be as great or greater than the West.

Stephen Kotkin (05:01.360)

That's the dilemma of Russian history

Lex Fridman (05:04.240)

for the past many centuries.

Stephen Kotkin (05:06.200)

It was the dilemma for the Tsars.

Lex Fridman (05:08.040)

It was the dilemma for Peter the Great.

Stephen Kotkin (05:09.720)

It was the dilemma for Alexander.

Lex Fridman (05:12.120)

It was the dilemma for Stalin.

Lex Fridman (05:14.480)

And it's the dilemma for Putin.

Lex Fridman (05:16.800)

Russia is smaller now

Stephen Kotkin (05:18.960)

compared to when Stalin was in that Kremlin.

Lex Fridman (05:22.080)

It's got pushed back to borders

Stephen Kotkin (05:25.440)

almost the time of Peter the Great.

Lex Fridman (05:28.000)

It's farther from the main European capitals now

Stephen Kotkin (05:31.200)

than any time since that 18th century.

Lex Fridman (05:35.320)

And the West has only grown stronger

Stephen Kotkin (05:39.080)

in that period of time.

Lex Fridman (05:40.160)

So the dilemma is greater than ever.

Stephen Kotkin (05:43.680)

The irony of being in that position,

Lex Fridman (05:46.920)

of sitting in the Kremlin,

Stephen Kotkin (05:48.240)

trying to manage Russian power in the world,

Lex Fridman (05:50.680)

trying to be a providential power,

Stephen Kotkin (05:53.680)

a country with a special mission in the world,

Lex Fridman (05:57.080)

a country which imagines itself to be a whole civilization

Lex Fridman (06:01.360)

and yet not having the capabilities

Lex Fridman (06:03.520)

to meet those aspirations

Lex Fridman (06:05.880)

and falling farther and farther behind the West.

Lex Fridman (06:09.200)

The irony of all of that is the attempted solutions

Stephen Kotkin (06:13.560)

put Russia in a worse place every single time.

Lex Fridman (06:17.000)

So you try to manage the gap with the West.

Stephen Kotkin (06:20.200)

You try to realize these aspirations.

Lex Fridman (06:23.760)

You try to raise your capabilities

Lex Fridman (06:26.640)

and you build a strong state.

Lex Fridman (06:28.360)

The quest to build a strong state

Lex Fridman (06:30.440)

and use coercive modernization

Lex Fridman (06:34.600)

to try somehow, if not to close the gap with the West,

Stephen Kotkin (06:38.400)

at least to manage it.

Lex Fridman (06:40.720)

And the result is different versions of personalist rule.

Lex Fridman (06:46.560)

So they don't build a strong state.

Lex Fridman (06:48.600)

They build a personal dictatorship.

Stephen Kotkin (06:50.520)

They build an autocracy.

Lex Fridman (06:53.120)

And moreover, that autocracy undertakes measures

Stephen Kotkin (06:56.400)

which then worsen the very geopolitical dilemma

Lex Fridman (07:00.400)

that gave rise to this personalist rule in the first place.

Lex Fridman (07:04.960)

And so I call this Russia's perpetual geopolitics.

Lex Fridman (07:08.400)

I've been writing about this for many, many years.

Stephen Kotkin (07:11.360)

What's important about this analysis

Lex Fridman (07:14.840)

is this is not a story of eternal Russian

Lex Fridman (07:20.240)

cultural proclivity to aggression, right?

Lex Fridman (07:24.560)

It's not something that's in the mother's milk.

Stephen Kotkin (07:26.800)

It's not something that can't be changed.

Lex Fridman (07:30.280)

Russia doesn't have an innate

Stephen Kotkin (07:33.320)

cultural tendency to aggression.

Lex Fridman (07:35.840)

This is a choice.

Stephen Kotkin (07:37.000)

It's a strategic choice

Lex Fridman (07:39.560)

to try to match the power of the West,

Stephen Kotkin (07:42.480)

which from Russia's vantage point is actually unmatchable,

Lex Fridman (07:46.560)

but it's a choice that's made again and again.

Lex Fridman (07:49.000)

And Putin has made this choice,

Lex Fridman (07:50.520)

just as Stalin made the choice, right?

Stephen Kotkin (07:52.920)

Stalin presided over the World War II victory,

Lex Fridman (07:56.480)

and then he lost the peace.

Stephen Kotkin (07:59.240)

After he died in 1953,

Lex Fridman (08:02.400)

there was, of course, other rulers who succeeded him.

Stephen Kotkin (08:06.680)

He was still the most important person in the country

Lex Fridman (08:09.440)

after he died,

Stephen Kotkin (08:11.080)

because they were trying to manage that system

Lex Fridman (08:13.040)

that he built, and more importantly,

Stephen Kotkin (08:15.120)

manage that growing gap with the West.

Lex Fridman (08:18.520)

By the time the 90s rolled around,

Stephen Kotkin (08:21.120)

former Soviet troops, now Russian troops,

Lex Fridman (08:25.040)

withdrew from all those advanced positions

Stephen Kotkin (08:28.680)

that they had achieved as a result

Lex Fridman (08:30.480)

of the World War II victory,

Lex Fridman (08:32.320)

and it was Napoleon in reverse.

Lex Fridman (08:34.640)

They went on the same roads,

Lex Fridman (08:36.720)

but not from Moscow back to Paris,

Lex Fridman (08:39.840)

but instead from Warsaw and from East Berlin

Lex Fridman (08:44.440)

and from Tallinn and Riga and all the other places

Lex Fridman (08:48.720)

of former Warsaw Pact and former Soviet republics

Stephen Kotkin (08:53.560)

in the Baltic region.

Lex Fridman (08:55.480)

They went back to Russia in retreat,

Lex Fridman (08:58.040)

and so Stalin, in the fullness of time, lost the peace.

Lex Fridman (09:02.000)

And Putin, in his own way, inheriting some of this,

Stephen Kotkin (09:07.000)

attempting to reverse it when, as I said,

Lex Fridman (09:11.120)

Russia was smaller, farther away, weaker,

Stephen Kotkin (09:14.080)

the West was bigger and stronger

Lex Fridman (09:16.280)

and had absorbed those former Warsaw Pact countries

Lex Fridman (09:22.280)

and Baltic states,

Lex Fridman (09:24.120)

because they voluntarily begged to join the West.

Stephen Kotkin (09:27.960)

The West didn't impose itself on them.

Lex Fridman (09:30.360)

It's a voluntary sphere of influence that the West conducts.

Lex Fridman (09:34.400)

And so that dilemma is where you can put Putin and Stalin

Lex Fridman (09:38.280)

in the same sentence,

Lex Fridman (09:40.120)

and the terrible outcome for Russia

Lex Fridman (09:43.400)

in the fullness of time also has echoes.

Lex Fridman (09:46.640)

But of course, Putin hasn't murdered 18 to 20 million people

Lex Fridman (09:51.680)

and the scale of his abilities to cause grief

Stephen Kotkin (09:56.520)

with the nuclear weapons aside is nothing like Stalin's.

Lex Fridman (09:59.960)

And so we have to be careful, right?

Stephen Kotkin (10:02.200)

Only Mao put bigger numbers on the board

Lex Fridman (10:06.280)

from a tragic point of view than Stalin.

Lex Fridman (10:08.240)

And numbers matter here,

Lex Fridman (10:10.120)

if we compare these singular figures.

Stephen Kotkin (10:14.480)

Yeah, Mao killed more people than Stalin

Lex Fridman (10:16.760)

because Mao had more people to kill.

Stephen Kotkin (10:20.480)

The most amazing thing about Mao

Lex Fridman (10:22.440)

is he watched Stalin do it.

Stephen Kotkin (10:26.120)

He watched Stalin collectivize agriculture

Lex Fridman (10:28.640)

and famine result.

Stephen Kotkin (10:30.720)

He watched Stalin impose this communist monopoly,

Lex Fridman (10:34.880)

and all of those people sent to prison

Stephen Kotkin (10:37.880)

or given a bullet in the back of the neck.

Lex Fridman (10:40.320)

He watched all of that,

Lex Fridman (10:41.400)

and then he did it again himself in China.

Lex Fridman (10:43.680)

Do you think he saw the human cost directly

Stephen Kotkin (10:46.200)

that when you say he saw,

Lex Fridman (10:48.280)

do you think he was focused on the policies

Stephen Kotkin (10:51.160)

or was he also aware distinctly as a human being

Lex Fridman (10:54.560)

of the human costs in the lives of peasants

Lex Fridman (10:58.000)

and in the lives of the working class and lives of the poor?

Lex Fridman (11:01.720)

I think the prima facie evidence

Stephen Kotkin (11:03.760)

is that he didn't value human life.

Lex Fridman (11:07.120)

Otherwise, I don't think after seeing

Stephen Kotkin (11:09.440)

the amount of lives that were taken

Lex Fridman (11:11.080)

in the Soviet experiment,

Stephen Kotkin (11:12.840)

he would have done something similar after that.

Lex Fridman (11:16.320)

I think the answer, Lex,

Stephen Kotkin (11:17.640)

is it's very hard to get inside Mao's head

Lex Fridman (11:21.200)

and figure out what he was really thinking.

Lex Fridman (11:24.080)

But if you just look at the results that happened,

Lex Fridman (11:27.160)

the policies that were undertaken

Lex Fridman (11:29.120)

and the consequences of them,

Lex Fridman (11:31.240)

you would have to conclude that there was,

Stephen Kotkin (11:34.040)

let's say, no value or little value placed on human life.

Lex Fridman (11:38.640)

Unfortunately, that's characteristic

Stephen Kotkin (11:40.840)

not only of communist dictators, right,

Lex Fridman (11:43.000)

of post communist dictators as well,

Lex Fridman (11:45.600)

but the scale of the horrors that they inflict,

Lex Fridman (11:50.280)

as horrific as they are, just can't compare.

Lex Fridman (11:54.520)

And so we're in a situation where Eurasia,

Lex Fridman (11:58.480)

that is to say the ancient civilizations of Eurasia,

Stephen Kotkin (12:02.960)

which would be Russia, Iran, China,

Lex Fridman (12:08.560)

all have some version of non democratic,

Stephen Kotkin (12:13.320)

illiberal autocratic regimes,

Lex Fridman (12:16.200)

and they're all pushing up against

Stephen Kotkin (12:18.080)

the greater power of the West in some form.

Lex Fridman (12:21.080)

Sometimes they coordinate their actions

Lex Fridman (12:23.200)

and sometimes they don't.

Lex Fridman (12:25.280)

But this is a very longstanding phenomenon, Lex,

Stephen Kotkin (12:28.640)

that predates Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping

Lex Fridman (12:33.400)

or the latest incarnation of the supreme leader in Iran.

Lex Fridman (12:37.520)

So we'll talk about this, I think,

Lex Fridman (12:40.720)

really powerful framework of five dimensions

Stephen Kotkin (12:44.520)

of authoritarian regimes that you've put together.

Lex Fridman (12:47.080)

But first, let's go to this Napoleon

Lex Fridman (12:49.720)

and reverse retreat from Warsaw back.

Lex Fridman (12:56.240)

Putin has called, from the perspective of Putin,

Stephen Kotkin (12:59.800)

this retreat, this collapse of Stalin

Lex Fridman (13:02.600)

is one of the great tragedies of that region, of Russia.

Lex Fridman (13:09.160)

Do you think there's a sense where as Putin sits now

Lex Fridman (13:14.200)

in power for 22 plus years,

Stephen Kotkin (13:16.640)

he really dreams of a return to the power,

Lex Fridman (13:25.240)

the influence, the land of Stalin?

Lex Fridman (13:31.280)

So while you said that they're not in the same place

Lex Fridman (13:35.040)

in terms of the numbers of people

Stephen Kotkin (13:38.360)

that suffer due to their regime,

Lex Fridman (13:40.880)

do you think he hopes to have the same power,

Stephen Kotkin (13:44.520)

the same influence for a nation

Lex Fridman (13:47.080)

that was in the 30s, in the 40s, in the 50s

Lex Fridman (13:51.800)

of the 20th century under Stalin?

Lex Fridman (13:54.000)

If he does, Lex, he's deluding himself.

Stephen Kotkin (13:57.760)

We don't know for sure.

Lex Fridman (13:59.680)

Very few people talk to him.

Stephen Kotkin (14:02.400)

Very few people have access to him.

Lex Fridman (14:05.560)

A handful of Western leaders have met with him

Stephen Kotkin (14:09.720)

for short periods of time.

Lex Fridman (14:11.240)

Those inside Russia barely meet with him.

Stephen Kotkin (14:13.740)

His own minions in the regime barely have FaceTime with him.

Lex Fridman (14:19.420)

We don't know exactly what he thinks.

Stephen Kotkin (14:21.620)

It could be that he has delusions

Lex Fridman (14:26.940)

of reconquering Russian influence,

Stephen Kotkin (14:29.580)

if not direct control over the territories that broke away,

Lex Fridman (14:34.820)

but it's not gonna happen.

Stephen Kotkin (14:36.180)

Let's talk a little bit about this guy, Nikolai Patrushev.

Lex Fridman (14:40.020)

Nikolai Patrushev is probably not well known

Stephen Kotkin (14:43.500)

to your listeners.

Lex Fridman (14:45.220)

He's the head of Russia's Security Council.

Lex Fridman (14:49.580)

And so you could probably call him the second most important

Lex Fridman (14:53.500)

or second most powerful man in Russia,

Stephen Kotkin (14:56.860)

certainly inside the regime.

Lex Fridman (14:59.780)

Arguably, Navalny is the second most important person

Stephen Kotkin (15:03.220)

in the country and Russia is the second most powerful man

Lex Fridman (15:06.140)

and we'll talk about that later, I'm sure.

Stephen Kotkin (15:08.020)

In terms of influence, yes.

Lex Fridman (15:09.340)

Yes, but Patrushev is a version of Putin's right hand man.

Lex Fridman (15:17.380)

And Patrushev has been giving interviews in the press.

Lex Fridman (15:22.500)

You probably saw the interview

Stephen Kotkin (15:24.020)

with Nizavisimaya Gazeta not that long ago.

Lex Fridman (15:27.540)

He writes also his own blog like interventions

Stephen Kotkin (15:31.620)

in the public sphere using the few channels that are left.

Lex Fridman (15:38.660)

And what's interesting about Patrushev,

Lex Fridman (15:41.100)

and this could well reflect similar thinking to Putin's,

Lex Fridman (15:45.860)

which is why I'm bringing this up,

Stephen Kotkin (15:48.700)

is that he's got this conspiratorial theory

Lex Fridman (15:53.140)

that the West has been on a forever campaign

Stephen Kotkin (15:57.940)

to destroy Russia,

Lex Fridman (15:59.740)

just like it destroyed the Soviet Union

Lex Fridman (16:02.260)

and that everything the West does

Lex Fridman (16:04.900)

is meant to dismember Russia

Lex Fridman (16:07.420)

and that Russia is fighting an existential battle

Lex Fridman (16:11.100)

against the West.

Lex Fridman (16:13.020)

And so for example, the CIA and the American government

Lex Fridman (16:16.580)

wanted to bring down the Soviet Union.

Stephen Kotkin (16:19.020)

Nevermind that the Bush administration,

Lex Fridman (16:21.100)

the first Bush, the father,

Stephen Kotkin (16:23.260)

was trying desperately to hold the Soviet Union together

Lex Fridman (16:26.540)

because they were afraid of the chaos that might ensue

Lex Fridman (16:30.420)

and the nukes that might get loose

Lex Fridman (16:33.540)

as a result of a Soviet collapse.

Lex Fridman (16:37.540)

And it wasn't until the very last moment

Lex Fridman (16:40.580)

where Bush decided, his administration decided

Stephen Kotkin (16:44.780)

to back those Republican leaders

Lex Fridman (16:48.780)

who were breaking away from Mikhail Gorbachev

Lex Fridman (16:51.460)

and the Soviet Union, right?

Lex Fridman (16:53.820)

So nevermind the empirics of it.

Stephen Kotkin (16:56.340)

Nevermind that Bill Clinton's administration

Lex Fridman (16:59.060)

following George Bush sent boatloads of money,

Stephen Kotkin (17:03.580)

Western taxpayer money to Russia.

Lex Fridman (17:06.660)

We don't know exactly how much

Stephen Kotkin (17:08.740)

because it came from different sources.

Lex Fridman (17:10.620)

People talk about how there was no Marshall Plan.

Stephen Kotkin (17:13.260)

It was tens of billions of dollars from various sources,

Lex Fridman (17:17.620)

from the IMF and other sources.

Lex Fridman (17:20.180)

And next it disappeared, it's gone.

Lex Fridman (17:22.780)

Just like the German money that went to Gorbachev

Stephen Kotkin (17:25.100)

for unification disappeared

Lex Fridman (17:26.740)

even before the Soviet collapsed.

Stephen Kotkin (17:28.980)

The money disappeared, but the West sent the money.

Lex Fridman (17:32.220)

So how was that a plot?

Lex Fridman (17:33.980)

And then you could go all the way, Obama's administration,

Lex Fridman (17:37.220)

George Bush trying to do business deals

Lex Fridman (17:39.860)

and reset the relations and Obama administration

Lex Fridman (17:43.180)

trying to reset the relations

Lex Fridman (17:44.780)

and doing nothing after the Georgian war

Lex Fridman (17:48.060)

and slapping Putin on the wrist,

Stephen Kotkin (17:51.980)

following the seizure force of Putin.

Lex Fridman (17:55.100)

And you could go on and you could go on

Stephen Kotkin (17:56.740)

all the way through the Trump administration

Lex Fridman (17:59.100)

telling Putin that he's right.

Stephen Kotkin (18:01.940)

Trump believes Putin and doesn't believe US intelligence

Lex Fridman (18:05.140)

about Russian efforts to interfere

Stephen Kotkin (18:07.020)

in American domestic politics.

Lex Fridman (18:08.860)

So despite all the empirics of it,

Stephen Kotkin (18:11.780)

you have Patrushev and likely Putin

Lex Fridman (18:14.820)

talking about this multi decade Western conspiracy

Stephen Kotkin (18:19.500)

to bring Russia down.

Lex Fridman (18:21.580)

At the same time as that's happening,

Stephen Kotkin (18:23.580)

the Germans are voluntarily increasing

Lex Fridman (18:27.060)

their dependence on Russian energy,

Stephen Kotkin (18:30.020)

voluntarily increasing their dependence on Russia.

Lex Fridman (18:33.020)

So here's the conspiracy to bring Russia down.

Stephen Kotkin (18:36.020)

The French who fantasize about themselves

Lex Fridman (18:39.940)

as a diplomatic superpower are constantly,

Stephen Kotkin (18:43.140)

the French leaders are constantly running to the Kremlin

Lex Fridman (18:46.220)

to ask what Russia needs,

Lex Fridman (18:48.220)

what concessions from the West Russia needs to be filled

Lex Fridman (18:51.540)

to feel respected again.

Stephen Kotkin (18:53.740)

The British provide all manner of money laundering

Lex Fridman (18:58.700)

and reputation laundering services

Stephen Kotkin (19:01.540)

for the whole Russian oligarchy,

Lex Fridman (19:03.580)

including the state officials who are looting the state

Lex Fridman (19:07.780)

and using the West British institutions

Lex Fridman (19:10.940)

to launder their money.

Lex Fridman (19:11.980)

So all of this is happening and yet Patrushev imagines

Lex Fridman (19:15.740)

this conspiracy to bring Russia down by the West.

Lex Fridman (19:19.220)

And so that's what we've got in the Kremlin again.

Lex Fridman (19:22.020)

Stalin had that same conspiratorial mentality of the West.

Stephen Kotkin (19:26.900)

Everything that happened in the world

Lex Fridman (19:28.500)

was part of a Western conspiracy

Stephen Kotkin (19:30.540)

directed against the Soviet Union

Lex Fridman (19:32.300)

and now directed against Russia.

Stephen Kotkin (19:34.140)

Even though the West is trying to appease,

Lex Fridman (19:37.700)

the West is offering its services,

Stephen Kotkin (19:39.620)

the West is trying to change Russia through investment

Lex Fridman (19:42.220)

in a positive way, but instead the West is what's changing.

Stephen Kotkin (19:46.660)

The West is becoming more corrupt.

Lex Fridman (19:48.460)

Western services are being corrupted

Stephen Kotkin (19:50.540)

by the relationship with Russia.

Lex Fridman (19:52.860)

So you have to ask yourself,

Stephen Kotkin (19:54.860)

who are these people in power in the Kremlin

Lex Fridman (19:58.140)

who imagine that while they're availing themselves

Lex Fridman (1:00:01.500)

and it impresses upon your consciousness where you live,

Lex Fridman (1:00:06.660)

you live in a Western dominated world,

Stephen Kotkin (1:00:09.500)

that the multipolar world doesn't exist.

Lex Fridman (1:00:12.660)

Your goal is to make that multipolar world exist.

Stephen Kotkin (1:00:16.260)

Your goal is to bring down the West.

Lex Fridman (1:00:19.140)

Your goal is for the West to weaken.

Stephen Kotkin (1:00:21.940)

Your goal is a currency other than the dollar and the euro.

Lex Fridman (1:00:25.980)

Your goal is an international financial system

Stephen Kotkin (1:00:28.860)

that you dominate.

Lex Fridman (1:00:30.220)

Your goal is technological self sufficiency

Lex Fridman (1:00:34.140)

made in China 2035, right?

Lex Fridman (1:00:36.820)

Your goal is a world that you dominate,

Stephen Kotkin (1:00:40.220)

not that the West dominates.

Lex Fridman (1:00:42.340)

And you're gonna do everything you can

Stephen Kotkin (1:00:45.080)

to try to attain that world,

Lex Fridman (1:00:47.660)

which is a Russian centric world,

Stephen Kotkin (1:00:49.940)

or a Chinese centric world,

Lex Fridman (1:00:52.180)

or what we could call a Eurasian centric world.

Lex Fridman (1:00:56.140)

And it's not gonna be easy, Lex,

Lex Fridman (1:00:58.340)

just for the reasons that we enumerated before.

Lex Fridman (1:01:02.340)

But maybe you're gonna get a helping hand.

Lex Fridman (1:01:04.780)

Maybe the West is gonna transfer

Stephen Kotkin (1:01:06.480)

their best technology to you.

Lex Fridman (1:01:07.980)

They're gonna sell you their best stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:01:10.700)

And then you're gonna absorb it,

Lex Fridman (1:01:13.700)

and maybe copy it, and reverse engineer it.

Lex Fridman (1:01:16.820)

And if they won't sell it to you,

Lex Fridman (1:01:18.060)

maybe you'll just have to steal it.

Stephen Kotkin (1:01:21.020)

Maybe the West is gonna allow you to bank,

Lex Fridman (1:01:23.700)

even though you violate many laws

Stephen Kotkin (1:01:27.740)

that would prohibit the West

Lex Fridman (1:01:29.100)

from extending those banking services to you.

Stephen Kotkin (1:01:32.540)

Maybe the West is gonna buy your energy,

Lex Fridman (1:01:35.500)

and your palladium, and your titanium,

Lex Fridman (1:01:38.240)

and your rare metals like lithium,

Lex Fridman (1:01:40.460)

because you're willing to have your poor people

Stephen Kotkin (1:01:44.560)

mine that stuff and die of disease at an early age.

Lex Fridman (1:01:48.660)

But Western governments, they don't wanna do that.

Stephen Kotkin (1:01:51.780)

They don't wanna do that dirty mining

Lex Fridman (1:01:53.680)

of those very important rare earths.

Lex Fridman (1:01:56.460)

But you're willing to do that

Lex Fridman (1:01:57.580)

because it's just people whose lives you don't care about

Lex Fridman (1:02:00.100)

as an autocratic regime, right?

Lex Fridman (1:02:01.500)

So that's the world you live in

Stephen Kotkin (1:02:03.460)

where you're trying to get to this other world.

Lex Fridman (1:02:07.040)

You're at the center of the other world.

Stephen Kotkin (1:02:09.820)

You dominate the other world.

Lex Fridman (1:02:11.200)

But the only way to get there, Lex,

Stephen Kotkin (1:02:13.700)

is the West has to weaken, divide itself,

Lex Fridman (1:02:18.420)

maybe even collapse.

Lex Fridman (1:02:20.660)

And so you're encouraging, to the extent possible,

Lex Fridman (1:02:25.120)

Western divisions, Western disunity,

Stephen Kotkin (1:02:28.640)

a Western lack of resolve, Western mistakes,

Lex Fridman (1:02:33.540)

and Western invasion of the wrong country,

Lex Fridman (1:02:36.660)

and Western destruction of its credibility

Lex Fridman (1:02:39.780)

through international financial crises,

Lex Fridman (1:02:41.980)

and one could go on.

Lex Fridman (1:02:44.140)

So if the West weakens itself through its mistakes

Lex Fridman (1:02:47.980)

and its own corruption, you're gonna survive

Lex Fridman (1:02:51.160)

and maybe even come out into that world

Stephen Kotkin (1:02:54.380)

where you're the center.

Lex Fridman (1:02:55.940)

And so Russia's entire grand strategy,

Stephen Kotkin (1:02:58.620)

just like China's grand strategy,

Lex Fridman (1:03:00.500)

Iran, it's hard to say they have a grand strategy

Stephen Kotkin (1:03:03.060)

because they're so profoundly weak.

Lex Fridman (1:03:06.660)

But Russia's grand strategy is, we're a mess.

Stephen Kotkin (1:03:11.700)

We don't invest in our human capital.

Lex Fridman (1:03:14.120)

Our human capital flees, or we actually drive it out.

Stephen Kotkin (1:03:17.860)

It goes to MIT, like you did,

Lex Fridman (1:03:21.060)

or it goes to fill in the blank, right?

Stephen Kotkin (1:03:23.680)

We can't invest in our people.

Lex Fridman (1:03:25.720)

Our healthcare is terrible.

Stephen Kotkin (1:03:27.420)

Our education system is in decline.

Lex Fridman (1:03:30.560)

We don't build infrastructure, Lex.

Stephen Kotkin (1:03:33.300)

We don't improve our governance.

Lex Fridman (1:03:35.960)

We don't invest in those attributes of modern power

Stephen Kotkin (1:03:39.580)

that make the West powerful.

Lex Fridman (1:03:42.020)

We can't because when we try, the money is stolen.

Stephen Kotkin (1:03:46.140)

We try these grandiose projects of national projects,

Lex Fridman (1:03:50.300)

they're called.

Stephen Kotkin (1:03:51.140)

We're gonna invest in higher ed.

Lex Fridman (1:03:52.340)

We're gonna invest in high tech.

Stephen Kotkin (1:03:54.520)

We're gonna build our own Silicon Valley

Lex Fridman (1:03:57.780)

known as Skolkovo.

Lex Fridman (1:03:58.780)

We're gonna do all those things, and what happens?

Lex Fridman (1:04:01.460)

They can't even build an airport

Stephen Kotkin (1:04:02.980)

without the money disappearing.

Lex Fridman (1:04:04.740)

The Sochi Olympics, Lex,

Stephen Kotkin (1:04:08.260)

officially cost them $50 billion.

Lex Fridman (1:04:11.060)

You look around at the infrastructure that endured

Stephen Kotkin (1:04:14.220)

from that $50 billion expense, and you're thinking,

Lex Fridman (1:04:18.500)

that's like the Second Avenue subway.

Stephen Kotkin (1:04:20.940)

You get almost nothing for your money.

Lex Fridman (1:04:23.700)

And so, yeah, it's corruption, Lex,

Lex Fridman (1:04:25.860)

but it's also because they don't wanna do that.

Lex Fridman (1:04:28.660)

They don't wanna invest in their people.

Stephen Kotkin (1:04:31.280)

They couldn't do it if they wanted to,

Lex Fridman (1:04:33.480)

and when they try, it doesn't work.

Lex Fridman (1:04:36.260)

But why invest in your own people?

Lex Fridman (1:04:39.180)

Invest in your hardware, your military hardware, right?

Stephen Kotkin (1:04:43.360)

Invest in your cyber capabilities.

Lex Fridman (1:04:47.400)

Invest in all your spoilation techniques and your hard power,

Lex Fridman (1:04:52.260)

and invest in further corrupting, and further weakening,

Lex Fridman (1:04:57.820)

and further dividing the West, because as I said,

Stephen Kotkin (1:05:01.300)

if the West is weak, divided, lacking resolve,

Lex Fridman (1:05:05.120)

you don't invest in your people,

Stephen Kotkin (1:05:06.800)

you don't build infrastructure,

Lex Fridman (1:05:08.260)

you don't improve your governance,

Lex Fridman (1:05:09.700)

but you'll muddle through.

Lex Fridman (1:05:11.580)

That's Russian grand strategy.

Lex Fridman (1:05:13.540)

So invest in the hard power, weaken the West.

Lex Fridman (1:05:18.100)

Those combined together means you're going to be

Stephen Kotkin (1:05:21.340)

heavily incentivized to escalate

Lex Fridman (1:05:24.500)

any military aggressive conflicts that are around you,

Stephen Kotkin (1:05:28.540)

or create new ones, or just.

Lex Fridman (1:05:30.140)

If you can get away with murder.

Lex Fridman (1:05:32.620)

But what happens, Lex,

Lex Fridman (1:05:34.500)

if it's a Harry Truman like response?

Lex Fridman (1:05:37.780)

What happens if somebody says,

Lex Fridman (1:05:39.500)

you know, we're gonna stand up to this?

Stephen Kotkin (1:05:43.080)

We're not gonna allow this to happen.

Lex Fridman (1:05:45.420)

We're not gonna launder your money anymore.

Stephen Kotkin (1:05:49.060)

We're not gonna be dependent on you for energy

Lex Fridman (1:05:52.000)

in the long term, we're gonna make a transition.

Stephen Kotkin (1:05:56.100)

We're gonna punish you for that kind of behavior instead.

Lex Fridman (1:05:59.380)

And the West is now switched to that

Stephen Kotkin (1:06:02.860)

only because of the courage

Lex Fridman (1:06:07.980)

and ingenuity of the Ukrainian people.

Stephen Kotkin (1:06:10.820)

The Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression

Lex Fridman (1:06:15.940)

was one of the greatest gifts the West has ever received.

Stephen Kotkin (1:06:20.020)

The sacrifices that the Ukrainians are making,

Lex Fridman (1:06:23.660)

right now as we speak,

Stephen Kotkin (1:06:25.360)

meaning they're fighting a war by themselves

Lex Fridman (1:06:31.520)

against a major military power, their neighbor Russia.

Stephen Kotkin (1:06:36.100)

Nobody's fighting it with them.

Lex Fridman (1:06:37.840)

Yes, we are giving them weapons

Lex Fridman (1:06:41.260)

so they can conduct self defense,

Lex Fridman (1:06:43.220)

which by the way is legal under international law.

Stephen Kotkin (1:06:46.660)

Unlike the Russian invasion,

Lex Fridman (1:06:48.060)

which is illegal under international law,

Stephen Kotkin (1:06:50.960)

Western supply of weapons, including heavy weapons,

Lex Fridman (1:06:54.180)

including offensive weapons to Ukraine

Stephen Kotkin (1:06:56.940)

for its self defense in the invasion by Russia

Lex Fridman (1:06:59.860)

is actually legal under,

Lex Fridman (1:07:01.320)

and so thank God the Ukrainians surprised everybody.

Lex Fridman (1:07:08.240)

They surprised me, they surprised Putin and the Kremlin,

Stephen Kotkin (1:07:11.120)

they surprised the Biden administration,

Lex Fridman (1:07:13.120)

they surprised the European Union,

Stephen Kotkin (1:07:15.840)

not with the fact that they would resist.

Lex Fridman (1:07:18.840)

We knew that.

Stephen Kotkin (1:07:20.400)

We had the Orange Revolution in 2004,

Lex Fridman (1:07:23.400)

we had Maidan in 2013, 14,

Stephen Kotkin (1:07:26.840)

where they rose up against a domestic tyrant

Lex Fridman (1:07:31.320)

and they were willing to die

Stephen Kotkin (1:07:33.480)

on behalf of their country then,

Lex Fridman (1:07:35.360)

let alone against a foreign tyrant

Lex Fridman (1:07:37.600)

invading their country, right?

Lex Fridman (1:07:39.560)

So we knew they would resist.

Stephen Kotkin (1:07:40.840)

We didn't know just how successful,

Lex Fridman (1:07:43.000)

certainly I didn't know,

Stephen Kotkin (1:07:44.480)

they would be on the battlefield.

Lex Fridman (1:07:46.040)

It's been breathtaking to watch.

Stephen Kotkin (1:07:48.240)

That sacrifice, that gift enabled the West

Lex Fridman (1:07:52.400)

to rediscover itself, to rediscover its power,

Stephen Kotkin (1:07:55.800)

to revive itself, to say to hell with this energy dependence

Lex Fridman (1:07:59.900)

in the long term,

Stephen Kotkin (1:08:00.740)

to hell with this money laundering and reputation laundering,

Lex Fridman (1:08:04.180)

to hell with this running back and forth to Moscow

Stephen Kotkin (1:08:07.240)

to try to see what Putin needs

Lex Fridman (1:08:09.160)

in order for him to feel respected,

Lex Fridman (1:08:11.600)

what appeasement he needs, right?

Lex Fridman (1:08:13.120)

So we'll see if it endures,

Lex Fridman (1:08:16.920)

but this shift comes from the Ukrainians.

Lex Fridman (1:08:20.960)

And so it's no longer getting away with murder, Lex,

Lex Fridman (1:08:23.640)

and we thank the Ukrainians for that.

Lex Fridman (1:08:25.640)

The people and the leadership

Lex Fridman (1:08:27.680)

and the separate factions that make up Ukraine uniting,

Lex Fridman (1:08:33.560)

it's the unification, the uniting against the common enemy

Lex Fridman (1:08:37.080)

and standing up before anyone knew

Lex Fridman (1:08:40.320)

that they would be backed by all of these other nations,

Stephen Kotkin (1:08:43.140)

by this money and all this kind of stuff,

Lex Fridman (1:08:45.180)

standing there, especially with the president Zelensky,

Stephen Kotkin (1:08:49.160)

where it makes total sense to flee, he stood his ground.

Lex Fridman (1:08:54.340)

And...

Stephen Kotkin (1:08:55.180)

Let's take that point that you just raised,

Lex Fridman (1:08:56.920)

which is a deep and fundamental point,

Lex Fridman (1:08:58.720)

and I thank you for that.

Lex Fridman (1:09:00.640)

Do you guys hear that?

Stephen Kotkin (1:09:01.920)

I think that was a compliment.

Lex Fridman (1:09:03.040)

There we go.

Stephen Kotkin (1:09:03.880)

Let's go.

Lex Fridman (1:09:05.080)

Lex.

Lex Fridman (1:09:05.920)

Zelensky or unification, what do you say?

Lex Fridman (1:09:07.120)

I'm sitting here in front of you.

Stephen Kotkin (1:09:08.660)

Thank you.

Lex Fridman (1:09:09.500)

It's an honor.

Lex Fridman (1:09:10.340)

And it's a mutual honor.

Lex Fridman (1:09:13.280)

So, Ukraine before the war

Lex Fridman (1:09:17.020)

is run by a TV production company, right?

Lex Fridman (1:09:20.640)

You're one guy running this fantastic, incredible podcast.

Stephen Kotkin (1:09:24.480)

There's 20 guys or so running a country the size of Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:09:28.640)

And one's a producer and one's like a makeup person

Lex Fridman (1:09:32.320)

and one's a video editor.

Lex Fridman (1:09:35.040)

And they're fantastically talented people

Stephen Kotkin (1:09:38.680)

if your country is a TV production.

Lex Fridman (1:09:42.120)

So before the war, Zelensky had what, 25% approval rating

Lex Fridman (1:09:47.120)

and he couldn't get much done and it wasn't working.

Lex Fridman (1:09:50.320)

He got elected with 73%, as you know,

Lex Fridman (1:09:53.320)

and then he was down to 20, that's a pretty big drop.

Lex Fridman (1:09:56.600)

And so you're thinking maybe having a major,

Stephen Kotkin (1:10:00.060)

large size, 40 million plus population European country

Lex Fridman (1:10:05.000)

run by a TV production company is not the best choice.

Lex Fridman (1:10:09.800)

And then what do we see?

Lex Fridman (1:10:11.560)

We see President Zelensky decides to risk his life

Stephen Kotkin (1:10:16.400)

on behalf of his country, Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:10:18.720)

He decides to stay in the capital.

Stephen Kotkin (1:10:21.720)

He's not gonna flee, they're gonna stay and fight.

Lex Fridman (1:10:25.620)

And he could be killed, he can die.

Stephen Kotkin (1:10:27.800)

It's a decision where he put his life on the line.

Lex Fridman (1:10:32.440)

Obviously, he's Jewish descent,

Stephen Kotkin (1:10:36.720)

Russian speaking childhood and upbringing,

Lex Fridman (1:10:40.880)

Russian speaking Jewish descent puts his life on the line

Stephen Kotkin (1:10:44.520)

for the country of Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:10:46.520)

It's a pretty big message, don't you think?

Lex Fridman (1:10:49.660)

And it's crucial.

Lex Fridman (1:10:51.400)

And it turns out not only that, Lex,

Lex Fridman (1:10:54.520)

but they're good at TV.

Lex Fridman (1:10:56.760)

They're good at information war.

Lex Fridman (1:10:59.000)

And in a war, it's a TV production company

Lex Fridman (1:11:02.740)

and a TV personality, that's exactly what you want

Stephen Kotkin (1:11:06.240)

running a country because they're crushing

Lex Fridman (1:11:09.600)

in the information war.

Lex Fridman (1:11:11.320)

And he's spectacular, European Parliament,

Lex Fridman (1:11:15.440)

US Congress, Israeli Parliament.

Stephen Kotkin (1:11:18.900)

There's no room on Zoom, let alone in person

Lex Fridman (1:11:22.960)

that he can't win over, he's just so effective.

Stephen Kotkin (1:11:26.360)

You know, this is the first time reality TV

Lex Fridman (1:11:29.680)

has been about reality instead of fake.

Stephen Kotkin (1:11:33.360)

Reality TV is just this completely fake nonsense.

Lex Fridman (1:11:37.080)

But Zelensky, this is real reality TV.

Lex Fridman (1:11:41.040)

And he means it and the nation is behind him

Lex Fridman (1:11:45.760)

and they're just as courageous and just as ingenious

Stephen Kotkin (1:11:48.800)

in many ways and it's spectacular.

Lex Fridman (1:11:52.420)

And so, yeah, who saw that coming?

Stephen Kotkin (1:11:55.640)

I didn't see that coming, Lex.

Lex Fridman (1:11:57.720)

In fact, the Biden, we talk about Putin's miscalculation.

Stephen Kotkin (1:12:01.220)

The Biden administration, as you alluded to,

Lex Fridman (1:12:04.040)

offered him an exit from the country.

Stephen Kotkin (1:12:06.720)

They didn't say, you know, you wanna stand and fight,

Lex Fridman (1:12:09.280)

we'll back you.

Lex Fridman (1:12:10.600)

They said, we'll get you out, you wanna come now?

Lex Fridman (1:12:14.080)

And famously, you know that quote, right?

Lex Fridman (1:12:16.840)

What he said about how he doesn't need a ride.

Lex Fridman (1:12:20.680)

Remember that moment?

Stephen Kotkin (1:12:22.720)

The Biden administration was poised

Lex Fridman (1:12:25.560)

to do another Afghanistan moment.

Stephen Kotkin (1:12:28.760)

That ignominious exit from Afghanistan

Lex Fridman (1:12:32.360)

was almost what happened in Ukraine

Stephen Kotkin (1:12:35.000)

when Biden administration offered him

Lex Fridman (1:12:38.320)

that ride out of there.

Lex Fridman (1:12:39.880)

And fortunately, he declined and helped rally

Lex Fridman (1:12:43.080)

and the people from below also rallied

Stephen Kotkin (1:12:45.640)

to stop the invader without the presidency

Lex Fridman (1:12:48.640)

and without the government in Ukraine,

Stephen Kotkin (1:12:50.880)

saving the Biden administration

Lex Fridman (1:12:53.000)

and the European leaders who latched on.

Stephen Kotkin (1:12:56.240)

Fortunately, they had the presence of mind

Lex Fridman (1:12:58.640)

to latch onto this gift,

Stephen Kotkin (1:13:00.400)

this bravery and ingeniousness of Zelensky

Lex Fridman (1:13:04.480)

and the rest of the Ukrainians and flipped

Lex Fridman (1:13:07.400)

and decided to support Ukraine's resistance,

Lex Fridman (1:13:11.040)

you know, first with 5,000 helmets only

Stephen Kotkin (1:13:14.720)

as the Germans initially promised

Lex Fridman (1:13:16.720)

and now with really heavy weapons.

Lex Fridman (1:13:19.600)

And so that's something that wasn't foreseen.

Lex Fridman (1:13:22.880)

I certainly didn't foresee that.

Stephen Kotkin (1:13:24.680)

I foresaw the Ukrainian society being courageous

Lex Fridman (1:13:28.960)

and resisting, but I didn't foresee

Stephen Kotkin (1:13:31.920)

a television production company being exactly

Lex Fridman (1:13:35.560)

what you want to run a country in a war,

Stephen Kotkin (1:13:38.520)

a president Zelensky willing to sacrifice,

Lex Fridman (1:13:42.840)

lay down his life and rallying others

Stephen Kotkin (1:13:45.400)

in the country to do that.

Lex Fridman (1:13:47.240)

And then the country being so effective,

Stephen Kotkin (1:13:50.160)

not just at a courage, but at battlefield resistance

Lex Fridman (1:13:55.360)

to the Russian invasion.

Lex Fridman (1:13:56.920)

So I stand corrected by the Ukrainians

Lex Fridman (1:13:59.320)

and I'm ecstatic that I was wrong,

Stephen Kotkin (1:14:03.280)

that I was proven wrong.

Lex Fridman (1:14:04.480)

And like I said, there's clear factions

Stephen Kotkin (1:14:07.320)

of the West and the East of Ukraine

Lex Fridman (1:14:09.120)

and here's a person that, like you said,

Stephen Kotkin (1:14:11.400)

was in the high 20s, low 30s percentage approval

Lex Fridman (1:14:16.240)

in the country before the war

Lex Fridman (1:14:17.720)

and now was able to use in the 90s.

Lex Fridman (1:14:22.160)

He's in the 90% approval rating.

Stephen Kotkin (1:14:24.800)

I mean, I think they stopped doing the polling.

Lex Fridman (1:14:30.160)

Once he hit 91% or whatever it was in the previous poll,

Stephen Kotkin (1:14:33.600)

I think they all understood that for now

Lex Fridman (1:14:35.720)

they didn't need any more polling,

Stephen Kotkin (1:14:38.080)

that it's pretty clear the nation.

Lex Fridman (1:14:39.640)

So 25% to 90 something percent.

Lex Fridman (1:14:43.320)

And just like the 25% was deserved,

Lex Fridman (1:14:47.120)

the 90 something percent is also deserved, fully deserved.

Lex Fridman (1:14:50.600)

And the question is how that all stabilizes, it feels

Lex Fridman (1:14:55.080)

like this set of events,

Stephen Kotkin (1:14:58.800)

I may be paying attention to Twitter too much,

Lex Fridman (1:15:02.400)

which is a concern of mine, whether the change I see

Stephen Kotkin (1:15:08.240)

is just surface level or deep level.

Lex Fridman (1:15:11.400)

But it seems like we're in a new world,

Stephen Kotkin (1:15:13.760)

that something dramatic has shifted.

Lex Fridman (1:15:15.720)

That this power that's rooted,

Stephen Kotkin (1:15:21.080)

I mean, in your study of the 20th century,

Lex Fridman (1:15:25.560)

it's so deeply rooted in history,

Stephen Kotkin (1:15:27.160)

there's this power center of the world

Lex Fridman (1:15:29.560)

is now going to, has been shaken by this event.

Lex Fridman (1:15:33.560)

And how that changes the world is unclear.

Lex Fridman (1:15:37.880)

It's unclear what lesson China learns from watching this,

Lex Fridman (1:15:40.840)

what lesson India learns from watching this.

Lex Fridman (1:15:43.120)

Both nations, as far as you can get polls

Stephen Kotkin (1:15:45.520)

about Chinese population, but both nations

Lex Fridman (1:15:49.280)

are largely in support of Putin.

Lex Fridman (1:15:51.800)

So Russia, India, and China are still

Lex Fridman (1:15:55.080)

supporting of Putin quietly.

Stephen Kotkin (1:15:57.440)

I would maybe elaborate a little bit on that point, Lex.

Lex Fridman (1:16:03.480)

I think you're right, the feeling that we're

Stephen Kotkin (1:16:06.680)

in an inflection moment, an inflection point,

Lex Fridman (1:16:10.560)

I think that's widespread.

Lex Fridman (1:16:12.520)

And I think it's widespread for good reason, we might be.

Lex Fridman (1:16:16.440)

But I also share your, let's say, modesty

Stephen Kotkin (1:16:23.520)

about where it's going and how hard it is

Lex Fridman (1:16:27.320)

to predict where this might go.

Stephen Kotkin (1:16:29.560)

It's only an inflection point if the trends continue,

Lex Fridman (1:16:33.880)

right, if the trends endure.

Stephen Kotkin (1:16:36.120)

There are plenty of non inflection points.

Lex Fridman (1:16:38.920)

After 9 11, the whole world rallied

Stephen Kotkin (1:16:41.320)

around the United States after it was attacked,

Lex Fridman (1:16:44.880)

after the bombing of the towers here in New York City

Lex Fridman (1:16:48.520)

and the hitting of the Pentagon, and that didn't last.

Lex Fridman (1:16:53.200)

It was not really an inflection point, was it?

Stephen Kotkin (1:16:56.600)

It felt like it might be, but it wasn't.

Lex Fridman (1:16:59.640)

And so this is not a comparable moment

Stephen Kotkin (1:17:01.800)

in terms of what happened, but it has the feeling

Lex Fridman (1:17:06.560)

that it might be a watershed.

Lex Fridman (1:17:08.120)

And maybe we'll squander it the way we squandered

Lex Fridman (1:17:12.400)

the post 9 11, rallying around the United States.

Stephen Kotkin (1:17:17.880)

Maybe we'll actually consolidate it and it'll endure,

Lex Fridman (1:17:21.280)

or maybe it'll endure despite ourselves.

Lex Fridman (1:17:24.000)

And we can't tell and we can't know yet.

Lex Fridman (1:17:26.760)

And it depends in part on what we do and what we don't do.

Lex Fridman (1:17:30.520)

But here's a few things that we understand already.

Lex Fridman (1:17:33.280)

One, the idea that the West was in decline

Lex Fridman (1:17:39.360)

and that the rest of the world had risen

Lex Fridman (1:17:43.000)

and was more powerful and that we lived

Stephen Kotkin (1:17:45.040)

in a multipolar world, that turns out

Lex Fridman (1:17:47.800)

to be empirically false.

Stephen Kotkin (1:17:50.960)

It's not true.

Lex Fridman (1:17:52.440)

I mean, it's just factually not true.

Stephen Kotkin (1:17:55.240)

There are no major important multinational institutions,

Lex Fridman (1:17:59.920)

organizations that are run on behalf of,

Stephen Kotkin (1:18:04.400)

or led by a South African, a Nigerian, person from India.

Lex Fridman (1:18:11.400)

Even the Chinese don't run these institutions.

Stephen Kotkin (1:18:14.880)

They would like to and they're trying, but they don't.

Lex Fridman (1:18:19.200)

And so whatever you pick, the IMF, the World Bank,

Stephen Kotkin (1:18:25.080)

the Federal Reserve, which is the most powerful

Lex Fridman (1:18:27.320)

multinational institution, which is actually

Stephen Kotkin (1:18:30.080)

only a domestic institution and doesn't have

Lex Fridman (1:18:33.080)

a legal mandate to act multilaterally, but does.

Stephen Kotkin (1:18:37.440)

It's got the most power of any institution in the world.

Lex Fridman (1:18:41.040)

NATO, the bilateral alliances that the US has

Stephen Kotkin (1:18:45.720)

up and down Asia, what organizations

Lex Fridman (1:18:51.160)

that have tremendous leverage on the international system,

Stephen Kotkin (1:18:54.800)

on the international order, are non Western.

Lex Fridman (1:19:00.240)

The UN is the most encompassing.

Lex Fridman (1:19:04.360)

And of course we know that it has five members

Lex Fridman (1:19:07.440)

of the Security Council with a veto,

Stephen Kotkin (1:19:10.160)

one of which is Russia, one of which is China,

Lex Fridman (1:19:12.480)

and the others are the US, Britain, and France,

Stephen Kotkin (1:19:16.000)

not India, not South Africa, not Indonesia,

Lex Fridman (1:19:21.000)

Indonesia, not all of these other countries

Lex Fridman (1:19:23.840)

where the people live, right?

Lex Fridman (1:19:25.920)

The bulk of the population of the world

Lex Fridman (1:19:28.400)

and where the population is growing

Lex Fridman (1:19:30.160)

like on the African continent.

Lex Fridman (1:19:32.240)

So it's not a multipolar world.

Lex Fridman (1:19:34.560)

We talked already about the international financial system.

Stephen Kotkin (1:19:38.040)

That's the Western, not multipolar.

Lex Fridman (1:19:40.320)

We talked about the US military and NATO,

Stephen Kotkin (1:19:42.760)

or we could talk about the Japanese military,

Lex Fridman (1:19:45.080)

which is just very formidable, enormous number of platforms.

Stephen Kotkin (1:19:50.040)

Even the Australian military

Lex Fridman (1:19:51.680)

we could talk about, Lex, right?

Lex Fridman (1:19:54.160)

And so it's a Western dominated world.

Lex Fridman (1:19:57.680)

And the West, remember, is not a geographic concept.

Stephen Kotkin (1:20:01.440)

It is an institutional and values club.

Lex Fridman (1:20:06.560)

The Japanese are not European, but they're Western.

Stephen Kotkin (1:20:10.000)

Just like Russia is European, but not Western.

Lex Fridman (1:20:14.160)

Because European is a cultural category

Lex Fridman (1:20:16.800)

and Western is an institutional category

Lex Fridman (1:20:19.600)

where you have rule of law and separation of powers

Lex Fridman (1:20:22.600)

and free and open public sphere

Lex Fridman (1:20:24.160)

and dynamic open market economy, okay.

Lex Fridman (1:20:28.240)

And then we have another thing which is pretty clear.

Lex Fridman (1:20:31.360)

The West is powerfully resented,

Stephen Kotkin (1:20:34.960)

powerfully envied and admired simultaneously.

Lex Fridman (1:20:39.480)

P.J. O Rourke, the comedian who died this year,

Stephen Kotkin (1:20:44.840)

fantastic, it was a big loss for the culture.

Lex Fridman (1:20:48.400)

He said, there are two things

Stephen Kotkin (1:20:49.920)

that are always characteristic

Lex Fridman (1:20:51.760)

of any American embassy abroad.

Stephen Kotkin (1:20:54.840)

One is a political protest outside

Lex Fridman (1:20:59.400)

and the other is the longest line you've ever seen for visas.

Lex Fridman (1:21:05.360)

And those things are true simultaneously.

Lex Fridman (1:21:08.640)

And that's the world we live in,

Stephen Kotkin (1:21:10.400)

meaning that non Western countries

Lex Fridman (1:21:14.440)

envy and admire the West,

Lex Fridman (1:21:17.440)

but they also resent the power of the West.

Lex Fridman (1:21:20.760)

Western hypocrisy, right?

Stephen Kotkin (1:21:23.000)

The West invades countries when it wants,

Lex Fridman (1:21:26.920)

but when others do that, it's illegal, right?

Stephen Kotkin (1:21:30.440)

The West arrests you for money laundering,

Lex Fridman (1:21:36.000)

but it's Western money laundering

Lex Fridman (1:21:37.960)

that is where you go when you need to launder money, right?

Lex Fridman (1:21:41.760)

So they see the hypocrisy,

Stephen Kotkin (1:21:44.400)

they see the excessive power that the West has

Lex Fridman (1:21:48.520)

and they resent it.

Lex Fridman (1:21:50.560)

And they say, who elected you to run the world?

Lex Fridman (1:21:56.120)

We have a billion plus people

Stephen Kotkin (1:21:58.480)

or we have a 200 plus million people

Lex Fridman (1:22:02.520)

and we don't have a say.

Stephen Kotkin (1:22:04.920)

You're the self appointed guardians of our world,

Lex Fridman (1:22:08.480)

who did that?

Lex Fridman (1:22:09.480)

And so it's incumbent on the West

Lex Fridman (1:22:11.560)

not only to remember the power that it has,

Lex Fridman (1:22:16.720)

but also to exercise that power legally and with restraint

Lex Fridman (1:22:21.680)

and also to think about how we can expand institutions

Stephen Kotkin (1:22:26.840)

to be more encompassing

Lex Fridman (1:22:29.440)

so that other parts of the world

Stephen Kotkin (1:22:31.280)

are not on the outside being dictated to,

Lex Fridman (1:22:37.120)

but instead are on the inside.

Stephen Kotkin (1:22:39.440)

Too often, right, Western power is not consultative

Lex Fridman (1:22:47.320)

in a decision making fashion.

Stephen Kotkin (1:22:49.760)

It's consultative after the fact.

Lex Fridman (1:22:52.640)

Okay, you know, we got together in the EU

Stephen Kotkin (1:22:54.880)

or we got together in NATO

Lex Fridman (1:22:57.240)

or we got together at the Federal Reserve

Lex Fridman (1:22:59.560)

and here's our decision and we're announcing it today.

Lex Fridman (1:23:03.760)

And so your economy gets destroyed

Stephen Kotkin (1:23:06.320)

because the Federal Reserve decides

Lex Fridman (1:23:08.000)

it has to raise interest rates

Stephen Kotkin (1:23:10.680)

or you now go into default.

Lex Fridman (1:23:14.400)

You can't pay your debt

Stephen Kotkin (1:23:15.600)

because Western banks lent you money

Lex Fridman (1:23:18.280)

and now the West has changed interest rates

Stephen Kotkin (1:23:21.600)

or other considerations and you're in big trouble now.

Lex Fridman (1:23:27.520)

And so this is something which we fail to address.

Stephen Kotkin (1:23:32.160)

It's very hard to address.

Lex Fridman (1:23:33.440)

It's very hard to reform international institutions.

Stephen Kotkin (1:23:36.920)

It's very hard to share power.

Lex Fridman (1:23:39.800)

It's very hard to acknowledge that you have too much power

Lex Fridman (1:23:44.120)

and that maybe having too much power is not good,

Lex Fridman (1:23:47.800)

not only for the rest of the world, but for yourself.

Lex Fridman (1:23:51.160)

And so it's great to rediscover the West

Lex Fridman (1:23:53.680)

and rediscover its values

Lex Fridman (1:23:55.440)

and rediscover its authority and credibility and power,

Lex Fridman (1:24:00.960)

but that's not sufficient.

Lex Fridman (1:24:02.920)

So we know this now.

Lex Fridman (1:24:04.600)

We know that the rest of the world

Stephen Kotkin (1:24:07.240)

is not necessarily jumping on the Western bandwagon

Lex Fridman (1:24:12.240)

to condemn Russia for its actions

Stephen Kotkin (1:24:14.880)

because the West can do things like

Lex Fridman (1:24:17.960)

sanction your central bank, take away your reserves,

Stephen Kotkin (1:24:22.560)

deny you technology.

Lex Fridman (1:24:24.520)

It pretty much can do whatever it wants

Lex Fridman (1:24:27.080)

and it can say that it's legal

Lex Fridman (1:24:28.680)

and it can go through various mechanisms

Lex Fridman (1:24:30.720)

and it can freeze your property.

Lex Fridman (1:24:33.800)

And you say to yourself,

Lex Fridman (1:24:34.840)

should anybody have that much power?

Lex Fridman (1:24:37.280)

And when do they come after me?

Stephen Kotkin (1:24:40.360)

Now there's a caveat here.

Lex Fridman (1:24:42.480)

And the caveat, Lex, is they don't like the West

Stephen Kotkin (1:24:47.240)

having all of that power

Lex Fridman (1:24:49.160)

and they didn't join in the condemnation of Russia,

Lex Fridman (1:24:53.920)

but they also didn't join in Russia's aggression.

Lex Fridman (1:24:57.320)

So Russia's domestic civilian aerospace,

Stephen Kotkin (1:25:03.960)

aircraft industry, civilian aircraft industry

Lex Fridman (1:25:07.960)

is in big trouble now

Stephen Kotkin (1:25:09.240)

because of the export controls on spare parts and software.

Lex Fridman (1:25:15.920)

Brazil is a major power in aircraft manufacturing.

Stephen Kotkin (1:25:21.320)

Did they rush in and say,

Lex Fridman (1:25:23.320)

you know, Vladimir Putin, we didn't condemn necessarily

Stephen Kotkin (1:25:28.840)

your actions in Ukraine, okay, that's one thing.

Lex Fridman (1:25:31.920)

And how about we give you all of our aircraft technology

Lex Fridman (1:25:36.200)

and we help you rebuild your domestic aircraft industry.

Lex Fridman (1:25:40.280)

And you can have the aviation at the West,

Lex Fridman (1:25:42.520)

did that happen, Lex?

Lex Fridman (1:25:44.160)

Didn't happen.

Lex Fridman (1:25:46.080)

And you can look at India and you can look at China

Lex Fridman (1:25:48.640)

and you can look at South Africa

Lex Fridman (1:25:50.040)

and you can look at what they've done in practice

Lex Fridman (1:25:52.480)

and what they've done in practical terms.

Stephen Kotkin (1:25:55.920)

Yes, they haven't always joined

Lex Fridman (1:25:58.600)

in a full throated condemnation.

Stephen Kotkin (1:26:00.480)

Maybe they've been neutral

Lex Fridman (1:26:01.920)

or maybe they've been playing both sides of the fence

Stephen Kotkin (1:26:05.000)

like Turkey, for example.

Lex Fridman (1:26:07.760)

But are they rushing in to join Russia,

Lex Fridman (1:26:12.240)

to join Russia's aggression, to supply?

Lex Fridman (1:26:15.000)

And the answer is no.

Lex Fridman (1:26:16.720)

And the answer is no for two reasons.

Lex Fridman (1:26:19.680)

One, they actually don't wanna be party to that.

Lex Fridman (1:26:22.760)

And two, they understand that Western power.

Lex Fridman (1:26:26.200)

And they don't wanna be on the receiving end

Stephen Kotkin (1:26:29.320)

by crossing the West and then getting caught up

Lex Fridman (1:26:33.000)

in a sanctions regime or worse.

Stephen Kotkin (1:26:35.640)

Can we go to the mind of Vladimir Putin

Lex Fridman (1:26:37.760)

because what you just said, China, India,

Stephen Kotkin (1:26:42.400)

they seem to sit back and say,

Lex Fridman (1:26:45.680)

we're not going to condemn the actions

Stephen Kotkin (1:26:47.760)

of Vladimir Putin in Russia,

Lex Fridman (1:26:49.880)

but we would really like for this war to be over.

Lex Fridman (1:26:53.480)

So there's that kind of energy

Lex Fridman (1:26:55.480)

of we don't just stop this

Stephen Kotkin (1:26:58.120)

because you're putting us in a very, very bad position.

Lex Fridman (1:27:00.560)

And yet Vladimir Putin is continuing the aggression.

Lex Fridman (1:27:05.120)

What is he thinking?

Lex Fridman (1:27:06.480)

What information is he getting?

Stephen Kotkin (1:27:08.600)

Is it the system that you've described

Lex Fridman (1:27:10.760)

of authoritarian regimes that corrupts

Stephen Kotkin (1:27:13.120)

your flow of information,

Lex Fridman (1:27:14.760)

your ability to make clearheaded decisions

Lex Fridman (1:27:17.960)

just as a human being when you go to sleep at night?

Lex Fridman (1:27:21.640)

Is he not able to see the world clearly

Stephen Kotkin (1:27:24.080)

or is this all deliberate systematic action

Lex Fridman (1:27:27.520)

that does have some reason behind it?

Stephen Kotkin (1:27:31.240)

We gotta talk a little bit about China too,

Lex Fridman (1:27:33.280)

but let's answer your Putin question directly.

Lex Fridman (1:27:37.560)

So on Twitter, you've lost the war.

Lex Fridman (1:27:41.000)

Or as they say, there are these two Russian soldiers

Stephen Kotkin (1:27:45.080)

having a smoke in Warsaw,

Lex Fridman (1:27:48.440)

and they're taking a break, having a smoke,

Lex Fridman (1:27:51.000)

and they're sitting there in Warsaw on top of their tank

Lex Fridman (1:27:53.480)

and one says to the other,

Stephen Kotkin (1:27:55.040)

yeah, we lost the information war.

Lex Fridman (1:27:59.360)

And there they are sitting in Warsaw

Lex Fridman (1:28:00.840)

having that smoke, right?

Lex Fridman (1:28:03.320)

So yeah, on Twitter, Russia has completely lost the war.

Stephen Kotkin (1:28:07.040)

In reality, they failed to take Kiev.

Lex Fridman (1:28:09.520)

They failed to capture Kiev.

Lex Fridman (1:28:11.640)

And they failed in phase two, as they called it,

Lex Fridman (1:28:15.800)

or plan B, which is to capture the entirety of the Donbass.

Stephen Kotkin (1:28:21.360)

We're three months into the war.

Lex Fridman (1:28:23.440)

If you had made a judgment about, let's say,

Stephen Kotkin (1:28:25.800)

the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union,

Lex Fridman (1:28:27.840)

a definitive judgment after three months,

Stephen Kotkin (1:28:30.440)

you might've got the outcome wrong there.

Lex Fridman (1:28:32.840)

If you had judged the Winter War,

Stephen Kotkin (1:28:34.680)

the 1939, 40 Soviet invasion of Finland after three months,

Lex Fridman (1:28:40.040)

you would've got that wrong too

Stephen Kotkin (1:28:41.520)

of what the outcome was gonna be.

Lex Fridman (1:28:43.040)

So we're early in the game here,

Lex Fridman (1:28:45.480)

and we have to be careful about any definitive judgments.

Lex Fridman (1:28:49.840)

But it is the case that so far, they failed to take Kiev

Lex Fridman (1:28:54.120)

and they failed to capture the entirety of the Donbass,

Lex Fridman (1:28:57.560)

Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, Eastern Ukraine,

Stephen Kotkin (1:29:01.960)

a part of Eastern Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:29:05.440)

And they've been driven out of Kharkiv

Lex Fridman (1:29:08.960)

and the area immediately surrounding Kharkiv.

Lex Fridman (1:29:13.400)

They never captured Kharkiv, but they came close,

Lex Fridman (1:29:15.600)

but now the Ukrainians drove them back to the Russian border

Lex Fridman (1:29:19.480)

in that very large and important region.

Lex Fridman (1:29:22.000)

So those look like battlefield losses

Lex Fridman (1:29:25.280)

that are impossible to explain away

Stephen Kotkin (1:29:28.760)

if you're the regime in Russia,

Lex Fridman (1:29:30.240)

except by suppression of information.

Lex Fridman (1:29:33.640)

And as you know from Russian history, Lex,

Lex Fridman (1:29:37.840)

leaders in Russia have an easier time

Stephen Kotkin (1:29:40.720)

with the state of siege and deprivation

Lex Fridman (1:29:44.360)

than they do with explaining a lost war.

Lex Fridman (1:29:49.280)

But let's look at some other facts

Lex Fridman (1:29:52.960)

that are important to take into account.

Stephen Kotkin (1:29:56.200)

One, the Russian army has penetrated farther

Lex Fridman (1:30:00.160)

into Ukrainian territory since February, 2022,

Stephen Kotkin (1:30:05.360)

including in Kherson region,

Lex Fridman (1:30:09.920)

the famous Mariupol siege that just ended.

Stephen Kotkin (1:30:13.880)

They have built a large presence

Lex Fridman (1:30:20.120)

in areas north of Crimea on the Sea of Azov,

Stephen Kotkin (1:30:25.960)

the Black Sea littoral ultimately

Lex Fridman (1:30:28.560)

that they didn't previously hold.

Stephen Kotkin (1:30:31.960)

They're still fighting in Luhansk for full control

Lex Fridman (1:30:35.160)

over at least half of the Donbass

Lex Fridman (1:30:38.480)

and Ukrainians are resisting fiercely.

Lex Fridman (1:30:41.360)

But nonetheless, you can say that they've been driven out

Stephen Kotkin (1:30:46.480)

on the contrary, farther penetration than the beginning.

Lex Fridman (1:30:51.440)

Ukraine doesn't have an economy anymore.

Stephen Kotkin (1:30:54.640)

They have somewhere between 33 and 50% unemployment.

Lex Fridman (1:30:58.320)

It's hard to measure unemployment in a war economy,

Lex Fridman (1:31:02.560)

but their metallurgical industry,

Lex Fridman (1:31:04.160)

that Azov style steel plant in Mariupol is a ruin now.

Lex Fridman (1:31:11.000)

And a lot of farmers are not planting the fields

Lex Fridman (1:31:14.000)

because the harvest from the previous year

Stephen Kotkin (1:31:16.080)

still hasn't been sent, sold abroad

Lex Fridman (1:31:19.400)

because the ports are blockaded or destroyed.

Lex Fridman (1:31:24.320)

And so you don't have an economy

Lex Fridman (1:31:26.080)

and you need 5 billion or 7 billion

Stephen Kotkin (1:31:28.760)

or $8 billion a month to meet your payroll,

Lex Fridman (1:31:34.760)

to feed your people, to keep your army in the field.

Stephen Kotkin (1:31:38.920)

That's a lot of money per month and that's indefinite.

Lex Fridman (1:31:42.960)

That's as long as this blockade lasts.

Lex Fridman (1:31:45.960)

And so you don't have an economy anymore, you're indigent.

Lex Fridman (1:31:49.200)

And even if you take the lower number, 5 billion,

Stephen Kotkin (1:31:51.960)

as opposed to Zelensky's ask for 7 billion,

Lex Fridman (1:31:55.600)

5 billion is 60 billion a year.

Stephen Kotkin (1:31:57.880)

That's 60 billion this year, that's 60 billion next year.

Lex Fridman (1:32:01.680)

And so who's got that kind of money?

Lex Fridman (1:32:03.520)

Which Western taxpayers are ready?

Lex Fridman (1:32:06.320)

And if you use the 7 or 8 billion,

Stephen Kotkin (1:32:08.080)

you get up to 100 billion a year.

Lex Fridman (1:32:10.440)

The Biden just signed, President Joe Biden just signed

Stephen Kotkin (1:32:17.200)

the bill making it law, $40 billion in aid to Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:32:22.200)

It's just an enormous sum.

Stephen Kotkin (1:32:25.320)

The economic piece of that is a month and a half,

Lex Fridman (1:32:28.280)

two months of Ukrainians covering Ukrainian expenditures.

Stephen Kotkin (1:32:35.200)

That's it.

Lex Fridman (1:32:36.240)

And they're asking the G7,

Stephen Kotkin (1:32:37.920)

they're asking everybody for this.

Lex Fridman (1:32:39.760)

So you have no economy and no prospect of an economy

Stephen Kotkin (1:32:43.920)

until you evict the Russians from your territory.

Lex Fridman (1:32:46.480)

And then you have a Western unity, Western resolve,

Stephen Kotkin (1:32:51.680)

it lasts or it doesn't last, Lex.

Lex Fridman (1:32:55.160)

So you're President Putin,

Lex Fridman (1:32:57.120)

and you've got more territory than before,

Lex Fridman (1:33:01.360)

and you've got a stranglehold over the Ukrainian economy,

Lex Fridman (1:33:05.960)

and you've got a lot of the world neutral,

Lex Fridman (1:33:09.080)

and you've got the Chinese propaganda

Stephen Kotkin (1:33:12.200)

supporting you to the hilt with those Oliver Stone

Lex Fridman (1:33:16.640)

and Mearsheimer lines about how this is really NATO's fault.

Lex Fridman (1:33:22.440)

And you've got Hungary dragging its feet

Lex Fridman (1:33:26.960)

on the oil embargo against Russia,

Lex Fridman (1:33:29.280)

and you've got Turkey dragging its feet

Lex Fridman (1:33:31.360)

on the recent applications of Sweden and Finland

Stephen Kotkin (1:33:35.160)

for NATO expansion, and you're saying to yourself,

Lex Fridman (1:33:37.760)

Lex, maybe I can ride this out.

Stephen Kotkin (1:33:39.520)

I got a lot of problems of my own,

Lex Fridman (1:33:41.480)

and we can go into the details

Stephen Kotkin (1:33:42.760)

on the Russian side's challenges,

Lex Fridman (1:33:45.880)

but he's on Ukrainian territory unless he's evicted,

Lex Fridman (1:33:51.640)

and he's got a stranglehold on their economy,

Lex Fridman (1:33:54.320)

and he's got the possibility that the West

Stephen Kotkin (1:33:58.400)

doesn't stay resolved and doesn't continue to pay

Lex Fridman (1:34:02.240)

for Ukraine's economy or supply those heavy weapons.

Lex Fridman (1:34:06.200)

And so you could argue that maybe he's deluded

Lex Fridman (1:34:09.880)

about all of this, and maybe he should go on Twitter.

Stephen Kotkin (1:34:13.200)

You know, I'm not on Twitter, but maybe Putin,

Lex Fridman (1:34:15.040)

who famously doesn't use the internet,

Stephen Kotkin (1:34:16.760)

should go on Twitter and see he's losing the war.

Lex Fridman (1:34:19.600)

Or you can argue that maybe he's calculating here

Stephen Kotkin (1:34:23.280)

that he's got a chance to still prevail.

Lex Fridman (1:34:28.680)

Wow, that is darkly insightful.

Stephen Kotkin (1:34:31.880)

If I could go to Henry Kissinger for a brief moment,

Lex Fridman (1:34:36.560)

and people should read this op ed he wrote

Stephen Kotkin (1:34:39.760)

in the Washington Post in March 5th, 2014,

Lex Fridman (1:34:44.240)

after the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (1:34:48.040)

but before Crimea was annexed.

Lex Fridman (1:34:51.840)

There's a lot of interesting historical description

Stephen Kotkin (1:34:54.040)

about the division within Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (1:34:56.280)

the corruption within Ukraine that will,

Stephen Kotkin (1:34:59.640)

if people read this article, will give context

Lex Fridman (1:35:03.320)

to how incredible it is, what Zelensky was able

Stephen Kotkin (1:35:06.840)

to accomplish in uniting the country.

Lex Fridman (1:35:08.440)

But I just want to comment because Henry Kissinger

Stephen Kotkin (1:35:12.040)

is an interesting figure in American history.

Lex Fridman (1:35:14.920)

He opens the article with, in my life,

Stephen Kotkin (1:35:17.800)

I have seen four wars begun with great enthusiasm

Lex Fridman (1:35:21.240)

and public support, all of which we did not know

Lex Fridman (1:35:24.360)

how to end, and from three of which

Lex Fridman (1:35:27.000)

we withdrew unilaterally.

Stephen Kotkin (1:35:29.760)

The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins.

Lex Fridman (1:35:35.400)

So he's giving this cold, hard truth

Stephen Kotkin (1:35:38.480)

that we go into wars excited, are able to send $40 billion,

Lex Fridman (1:35:45.000)

financial aid, military aid, our own men and women,

Lex Fridman (1:35:50.440)

but the excitement fades, Twitter outrage fades,

Lex Fridman (1:35:55.440)

and then a country that's willing to wait patiently

Stephen Kotkin (1:36:00.800)

is willing to pay the cost of siege

Lex Fridman (1:36:04.360)

versus the cost of explaining to its own people

Stephen Kotkin (1:36:07.440)

that the war is lost, that country just might win, outlast.

Lex Fridman (1:36:12.480)

Let's hope not because the Ukrainians,

Stephen Kotkin (1:36:18.520)

resistance deserves to prevail here.

Lex Fridman (1:36:21.320)

Russia deserves to lose.

Stephen Kotkin (1:36:23.480)

No war of aggression like they've committed here

Lex Fridman (1:36:26.240)

against Ukraine should prevail

Stephen Kotkin (1:36:28.760)

if we can do anything about it.

Lex Fridman (1:36:30.760)

I support 1,000% the continued supply of heavy weapons,

Stephen Kotkin (1:36:37.120)

including offensive weapons, to the Ukrainians

Lex Fridman (1:36:40.640)

as long as they're willing to resist, and it's their choice.

Stephen Kotkin (1:36:44.480)

It's their choice when to negotiate.

Lex Fridman (1:36:46.720)

It's their choice how much to resist.

Stephen Kotkin (1:36:48.680)

It's their choice what kind of sacrifices to make,

Lex Fridman (1:36:51.440)

and it's our responsibility to meet their requests

Stephen Kotkin (1:36:56.800)

more quickly than we have so far and at greater scale.

Lex Fridman (1:37:01.760)

But ultimately, wars only have political ends.

Stephen Kotkin (1:37:05.200)

They never have military ends.

Lex Fridman (1:37:07.640)

You need a political solution here.

Lex Fridman (1:37:10.320)

So if the Ukrainians are able to conduct

Lex Fridman (1:37:14.280)

a successful counteroffensive at scale

Stephen Kotkin (1:37:17.880)

in July or August, whenever they launch,

Lex Fridman (1:37:23.600)

right now the heavy weapons are coming in

Lex Fridman (1:37:26.520)

and they're being moved to the battlefield

Lex Fridman (1:37:28.800)

and more are coming, you know, the dynamic.

Stephen Kotkin (1:37:31.560)

Russia bombs a school, Russia bombs a hospital.

Lex Fridman (1:37:35.720)

Americans and Europeans decide

Lex Fridman (1:37:37.800)

to send even more heavy weapons to Ukraine, right?

Lex Fridman (1:37:40.560)

That's the self defeating dynamic from the Russian side.

Stephen Kotkin (1:37:43.880)

They commit the atrocities, we send more heavy weapons.

Lex Fridman (1:37:48.360)

Once those heavy weapons are on the battle lines,

Stephen Kotkin (1:37:51.800)

we'll see if Ukrainians cannot just defend,

Lex Fridman (1:37:55.000)

which they've proven they're able to do

Stephen Kotkin (1:37:57.160)

in breathtaking fashion, not just conduct counterattacks

Lex Fridman (1:38:02.720)

where the enemy moves forward

Lex Fridman (1:38:04.720)

and you cut behind the enemy's lines

Lex Fridman (1:38:07.760)

and you counterattack and push the enemy back a little bit,

Lex Fridman (1:38:11.400)

but whether you can evict the Russians

Lex Fridman (1:38:15.800)

from your territory with a combined arms operation

Stephen Kotkin (1:38:20.400)

where you have a massive superiority

Lex Fridman (1:38:22.880)

in infantry and heavy weapons,

Lex Fridman (1:38:25.400)

but more importantly, you coordinate your air power,

Lex Fridman (1:38:29.360)

your tanks, your drones, your infantry at scale,

Stephen Kotkin (1:38:33.840)

which is something the Ukrainians have not done yet.

Lex Fridman (1:38:36.400)

It's something the Russians failed at in Ukraine

Lex Fridman (1:38:39.360)

and they come from the same place, the Soviet military.

Lex Fridman (1:38:42.880)

We hope this Ukrainian counter offensive at scale,

Stephen Kotkin (1:38:46.000)

this combined arms operation succeeds.

Lex Fridman (1:38:50.320)

And if it does succeed,

Stephen Kotkin (1:38:51.640)

there's the possibility of a battlefield victory.

Lex Fridman (1:38:55.160)

Whether that also includes Crimea,

Stephen Kotkin (1:38:58.520)

which as you know is not hostile on the contrary

Lex Fridman (1:39:02.720)

to the Russian military remains to be seen.

Lex Fridman (1:39:06.920)

But however much they regain territorially

Lex Fridman (1:39:13.040)

back towards the 1991 borders,

Stephen Kotkin (1:39:15.520)

which is their goal, their stated goal,

Lex Fridman (1:39:18.000)

and which we support them properly in trying to achieve,

Stephen Kotkin (1:39:22.360)

however much they achieve of that

Lex Fridman (1:39:24.120)

in this counter offensive that we're anticipating,

Stephen Kotkin (1:39:28.160)

that will set the stage for the next phase.

Lex Fridman (1:39:31.000)

And either Russia, which is to say one person,

Stephen Kotkin (1:39:35.560)

Vladimir Putin, will acknowledge that he's lost the war

Lex Fridman (1:39:40.960)

because the Ukrainians won it on the battlefield,

Stephen Kotkin (1:39:44.320)

or he'll try to announce a full scale mobilization,

Lex Fridman (1:39:49.920)

conscript the whole country, go back,

Lex Fridman (1:39:53.400)

and instead of acknowledging defeat,

Lex Fridman (1:39:55.440)

try to win with a different plan,

Stephen Kotkin (1:39:57.040)

recalibrate, remains to be seen.

Lex Fridman (1:40:00.320)

Will the Ukrainians negotiate any territory away

Stephen Kotkin (1:40:03.920)

or must they capture also Crimea,

Lex Fridman (1:40:07.440)

which puts a very high bar on the summer counter offensive

Stephen Kotkin (1:40:13.120)

that we're gonna see, which could last through the fall

Lex Fridman (1:40:15.360)

and into the winter as a result.

Stephen Kotkin (1:40:17.520)

We don't know the answers to that,

Lex Fridman (1:40:18.880)

nobody knows the answers to that.

Stephen Kotkin (1:40:20.960)

People are guessing, some people are better informed

Lex Fridman (1:40:23.760)

because they have inside intelligence.

Stephen Kotkin (1:40:28.600)

People are also worried about Russian escalation

Lex Fridman (1:40:32.600)

to nuclear weapons or chemical weapons

Stephen Kotkin (1:40:34.880)

if they begin to lose on the battlefield to Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:40:38.320)

Are you worried about nuclear war,

Lex Fridman (1:40:40.680)

the possibility of nuclear war?

Lex Fridman (1:40:44.640)

I think it's necessary to pay attention to that possibility.

Stephen Kotkin (1:40:49.000)

That possibility existed before the February 2022

Lex Fridman (1:40:54.840)

full blown invasion of Ukraine.

Stephen Kotkin (1:40:57.240)

The doomsday arsenal that Russia possesses

Lex Fridman (1:41:00.320)

is enough to destroy the world many times over,

Lex Fridman (1:41:03.480)

and that's been the case every year

Lex Fridman (1:41:06.440)

since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Lex Fridman (1:41:10.240)

And so, of course, we're concerned about that.

Lex Fridman (1:41:13.920)

We do know, however, Lex,

Stephen Kotkin (1:41:15.720)

that they have a system known as dual key,

Lex Fridman (1:41:19.520)

dual key for their strategic nuclear weapons.

Stephen Kotkin (1:41:23.720)

Strategic nuclear weapons means the ones fired from silos,

Lex Fridman (1:41:28.400)

the missiles, the ones delivered from bombers,

Lex Fridman (1:41:32.320)

or the ones fired from submarines, right?

Lex Fridman (1:41:34.440)

And they're ready to go.

Stephen Kotkin (1:41:35.840)

They're intercontinental.

Lex Fridman (1:41:37.720)

We watch that very, very closely.

Stephen Kotkin (1:41:40.480)

We watch all the movement of that and the alerts, et cetera.

Lex Fridman (1:41:44.440)

We have tremendously, let's say,

Stephen Kotkin (1:41:48.280)

tremendous inside intelligence on that.

Lex Fridman (1:41:51.120)

But dual key means that President Putin alone

Stephen Kotkin (1:41:53.800)

cannot fire them.

Lex Fridman (1:41:55.400)

He has one key, which he must insert,

Stephen Kotkin (1:41:57.840)

he must then insert the codes for a command to launch.

Lex Fridman (1:42:04.160)

That then goes to the head of the general staff,

Stephen Kotkin (1:42:08.720)

who must, he has his own key and separate codes,

Lex Fridman (1:42:11.560)

and must do the same,

Stephen Kotkin (1:42:12.720)

insert that key and codes for them to launch.

Lex Fridman (1:42:16.200)

And so will the general staff chief go along

Stephen Kotkin (1:42:21.080)

with the destruction of the world

Lex Fridman (1:42:22.960)

over a battlefield loss in Ukraine?

Stephen Kotkin (1:42:25.160)

I don't know the answer to that,

Lex Fridman (1:42:26.720)

and I don't know if anybody knows the answer to that.

Stephen Kotkin (1:42:29.080)

Will those people flying those bombers,

Lex Fridman (1:42:32.160)

if they get the order from,

Stephen Kotkin (1:42:33.640)

if the dual key system goes into action

Lex Fridman (1:42:36.760)

and both keys are used and all the codes are implemented,

Stephen Kotkin (1:42:42.240)

will those young guys flying those bombers

Lex Fridman (1:42:45.520)

let those bombs go?

Lex Fridman (1:42:47.280)

Will those at the missile silos decide to engage and fire?

Lex Fridman (1:42:52.280)

We don't know, but you can see that it's more than one man

Stephen Kotkin (1:42:55.280)

making the decision here

Lex Fridman (1:42:57.120)

in a system of strategic nuclear weapons.

Stephen Kotkin (1:43:00.200)

As far as the tactical, the so called low yield

Lex Fridman (1:43:03.640)

or battlefield nuclear weapons,

Stephen Kotkin (1:43:06.440)

we're not sure the system that they have in Russia these days

Lex Fridman (1:43:10.120)

for their implement, for their use

Stephen Kotkin (1:43:12.200)

of such tactical nuclear weapons.

Lex Fridman (1:43:15.560)

It could well be that Putin and just himself,

Stephen Kotkin (1:43:20.560)

himself, he alone can fire them or order them be fired.

Lex Fridman (1:43:27.760)

What you know, Lex, there's no tactical nuclear weapon

Stephen Kotkin (1:43:31.120)

fired at Ukraine that's not also fired simultaneously

Lex Fridman (1:43:35.280)

at Russia.

Stephen Kotkin (1:43:38.080)

If the Kremlin is 600 miles from Ukraine

Lex Fridman (1:43:43.360)

and if the wind changes direction

Stephen Kotkin (1:43:46.080)

or the wind happens to be blowing east, northeast,

Lex Fridman (1:43:51.000)

the fallout hits your Kremlin, not just Ukraine.

Stephen Kotkin (1:43:55.440)

Moreover, you have all those border regions

Lex Fridman (1:43:58.000)

which are staging regions for the Russian offensive

Lex Fridman (1:44:01.720)

and they're a lot closer than 600 miles.

Lex Fridman (1:44:04.160)

They're actually right there.

Lex Fridman (1:44:06.280)

And so you fire that weapon on Ukrainian territory

Lex Fridman (1:44:09.560)

and you can get the fallout

Stephen Kotkin (1:44:11.880)

just like the Chernobyl fallout spread to Sweden

Lex Fridman (1:44:16.200)

which is how we got the Kremlin to finally,

Stephen Kotkin (1:44:20.480)

first they denied this at all.

Lex Fridman (1:44:22.040)

We don't know why there's a big nuclear cloud over Sweden.

Stephen Kotkin (1:44:25.280)

We don't know where that came from

Lex Fridman (1:44:26.960)

but eventually they admitted it.

Lex Fridman (1:44:29.600)

So Russia can actually use a nuclear weapon

Lex Fridman (1:44:33.400)

tactical battlefield one in Ukraine

Stephen Kotkin (1:44:35.880)

without also firing it at itself.

Lex Fridman (1:44:38.960)

And in addition, it's that same dynamic

Stephen Kotkin (1:44:41.120)

I alluded to earlier

Lex Fridman (1:44:42.960)

which is to say you bomb a hospital,

Stephen Kotkin (1:44:46.520)

you bomb a school, there's more heavy weapons

Lex Fridman (1:44:50.560)

going to Ukraine from the west.

Stephen Kotkin (1:44:52.600)

You can't get away with any of the,

Lex Fridman (1:44:55.080)

there's always going to be a response

Stephen Kotkin (1:44:56.520)

that's either proportional or greater than proportional.

Lex Fridman (1:44:59.160)

You could well have Europe signing on

Stephen Kotkin (1:45:02.880)

to NATO direct engagement,

Lex Fridman (1:45:05.200)

both Washington and Brussels direct engagement

Stephen Kotkin (1:45:09.080)

of the Russian army on the territory of Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:45:13.160)

You think that's possible to do that

Lex Fridman (1:45:15.040)

without dramatic escalation from the Russian side?

Lex Fridman (1:45:19.320)

Yes, I do think it's possible

Lex Fridman (1:45:21.080)

but it's very worrisome just like you're saying.

Lex Fridman (1:45:24.240)

But if Putin were to escalate like that,

Stephen Kotkin (1:45:28.240)

he's firing that weapon at himself

Lex Fridman (1:45:31.240)

and he's potentially provoking a direct clash

Stephen Kotkin (1:45:34.560)

with NATO's military,

Lex Fridman (1:45:36.400)

not just with the Ukrainian military.

Stephen Kotkin (1:45:39.240)

If you're sitting in the Kremlin

Lex Fridman (1:45:40.800)

looking at those charts, Lex, of NATO capabilities

Lex Fridman (1:45:46.360)

and you can't conquer Ukraine

Lex Fridman (1:45:48.520)

which didn't really have heavy weapons

Stephen Kotkin (1:45:50.400)

before February 2022 at scale

Lex Fridman (1:45:55.240)

and you're thinking, okay, now I'm gonna take on NATO,

Stephen Kotkin (1:45:59.640)

that would be a bold step on the part of a Russian leader.

Lex Fridman (1:46:03.960)

And let's also remember, Lex,

Stephen Kotkin (1:46:06.240)

that there's another variable here.

Lex Fridman (1:46:08.960)

You're a despot as long as everyone implements your orders.

Lex Fridman (1:46:16.040)

And so if people start to say quietly,

Lex Fridman (1:46:20.440)

not necessarily publicly, I may not implement that order

Stephen Kotkin (1:46:24.880)

because that's maybe a criminal order

Lex Fridman (1:46:27.320)

or my grandma is Ukrainian or my wife is Ukrainian

Stephen Kotkin (1:46:32.320)

or I don't wanna go to the hog.

Lex Fridman (1:46:36.520)

I don't wanna spend the rest of my life in the hog

Stephen Kotkin (1:46:38.640)

or whatever it might be.

Lex Fridman (1:46:40.320)

At any point along the chain of command

Stephen Kotkin (1:46:43.280)

from the general staff all the way down, right,

Lex Fridman (1:46:46.920)

to the platoon, you're a despot

Stephen Kotkin (1:46:49.680)

provided they implement your orders.

Lex Fridman (1:46:52.760)

But who's to say that somewhere along the chain of command

Stephen Kotkin (1:46:57.760)

people start to say, I'm gonna ignore that order

Lex Fridman (1:47:03.120)

or I'm gonna sabotage that order

Stephen Kotkin (1:47:05.800)

or I'm gonna flee the battlefield

Lex Fridman (1:47:09.000)

or I'm gonna injure myself so that I don't have to fight

Stephen Kotkin (1:47:12.960)

or I'm gonna join the Ukrainian side.

Lex Fridman (1:47:16.520)

And so it could be that's what's left

Stephen Kotkin (1:47:19.520)

of the Russian army in the field begins to disintegrate.

Lex Fridman (1:47:24.440)

Even if the Ukrainians are not able to mount that

Stephen Kotkin (1:47:27.920)

counter offensive at scale, that combined arms operation,

Lex Fridman (1:47:33.040)

the Russian military in the field,

Stephen Kotkin (1:47:34.840)

which has taken horrendous casualties

Lex Fridman (1:47:36.800)

as far as we understand, something like a third

Stephen Kotkin (1:47:39.320)

of the original force, so you're talking about 50 to 60,000

Lex Fridman (1:47:45.720)

that includes both dead and wounded to the point

Stephen Kotkin (1:47:49.000)

of being unable to return to the battlefield.

Lex Fridman (1:47:51.800)

Those are big numbers.

Stephen Kotkin (1:47:53.680)

Those were a lot of families, a lot of families affected.

Lex Fridman (1:47:58.560)

Their sons or their husbands or their fathers

Stephen Kotkin (1:48:02.480)

are either missing in action or the regime won't tell them

Lex Fridman (1:48:05.720)

that they're dead, as you know from the sinking

Stephen Kotkin (1:48:08.560)

of that flagship, Moskva, right, by the Ukrainians.

Lex Fridman (1:48:15.240)

And so a disintegration of the Russian military

Stephen Kotkin (1:48:18.440)

because there are orders that they either can't implement

Lex Fridman (1:48:21.800)

or don't wanna implement is also not excluded.

Lex Fridman (1:48:26.840)

And so you have these two big variables,

Lex Fridman (1:48:29.200)

the Ukrainian army in the field and its ability

Stephen Kotkin (1:48:32.000)

to move from defense to offense at scale,

Lex Fridman (1:48:35.280)

and we're gonna test that soon.

Lex Fridman (1:48:37.320)

And then the Russian ability in the field to hold together

Lex Fridman (1:48:41.280)

in a war of conquest and aggression

Stephen Kotkin (1:48:44.920)

where they're conscripts or they're fed dog food

Lex Fridman (1:48:49.640)

or they don't have any weapons anymore

Stephen Kotkin (1:48:53.040)

because there's no resupply,

Lex Fridman (1:48:55.800)

so the disintegration of the army can't be excluded.

Lex Fridman (1:48:59.160)

And then, of course, all bets are off on the Putin regime.

Lex Fridman (1:49:02.800)

More long term, there are these technology export controls.

Stephen Kotkin (1:49:07.800)

We were talking about how the military industrial complex

Lex Fridman (1:49:10.720)

in Russia is dependent on foreign component parts

Lex Fridman (1:49:15.160)

and software, and so if you have export controls

Lex Fridman (1:49:19.400)

and you have firms voluntarily,

Stephen Kotkin (1:49:21.320)

even when they don't fall under export controls,

Lex Fridman (1:49:24.200)

leaving Russian business, refusing to do business

Stephen Kotkin (1:49:27.320)

with Russia, and we see this not just in the civilian sector

Lex Fridman (1:49:31.640)

like with McDonald's or many other companies,

Stephen Kotkin (1:49:35.320)

we see this in the key areas like the oil industry

Lex Fridman (1:49:40.320)

with the executives fleeing,

Stephen Kotkin (1:49:43.280)

that is the Western executives fleeing,

Lex Fridman (1:49:45.480)

giving up their positions.

Lex Fridman (1:49:47.800)

So Russia's ability to resupply its tanks,

Lex Fridman (1:49:51.640)

resupply its missiles, resupply its uniforms,

Stephen Kotkin (1:49:58.040)

resupply its food to its soldiers in the field

Lex Fridman (1:50:01.840)

and in their boots, we see a lot of stuff

Stephen Kotkin (1:50:05.880)

under tremendous stress, and in the long term,

Lex Fridman (1:50:08.960)

there's no obvious way they can rebuild

Stephen Kotkin (1:50:12.680)

the military industrial complex to produce those weapons

Lex Fridman (1:50:17.720)

because they're reliant on foreign parts

Stephen Kotkin (1:50:20.000)

that they can't get anymore,

Lex Fridman (1:50:21.240)

and there are no domestic substitutes

Stephen Kotkin (1:50:23.840)

on the immediate horizon.

Lex Fridman (1:50:26.120)

That's at the earliest a two year proposition

Stephen Kotkin (1:50:30.600)

to have domestic substitutes,

Lex Fridman (1:50:32.280)

and for some things like microelectronics,

Stephen Kotkin (1:50:35.360)

they've never had domestic substitutes

Lex Fridman (1:50:37.320)

going back to the Soviet times as you know well.

Lex Fridman (1:50:40.680)

And so there's that pressure on Russia

Lex Fridman (1:50:43.920)

from the technology export controls,

Stephen Kotkin (1:50:46.760)

which if you're in the security ministry

Lex Fridman (1:50:49.760)

or the defense ministry,

Stephen Kotkin (1:50:51.080)

if you're in that side of the regime,

Lex Fridman (1:50:54.360)

you're feeling that pain as we speak,

Lex Fridman (1:50:56.960)

and you're wondering about the strategy.

Lex Fridman (1:51:01.960)

Let me ask you about, again, the echoes of history,

Lex Fridman (1:51:06.480)

and it frustrates me in part

Lex Fridman (1:51:08.200)

when people draw these parallels,

Lex Fridman (1:51:10.440)

but maybe there is some deep insight about those parallels.

Lex Fridman (1:51:14.160)

So there's a song that goes,

Stephen Kotkin (1:51:18.800)

Dvata Teroviy Uniya Rovnovshchitya Chisa

Lex Fridman (1:51:21.280)

Kiev by Bitya Nama Bitya Shtanochilai Svaina.

Lex Fridman (1:51:24.640)

So Operation Barbarossa, the bombing of Kiev by Hitler,

Lex Fridman (1:51:31.960)

there is sort of an eerie parallel,

Lex Fridman (1:51:34.320)

and you have to be extremely careful

Lex Fridman (1:51:37.320)

drawing such parallels and such connections

Stephen Kotkin (1:51:42.000)

to this unexplainable war that is World War II.

Lex Fridman (1:51:50.400)

But is there elements of this that do echo

Lex Fridman (1:51:56.520)

in the actions of Vladimir Putin?

Lex Fridman (1:51:58.800)

And more specifically, do you think that Vladimir Putin

Lex Fridman (1:52:03.720)

is a war criminal?

Lex Fridman (1:52:06.280)

Can that label be assigned to the actions of this man?

Stephen Kotkin (1:52:10.960)

A war criminal is a legal determination,

Lex Fridman (1:52:14.560)

and it requires evidence and due process

Lex Fridman (1:52:17.840)

and the ability to defend oneself.

Lex Fridman (1:52:21.360)

We don't just decide in the Twittersphere

Stephen Kotkin (1:52:24.880)

or on a podcast that somebody is a war criminal.

Lex Fridman (1:52:28.800)

They can be a suspected war criminal,

Lex Fridman (1:52:31.680)

and we can gather evidence to try to prosecute that case.

Lex Fridman (1:52:36.000)

And then the issue for us, Alexis,

Lex Fridman (1:52:39.000)

which court does it go to?

Lex Fridman (1:52:41.920)

What's the appropriate place?

Lex Fridman (1:52:44.120)

Does it happen in Ukraine because they're the victims?

Lex Fridman (1:52:46.680)

Does it happen in the Hague

Lex Fridman (1:52:47.920)

because there's an international criminal court there?

Lex Fridman (1:52:51.160)

Does it happen inside Russia

Lex Fridman (1:52:52.920)

because there's regime change at some point?

Lex Fridman (1:52:56.000)

And some of these people become,

Stephen Kotkin (1:52:59.280)

let's say they get arrested by their own people

Lex Fridman (1:53:02.760)

inside Russia.

Lex Fridman (1:53:05.080)

So those are all important questions

Lex Fridman (1:53:07.080)

that have to be pursued with resources

Lex Fridman (1:53:09.480)

and with determination and by skilled people

Lex Fridman (1:53:13.720)

who are excellent at gathering that evidence.

Lex Fridman (1:53:17.000)

And that process is underway.

Lex Fridman (1:53:18.880)

And Ukraine has a trial underway now

Stephen Kotkin (1:53:22.040)

of one alleged war criminal who's pleaded guilty.

Lex Fridman (1:53:26.560)

And we'll see what the outcome of that trial

Stephen Kotkin (1:53:29.400)

inside Ukraine is of a lower level official,

Lex Fridman (1:53:31.920)

not obviously Vladimir Putin,

Lex Fridman (1:53:34.800)

but the commander of a tank group.

Lex Fridman (1:53:38.760)

So, yes, the names are eerily familiar.

Lex Fridman (1:53:46.320)

Izium, Kharkiv, Kiev, right?

Lex Fridman (1:53:51.320)

Those are the names we know from the Nazi invasion

Lex Fridman (1:53:55.760)

and the Nazi occupation of Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:54:00.000)

And it's very deeply troubling

Stephen Kotkin (1:54:03.080)

to think that this could happen again.

Lex Fridman (1:54:06.200)

And there's a bizarre sense that the Russians

Stephen Kotkin (1:54:10.560)

claiming as Putin says to deNazify Ukraine

Lex Fridman (1:54:14.760)

have invaded the same places that the Nazis invaded

Stephen Kotkin (1:54:19.280)

back in 1941.

Lex Fridman (1:54:21.920)

As somebody who's working on volume three

Stephen Kotkin (1:54:26.000)

of your work on Stalin going through this period,

Lex Fridman (1:54:30.480)

is it eerie to you?

Stephen Kotkin (1:54:32.200)

Yes, it is, Lex.

Lex Fridman (1:54:33.520)

That you're.

Stephen Kotkin (1:54:34.640)

I've written the chapters of volume three.

Lex Fridman (1:54:37.560)

I've drafted the chapters on the war.

Lex Fridman (1:54:40.800)

And as I said, the place names

Lex Fridman (1:54:43.680)

are very evocative, unfortunately.

Stephen Kotkin (1:54:45.920)

But, you know, the Nazis failed ultimately.

Lex Fridman (1:54:52.800)

They captured Ukraine for a time,

Lex Fridman (1:54:57.200)

but they were evicted from Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:55:00.400)

There was massive partisan or guerrilla warfare resistance

Stephen Kotkin (1:55:05.600)

behind Nazi lines the whole time

Lex Fridman (1:55:08.800)

that they were allegedly in control of Ukraine.

Stephen Kotkin (1:55:13.000)

If you look at the maps on cable TV,

Lex Fridman (1:55:15.200)

they show you the sign of,

Stephen Kotkin (1:55:17.200)

they show you the coloring, Russian control.

Lex Fridman (1:55:19.840)

And they draw a line and then it's colored in.

Lex Fridman (1:55:22.360)

But the word control is misplaced.

Lex Fridman (1:55:25.640)

They don't actually control it.

Stephen Kotkin (1:55:27.080)

It's Russian claimed or extent

Lex Fridman (1:55:30.360)

of farthest Russian troop advancement.

Stephen Kotkin (1:55:34.600)

Because behind the Russian lines in Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (1:55:37.480)

Crimea accepted, you have insurgencies.

Stephen Kotkin (1:55:40.960)

You have the armed insurgency.

Lex Fridman (1:55:43.320)

In Melitopol, for example,

Stephen Kotkin (1:55:45.520)

which is a place that you know in Southeastern Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (1:55:50.320)

there is a guerrilla war now underway

Stephen Kotkin (1:55:53.440)

to hurt the Russians who are in occupation

Lex Fridman (1:55:57.800)

of that city and region.

Lex Fridman (1:56:00.240)

And we're gonna see that continue

Lex Fridman (1:56:02.680)

even if the war becomes a stalemate,

Stephen Kotkin (1:56:07.440)

even if it stalemates more or less

Lex Fridman (1:56:09.720)

at the lines we're at now,

Stephen Kotkin (1:56:11.880)

which would mean that anticipated

Lex Fridman (1:56:15.160)

Ukrainian counteroffensive at scale proves unsuccessful.

Stephen Kotkin (1:56:19.440)

The Russian army doesn't disintegrate.

Lex Fridman (1:56:22.760)

And you end up with a stalemate

Stephen Kotkin (1:56:25.720)

where there could be a ceasefire or not a ceasefire,

Lex Fridman (1:56:28.400)

but neither side is attempting an offensive

Stephen Kotkin (1:56:30.560)

for the time being.

Lex Fridman (1:56:32.440)

There will be resistance behind those Russian lines

Lex Fridman (1:56:36.320)

and it will be fierce resistance.

Lex Fridman (1:56:38.680)

The kind of resistance we saw to the Nazi occupation.

Stephen Kotkin (1:56:43.120)

Ultimately, it took the Red Army

Lex Fridman (1:56:46.320)

reinvading the territory of Ukraine

Lex Fridman (1:56:50.480)

and succeeding at combined arms operations at scale.

Lex Fridman (1:56:56.120)

A massive counteroffensive,

Stephen Kotkin (1:56:57.880)

much larger than anything we're talking about today.

Lex Fridman (1:57:01.160)

Ultimately, it required that

Stephen Kotkin (1:57:02.760)

to evict the Nazis from Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:57:05.520)

But in the meantime, they did not have an easy occupation

Stephen Kotkin (1:57:08.800)

regime there.

Lex Fridman (1:57:11.680)

Ukrainian partisans, Soviet partisans

Stephen Kotkin (1:57:17.040)

killed Nazi officials, Wehrmacht soldiers, Wehrmacht officers

Lex Fridman (1:57:22.760)

blew up the infrastructure they were using,

Stephen Kotkin (1:57:28.480)

made them pay a price for their occupation.

Lex Fridman (1:57:31.760)

We could well see if unfortunately

Stephen Kotkin (1:57:34.880)

this ends in a stalemate for the time being,

Lex Fridman (1:57:38.160)

we could well see that type of insurgency

Stephen Kotkin (1:57:41.400)

gain momentum behind Russian lines

Lex Fridman (1:57:45.080)

and try to evict the Russians that way

Lex Fridman (1:57:49.280)

and then remount the counteroffensive at scale

Lex Fridman (1:57:52.600)

later on in the future if the first one doesn't succeed.

Lex Fridman (1:57:57.520)

So that would be further echoes

Lex Fridman (1:58:01.000)

of the World War II experience.

Stephen Kotkin (1:58:03.040)

The scale once again is much smaller.

Lex Fridman (1:58:05.840)

The size of the armies here,

Stephen Kotkin (1:58:08.120)

they're not in the many 800,000, 700,000,

Lex Fridman (1:58:13.120)

a million two, a million four.

Stephen Kotkin (1:58:15.360)

That's not what we're talking about today.

Lex Fridman (1:58:18.040)

But the weapons, the cruise missiles, artillery fire.

Stephen Kotkin (1:58:24.600)

Artillery fire used to be very inaccurate

Lex Fridman (1:58:27.320)

and it was like saturation.

Stephen Kotkin (1:58:29.400)

You would just fire towards the enemy lines

Lex Fridman (1:58:31.880)

and if you hit something, you hit something

Lex Fridman (1:58:33.520)

and if you didn't, you just kept firing.

Lex Fridman (1:58:36.880)

Now you have drones, Lex.

Lex Fridman (1:58:39.520)

And so artillery fire is now sniper fire

Lex Fridman (1:58:44.080)

because you can coordinate the direction

Stephen Kotkin (1:58:46.000)

of the artillery fire with the drones.

Lex Fridman (1:58:49.520)

The drones can take a picture and show you

Stephen Kotkin (1:58:52.240)

where the enemy is precisely located

Lex Fridman (1:58:55.400)

and you can align that artillery to hit them

Stephen Kotkin (1:58:58.840)

instead of just indiscriminately bombing an area,

Lex Fridman (1:59:02.200)

a territory.

Lex Fridman (1:59:03.920)

And the NATO supplied artillery goes really far

Lex Fridman (1:59:08.320)

and you can fire into Russian positions

Lex Fridman (1:59:11.520)

and yourself not be exposed to Russian fire

Lex Fridman (1:59:15.200)

because your artillery fires farther than theirs.

Lex Fridman (1:59:20.560)

So that's coming and we're gonna see that in action.

Lex Fridman (1:59:24.640)

And so the scale is not the same,

Lex Fridman (1:59:27.520)

but the weapons, the precision of some of the weapons

Lex Fridman (1:59:30.520)

and some of the NATO.

Stephen Kotkin (1:59:31.640)

We're not sending all of our stuff,

Lex Fridman (1:59:34.000)

but as I said, the dynamic is Russia commits atrocities,

Stephen Kotkin (1:59:37.480)

Russia bombs schools, Russia bombs hospitals,

Lex Fridman (1:59:40.240)

Russia kills civilians and more and heavier

Lex Fridman (1:59:44.840)

and more lethal Western weapons go to Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (1:59:48.960)

Their willingness to risk their lives is really so impressive

Lex Fridman (1:59:53.560)

and the reason that it's our duty,

Lex Fridman (1:59:58.160)

we're obliged to supply those weapons.

Stephen Kotkin (20:02.300)

of every service and every blandishment of the West,

Lex Fridman (20:07.020)

while they're availing themselves of this,

Stephen Kotkin (20:09.220)

that they're fighting a conspiracy by the West

Lex Fridman (20:12.620)

to bring them down.

Lex Fridman (20:14.420)

So this is what they call the Abyssinia in Russian,

Lex Fridman (20:21.460)

which is a term, as you know,

Stephen Kotkin (20:23.540)

that means those who are resentful,

Lex Fridman (20:26.860)

or you might call them the losers,

Stephen Kotkin (20:29.140)

the losers in the transition.

Lex Fridman (20:31.860)

So when the Soviet Union fell

Lex Fridman (20:34.380)

and there was a very substantial diminution

Lex Fridman (20:38.740)

in Russian power and influence in the world,

Stephen Kotkin (20:41.580)

a lot of people lost out.

Lex Fridman (20:43.980)

They weren't able to steal the property.

Stephen Kotkin (20:46.900)

They weren't able to loot the state in the 90s.

Lex Fridman (20:50.500)

And they were on the outside.

Stephen Kotkin (20:52.740)

They gradually came back in.

Lex Fridman (20:55.220)

They were the losers in the transition domestically.

Lex Fridman (20:59.180)

And for them, they wanted to reverse

Lex Fridman (21:04.180)

being on the losing side.

Lex Fridman (21:05.940)

And so they began to expropriate, to steal the money,

Lex Fridman (21:10.060)

steal the property from those first thieves

Stephen Kotkin (21:14.900)

who stole in the 90s.

Lex Fridman (21:16.940)

And the 2000s and on have been about restealing,

Stephen Kotkin (21:20.100)

taking the losers in the transition,

Lex Fridman (21:23.180)

taking the money from the winners

Lex Fridman (21:25.900)

and reversing this resentment, this loser status.

Lex Fridman (21:30.620)

Those are your Patrushevs and your Putins.

Lex Fridman (21:33.620)

But at the same time, this blows out

Lex Fridman (21:36.580)

to let's reverse the losses, being on the losing side,

Stephen Kotkin (21:41.740)

the roiling resentment

Lex Fridman (21:43.580)

at the decline of their power internationally.

Stephen Kotkin (21:47.020)

Let's try to reverse that too.

Lex Fridman (21:49.620)

So you have a profound psychological whole generation

Stephen Kotkin (21:55.140)

of people who are on the losing end domestically

Lex Fridman (21:58.340)

and reverse that domestically.

Stephen Kotkin (22:00.460)

That's what the Putin regime is about.

Lex Fridman (22:02.260)

Remember Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Yukos?

Stephen Kotkin (22:06.180)

Remember all the companies that are now owned

Lex Fridman (22:09.300)

by Putin cronies because they were taken away

Stephen Kotkin (22:12.660)

from whoever stole them in the first place.

Lex Fridman (22:15.700)

And now they're trying to do that on the international scale.

Stephen Kotkin (22:19.180)

It's one thing to put domestic opponents in jail.

Lex Fridman (22:22.860)

It's one thing to take away someone's property domestically,

Lex Fridman (22:27.020)

but you're not gonna reverse the power of the West

Lex Fridman (22:30.020)

with the diminished Russia that you have.

Lex Fridman (22:33.180)

And so that project, that Patrushev project,

Lex Fridman (22:37.860)

which we see him expressing again and again,

Stephen Kotkin (22:41.140)

he speaks about it publicly.

Lex Fridman (22:43.020)

It's not something that we need to go looking for,

Stephen Kotkin (22:48.020)

a quest, the secret, we can't find it.

Lex Fridman (22:50.460)

What are they thinking?

Stephen Kotkin (22:51.540)

It's right there in front of our face.

Lex Fridman (22:53.740)

And Putin has spoken the same way for a long time.

Stephen Kotkin (22:56.660)

People point to the 2007 speech

Lex Fridman (22:59.820)

at the Munich Security Conference

Stephen Kotkin (23:01.580)

that Putin delivered, and certainly your listeners

Lex Fridman (23:04.180)

could use a snippet or two of that,

Stephen Kotkin (23:06.540)

just like they could use a couple of quotes

Lex Fridman (23:09.180)

from Patrushev to contextualize what we're talking about.

Lex Fridman (23:13.140)

But it predates the 2007 Munich speech,

Lex Fridman (23:16.980)

the reaction to Ukraine's uprising in 2004,

Stephen Kotkin (23:22.900)

attempt to steal the election inside Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (23:27.900)

which the Ukrainian people rose up valiantly

Lex Fridman (23:31.020)

against and risked their lives and overturned, right?

Lex Fridman (23:34.940)

So there were public statements from Putin already back then,

Stephen Kotkin (23:38.420)

the statements about Khodorkovsky in 2003

Lex Fridman (23:41.300)

when he was arrested and expropriated.

Stephen Kotkin (23:44.020)

This is a longstanding deeply psychological issue,

Lex Fridman (23:51.100)

which is about managing Russian power in the world,

Stephen Kotkin (23:53.740)

as I was saying, the gap with the West,

Lex Fridman (23:55.940)

but has this further dimension of feeling like losers

Lex Fridman (23:59.140)

and wanting to reverse that, that's their life experience.

Lex Fridman (24:03.540)

I'd be a zhenei.

Lex Fridman (24:04.580)

So there's that resentment that fuels this narrative,

Lex Fridman (24:09.980)

fuels this geopolitics and internal policy.

Lex Fridman (24:14.500)

But so resentment is behind some of the worst things

Lex Fridman (24:16.860)

that have ever been done in human history.

Stephen Kotkin (24:19.220)

Hitler was probably fueled by resentment.

Lex Fridman (24:22.540)

So resentment is a really powerful force, yes.

Stephen Kotkin (24:26.020)

Just to maybe not push back,

Lex Fridman (24:30.260)

but to give fuller context on the West,

Stephen Kotkin (24:33.300)

you said there's a narrative from Putin's Russia

Lex Fridman (24:39.460)

that the West is somehow an enemy,

Stephen Kotkin (24:42.220)

you position everything against the West,

Lex Fridman (24:45.180)

but is there a degree and to what degree

Lex Fridman (24:47.860)

is the West willing to feed that narrative?

Lex Fridman (24:50.860)

That it's also convenient for the West to have an enemy.

Stephen Kotkin (24:53.980)

It seems like in the place, in the span,

Lex Fridman (24:58.260)

it seems like in geopolitics,

Stephen Kotkin (25:00.580)

having an enemy is useful for forming a narrative.

Lex Fridman (25:06.380)

Now, having an enemy for the basic respect of humanity

Stephen Kotkin (25:09.860)

is not good, but in terms of maintaining power,

Lex Fridman (25:12.980)

if you're a leader in a game of geopolitics,

Stephen Kotkin (25:15.580)

it seems to be good to have an enemy.

Lex Fridman (25:18.580)

It seems to be good to have something like a cold war.

Stephen Kotkin (25:21.700)

We can always point your finger and says,

Lex Fridman (25:23.500)

all our actions are fighting this evil,

Stephen Kotkin (25:27.220)

whatever that evil is.

Lex Fridman (25:28.540)

It could be like with George W. Bush, the war on terror.

Stephen Kotkin (25:32.260)

Terrorism is this evil.

Lex Fridman (25:33.660)

You can always point at something.

Lex Fridman (25:35.400)

So you've made it seem that the West is trying.

Lex Fridman (25:38.080)

There's a lot of forces within the West

Stephen Kotkin (25:39.740)

that are trying to reach out a friendly hand,

Lex Fridman (25:42.660)

trying to help, sending money, sending compassion,

Stephen Kotkin (25:46.580)

trying to sort of.

Lex Fridman (25:48.020)

Trying to integrate Russia into a global institution.

Stephen Kotkin (25:51.100)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (25:51.940)

Which was a longstanding multi decade effort

Stephen Kotkin (25:55.180)

across multiple countries

Lex Fridman (25:56.780)

and multiple administrations in those countries.

Lex Fridman (25:59.660)

But is there also warmongers on the West?

Lex Fridman (26:02.140)

Of course, Lex.

Stephen Kotkin (26:03.020)

Of course you're right about that.

Lex Fridman (26:04.420)

But let's put it this way.

Stephen Kotkin (26:06.120)

People talk about the cold war

Lex Fridman (26:08.940)

and they usually looking to assign blame for the cold war

Stephen Kotkin (26:12.860)

as if it's some kind of mistake, a misunderstanding,

Lex Fridman (26:17.020)

or a search for an enemy that was convenient

Stephen Kotkin (26:20.060)

to rally domestic politics.

Lex Fridman (26:23.100)

So Lex, there's a coup in Czechoslovakia

Lex Fridman (26:28.100)

and somebody installs a communist regime in February 1948.

Lex Fridman (26:33.700)

No reaction to that?

Lex Fridman (26:34.820)

That's just okay?

Lex Fridman (26:36.660)

There's a blockade of Berlin.

Lex Fridman (26:39.060)

Is that cool by you?

Lex Fridman (26:40.660)

Where they try to strangle West Berlin

Lex Fridman (26:44.340)

so that they can swallow West Berlin

Lex Fridman (26:46.500)

and add it to East Berlin.

Lex Fridman (26:48.080)

You cool with that?

Lex Fridman (26:50.220)

How about Korean War, invasion of North Korea,

Lex Fridman (26:54.700)

invasion of South Korea by North Korea?

Lex Fridman (26:57.100)

You cool with that?

Lex Fridman (26:58.940)

How about the murders and the show trials

Lex Fridman (27:01.660)

up and down Eastern Europe in the late 40s

Lex Fridman (27:05.220)

after the imposition of the clone regimes?

Lex Fridman (27:08.060)

You good with that?

Stephen Kotkin (27:09.780)

Yeah, it's very convenient to have an enemy.

Lex Fridman (27:12.300)

I agree with you.

Lex Fridman (27:13.700)

But you know, there was some actions, Lex.

Lex Fridman (27:17.120)

There was some threats to people's freedom.

Stephen Kotkin (27:19.860)

There was some invasions.

Lex Fridman (27:21.860)

There was some aggression and violence on a mass scale,

Stephen Kotkin (27:25.920)

like collectivization of Eastern Europe.

Lex Fridman (27:28.140)

And we could go on, Lex, with the examples.

Stephen Kotkin (27:30.640)

I'm just giving a few of them.

Lex Fridman (27:33.100)

And so the Cold War was not a mistake.

Stephen Kotkin (27:36.060)

It was not a misunderstanding.

Lex Fridman (27:38.500)

We don't have to blame someone for the Cold War.

Stephen Kotkin (27:41.340)

We have to give credit for the Cold War.

Lex Fridman (27:44.040)

The Truman administration deserves credit

Stephen Kotkin (27:47.620)

for standing up to Stalin's regime,

Lex Fridman (27:50.580)

for standing up to these actions,

Stephen Kotkin (27:53.380)

for saying, yeah, we're not just gonna take this.

Lex Fridman (27:57.020)

We're not gonna let this go on.

Stephen Kotkin (27:59.040)

We're not gonna let this expand to further territories.

Lex Fridman (28:02.660)

We're gonna create the NATO alliance.

Lex Fridman (28:04.980)

And we're gonna rally democratic liberal regimes

Lex Fridman (28:09.760)

to stand up to this illiberalism,

Stephen Kotkin (28:12.160)

this violence, and this aggression.

Lex Fridman (28:14.500)

And so, yeah, Lex, it's always convenient to have an enemy.

Lex Fridman (28:19.180)

But there was an enemy.

Lex Fridman (28:21.960)

Nikolai Leonov, who recently died,

Stephen Kotkin (28:24.200)

he died in April 2022, and he had a major funeral.

Lex Fridman (28:28.900)

He was the last head analyst of the Soviet KGB.

Lex Fridman (28:36.420)

And Leonov is one of the most important figures

Lex Fridman (28:39.320)

for understanding the Soviet collapse.

Lex Fridman (28:41.780)

And he has the best memoir on the Soviet collapse,

Lex Fridman (28:45.140)

which is known in Russian as Likholetya.

Stephen Kotkin (28:49.060)

You will understand that.

Lex Fridman (28:50.960)

And you'll help your podcast listeners understand.

Stephen Kotkin (28:56.140)

There's a singularity to that kind of expression, Likholetya.

Lex Fridman (29:00.820)

Leonov just died.

Lex Fridman (29:02.280)

But one of the things, and in fact,

Lex Fridman (29:04.940)

the people who were supposedly arrested by Putin

Stephen Kotkin (29:09.580)

as scapegoats for the Ukraine war,

Lex Fridman (29:12.100)

the main one, Sergei Beseda, gave the eulogy

Stephen Kotkin (29:16.300)

at Leonov's funeral in April 2022,

Lex Fridman (29:19.620)

showing that it's a lie that all of these people

Stephen Kotkin (29:22.180)

have been arrested and purged

Lex Fridman (29:23.740)

and other nonsense in social media.

Lex Fridman (29:27.500)

But to get back to what Leonov said

Lex Fridman (29:29.500)

and get back to your enemy point, Leonov said,

Stephen Kotkin (29:33.020)

you know, the West spent all this time

Lex Fridman (29:35.700)

blackening the image of the Soviet Union.

Stephen Kotkin (29:39.020)

All these resources and propaganda and covert operations

Lex Fridman (29:43.980)

to blacken the Soviet image.

Lex Fridman (29:45.800)

And they did, Lex, the West did do that.

Lex Fridman (29:48.140)

And then Leonov wrote in the next sentence,

Lex Fridman (29:50.620)

and you know what?

Lex Fridman (29:51.660)

We gave them a lot of material to work with

Stephen Kotkin (29:54.700)

to blacken our image.

Lex Fridman (29:57.220)

Yeah, so you're saying a kind of sobering reality,

Lex Fridman (2:00:00.720)

And so the Russians don't have that resupply

Lex Fridman (2:00:03.560)

and the Ukrainians do.

Lex Fridman (2:00:06.040)

And so the Russians are now digging in Lex.

Lex Fridman (2:00:09.280)

They're digging in deeply in the areas

Stephen Kotkin (2:00:12.040)

that they've penetrated

Lex Fridman (2:00:14.280)

and they're trying to build unassailable positions

Stephen Kotkin (2:00:18.800)

for when the Ukrainians transition

Lex Fridman (2:00:21.960)

from mostly defense to full scale offense.

Lex Fridman (2:00:26.440)

And we'll see if that now,

Lex Fridman (2:00:28.320)

I mean, they're digging everywhere,

Lex Fridman (2:00:31.360)

as they say, Kapayut, Kapayut, right?

Lex Fridman (2:00:34.720)

They're digging everywhere behind.

Stephen Kotkin (2:00:36.400)

Your Russian is beautiful.

Lex Fridman (2:00:37.680)

Digging in, I wish Lex, like yours.

Lex Fridman (2:00:41.200)

But so there are these things that we can't predict,

Lex Fridman (2:00:44.720)

but there are these things we're watching

Lex Fridman (2:00:46.320)

and watching closely.

Lex Fridman (2:00:47.620)

And on top of that, something that's not in World War II

Stephen Kotkin (2:00:53.380)

or for the most part is cyber attacks and cyber warfare,

Lex Fridman (2:00:56.260)

which is much less perhaps convertible into human words

Stephen Kotkin (2:01:05.300)

because it happens so quickly, it's such large scales,

Lex Fridman (2:01:08.300)

so difficult to trace and all those kinds of things.

Stephen Kotkin (2:01:10.440)

It's not bullets, it's electrical signals and that.

Lex Fridman (2:01:14.540)

Yeah, but those Ukrainian people, they're like you, Lex.

Stephen Kotkin (2:01:18.460)

They're young and they're technically really proficient.

Lex Fridman (2:01:23.060)

And they've been amazing.

Stephen Kotkin (2:01:25.020)

You know, they spent those teenage years in the basement

Lex Fridman (2:01:28.500)

playing video games.

Stephen Kotkin (2:01:30.580)

Nothing.

Lex Fridman (2:01:31.420)

Turns out it's useful after all.

Stephen Kotkin (2:01:32.780)

It turns out it's more than useful.

Lex Fridman (2:01:34.980)

You can save your country that way.

Lex Fridman (2:01:37.600)

And so they're not alone, they're getting support

Lex Fridman (2:01:41.180)

and that support is important,

Lex Fridman (2:01:43.420)

but really predominantly it's Ukrainians

Lex Fridman (2:01:46.300)

on the cyber battlefield.

Lex Fridman (2:01:48.300)

And their skills have been very impressive

Lex Fridman (2:01:50.380)

and they've been preparing for this for a number of years.

Lex Fridman (2:01:53.340)

And they have a whole army of young people on the cyber side.

Lex Fridman (2:01:58.580)

It's their civilian population.

Stephen Kotkin (2:02:00.360)

These are not people conscripted into the military

Lex Fridman (2:02:02.780)

or volunteering wearing the uniform.

Lex Fridman (2:02:05.940)

And so even in cyber warfare,

Lex Fridman (2:02:07.980)

the Ukrainians have been extremely impressive.

Lex Fridman (2:02:11.460)

And so let's remember that all of these aspects of warfare,

Lex Fridman (2:02:18.580)

whether it's how far your cruise missiles go

Lex Fridman (2:02:22.860)

and how accurate they are,

Lex Fridman (2:02:24.820)

what size your cyber capabilities are.

Stephen Kotkin (2:02:29.260)

It's really ultimately about the people.

Lex Fridman (2:02:31.900)

It's about the human capital, right?

Stephen Kotkin (2:02:34.460)

It's about their willingness, their skill level,

Lex Fridman (2:02:39.460)

but also their willingness to fight

Lex Fridman (2:02:41.540)

and to put their lives on the line.

Lex Fridman (2:02:43.540)

And there's no substitute for that.

Lex Fridman (2:02:45.780)

And so what's called morale or courage or bravery or valor,

Lex Fridman (2:02:51.620)

that's really the ultimately decisive

Lex Fridman (2:02:54.220)

provided you have enough sufficient arms, right?

Lex Fridman (2:02:59.540)

To conduct the fight.

Lex Fridman (2:03:01.140)

And if you don't, you use a Molotov cocktail, right?

Lex Fridman (2:03:04.580)

Grandma calls in the coordinates of the Russian tank

Stephen Kotkin (2:03:08.540)

on her iPhone and you have a Molotov cocktail

Lex Fridman (2:03:13.860)

that the people who used to work in the cafeteria

Stephen Kotkin (2:03:18.740)

are now stuffing flammable liquid into bottles

Lex Fridman (2:03:22.140)

and you carry one right up to the tank

Lex Fridman (2:03:23.900)

and you smash it against the tank

Lex Fridman (2:03:25.460)

or you drop it in one of the hatches in the tank, right?

Stephen Kotkin (2:03:30.700)

There's no substitute for that kind of stuff,

Lex Fridman (2:03:33.100)

that level of resolve, willingness to die for your country.

Stephen Kotkin (2:03:38.100)

That's a really big lesson

Lex Fridman (2:03:40.260)

that we need to absorb in our own country.

Stephen Kotkin (2:03:43.620)

We've been going to war more frequently than we should.

Lex Fridman (2:03:48.180)

And like you said, without the justification all the time,

Lex Fridman (2:03:51.420)

and then like Henry Kissinger said,

Lex Fridman (2:03:53.820)

without understanding how this was gonna end.

Stephen Kotkin (2:03:56.980)

It's easy to start a war,

Lex Fridman (2:03:58.940)

it's very difficult to win a war, prevail in a war

Stephen Kotkin (2:04:01.900)

or end a war on terms that meet

Lex Fridman (2:04:05.180)

your original expectations, right?

Stephen Kotkin (2:04:08.580)

We've been fighting wars,

Lex Fridman (2:04:09.860)

but we haven't been fighting wars as societies.

Stephen Kotkin (2:04:13.620)

We've been fighting wars as a small sliver of our population.

Lex Fridman (2:04:18.340)

Something like 1% of our population

Stephen Kotkin (2:04:20.900)

is involved with the military

Lex Fridman (2:04:22.340)

because we have an all volunteer force.

Lex Fridman (2:04:25.700)

And that means that it's easier for our politicians

Lex Fridman (2:04:28.900)

to go to war because they don't face conscription,

Stephen Kotkin (2:04:33.900)

they don't have the draft,

Lex Fridman (2:04:36.460)

which affects every family in the country.

Lex Fridman (2:04:39.580)

And because the number of people in the volunteer force

Lex Fridman (2:04:45.580)

is such a narrow stratum of the population.

Lex Fridman (2:04:49.500)

And so they've been getting away with this

Lex Fridman (2:04:51.940)

because the professional army

Stephen Kotkin (2:04:53.660)

is much better than the conscript army.

Lex Fridman (2:04:56.100)

And an all volunteer force is much preferable

Stephen Kotkin (2:04:58.940)

from a military point of view.

Lex Fridman (2:05:01.220)

But from a societal point of view, it enables you

Stephen Kotkin (2:05:05.540)

to go to war too easily as a politician.

Lex Fridman (2:05:09.300)

And it doesn't engage the society the same way

Stephen Kotkin (2:05:12.340)

that the Ukrainian society is completely engaged

Lex Fridman (2:05:16.380)

from those young hackers all the way up

Stephen Kotkin (2:05:18.940)

to those grandmothers.

Lex Fridman (2:05:20.780)

Let me ask you, you're a scholar of history,

Stephen Kotkin (2:05:23.340)

a scholar of geopolitics, and you're also a human being.

Lex Fridman (2:05:28.340)

You're also a human being.

Stephen Kotkin (2:05:30.140)

That's kind of you, Lex.

Lex Fridman (2:05:31.780)

I'll take that.

Stephen Kotkin (2:05:33.820)

What's the value, what's the hope,

Lex Fridman (2:05:36.620)

what's the power of conversation here?

Stephen Kotkin (2:05:39.660)

If you could sit down with Vladimir Putin

Lex Fridman (2:05:41.860)

and have a conversation versus bullets,

Lex Fridman (2:05:47.060)

human exchange words, is there hope for those?

Lex Fridman (2:05:51.140)

And if so, what would you talk about?

Lex Fridman (2:05:53.100)

What would you ask him?

Lex Fridman (2:05:55.660)

Well, Henry Kissinger,

Stephen Kotkin (2:05:57.460)

you alluded to his op ed,

Lex Fridman (2:05:58.820)

he's had many private meetings with President Putin

Stephen Kotkin (2:06:03.260)

over a long time.

Lex Fridman (2:06:06.140)

And President Biden,

Stephen Kotkin (2:06:11.140)

the previous presidents, secretaries of state,

Lex Fridman (2:06:16.300)

officials below secretary of state,

Stephen Kotkin (2:06:18.980)

the head of the CIA,

Lex Fridman (2:06:20.860)

evidently met with President Putin in the fall

Stephen Kotkin (2:06:24.580)

when he was massing the troops on the border

Lex Fridman (2:06:27.900)

before he invaded.

Lex Fridman (2:06:30.100)

And we sent the head of the CIA and Putin received him,

Lex Fridman (2:06:34.860)

somebody he evidently respects

Stephen Kotkin (2:06:36.980)

or was at least willing to meet,

Lex Fridman (2:06:39.220)

unlike other members of the administration.

Lex Fridman (2:06:42.620)

So a lot of people are talking to him

Lex Fridman (2:06:45.060)

in some form or another for the 22 years

Stephen Kotkin (2:06:48.700)

he's been in power.

Lex Fridman (2:06:49.820)

And I'm not sure it's had

Lex Fridman (2:06:53.900)

what I would call their desired effect.

Lex Fridman (2:06:57.420)

Well, the nature of the conversation is interesting too.

Lex Fridman (2:07:00.020)

And also the timing, which is post February 22nd,

Lex Fridman (2:07:03.660)

is a different time.

Lex Fridman (2:07:05.340)

And also another aspect,

Lex Fridman (2:07:09.740)

which Oliver Stone mentioned interestingly,

Stephen Kotkin (2:07:12.660)

that there's something about COVID and the pandemic

Lex Fridman (2:07:15.940)

that creates isolation, the distancing.

Stephen Kotkin (2:07:18.540)

It's such a silly little nuance thing,

Lex Fridman (2:07:21.660)

but maybe it's actually has a profound impact

Stephen Kotkin (2:07:25.740)

on the human being, the human mind of Vladimir Putin,

Lex Fridman (2:07:29.180)

that there is something about an in person meeting

Lex Fridman (2:07:32.140)

and not across a table that's far too large,

Lex Fridman (2:07:35.540)

but sort of the intimacy of one human to human

Stephen Kotkin (2:07:38.860)

in person conversation,

Lex Fridman (2:07:40.460)

that there's something distinctly powerful

Stephen Kotkin (2:07:43.820)

about that reminder that as Putin says

Lex Fridman (2:07:48.100)

in the narrative and the propaganda

Stephen Kotkin (2:07:50.020)

that we're all one people, there is truth to that,

Lex Fridman (2:07:53.980)

that this entirety of humanity is one people.

Lex Fridman (2:07:57.220)

And you're kind of reminded by that

Lex Fridman (2:07:59.580)

when you're sitting together.

Stephen Kotkin (2:08:02.140)

People who have sat across the table from him,

Lex Fridman (2:08:06.420)

whether at 30 yards or at three,

Stephen Kotkin (2:08:11.820)

have remarked upon this feeling of isolation

Lex Fridman (2:08:15.660)

that has affected him, the pandemic.

Stephen Kotkin (2:08:18.860)

I think there must be something to that

Lex Fridman (2:08:21.140)

if several people who've been in the room with him

Stephen Kotkin (2:08:25.020)

are remarking on it.

Lex Fridman (2:08:27.820)

Everybody that I know and I've been able to talk to

Stephen Kotkin (2:08:31.140)

who's had a meeting with him in the past 10 years,

Lex Fridman (2:08:35.660)

including Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State,

Stephen Kotkin (2:08:39.460)

has said that Putin spends a lot of time

Lex Fridman (2:08:45.900)

enumerating his grievances.

Stephen Kotkin (2:08:49.060)

He goes through a monologue of his grievances

Lex Fridman (2:08:52.900)

and then the West did this,

Lex Fridman (2:08:54.580)

and then the West lied to us about that,

Lex Fridman (2:08:57.420)

and then the West cheated us on this.

Lex Fridman (2:09:00.860)

And so it's not the conversation

Lex Fridman (2:09:03.580)

that you're encouraging of common humanity.

Stephen Kotkin (2:09:06.780)

It's that roiling resentment volcano

Lex Fridman (2:09:10.740)

that's just exploding and exploding.

Stephen Kotkin (2:09:13.020)

The resentment.

Lex Fridman (2:09:14.300)

And by the time he gets through the monologue

Stephen Kotkin (2:09:19.300)

of the grievances, the time of the meeting

Lex Fridman (2:09:22.460)

is expired or over time.

Stephen Kotkin (2:09:25.300)

That's a brilliant statement,

Lex Fridman (2:09:26.740)

but that's where the skill of conversation comes in.

Stephen Kotkin (2:09:29.460)

Like when you're facing a bull with a red cloth,

Lex Fridman (2:09:32.780)

you have to learn how to avoid the long list of grievances

Lex Fridman (2:09:35.380)

and get to the humanity.

Lex Fridman (2:09:37.260)

That's a really important skill.

Stephen Kotkin (2:09:39.540)

For sure it's a skill,

Lex Fridman (2:09:40.820)

and it's the highest level skill of a diplomat

Stephen Kotkin (2:09:44.020)

to be able to reach some type of common understanding

Lex Fridman (2:09:47.660)

when interests and worldviews clash so much.

Lex Fridman (2:09:51.500)

But here's your challenge, Lex.

Lex Fridman (2:09:54.740)

Your challenge is Russia wants to impose

Stephen Kotkin (2:09:59.740)

a closed sphere of influence on its neighbors.

Lex Fridman (2:10:05.420)

It wants to dictate what its neighbors can and can't do.

Stephen Kotkin (2:10:10.420)

It wants to exert influence,

Lex Fridman (2:10:12.820)

not by the power of its example,

Stephen Kotkin (2:10:15.980)

not by the freedom of its people,

Lex Fridman (2:10:18.300)

not by the dynamism of its diversified economy,

Lex Fridman (2:10:22.340)

but it wants to exert influence

Lex Fridman (2:10:24.660)

just because it deserves that,

Stephen Kotkin (2:10:27.260)

just because it's a great power,

Lex Fridman (2:10:30.140)

just because, and on and on and on.

Stephen Kotkin (2:10:33.260)

It's a civilization unto itself.

Lex Fridman (2:10:36.060)

And it wants that, and we can't give that.

Stephen Kotkin (2:10:40.580)

The reason that Russia was not integrated into the West

Lex Fridman (2:10:44.580)

was not for lack of trying.

Stephen Kotkin (2:10:47.260)

It was because Russia ultimately spurned the integration

Lex Fridman (2:10:51.820)

because it was about what terms

Stephen Kotkin (2:10:54.140)

the integration would come on.

Lex Fridman (2:10:56.460)

Would you come into the West and observe Western rules

Lex Fridman (2:11:01.020)

and be another country, meaning just another country?

Lex Fridman (2:11:06.300)

There's Poland, and there's Austria,

Lex Fridman (2:11:10.580)

and there's little tiny Monaco, and there's Russia.

Lex Fridman (2:11:16.620)

And you're just one of those countries.

Lex Fridman (2:11:19.460)

And Russia's answer to that was no,

Lex Fridman (2:11:21.900)

we're not just one of those countries.

Stephen Kotkin (2:11:24.380)

We need special rules.

Lex Fridman (2:11:26.620)

We need special conditions.

Stephen Kotkin (2:11:29.340)

We'll integrate, but only as a special country,

Lex Fridman (2:11:33.380)

meaning like at the UN, where all countries are sovereign,

Stephen Kotkin (2:11:38.540)

all countries are members,

Lex Fridman (2:11:40.340)

but Russia has a veto on what countries can and can't do.

Stephen Kotkin (2:11:44.780)

Those were the terms on which they were willing to integrate.

Lex Fridman (2:11:48.820)

And those were the terms that no leader of a Western country

Stephen Kotkin (2:11:52.220)

or the United States or the G7 or fill in the blank

Lex Fridman (2:11:56.740)

can grant to Russia.

Stephen Kotkin (2:12:00.060)

It's very well known that Vladimir Putin

Lex Fridman (2:12:03.780)

was one of the first, maybe the first person,

Stephen Kotkin (2:12:06.460)

first leader, foreign leader to call President Bush

Lex Fridman (2:12:10.380)

after the 9 11 tragedy.

Stephen Kotkin (2:12:13.380)

They didn't connect right away.

Lex Fridman (2:12:15.420)

President Bush was not in Washington,

Lex Fridman (2:12:17.820)

but eventually they did speak.

Lex Fridman (2:12:20.260)

He condemned the terrorist attack.

Stephen Kotkin (2:12:22.020)

He offered Russian support, which he delivered on

Lex Fridman (2:12:26.420)

the use of some Russian logistics

Stephen Kotkin (2:12:28.580)

for our Afghanistan operations.

Lex Fridman (2:12:33.300)

And a lot of people point to that and they say,

Stephen Kotkin (2:12:35.420)

there it is.

Lex Fridman (2:12:36.500)

Russia wanted to cooperate and did cooperate

Lex Fridman (2:12:41.500)

and we spurned them or we failed to appreciate

Lex Fridman (2:12:45.780)

Russia's cooperation.

Lex Fridman (2:12:47.580)

And so therefore Russia was cheated or Russia was lied to

Lex Fridman (2:12:51.380)

or Russia's grievances are legitimate.

Lex Fridman (2:12:54.500)

But here's the problem with that argument, Lex.

Lex Fridman (2:12:58.020)

In exchange for that support, Vladimir Putin asked

Stephen Kotkin (2:13:03.100)

in return from President Bush for a free hand

Lex Fridman (2:13:07.260)

in the former Soviet space,

Stephen Kotkin (2:13:09.260)

that closed hierarchical sphere of influence

Lex Fridman (2:13:13.260)

where Russia would exert influence coercively

Stephen Kotkin (2:13:17.420)

over countries that were sovereign.

Lex Fridman (2:13:19.180)

And no American president could grant that.

Lex Fridman (2:13:23.460)

And President Bush was right.

Lex Fridman (2:13:24.940)

He said no.

Lex Fridman (2:13:26.820)

And so the attempted cooperation blew up.

Lex Fridman (2:13:31.860)

But who's at fault there?

Lex Fridman (2:13:35.700)

Should there be a nonvoluntary sphere of influence?

Lex Fridman (2:13:40.660)

Should that be granted or should you face up

Lex Fridman (2:13:45.340)

to attempts to do that?

Lex Fridman (2:13:47.460)

You know, let's take a little detour here

Stephen Kotkin (2:13:51.020)

into China for a second.

Lex Fridman (2:13:54.340)

China had this brilliant grand strategy,

Stephen Kotkin (2:13:57.900)

which was sure, America is hostile

Lex Fridman (2:14:01.780)

because America is hegemonic.

Stephen Kotkin (2:14:03.580)

America wants to control the world.

Lex Fridman (2:14:05.780)

America will never let China rise.

Stephen Kotkin (2:14:07.860)

America will do everything it can to hold China down.

Lex Fridman (2:14:11.420)

So we're gonna have hostility from America.

Stephen Kotkin (2:14:14.940)

We don't wanna decouple because we need

Lex Fridman (2:14:17.780)

that high end technology transfer.

Stephen Kotkin (2:14:20.500)

Either we buy it or we steal it

Lex Fridman (2:14:22.300)

because America and the rest of the West

Stephen Kotkin (2:14:24.140)

has all the technology that we need.

Lex Fridman (2:14:26.660)

We have some of it domestically,

Stephen Kotkin (2:14:29.140)

more than before by a lot,

Lex Fridman (2:14:31.140)

but we're still dependent so we can't decouple.

Lex Fridman (2:14:33.980)

So we'll have the hostility,

Lex Fridman (2:14:35.660)

but there'll be a line we don't cross

Stephen Kotkin (2:14:37.460)

just so that we don't lose the technology transfer.

Lex Fridman (2:14:40.180)

Till Made in China 2035 is accomplished

Lex Fridman (2:14:45.620)

and we're self sufficient domestically

Lex Fridman (2:14:48.380)

in AI and every other area that's critical.

Lex Fridman (2:14:52.340)

But hostility from America.

Lex Fridman (2:14:53.900)

But we have an ace in the hole.

Stephen Kotkin (2:14:55.860)

Our ace in the hole is Europe.

Lex Fridman (2:14:58.060)

Europe hates conflict.

Stephen Kotkin (2:15:00.100)

They're all about trade.

Lex Fridman (2:15:02.420)

Doesn't matter how evil you are.

Stephen Kotkin (2:15:04.700)

They love to trade because Wandel durch Handel,

Lex Fridman (2:15:09.100)

change through trade.

Stephen Kotkin (2:15:10.580)

They have this illusion

Lex Fridman (2:15:11.660)

that you're gonna become a better country

Stephen Kotkin (2:15:14.300)

if they trade with you

Lex Fridman (2:15:15.500)

and you won't have conflict, war and hostilities

Stephen Kotkin (2:15:18.020)

if you trade.

Lex Fridman (2:15:19.460)

And so we have this European ace in the hole.

Stephen Kotkin (2:15:22.460)

We're hostile with the Americans.

Lex Fridman (2:15:24.260)

We're still buying or stealing their technology.

Lex Fridman (2:15:27.820)

And better than that even,

Lex Fridman (2:15:29.620)

the Europeans are not hostile to us at all.

Stephen Kotkin (2:15:32.660)

They love to trade with us

Lex Fridman (2:15:33.780)

and they wanna trade more

Lex Fridman (2:15:35.100)

and they're our biggest trading partner already.

Lex Fridman (2:15:38.180)

And lo and behold,

Stephen Kotkin (2:15:39.180)

Xi Jinping sides with Vladimir Putin

Lex Fridman (2:15:42.620)

in the aggression in Ukraine.

Stephen Kotkin (2:15:45.100)

He doesn't side with him providing military equipment.

Lex Fridman (2:15:49.300)

He doesn't provide technology transfer

Lex Fridman (2:15:52.940)

but he provides public support

Lex Fridman (2:15:55.620)

and massive pro Russian propaganda

Stephen Kotkin (2:15:58.060)

to the whole Chinese population.

Lex Fridman (2:16:01.900)

And the Europeans say, wait a minute,

Stephen Kotkin (2:16:04.300)

this is an invasion of a sovereign country in Europe.

Lex Fridman (2:16:07.620)

What do you mean?

Stephen Kotkin (2:16:09.580)

You're not condemning Vladimir Putin's invasion.

Lex Fridman (2:16:12.940)

And so that wedge that the Chinese had,

Stephen Kotkin (2:16:15.700)

that was the basis of their grand strategy,

Lex Fridman (2:16:18.340)

that wedge between the US and Europe

Stephen Kotkin (2:16:21.060)

when it came to China policy,

Lex Fridman (2:16:23.060)

that wedge is gone now.

Stephen Kotkin (2:16:24.820)

Xi Jinping destroyed it.

Lex Fridman (2:16:27.100)

And the Europeans and the Americans

Stephen Kotkin (2:16:29.180)

are coming close together

Lex Fridman (2:16:31.340)

on Ukraine and Russia policy for sure,

Lex Fridman (2:16:34.700)

but also more and more on China policy.

Lex Fridman (2:16:38.420)

And so that was a pretty big sacrifice

Stephen Kotkin (2:16:40.740)

for the Chinese leader to make.

Lex Fridman (2:16:42.740)

And what did he get in return?

Stephen Kotkin (2:16:45.420)

He gets hydrocarbons from Russia at reduced prices.

Lex Fridman (2:16:49.980)

And the Chinese get hydrocarbons from a lot of countries.

Stephen Kotkin (2:16:54.540)

They have a completely diverse supply chain

Lex Fridman (2:16:58.660)

for their energy.

Lex Fridman (2:16:59.620)

So what do you think Xi Jinping is thinking now?

Lex Fridman (2:17:02.140)

Was it a mistake or?

Stephen Kotkin (2:17:04.500)

I'd like to know, Lex.

Lex Fridman (2:17:06.140)

I'd like you to be able to sit down with him

Stephen Kotkin (2:17:08.580)

across from this table here on your podcast

Lex Fridman (2:17:11.460)

and pose that same question to him

Stephen Kotkin (2:17:13.380)

because we have no idea.

Lex Fridman (2:17:14.780)

There's a language barrier that's fascinating.

Stephen Kotkin (2:17:16.740)

By the way, you as a scholar of Stalin,

Lex Fridman (2:17:20.140)

do you think we'll ever break through

Lex Fridman (2:17:21.580)

the language barrier to China?

Lex Fridman (2:17:24.100)

Not ever, I apologize, in the next few years

Stephen Kotkin (2:17:27.180)

because there is a gigantic cultural and language barrier

Lex Fridman (2:17:30.860)

between the West and the Chinese.

Stephen Kotkin (2:17:32.380)

China's a great civilization.

Lex Fridman (2:17:34.300)

China predates the United States by millennia.

Stephen Kotkin (2:17:39.740)

China's accomplishments are breathtaking.

Lex Fridman (2:17:42.540)

But China's also led by, let's be honest,

Stephen Kotkin (2:17:46.220)

a Communist Party monopoly

Lex Fridman (2:17:49.740)

which engages in a lot of criminal behavior.

Stephen Kotkin (2:17:52.940)

Lex, Tibet is Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (2:17:57.260)

Xinjiang is Ukraine.

Stephen Kotkin (2:17:59.740)

Hong Kong is Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (2:18:04.980)

let alone support for Putin, Ukraine.

Stephen Kotkin (2:18:07.260)

This is before we've even discussed Taiwan.

Lex Fridman (2:18:10.420)

And so now the Europeans are coming to see this

Lex Fridman (2:18:13.220)

and the Americans are coming to understand this,

Lex Fridman (2:18:16.340)

that maybe trading with a regime like that,

Stephen Kotkin (2:18:22.060)

morally, politically, criminally,

Lex Fridman (2:18:25.500)

Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong,

Lex Fridman (2:18:28.660)

how is that different from what Putin is doing in Ukraine?

Lex Fridman (2:18:31.900)

I'd be hard pressed to differentiate that ultimately,

Stephen Kotkin (2:18:35.700)

even though the analogies are not exact.

Lex Fridman (2:18:38.660)

And so the Chinese, it's like that guy Leonov,

Stephen Kotkin (2:18:43.860)

the author of Licheletia,

Lex Fridman (2:18:46.140)

the great memoir of the late Soviet period,

Stephen Kotkin (2:18:50.860)

the end of the Soviet Union.

Lex Fridman (2:18:52.700)

You know that they spend all this time

Lex Fridman (2:18:55.140)

and all these resources blackening our image,

Lex Fridman (2:18:58.180)

but we supply them with endless material

Stephen Kotkin (2:19:00.500)

to blacken our image.

Lex Fridman (2:19:02.340)

That's where Xi Jinping's regime is right now, Lex.

Lex Fridman (2:19:05.700)

And so they have a big dilemma on their side.

Lex Fridman (2:19:09.580)

It's a Western world

Lex Fridman (2:19:11.700)

and they've united the Western world

Lex Fridman (2:19:14.300)

and reawoken the Western world

Stephen Kotkin (2:19:19.340)

to the fact that China is a threat

Lex Fridman (2:19:23.620)

to the values, the institutions and values of the West.

Lex Fridman (2:19:27.660)

And that trade is not transforming China quite the opposite.

Lex Fridman (2:19:32.020)

We'll see if this endures.

Stephen Kotkin (2:19:34.100)

Maybe it doesn't endure.

Lex Fridman (2:19:35.420)

Maybe it's a fleeting moment.

Stephen Kotkin (2:19:36.940)

Maybe this is not an inflection point.

Lex Fridman (2:19:39.580)

Maybe the war in Ukraine ends more quickly than we think.

Lex Fridman (2:19:43.820)

And maybe like you said,

Lex Fridman (2:19:45.660)

the Chinese and the Indians and the rest of them,

Stephen Kotkin (2:19:48.220)

the leaders there, they get their wish that it ends

Lex Fridman (2:19:50.780)

and the world moves on and forgets

Stephen Kotkin (2:19:54.460)

or says, let's try again to resume

Lex Fridman (2:19:59.940)

our mutual understanding,

Stephen Kotkin (2:20:01.740)

our mutually beneficial trade and everything else.

Lex Fridman (2:20:04.860)

Maybe it's a passing phase.

Stephen Kotkin (2:20:06.420)

We can't exclude that.

Lex Fridman (2:20:07.420)

I'm very poor at predicting the future.

Lex Fridman (2:20:10.540)

But the moment is not a good one for the Chinese regime,

Lex Fridman (2:20:14.820)

let alone the fact that he's trying to impose

Stephen Kotkin (2:20:19.740)

an unprecedented in the modern era third term

Lex Fridman (2:20:23.740)

for himself as president in the fall

Stephen Kotkin (2:20:26.140)

at the next party Congress,

Lex Fridman (2:20:28.420)

becoming president for life de facto, a Mao like figure.

Lex Fridman (2:20:35.420)

And he's now got to do that within this environment

Lex Fridman (2:20:41.020)

where he has damaged Chinese grand strategy

Lex Fridman (2:20:45.140)

and damaged the reputation of China

Lex Fridman (2:20:47.700)

and its relationships across the world.

Stephen Kotkin (2:20:51.020)

Maybe not permanently, but significantly,

Lex Fridman (2:20:54.700)

in addition to the problems they have at home,

Stephen Kotkin (2:20:57.140)

demography, as you know, a middle income trap,

Lex Fridman (2:21:02.260)

and then the regulatory insanity of Chinese communist rule

Stephen Kotkin (2:21:07.780)

that we've seen with the tech companies that you know well,

Lex Fridman (2:21:10.740)

where they've destroyed all of that value

Stephen Kotkin (2:21:14.100)

with the blow up of their property sector

Lex Fridman (2:21:17.140)

because it was a massive bubble

Lex Fridman (2:21:19.660)

and that's still playing out.

Lex Fridman (2:21:21.940)

And this time it's the same,

Stephen Kotkin (2:21:24.180)

meaning this time it's not different.

Lex Fridman (2:21:27.060)

When it comes to a property blowout,

Stephen Kotkin (2:21:29.060)

it has enormous effects on middle class balance sheets

Lex Fridman (2:21:33.220)

and their ability to remain consumers

Lex Fridman (2:21:37.580)

and drive the economy,

Lex Fridman (2:21:38.820)

which is the model that they have to share.

Lex Fridman (2:21:40.940)

So he's got a litany of challenges independent even

Lex Fridman (2:21:45.940)

of the fact that he sided with his pal Vladimir Putin

Lex Fridman (2:21:51.580)

and their bromance is costing China

Lex Fridman (2:21:54.220)

very, very significantly.

Stephen Kotkin (2:21:55.940)

If you close your eyes.

Lex Fridman (2:21:58.660)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:21:59.940)

And a hundred years ago in 1922

Lex Fridman (2:22:03.540)

and you think about the future,

Stephen Kotkin (2:22:05.860)

I wonder if you can hear the drums of war

Lex Fridman (2:22:09.980)

predicting the 30s,

Stephen Kotkin (2:22:11.780)

predicting the great depression and the resentment

Lex Fridman (2:22:16.700)

that builds the economic resentment,

Stephen Kotkin (2:22:20.180)

the cultural resentment, the geopolitical resentment

Lex Fridman (2:22:22.700)

that builds and leads to World War II.

Stephen Kotkin (2:22:26.540)

At least to me, when I close my eyes,

Lex Fridman (2:22:28.780)

I can hear the drums of war that are still ahead of us.

Lex Fridman (2:22:33.220)

And it's possible that 2022 will materialize

Lex Fridman (2:22:36.220)

in a similar way as did 1922.

Stephen Kotkin (2:22:45.180)

I have my eyes closed, Lex.

Lex Fridman (2:22:46.980)

Do you hear anything?

Lex Fridman (2:22:48.060)

And I sure hope that that's not what happens.

Lex Fridman (2:22:51.860)

But I'm looking in 1922, it's an epoch I know well

Lex Fridman (2:22:56.740)

and I don't see the future that unfolds.

Lex Fridman (2:23:00.180)

I would not have predicted it had I been alive then.

Stephen Kotkin (2:23:02.980)

I see the war behind us.

Lex Fridman (2:23:06.640)

I see a prosperity on the horizon.

Stephen Kotkin (2:23:10.040)

Yes, inflation in Germany

Lex Fridman (2:23:11.960)

and some many other difficult issues,

Lex Fridman (2:23:15.840)

but there are more democracies now

Lex Fridman (2:23:18.400)

than there were before the war

Lex Fridman (2:23:19.800)

and the old empires are gone.

Lex Fridman (2:23:22.200)

And there's a cultural efflorescence

Lex Fridman (2:23:24.400)

and there's modernism in the arts

Lex Fridman (2:23:26.480)

and there's women entering the public sphere

Lex Fridman (2:23:29.480)

and there's all this fantastic new technology

Lex Fridman (2:23:31.680)

like automobiles.

Lex Fridman (2:23:33.800)

And I'm looking at the future from 1922

Lex Fridman (2:23:38.360)

and I'm not seeing the Great Depression

Lex Fridman (2:23:40.680)

and I'm not seeing World War II

Lex Fridman (2:23:42.280)

and I'm not seeing the Holocaust

Stephen Kotkin (2:23:44.600)

because I don't predict the future

Lex Fridman (2:23:48.000)

and nobody in 1922 could see that future,

Stephen Kotkin (2:23:51.140)

although I guess there were some clairvoyants

Lex Fridman (2:23:54.200)

who predicted it, but.

Lex Fridman (2:23:56.260)

But you're not one of them.

Lex Fridman (2:23:57.640)

I'm not one of them.

Lex Fridman (2:23:59.560)

But this is what I know, Lex, from studying history.

Lex Fridman (2:24:03.360)

What I know is stuff happens.

Stephen Kotkin (2:24:05.480)

In other words, in other words, Lex,

Lex Fridman (2:24:10.820)

we're watching Ukraine war right now

Lex Fridman (2:24:13.660)

and all of our attention is focused on that.

Lex Fridman (2:24:16.960)

And it's like the economists say in their textbooks

Stephen Kotkin (2:24:19.560)

when their powerful models are employed

Lex Fridman (2:24:24.040)

and there's this line that says

Stephen Kotkin (2:24:26.120)

all other factors held constant, comma,

Lex Fridman (2:24:31.200)

and then the model works.

Lex Fridman (2:24:33.400)

And you get this really great result.

Lex Fridman (2:24:35.160)

It's very powerful predictor and analysis, the model.

Lex Fridman (2:24:40.780)

And the whole game is all other factors held constant.

Lex Fridman (2:24:45.420)

So the Russia, Ukraine war that we've been discussing

Lex Fridman (2:24:48.240)

and this could happen and that could happen,

Lex Fridman (2:24:50.640)

but you know what stuff could happen, Lex.

Stephen Kotkin (2:24:53.080)

For example, the Israeli government

Lex Fridman (2:24:56.200)

could decide this summer that it's gonna bomb Iran

Stephen Kotkin (2:25:00.240)

because no Israeli government will tolerate Iran

Lex Fridman (2:25:03.480)

acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Lex Fridman (2:25:05.840)

And since President Trump exited,

Lex Fridman (2:25:08.720)

unilaterally exited from the multipower nuclear agreement,

Stephen Kotkin (2:25:14.540)

Iran is now much closer to the bomb than they were

Lex Fridman (2:25:18.300)

when they were still in,

Stephen Kotkin (2:25:19.140)

when the United States was still in that agreement.

Lex Fridman (2:25:22.080)

And you tell me the Israeli government that says,

Stephen Kotkin (2:25:24.260)

sure, it's fine, it's okay, Iran can get the bomb.

Lex Fridman (2:25:28.120)

And so maybe that happens.

Lex Fridman (2:25:29.800)

And maybe that happens as early as this summer

Lex Fridman (2:25:31.840)

as Iran gets closer and closer and closer to the bomb.

Stephen Kotkin (2:25:35.760)

Maybe that guy in North Korea decides it's his time

Lex Fridman (2:25:40.760)

just like his grandfather, right, in 1950 decided,

Stephen Kotkin (2:25:45.640)

you know, it's time, we're gonna quote reunify,

Lex Fridman (2:25:48.280)

unquote, the Korean peninsula, maybe, I don't know, Lex,

Stephen Kotkin (2:25:54.760)

fill in the blank, something's gonna happen.

Lex Fridman (2:25:57.400)

It's not gonna be what I predict.

Stephen Kotkin (2:25:59.240)

It's not gonna be what I'm watching.

Lex Fridman (2:26:01.880)

It's gonna be obvious only after it happens, not before.

Lex Fridman (2:26:06.520)

And then it's gonna upend the table.

Lex Fridman (2:26:10.120)

And all of a sudden.

Stephen Kotkin (2:26:12.080)

Everything changes.

Lex Fridman (2:26:12.920)

We're gonna be in a different environment,

Stephen Kotkin (2:26:14.680)

different circumstances, and is Ukraine still

Lex Fridman (2:26:18.520)

as central at that point as it seems to be right now?

Stephen Kotkin (2:26:23.200)

I don't know the answer to that question.

Lex Fridman (2:26:24.880)

Let me ask two rapid fire questions.

Stephen Kotkin (2:26:28.060)

You're only allowed to have one minute

Lex Fridman (2:26:29.600)

and it's about predicting the future.

Stephen Kotkin (2:26:32.160)

Okay, question one, Vladimir Putin,

Lex Fridman (2:26:36.400)

when will he no longer be in office?

Lex Fridman (2:26:39.760)

And will he step down or be overthrown?

Lex Fridman (2:26:44.840)

What's your prediction and a brief explanation

Lex Fridman (2:26:48.320)

of that prediction?

Lex Fridman (2:26:49.400)

Now, nobody can predict the future,

Lex Fridman (2:26:52.000)

but what's your sense now?

Lex Fridman (2:26:53.560)

Some people are saying the pressure is building.

Stephen Kotkin (2:26:56.880)

He's going to be overthrown or step down

Lex Fridman (2:26:59.560)

at the end of this year.

Lex Fridman (2:27:01.080)

And some people say surely he's going to last,

Lex Fridman (2:27:06.240)

outlast Stalin's rule of 30 plus years.

Stephen Kotkin (2:27:09.200)

No evidence of a coup yet, none whatsoever, yet.

Lex Fridman (2:27:18.400)

He's pretty much at life expectancy for a Russian male.

Stephen Kotkin (2:27:23.940)

Those are bad numbers.

Lex Fridman (2:27:25.560)

He's 69, gonna be 70.

Lex Fridman (2:27:29.260)

So he's lived the life of a Russian male already,

Lex Fridman (2:27:32.620)

but he's got better doctors than the majority

Stephen Kotkin (2:27:36.120)

of the Russian males in that, let's say comparison set.

Lex Fridman (2:27:42.720)

So he could live a very long time with good doctors.

Lex Fridman (2:27:47.520)

So there could be a coup at some point,

Lex Fridman (2:27:49.680)

but there's none today in evidence.

Stephen Kotkin (2:27:54.360)

He could go because he's reached the life expectancy

Lex Fridman (2:27:58.360)

or he could stay for a long time.

Stephen Kotkin (2:28:00.960)

The thing to watch about this

Lex Fridman (2:28:04.120)

is an organization that nobody pays attention to.

Stephen Kotkin (2:28:08.520)

The FSO, the Federalnaya Sluzhba Akhrani,

Lex Fridman (2:28:12.720)

which is the Praetorian Guard,

Stephen Kotkin (2:28:15.080)

the self standing bodyguard directorate,

Lex Fridman (2:28:18.640)

the only one, the only organization in Russia

Stephen Kotkin (2:28:21.860)

that has any access to him.

Lex Fridman (2:28:24.240)

We've seen no disloyalty, no breaking of ranks,

Stephen Kotkin (2:28:28.640)

no defections, nothing in the public realm and open sources

Lex Fridman (2:28:33.520)

about any divisions or problems in the FSO,

Stephen Kotkin (2:28:37.840)

in the Praetorian Guard.

Lex Fridman (2:28:39.840)

So if you can't break that, change that illicit defections

Stephen Kotkin (2:28:47.640)

there, you can't overturn him.

Lex Fridman (2:28:50.120)

Authoritarian regimes, Lex, they're terrible.

Stephen Kotkin (2:28:52.840)

They fail at everything.

Lex Fridman (2:28:54.680)

They can't feed their people.

Stephen Kotkin (2:28:57.480)

They have trouble achieving any goals.

Lex Fridman (2:29:00.720)

They only have to be good, however, at one thing.

Stephen Kotkin (2:29:04.200)

They only have to be good

Lex Fridman (2:29:05.320)

at the complete suppression of political alternatives.

Stephen Kotkin (2:29:08.960)

If you can suppress political alternatives,

Lex Fridman (2:29:12.400)

you can fail at everything else,

Lex Fridman (2:29:14.520)

but you can survive as an authoritarian regime.

Lex Fridman (2:29:17.640)

So you watch Navalny.

Stephen Kotkin (2:29:19.520)

He's still alive.

Lex Fridman (2:29:21.760)

Okay, Lex, you go for it.

Stephen Kotkin (2:29:23.920)

That's my second rapid fire question

Lex Fridman (2:29:26.760)

is what happens to Navalny?

Lex Fridman (2:29:28.400)

What are the possible conclusions of what you said

Lex Fridman (2:29:31.440)

quite possibly the second most influential,

Lex Fridman (2:29:33.840)

powerful figure in Russia?

Lex Fridman (2:29:38.280)

Is he going to die in jail?

Lex Fridman (2:29:41.000)

Will he become the next president of Russia?

Lex Fridman (2:29:44.040)

Well, what are the possible?

Stephen Kotkin (2:29:45.840)

I wish I knew, Lex.

Lex Fridman (2:29:47.480)

I've been surprised that he's still alive.

Stephen Kotkin (2:29:50.520)

I've been worried that he will be killed in prison

Lex Fridman (2:29:54.760)

in a staged fight, some security officer,

Stephen Kotkin (2:30:00.000)

prison guard puts on a prison outfit,

Lex Fridman (2:30:03.360)

takes a lead pipe, goes into the cell.

Stephen Kotkin (2:30:05.320)

They have a quote fight and Navalny is killed.

Lex Fridman (2:30:08.640)

I've been afraid of that, but he's still alive

Stephen Kotkin (2:30:11.600)

even though he's serving a long sentence.

Lex Fridman (2:30:14.480)

So that leads me to guess that people inside

Stephen Kotkin (2:30:19.080)

the Putin regime and maybe President Putin himself

Lex Fridman (2:30:22.000)

understand that Navalny is their ticket to lift sanctions.

Stephen Kotkin (2:30:29.040)

That Navalny is even more popular outside of Russia

Lex Fridman (2:30:33.680)

than he is inside of Russia.

Stephen Kotkin (2:30:35.280)

He's the leader in many ways of the political opposition

Lex Fridman (2:30:39.360)

in the country, even while still in prison,

Stephen Kotkin (2:30:42.720)

his organization's been destroyed,

Lex Fridman (2:30:45.440)

but he doesn't have majority support in the population

Stephen Kotkin (2:30:48.680)

by any stretch of the imagination,

Lex Fridman (2:30:50.320)

but he's a big figure in the West,

Stephen Kotkin (2:30:52.720)

including here in the US.

Lex Fridman (2:30:54.960)

And so Navalny could be their ticket.

Stephen Kotkin (2:30:57.440)

They're kind of get out of jail card,

Lex Fridman (2:31:00.000)

meaning they release him from prison.

Stephen Kotkin (2:31:02.560)

He gets appointed, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (2:31:03.960)

prime minister even by the Putin regime

Stephen Kotkin (2:31:06.520)

if he were willing to accept such a position.

Lex Fridman (2:31:09.440)

And I have my doubts about that.

Lex Fridman (2:31:11.600)

And then that's how they lobby

Lex Fridman (2:31:14.440)

to remove the sanctions against them.

Lex Fridman (2:31:17.200)

So he's a card that President Putin could play.

Lex Fridman (2:31:21.640)

And so maybe that's the reason he's still alive,

Stephen Kotkin (2:31:24.840)

or maybe there are other reasons that we don't know.

Lex Fridman (2:31:28.520)

And so some alternative to Putin is more likely to arise

Lex Fridman (2:31:34.320)

inside his gang, Putin's Shika, as they say, right?

Lex Fridman (2:31:39.640)

Inside his gang, where they tire of his mistakes,

Stephen Kotkin (2:31:44.640)

they tire of his self defeating actions.

Lex Fridman (2:31:48.320)

And they say, patriotically for Russia,

Stephen Kotkin (2:31:52.200)

we need to do something against, move against this guy

Lex Fridman (2:31:56.000)

because he's hurting our country

Lex Fridman (2:31:58.880)

and also because I could do better.

Lex Fridman (2:32:01.360)

I'm ambitious as well as patriotic.

Lex Fridman (2:32:04.760)

But once again, the problem there, Lex,

Lex Fridman (2:32:06.880)

is Putin is surrounded by this cocoon known as the FSO.

Stephen Kotkin (2:32:11.880)

He meets on Zoom, predominantly with the rest

Lex Fridman (2:32:15.880)

of the government, including with the defense

Lex Fridman (2:32:17.880)

and security officials.

Lex Fridman (2:32:20.560)

They don't have frequent access to his person.

Lex Fridman (2:32:24.400)

And as you were alluding earlier to the pandemic,

Lex Fridman (2:32:27.880)

they have to quarantine for two weeks

Stephen Kotkin (2:32:29.960)

before every meeting with him.

Lex Fridman (2:32:31.880)

And moreover, you know, Lex, they don't know where he is.

Stephen Kotkin (2:32:36.320)

You see, when they're on Zoom with him,

Lex Fridman (2:32:38.720)

and the room, it's the Valdai.

Stephen Kotkin (2:32:44.240)

His office in the Valdai region looks the same

Lex Fridman (2:32:48.240)

as his office in Sochi,

Stephen Kotkin (2:32:51.720)

or his office outside of Moscow in Novogorod.

Lex Fridman (2:32:54.920)

They're made up to look very similar on Zoom.

Lex Fridman (2:32:58.960)

And sure, some signs they're looking, where is it?

Lex Fridman (2:33:02.360)

But maybe they don't know.

Lex Fridman (2:33:05.040)

And so they're not sure.

Lex Fridman (2:33:06.760)

Maybe they don't know, and so you're gonna move on him,

Lex Fridman (2:33:10.920)

and you're gonna jump him in his Kremlin,

Lex Fridman (2:33:13.640)

his dacha outside Moscow.

Lex Fridman (2:33:17.240)

And it turns out he's in Sochi, or vice versa.

Lex Fridman (2:33:20.080)

And it turns out the FSO is loyal to him

Lex Fridman (2:33:23.280)

and won't let you anyway.

Lex Fridman (2:33:24.920)

So Lex, we don't know, but we watch this FSO really closely,

Lex Fridman (2:33:30.640)

and we think that the elites, if not Putin,

Lex Fridman (2:33:34.160)

but maybe Putin too, understand Navalny

Stephen Kotkin (2:33:37.240)

as a really big potential political card

Lex Fridman (2:33:40.400)

that they could play.

Lex Fridman (2:33:41.960)

And one last question, the biggest question.

Lex Fridman (2:33:46.040)

You studied some of the darkest aspects

Stephen Kotkin (2:33:49.320)

of human history, human nature.

Lex Fridman (2:33:52.200)

Let me ask the why question.

Lex Fridman (2:33:54.600)

What are we doing here?

Lex Fridman (2:33:57.240)

What's the meaning of our existence,

Lex Fridman (2:33:59.840)

our life here on Earth?

Lex Fridman (2:34:01.840)

What are we humans trying to get at here?

Stephen Kotkin (2:34:04.600)

I can't answer that question either,

Lex Fridman (2:34:07.120)

but I can say that having a purposeful life

Stephen Kotkin (2:34:12.400)

is actually not that hard.

Lex Fridman (2:34:15.640)

You can't, you're not Gandhi, right?

Stephen Kotkin (2:34:18.840)

You're not President Roosevelt.

Lex Fridman (2:34:21.480)

You're not gonna transform a country or a civilization

Stephen Kotkin (2:34:25.240)

or become immortal because of your courage

Lex Fridman (2:34:30.120)

and your insight and your genius at critical moments.

Lex Fridman (2:34:35.320)

But you live in an environment,

Lex Fridman (2:34:37.360)

you're in a school, you're in a workplace,

Stephen Kotkin (2:34:41.200)

you're somewhere where you can affect other people

Lex Fridman (2:34:44.760)

in a positive way.

Stephen Kotkin (2:34:46.680)

It can be not just about yourself,

Lex Fridman (2:34:48.680)

but it can be about them.

Lex Fridman (2:34:51.040)

And you can have a positive impact on other people's lives

Lex Fridman (2:34:55.560)

through the work that you do,

Stephen Kotkin (2:34:57.320)

whether that's your employment or your charity

Lex Fridman (2:35:00.080)

or your spare time or your work time.

Lex Fridman (2:35:03.200)

It can be by modeling proper behavior, right?

Lex Fridman (2:35:07.200)

Admitting your mistakes, hard to do, but necessary.

Stephen Kotkin (2:35:12.480)

Remembering that you don't know everything,

Lex Fridman (2:35:14.640)

you can't predict the future,

Lex Fridman (2:35:16.040)

but you don't even know everything

Lex Fridman (2:35:17.480)

in your areas of expertise.

Stephen Kotkin (2:35:20.200)

Painfully reminded of that humility at times,

Lex Fridman (2:35:23.640)

but remind yourself too.

Lex Fridman (2:35:25.960)

So you can lead a life that can show others

Lex Fridman (2:35:31.760)

what good values are,

Lex Fridman (2:35:34.040)

and you can lead a life that dedicates yourself

Lex Fridman (2:35:37.520)

not only to your own material wellbeing,

Lex Fridman (2:35:40.880)

but to the wellbeing

Lex Fridman (2:35:42.440)

and to the development of others around you.

Lex Fridman (2:35:44.400)

And it can be on a humble scale.

Lex Fridman (2:35:47.280)

It can be in a small classroom or a small workplace,

Stephen Kotkin (2:35:50.320)

a small work team, but it can be done.

Lex Fridman (2:35:54.680)

And you can be reminded that having a positive impact

Stephen Kotkin (2:35:58.680)

even on one other person

Lex Fridman (2:36:00.920)

gives far greater meaning to your own life.

Lex Fridman (2:36:04.240)

And it's profoundly satisfying,

Lex Fridman (2:36:06.520)

much more satisfying than the attention you might get,

Stephen Kotkin (2:36:10.840)

let's say on social media or awards you might receive.

Lex Fridman (2:36:15.280)

There's nothing wrong with pursuing those.

Stephen Kotkin (2:36:17.720)

People pursue them and it's a free society.

Lex Fridman (2:36:21.160)

But leading a purposeful life intentionally is possible.

Stephen Kotkin (2:36:27.960)

Even just one person, I love the expression,

Lex Fridman (2:36:30.560)

save one life, save the world.

Stephen Kotkin (2:36:33.400)

Just focusing on the local,

Lex Fridman (2:36:36.520)

on the tiny little difference you can make in the world

Stephen Kotkin (2:36:39.080)

can somehow ripple.

Lex Fridman (2:36:40.680)

Every day.

Stephen Kotkin (2:36:42.040)

If you think about that every single day,

Lex Fridman (2:36:44.520)

you're a better person.

Stephen Kotkin (2:36:47.680)

We're a better society.

Lex Fridman (2:36:49.520)

And maybe you get to add a bit of love to the world

Stephen Kotkin (2:36:52.920)

after all.

Lex Fridman (2:36:55.400)

Steven, this is a huge honor for many reasons,

Stephen Kotkin (2:36:59.200)

one of which is I can just tell

Lex Fridman (2:37:01.720)

how much care you put into this conversation

Lex Fridman (2:37:04.240)

and how much, I use the word love a lot,

Lex Fridman (2:37:08.360)

but I just feel the love that,

Stephen Kotkin (2:37:12.720)

just even the respect you give me,

Lex Fridman (2:37:14.600)

which I can't tell you how energizing that is,

Lex Fridman (2:37:17.760)

how much that gives me strength

Lex Fridman (2:37:19.880)

for my own silly little pursuits.

Stephen Kotkin (2:37:23.680)

Thank you so much for doing that.

Lex Fridman (2:37:24.840)

Thank you for not just talking today,

Lex Fridman (2:37:26.360)

but giving me so much respect

Lex Fridman (2:37:29.200)

just with everything you're doing.

Stephen Kotkin (2:37:30.680)

I really appreciate that.

Lex Fridman (2:37:32.160)

It makes me feel special.

Lex Fridman (2:37:33.800)

So thank you so much for sitting down and talking today.

Lex Fridman (2:37:36.000)

Mutual, Lex, thank you as well

Lex Fridman (2:37:38.520)

and thank you for the respect that you've shown me.

Lex Fridman (2:37:41.600)

These are really difficult issues

Stephen Kotkin (2:37:43.400)

that don't have simple answers.

Lex Fridman (2:37:45.680)

But that doesn't mean we give up.

Stephen Kotkin (2:37:48.320)

We have to keep thinking and learning and trying

Lex Fridman (2:37:52.920)

and finding solutions in everything we do,

Stephen Kotkin (2:37:56.040)

including on these big global tragedies

Lex Fridman (2:37:59.360)

that we live through.

Lex Fridman (2:38:01.040)

And it's heartbreaking what's going on.

Lex Fridman (2:38:04.560)

It just breaks my heart every day.

Stephen Kotkin (2:38:06.600)

A person who studies this,

Lex Fridman (2:38:08.080)

I've been studying this for decades,

Lex Fridman (2:38:10.760)

and it keeps happening.

Lex Fridman (2:38:12.080)

And you think, again, and yes, it is again,

Lex Fridman (2:38:15.440)

but we still have to keep trying

Lex Fridman (2:38:18.120)

and we have to be inspired

Stephen Kotkin (2:38:20.120)

by those people who are more courageous than we are

Lex Fridman (2:38:23.160)

and sacrifice more than we sacrifice.

Stephen Kotkin (2:38:26.160)

For me, the Russian invasion of Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (2:38:29.520)

the war in Ukraine is experienced in my study at home

Lex Fridman (2:38:34.840)

and in my office at Princeton

Lex Fridman (2:38:36.640)

or my coming office at Stanford

Stephen Kotkin (2:38:39.000)

when I moved full time to Stanford in September.

Lex Fridman (2:38:41.840)

Or it's experienced far away in safety and in comfort.

Lex Fridman (2:38:48.640)

And we have to remember that too

Lex Fridman (2:38:50.840)

when we talk about these things,

Lex Fridman (2:38:52.400)

when we answer your questions, right?

Lex Fridman (2:38:55.040)

That as we speak and as we comment

Lex Fridman (2:38:58.120)

and think we're experts on these things

Lex Fridman (2:39:00.360)

from the comfort of our existence,

Stephen Kotkin (2:39:03.400)

that there are people in those tragedies right now.

Lex Fridman (2:39:07.280)

With no power, with no food,

Stephen Kotkin (2:39:09.120)

with no, with full uncertainty about the future

Lex Fridman (2:39:12.560)

of the health of their children.

Stephen Kotkin (2:39:14.280)

That's it.

Lex Fridman (2:39:15.400)

And I've also seen, because I have family in both places,

Stephen Kotkin (2:39:19.920)

homes that were home for,

Lex Fridman (2:39:24.200)

buildings that were homes for generations now in rubble.

Stephen Kotkin (2:39:29.480)

So.

Lex Fridman (2:39:30.440)

Yes, Lex, it just, it hurts.

Lex Fridman (2:39:33.080)

And it's, let's, it's Syria,

Lex Fridman (2:39:36.200)

where 350,000 at least by UN estimates died

Lex Fridman (2:39:41.160)

and Russia participated in that.

Lex Fridman (2:39:43.880)

And it's Yemen.

Lex Fridman (2:39:45.800)

And it's so many other places

Lex Fridman (2:39:47.840)

that don't have the same degree of attention

Stephen Kotkin (2:39:50.560)

that a European country like Ukraine has.

Lex Fridman (2:39:54.400)

But yeah, we have to remember also

Stephen Kotkin (2:39:57.880)

that in addition to Ukraine,

Lex Fridman (2:40:00.480)

and then there's things right home here in New York City

Stephen Kotkin (2:40:04.560)

where children are without food.

Lex Fridman (2:40:07.160)

Which is just inexcusable in a country this rich.

Lex Fridman (2:40:10.960)

So we shouldn't forget in our study of leaders

Lex Fridman (2:40:13.520)

and our study of geopolitics

Stephen Kotkin (2:40:15.000)

that ultimately it's about the humanity.

Lex Fridman (2:40:16.720)

It's about the human beings and.

Stephen Kotkin (2:40:18.160)

That's it.

Lex Fridman (2:40:19.680)

Okay, Lex.

Stephen Kotkin (2:40:20.680)

Human suffering.

Lex Fridman (2:40:21.640)

Thank you so much, Stephen.

Stephen Kotkin (2:40:22.480)

Thank you.

Lex Fridman (2:40:23.320)

This is an amazing conversation.

Stephen Kotkin (2:40:24.720)

Talk to you again soon.

Lex Fridman (2:40:25.880)

My pleasure.

Stephen Kotkin (2:40:27.680)

Thanks for listening to this conversation

Lex Fridman (2:40:29.240)

with Stephen Kotkin.

Stephen Kotkin (2:40:31.040)

To support this podcast,

Lex Fridman (2:40:32.400)

please check out our sponsors in the description.

Lex Fridman (2:40:35.440)

And now let me leave you with some words

Lex Fridman (2:40:38.360)

from Mahatma Gandhi.

Stephen Kotkin (2:40:40.680)

When I despair, I remember that all through history,

Lex Fridman (2:40:44.800)

the way of truth and love have always won.

Stephen Kotkin (2:40:48.280)

There have been tyrants and murderers

Lex Fridman (2:40:50.800)

and for a time they can seem invincible,

Lex Fridman (2:40:54.040)

but in the end, they always fall.

Lex Fridman (2:40:56.600)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Stephen Kotkin (30:02.360)

which it is possible to some degree to draw a line

Lex Fridman (30:05.100)

between the good guys and the bad guys.

Stephen Kotkin (30:07.580)

Freedom is better than unfreedom, Lex.

Lex Fridman (30:10.980)

It's a lot better than unfreedom,

Lex Fridman (30:12.820)

and a guy like you understands that really well.

Lex Fridman (30:15.660)

Well, so yes, but those are all, you know,

Stephen Kotkin (30:18.940)

there's words like justice, freedom.

Lex Fridman (30:24.940)

What else?

Stephen Kotkin (30:26.220)

Love, you can use a lot of words that Hitler himself used

Lex Fridman (30:31.340)

to describe why he is actually creating a better world

Stephen Kotkin (30:36.260)

than those he's fighting.

Lex Fridman (30:37.860)

So some of it is propaganda.

Stephen Kotkin (30:39.280)

The question is on the ground,

Lex Fridman (30:41.300)

what is actually increasing the amount of freedom

Lex Fridman (30:43.400)

in the world, human prosperity?

Lex Fridman (30:44.240)

Institutions, Lex, right?

Stephen Kotkin (30:45.860)

We're not talking about propaganda here.

Lex Fridman (30:48.500)

When we use words like freedom,

Stephen Kotkin (30:50.820)

we're talking about rule of law.

Lex Fridman (30:53.340)

We're talking about protection of civil liberties.

Stephen Kotkin (30:55.900)

We're talking about protection of private property.

Lex Fridman (30:58.980)

We're talking about an independent

Lex Fridman (31:01.220)

and well funded judiciary.

Lex Fridman (31:03.460)

We're talking about an impartial, non corrupt,

Stephen Kotkin (31:07.220)

competent civil service.

Lex Fridman (31:09.360)

We're talking about separation of powers

Stephen Kotkin (31:11.580)

where the executive branch's power is limited,

Lex Fridman (31:14.660)

usually by an elected parliament.

Stephen Kotkin (31:17.220)

In fact, yes, let's talk about elections.

Lex Fridman (31:20.980)

Let's talk about freedom of speech

Lex Fridman (31:22.960)

and freedom of the public sphere.

Lex Fridman (31:25.220)

We're not talking about freedom as a slogan here.

Stephen Kotkin (31:28.020)

We're talking about a huge array of institutions

Lex Fridman (31:31.660)

and practices and norms ultimately, right?

Lex Fridman (31:35.300)

And if they exist, you know, and you live under them.

Lex Fridman (31:39.160)

And if they don't exist,

Lex Fridman (31:40.420)

you fully understand that as well, right?

Lex Fridman (31:43.380)

Ukraine was a flawed democracy before Russia invaded.

Stephen Kotkin (31:50.460)

It's utterly corrupt, many ways dysfunctional,

Lex Fridman (31:55.220)

especially the elites were dysfunctional.

Stephen Kotkin (31:58.500)

The gas industry in Ukraine was absolutely terrible

Lex Fridman (32:02.500)

because of the corruption that it generated,

Stephen Kotkin (32:04.620)

the oligarch problem,

Lex Fridman (32:06.660)

a handful of people stealing the state resources.

Lex Fridman (32:10.060)

And yet Ukraine had an open public sphere

Lex Fridman (32:13.940)

and it had a parliament that functioned.

Lex Fridman (32:16.580)

And so despite its flaws, it was still a democracy.

Lex Fridman (32:23.460)

The regime in Moscow, you can't say that Lex.

Stephen Kotkin (32:26.560)

It's not a comparable regime to Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (32:30.480)

You could say, oh, well, there were oligarchs in Ukraine

Lex Fridman (32:32.920)

and there were oligarchs in Russia.

Lex Fridman (32:34.480)

There's corruption in Ukraine, there's corruption in Russia.

Lex Fridman (32:37.200)

So really what's the big difference?

Lex Fridman (32:38.960)

And the answer is, well, Ukraine had the open public sphere.

Stephen Kotkin (32:43.000)

Ukraine had a real parliament.

Lex Fridman (32:44.340)

Can you call Russia's Duma a real parliament?

Stephen Kotkin (32:47.680)

I don't think so.

Lex Fridman (32:49.400)

I don't think you can.

Lex Fridman (32:50.920)

Can you say that there were any checks whatsoever

Lex Fridman (32:54.080)

on the executive branch in Russia?

Lex Fridman (32:57.320)

Can you say that the Russian judiciary had any independence

Lex Fridman (33:02.360)

or really full level of competence

Stephen Kotkin (33:05.840)

even compared to the Ukrainian judiciary,

Lex Fridman (33:08.360)

which was nothing to brag about?

Stephen Kotkin (33:10.040)

No, you can't say that Lex.

Lex Fridman (33:12.020)

So we can differentiate between the very flawed,

Stephen Kotkin (33:16.880)

corrupt oligarchic democracy in Ukraine

Lex Fridman (33:21.880)

and the very corrupt oligarchic autocracy in Russia.

Stephen Kotkin (33:26.360)

I think that's a fair distinction.

Lex Fridman (33:29.120)

Yeah, we should say that Russia and Ukraine

Stephen Kotkin (33:32.200)

have the great honor of being the number one

Lex Fridman (33:34.200)

and the number two most corrupt nations in Europe

Stephen Kotkin (33:37.000)

by many measures.

Lex Fridman (33:38.640)

But there is a fundamental difference,

Stephen Kotkin (33:40.240)

as you were highlighting.

Lex Fridman (33:42.000)

Russia is a corrupt autocracy.

Stephen Kotkin (33:44.640)

Ukraine, we can say, is a corrupt democracy.

Lex Fridman (33:48.000)

And to that level, there's a fundamental difference.

Stephen Kotkin (33:53.680)

Ukraine is not murdering its own journalists

Lex Fridman (33:57.720)

in systematic fashion.

Stephen Kotkin (33:59.720)

If journalists are killed in Ukraine, it's a tragedy.

Lex Fridman (34:03.380)

If journalists are killed in Russia

Stephen Kotkin (34:05.160)

or Russian journalists are killed abroad,

Lex Fridman (34:07.160)

it's regime policy.

Lex Fridman (34:08.640)

And the degree to which a nation is authoritarian

Lex Fridman (34:12.520)

means that it's suffocating its own spirit,

Stephen Kotkin (34:15.880)

its capacity to flourish.

Lex Fridman (34:19.200)

We're not just talking about sort of the freedom

Stephen Kotkin (34:24.960)

of the press, those kinds of things,

Lex Fridman (34:26.820)

but basically all industries get suffocated

Lex Fridman (34:30.840)

and you're no longer being able to,

Lex Fridman (34:33.280)

yeah, flourish as a nation, grow the production,

Stephen Kotkin (34:36.040)

the GDP, the scientists, the art, the culture,

Lex Fridman (34:38.280)

all those kinds of things.

Stephen Kotkin (34:39.160)

Yes, Lex, you're absolutely right.

Lex Fridman (34:40.760)

And so before the invasion, the full blown invasion

Stephen Kotkin (34:45.000)

of February 2022 into Ukraine, because as you know,

Lex Fridman (34:48.200)

the war has been going on for many years at a lower level

Stephen Kotkin (34:52.040)

compared to what it is these days,

Lex Fridman (34:54.240)

but still a tragic war with many deaths

Stephen Kotkin (34:57.320)

prior to February 2022.

Lex Fridman (35:00.320)

Before this latest war, we could have said

Stephen Kotkin (35:03.140)

that the greatest victims of the Putin regime

Lex Fridman (35:05.760)

are Russian, domestic, that the people

Stephen Kotkin (35:10.040)

who are suffering the most from the Putin regime

Lex Fridman (35:13.560)

are not sitting here in New York City,

Lex Fridman (35:16.000)

but in fact are sitting there in Russia.

Lex Fridman (35:18.820)

Now, of course, with the invasion of Ukraine

Lex Fridman (35:21.880)

and really the atrocities that have been well documented

Lex Fridman (35:28.540)

and more are being investigated,

Stephen Kotkin (35:32.080)

we can't easily say anymore that Russians

Lex Fridman (35:34.940)

are the greatest victims of the Putin regime,

Lex Fridman (35:38.120)

but in ways other than bombing and murdering civilians,

Lex Fridman (35:43.120)

children, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers,

Stephen Kotkin (35:49.160)

after you include that, then of course,

Lex Fridman (35:52.440)

the larger number of victims of the Putin regime

Stephen Kotkin (35:55.240)

are not Ukrainians, but ultimately Russians,

Lex Fridman (35:58.240)

and there's how many of them now that have fled?

Lex Fridman (36:02.120)

So your powerful, precise, rigorous words

Lex Fridman (36:07.060)

are then in a stark contrast, I would say,

Stephen Kotkin (36:11.800)

to my very recent conversation with Oliver Stone,

Lex Fridman (36:15.120)

and I would love you to elaborate this agreement

Stephen Kotkin (36:18.360)

you have here with his words and maybe words

Lex Fridman (36:21.420)

of people like John Mearsheimer.

Stephen Kotkin (36:25.420)

The idea is that Putin's hand in this invasion of 2022

Lex Fridman (36:29.520)

was forced by the expansion of NATO,

Stephen Kotkin (36:34.120)

the imperialist imperative of the United States

Lex Fridman (36:38.360)

and the NATO forces.

Stephen Kotkin (36:43.680)

You disagree with this point in terms of placing the blame

Lex Fridman (36:48.420)

somehow on the invasion on forces larger

Stephen Kotkin (36:53.080)

than the particular two nations involved,

Lex Fridman (36:55.340)

but more on the geopolitics of the world

Stephen Kotkin (36:59.600)

that's driven by the most powerful military nation

Lex Fridman (37:02.160)

in the world, which is the United States.

Stephen Kotkin (37:04.280)

Yeah, Lex, so let's imagine that a tragedy's happened here

Lex Fridman (37:09.680)

in New York, and a woman got raped.

Stephen Kotkin (37:13.940)

We know the perpetrator.

Lex Fridman (37:15.920)

They go to trial, and Oliver Stone gets up and says,

Lex Fridman (37:19.460)

you know what?

Lex Fridman (37:20.760)

The woman was wearing a short skirt,

Lex Fridman (37:23.920)

and there was no option but for the rapist to rape her.

Lex Fridman (37:28.760)

The woman was wearing lipstick,

Stephen Kotkin (37:31.960)

or the woman was applying for NATO membership

Lex Fridman (37:35.160)

and just had to be raped.

Stephen Kotkin (37:37.320)

There's, I mean, didn't want to rape her,

Lex Fridman (37:41.040)

but was compelled because of what she was doing

Lex Fridman (37:44.280)

and what she looked like and the clothes she was wearing

Lex Fridman (37:47.880)

and the alliances that she was under international law

Stephen Kotkin (37:51.600)

signed by Moscow, all the treaties

Lex Fridman (37:54.960)

that sovereign countries get to choose

Stephen Kotkin (37:57.160)

whatever alliance they belong to.

Lex Fridman (37:59.300)

The treaties that the UN Charter signed by Russia,

Stephen Kotkin (38:04.820)

Soviet Union, the 1975 Helsinki Agreement

Lex Fridman (38:11.740)

signed by the Soviet Union,

Stephen Kotkin (38:13.340)

the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe

Lex Fridman (38:16.340)

signed by the Soviet Union,

Stephen Kotkin (38:17.700)

the 1997 NATO Russia Founding Act

Lex Fridman (38:21.300)

signed by the Russian government, the post Soviet Russia.

Stephen Kotkin (38:24.500)

All of those documents signed by either the Soviet regime

Lex Fridman (38:30.540)

or the Russian regime,

Stephen Kotkin (38:31.620)

which is the legally recognized international inheritor,

Lex Fridman (38:36.000)

right, successor of the Soviet state.

Stephen Kotkin (38:38.460)

All of those agreements are still in force

Lex Fridman (38:40.460)

and all of them say that countries are sovereign

Lex Fridman (38:44.880)

and can freely choose their foreign policy

Lex Fridman (38:48.340)

and what alliances they want to join.

Stephen Kotkin (38:50.860)

Let's even go farther than that.

Lex Fridman (38:52.660)

I mean, you don't have to go farther than that,

Lex Fridman (38:55.340)

but let's go farther than that, Lex.

Lex Fridman (38:57.980)

Is an autocratic repressive regime

Stephen Kotkin (39:01.020)

that invades its neighbors in the name of its own security

Lex Fridman (39:04.780)

something new in Russian history?

Lex Fridman (39:07.000)

Did we not see this before?

Lex Fridman (39:08.960)

Is this, does this not predate NATO expansion?

Lex Fridman (39:13.540)

Does this not predate the existence of NATO?

Lex Fridman (39:17.160)

Would Oliver Stone sit here in this chair and say to you,

Stephen Kotkin (39:20.100)

you know, they had to impose serfdom in the 17th century

Lex Fridman (39:25.600)

because NATO expanded.

Stephen Kotkin (39:27.720)

They had no choice, their hands were tied.

Lex Fridman (39:30.060)

They were compelled to treat their own population

Stephen Kotkin (39:33.520)

like slaves because, you know, NATO expanded.

Lex Fridman (39:37.560)

I mean, I could go on through the examples

Stephen Kotkin (39:39.620)

of Russian history that predate the existence,

Lex Fridman (39:43.520)

let alone the expansion of NATO,

Stephen Kotkin (39:46.100)

where you have behavior, policies, actions,

Lex Fridman (39:51.620)

very similar to what we see now from the Kremlin.

Lex Fridman (39:55.660)

And you can't explain those by NATO expansion, can you?

Lex Fridman (39:59.940)

And so that argument doesn't wash for me

Stephen Kotkin (40:03.600)

because I have a pattern here that predates NATO expansion.

Lex Fridman (40:07.620)

I have international agreements, founding documents,

Stephen Kotkin (40:10.980)

signed by the Kremlin over many, many decades

Lex Fridman (40:15.980)

acknowledging the freedom of countries

Stephen Kotkin (40:18.460)

to choose their alliances.

Lex Fridman (40:20.500)

And then I have this problem where when you rape somebody,

Stephen Kotkin (40:24.120)

it's not because they're wearing a short skirt.

Lex Fridman (40:26.860)

It's because you have raped them.

Stephen Kotkin (40:32.340)

You've committed a criminal act, Lex.

Lex Fridman (40:35.100)

That's a, I think there's a lot of people listening to this

Stephen Kotkin (40:38.500)

that will agree to the emotion, the power,

Lex Fridman (40:41.420)

and the spirit of this metaphor.

Lex Fridman (40:43.420)

And I was struggling to think how to dance

Lex Fridman (40:46.820)

within this metaphor because it feels like

Stephen Kotkin (40:49.540)

it wasn't precisely the right one,

Lex Fridman (40:51.700)

but I think it captures the spirit.

Stephen Kotkin (40:55.140)

I'm not suggesting, Lex, that everything the West has done

Lex Fridman (40:59.860)

has been honorable or intelligent.

Stephen Kotkin (41:03.900)

Fortunately, we live in a democracy.

Lex Fridman (41:06.260)

We live in liberal regimes.

Stephen Kotkin (41:07.900)

We live under rule of law,

Lex Fridman (41:10.180)

liberal in the classical sense of rule of law,

Stephen Kotkin (41:13.460)

not liberal in the leftist sense.

Lex Fridman (41:17.060)

We live in places like that and we can criticize ourselves.

Lex Fridman (41:20.400)

And we can criticize the mistakes that we made

Lex Fridman (41:22.940)

or the policy choices or the inactions that were taken.

Lex Fridman (41:26.820)

And there are a whole lot of things to answer for.

Lex Fridman (41:30.580)

And you can now discuss the ones that are your favorites,

Stephen Kotkin (41:36.780)

the dishonor or the mistakes.

Lex Fridman (41:39.380)

And I could discuss mine and we could spend

Stephen Kotkin (41:42.540)

the whole rest of our meeting today

Lex Fridman (41:44.940)

discussing the West's mistakes and problems.

Lex Fridman (41:47.260)

And we won't end up in prison for it.

Lex Fridman (41:49.660)

Yeah, Lex, and so I'm thankful for that.

Lex Fridman (41:53.540)

And I'm thankful that people may disagree

Lex Fridman (41:55.680)

and that people make the argument

Stephen Kotkin (41:57.180)

that NATO expansion is to blame.

Lex Fridman (41:59.660)

But you see, I'm countering two arguments here.

Stephen Kotkin (42:02.820)

I'm countering one argument,

Lex Fridman (42:04.960)

which is very deeply popular, pervasive,

Stephen Kotkin (42:08.700)

about how Russia has this cultural tendency to aggression.

Lex Fridman (42:13.180)

And it can help, but invade its neighbors

Lex Fridman (42:16.140)

and it does it again and again.

Lex Fridman (42:17.620)

And it's eternal Russian imperialism

Lex Fridman (42:21.020)

and you have to watch out for it.

Lex Fridman (42:23.080)

This very popular argument in the Baltic States,

Stephen Kotkin (42:26.060)

it's really popular in Warsaw.

Lex Fridman (42:28.500)

It's really popular with the liberal interventionists

Lex Fridman (42:31.720)

and it's very, very popular with those

Lex Fridman (42:34.380)

who were part of the Iraq war squad

Stephen Kotkin (42:36.620)

that got us into that mess.

Lex Fridman (42:39.100)

So I'm against that.

Lex Fridman (42:40.660)

And the reason I'm against it is because it's not true.

Lex Fridman (42:43.500)

It's empirically false.

Stephen Kotkin (42:44.760)

There is no cultural trait,

Lex Fridman (42:47.560)

inherent tendency for Russia to be aggressive.

Stephen Kotkin (42:50.540)

It's a strategic choice that they make.

Lex Fridman (42:53.140)

Every time it's a choice made,

Stephen Kotkin (42:55.060)

it's not some kind of momentum.

Lex Fridman (42:56.540)

Every time it's a choice that we should judge

Stephen Kotkin (42:59.500)

for the choice that it is for the decision.

Lex Fridman (43:01.300)

And therefore they could make different choices.

Stephen Kotkin (43:03.100)

They could say, we don't have to stand up to the West.

Lex Fridman (43:06.020)

We don't have the capabilities to do that.

Stephen Kotkin (43:08.800)

We can still be a great country.

Lex Fridman (43:10.580)

We can still be a civilization unto itself.

Stephen Kotkin (43:13.180)

We can still be Russia.

Lex Fridman (43:15.140)

We can still worship in Orthodox cathedrals

Stephen Kotkin (43:18.500)

or we can still be ourselves,

Lex Fridman (43:21.940)

but we don't have to pursue this chimerical pursuit,

Stephen Kotkin (43:25.960)

this elusive quest to stand up to the West

Lex Fridman (43:29.260)

and be in the first ranks of powers.

Lex Fridman (43:31.940)

So I'm countering that argument.

Lex Fridman (43:33.420)

I'm saying it's perpetual geopolitics.

Stephen Kotkin (43:36.820)

It's a geopolitical choice rising out of this dilemma

Lex Fridman (43:40.740)

of the mismatch between aspirations and capabilities.

Stephen Kotkin (43:44.960)

It's not eternal Russian imperialism.

Lex Fridman (43:47.980)

And I'm also countering the other argument here, Lex,

Stephen Kotkin (43:51.020)

which is to say that it's the West's fault.

Lex Fridman (43:53.860)

It's Western imperialism.

Stephen Kotkin (43:56.180)

I'm very popular on the left,

Lex Fridman (43:57.940)

very popular with realist scholars,

Stephen Kotkin (44:00.580)

very popular with some of the people

Lex Fridman (44:02.340)

recently on your podcast.

Lex Fridman (44:04.860)

And so it's neither eternal Russian imperialism

Lex Fridman (44:08.420)

nor is it Western imperialism, right?

Stephen Kotkin (44:11.260)

The mere fact that the West is stronger than Russia

Lex Fridman (44:14.700)

is not a crime on the part of the West.

Stephen Kotkin (44:17.900)

It's not a crime that countries voluntarily

Lex Fridman (44:21.380)

wanna join the West, that beg to get in,

Stephen Kotkin (44:24.300)

either the EU or NATO or other bilateral alliances

Lex Fridman (44:29.860)

or other trade agreements.

Stephen Kotkin (44:31.620)

Those are voluntarily entered into and that's not criminal.

Lex Fridman (44:35.860)

If the West's sphere of influence,

Stephen Kotkin (44:37.780)

which is open, an open sphere of influence,

Lex Fridman (44:41.580)

which as I say, people voluntarily join,

Stephen Kotkin (44:43.840)

if that expands, that's not a crime,

Lex Fridman (44:46.220)

nor is that a threat to Russia, ipso facto, right?

Stephen Kotkin (44:49.740)

NATO is a defensive alliance

Lex Fridman (44:52.020)

and the countries are largely pacifists

Stephen Kotkin (44:54.020)

who are members of NATO.

Lex Fridman (44:55.660)

And NATO doesn't attack,

Stephen Kotkin (44:57.340)

it defends members if they are attacked.

Lex Fridman (45:00.700)

And so the idea that Ukraine, which had the legal right,

Stephen Kotkin (45:04.380)

might wanna join NATO and the EU,

Lex Fridman (45:08.340)

which was not gonna happen in our lifetimes

Lex Fridman (45:10.980)

and was not a direct threat to the Putin regime

Lex Fridman (45:13.380)

since the Western countries that make up the EU and NATO

Stephen Kotkin (45:21.260)

decided that Ukraine was not ready for membership,

Lex Fridman (45:24.340)

there was no consensus, it was not gonna happen,

Lex Fridman (45:26.780)

but it's Ukraine's free choice to express that desire.

Lex Fridman (45:31.420)

And if your government is elected by your people,

Stephen Kotkin (45:34.300)

freely elected, meaning you can unelect that government

Lex Fridman (45:39.020)

in the next election,

Lex Fridman (45:40.820)

and that government makes foreign policy choices

Lex Fridman (45:43.500)

on the basis of its perceived interests,

Stephen Kotkin (45:46.960)

that's not a crime, Lex, that's not a provocation,

Lex Fridman (45:50.220)

that's not something that compels the leader

Lex Fridman (45:52.660)

of another country to invade you, right?

Lex Fridman (45:55.960)

That is legal under international law,

Lex Fridman (45:59.100)

and it's also a realist fact of life.

Lex Fridman (46:02.100)

The realists like to tell you that Russia here

Stephen Kotkin (46:06.780)

was disrespected, Russia's interests were not taken

Lex Fridman (46:10.500)

into account, et cetera, et cetera,

Lex Fridman (46:12.340)

but the real world works in such a way

Lex Fridman (46:15.140)

that treaties matter, that international law matters.

Stephen Kotkin (46:19.060)

That's why people like me were not in favor

Lex Fridman (46:21.380)

of the US 2003 invasion of Iraq, Lex,

Stephen Kotkin (46:25.820)

because it wasn't legal, in addition to the fact

Lex Fridman (46:29.240)

that we thought it might backfire.

Lex Fridman (46:32.020)

But you know, Lex, like I said, there are a lot of things

Lex Fridman (46:35.420)

about the West that we ought to criticize as citizens,

Lex Fridman (46:38.900)

and we do criticize, but we have to be clear

Lex Fridman (46:42.660)

about where responsibility lies in these events

Stephen Kotkin (46:47.340)

that we're talking about today.

Lex Fridman (46:48.780)

So you get into trouble, it's largely erroneous

Stephen Kotkin (46:51.940)

to think about both the West or the United States

Lex Fridman (46:56.140)

from an imperialist perspective and Russia

Stephen Kotkin (46:58.500)

from an imperialist perspective.

Lex Fridman (47:00.340)

It's better, clearer to think about each individual

Stephen Kotkin (47:04.000)

aggressive decision on its own as a choice that was made.

Lex Fridman (47:07.380)

So let's talk about the most recent choice

Stephen Kotkin (47:10.580)

made by Vladimir Putin.

Lex Fridman (47:14.140)

The choice to invade Ukraine, or to escalate

Stephen Kotkin (47:17.880)

the invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022.

Lex Fridman (47:22.800)

Now we're a few months removed from that decision,

Lex Fridman (47:26.820)

initial decision, why do you think he did it?

Lex Fridman (47:30.580)

What are the errors in understanding the situation,

Stephen Kotkin (47:35.580)

in calculating the outcomes, and everything else

Lex Fridman (47:40.620)

about this decision in your view?

Stephen Kotkin (47:42.660)

Yeah, Lex, when a war doesn't go well,

Lex Fridman (47:48.140)

it looks like lunacy to have launched it in the first place.

Lex Fridman (47:52.380)

Does it ever go well?

Lex Fridman (47:54.140)

War never goes according to plan.

Stephen Kotkin (47:56.820)

All war is based upon miscalculation,

Lex Fridman (47:59.900)

but not everybody is punished for their miscalculation.

Stephen Kotkin (48:03.780)

All aggressive war we're talking about, not defensive war,

Lex Fridman (48:07.620)

is based upon miscalculation.

Lex Fridman (48:10.140)

But you can adjust, you can recalibrate.

Lex Fridman (48:13.660)

You know, when you're driving down the road

Lex Fridman (48:15.700)

and that very annoying voice is telling you

Lex Fridman (48:18.420)

in a thousand feet, make a right,

Lex Fridman (48:23.260)

and you fail to make a right, it recalibrates, right?

Lex Fridman (48:26.340)

It tells you, okay, now go turn around,

Stephen Kotkin (48:29.740)

or U turn, or make a left.

Lex Fridman (48:31.860)

It doesn't say you're an idiot in turn around

Lex Fridman (48:33.980)

and make a U turn, but it does recalibrate.

Lex Fridman (48:37.020)

So you can miscalculate, and the problem

Stephen Kotkin (48:39.220)

is not the miscalculation usually,

Lex Fridman (48:41.140)

it's the failure to do that adjustment, right?

Stephen Kotkin (48:45.420)

People I know who are hedge fund traders,

Lex Fridman (48:50.340)

I ask them, you know, what's your favorite trade?

Lex Fridman (48:52.860)

And the line from the mall, and this is a cliche,

Lex Fridman (48:55.260)

is my favorite trade is when I made a mistake,

Lex Fridman (48:58.940)

but I got out early before all the carnage.

Lex Fridman (49:02.660)

So their favorite trade is not when they made

Stephen Kotkin (49:04.820)

some brilliant choice, but it's when they miscalculated

Lex Fridman (49:08.700)

but they reduce the consequences of their miscalculation

Lex Fridman (49:12.100)

by recalibrating quickly, right?

Lex Fridman (49:14.820)

So let's talk about the calculation

Lex Fridman (49:16.700)

and miscalculation of February.

Lex Fridman (49:19.380)

Let's imagine, Lex, that you've been getting away

Stephen Kotkin (49:21.740)

with murder, I don't mean murder in a figurative sense.

Lex Fridman (49:26.460)

I mean, you've been murdering people,

Stephen Kotkin (49:28.780)

you've been murdering them domestically,

Lex Fridman (49:30.780)

and you've been murdering them all across Europe,

Lex Fridman (49:33.820)

and you've been murdering them not just with, for example,

Lex Fridman (49:38.820)

a car accident, a staged car accident,

Stephen Kotkin (49:41.820)

or using a handgun, you use Novichok,

Lex Fridman (49:47.700)

or you use some other internationally outlawed

Stephen Kotkin (49:51.860)

chemical weapon.

Lex Fridman (49:54.620)

And let's imagine that you did it

Lex Fridman (49:56.660)

and nothing happened to you.

Lex Fridman (49:58.820)

It wasn't like you were removed from power,

Stephen Kotkin (50:01.380)

it wasn't like you paid a personal price.

Lex Fridman (50:04.020)

Sure, maybe there was some sanctions on your economy,

Lex Fridman (50:06.900)

but you didn't pay the price of those sanctions.

Lex Fridman (50:09.620)

Little people paid the price of those sanctions.

Stephen Kotkin (50:12.620)

Other people in your country paid the price.

Lex Fridman (50:15.820)

Let's imagine not only were you murdering people literally,

Lex Fridman (50:19.580)

but you decided to entice the idiotic ruler of Georgia

Lex Fridman (50:24.580)

into a provocation that you could then invade the country.

Lex Fridman (50:30.060)

And you invaded the country

Lex Fridman (50:31.540)

and you bit off these territories,

Stephen Kotkin (50:33.900)

Abkhazia and South Ossetia,

Lex Fridman (50:36.460)

and what price did you pay for that?

Lex Fridman (50:39.260)

And then you decided, you know,

Lex Fridman (50:41.300)

I think I'll now invade Crimea and forcibly annex Crimea,

Lex Fridman (50:45.740)

and I'll instigate an insurrection in the Donbass

Lex Fridman (50:49.700)

in Eastern Ukraine.

Stephen Kotkin (50:51.420)

In Luhansk. Let's imagine you did all that

Lex Fridman (50:54.660)

and then you had to stick out your wrist

Lex Fridman (50:56.900)

so that, you know, it could be slapped a couple of times.

Lex Fridman (51:00.940)

And you said, you know, I can pretty much do what I want.

Stephen Kotkin (51:05.300)

They're putting a sanction here and there

Lex Fridman (51:07.660)

and they're doing this and they're doing that.

Lex Fridman (51:09.860)

And you know what?

Lex Fridman (51:11.180)

They're more energy dependent on me than before.

Stephen Kotkin (51:14.180)

I got better money laundering and reputation services

Lex Fridman (51:17.260)

than anybody had.

Stephen Kotkin (51:18.740)

Maybe the Middle East and the Chinese would disagree with you

Lex Fridman (51:21.740)

that you have better than them, but yours are pretty good.

Lex Fridman (51:24.340)

And the Panama Papers get released,

Lex Fridman (51:27.220)

revealing all of your offshoring and your corruption

Lex Fridman (51:31.140)

and what happened, nothing happens, Lex.

Lex Fridman (51:33.500)

So the first and most important consideration here is,

Stephen Kotkin (51:36.900)

in your own mind, you've been getting away with murder,

Lex Fridman (51:41.100)

literally, as well as figuratively,

Lex Fridman (51:43.620)

and you think, you know,

Lex Fridman (51:44.940)

I probably should have done that.

Stephen Kotkin (51:47.060)

You think, you know, I probably can do something again

Lex Fridman (51:50.380)

and get away with it.

Lex Fridman (51:52.340)

And so the failure to respond at scale,

Lex Fridman (51:55.980)

in fact, the indulgences,

Stephen Kotkin (51:58.620)

the further dependencies that are introduced,

Lex Fridman (52:01.780)

the illusion that trade is the mechanism

Stephen Kotkin (52:05.580)

to manage authoritarian regimes.

Lex Fridman (52:08.340)

You know, that great German cliche,

Stephen Kotkin (52:11.180)

Wandel durch Handel, right, change through trade

Lex Fridman (52:16.700)

or transformation through trade,

Lex Fridman (52:18.420)

one of Angela Merkel's favorite expressions, right?

Lex Fridman (52:21.980)

You're gonna get the other side to be better

Stephen Kotkin (52:26.740)

rather than confront them in a Cold War fashion

Lex Fridman (52:31.700)

where you stand up to their aggressions

Lex Fridman (52:33.580)

and you punish them severely

Lex Fridman (52:35.140)

in order to deter further behavior.

Lex Fridman (52:37.620)

So that's the first and most important part

Lex Fridman (52:39.740)

of the calculation, miscalculation.

Stephen Kotkin (52:41.580)

There are a lot of other dimensions.

Lex Fridman (52:42.940)

So can we pause on that really quick?

Lex Fridman (52:45.780)

So this is kind of idea of it's okay to crack a few eggs

Lex Fridman (52:49.740)

to make an omelet, which is a more generous description

Stephen Kotkin (52:53.420)

of what you're saying,

Lex Fridman (52:55.580)

that you don't incorporate into the calculation

Stephen Kotkin (53:00.260)

the amount of human suffering that the decisions cause,

Lex Fridman (53:04.020)

but instead you look at sort of the success

Stephen Kotkin (53:08.620)

based on some kind of measure for you personally

Lex Fridman (53:11.860)

and for the nation, not in terms of in a humanitarian sense,

Lex Fridman (53:17.700)

but in some kind of economic sense

Lex Fridman (53:19.780)

and a geopolitical power sense.

Stephen Kotkin (53:22.460)

Yeah, you're not sentimental, Lex.

Lex Fridman (53:25.580)

You say to yourself, the cause of Russian greatness

Stephen Kotkin (53:31.500)

is greater than any individual life.

Lex Fridman (53:35.020)

Russia being in the first rank of the great powers,

Stephen Kotkin (53:38.500)

Russia realizing its mission to be a special country

Lex Fridman (53:44.580)

with a special mission in the world,

Stephen Kotkin (53:46.260)

a civilization unto itself,

Lex Fridman (53:49.580)

the first rank of the great powers,

Stephen Kotkin (53:51.940)

maybe even the greatest power.

Lex Fridman (53:53.940)

That's worth the price that we have to pay,

Lex Fridman (53:58.060)

especially in other people's lives, right?

Lex Fridman (54:00.980)

We have a lot of literature on the Putin regime,

Stephen Kotkin (54:03.820)

which talks about the kleptocracy,

Lex Fridman (54:06.700)

the place is a kleptocracy, and it is a kleptocracy.

Stephen Kotkin (54:11.420)

We all can see that, and anybody in London,

Lex Fridman (54:15.860)

living the high life, servicing this kleptocracy

Stephen Kotkin (54:19.220)

can testify that it's a kleptocracy,

Lex Fridman (54:21.700)

and not only in London, of course,

Stephen Kotkin (54:23.620)

right here in the United States, in New York.

Lex Fridman (54:27.140)

But you know, it's not only a kleptocracy, Lex.

Stephen Kotkin (54:30.820)

That was the problem of the Russian studies literature.

Lex Fridman (54:33.900)

It wasn't just about stealing, looting the state.

Stephen Kotkin (54:37.580)

It was about Russian greatness.

Lex Fridman (54:39.900)

You see those rituals in the Kremlin,

Stephen Kotkin (54:43.140)

right in the Grand Kremlin Palace,

Lex Fridman (54:45.460)

in the St. George's Hall,

Stephen Kotkin (54:47.740)

some of the greatest interiors in the world,

Lex Fridman (54:50.820)

and you see award ceremonies, and you see marking holidays,

Lex Fridman (54:55.460)

and all of these looters of the state

Lex Fridman (54:57.660)

have their uniforms on with their medals,

Lex Fridman (55:00.420)

and someone's given a speech or singing

Lex Fridman (55:03.060)

a ballad, and their eyes are moist.

Lex Fridman (55:07.180)

Their eyes are moist because they're thieves and looters?

Lex Fridman (55:11.140)

No, Lex, because they believe in Russian greatness.

Stephen Kotkin (55:15.660)

They have a deep and fundamental passionate commitment

Lex Fridman (55:20.660)

to the greatness of Russia,

Stephen Kotkin (55:22.700)

which in unsentimental fashion,

Lex Fridman (55:25.420)

they're all sentimental to the max.

Stephen Kotkin (55:27.380)

That's why their eyes are moistening.

Lex Fridman (55:30.300)

But they imagine unsentimentally that any sacrifice is okay,

Stephen Kotkin (55:34.260)

a sacrifice of other people's lives,

Lex Fridman (55:36.900)

a sacrifice of their conscripts in the military,

Stephen Kotkin (55:40.420)

a sacrifice of Ukrainian women and children and elderly.

Lex Fridman (55:44.780)

That's a small price to pay for those moist eyes

Stephen Kotkin (55:48.860)

about Russian greatness and Russia's position in the world.

Lex Fridman (55:52.340)

Well, that human thing, that sentimentality,

Stephen Kotkin (55:54.940)

is the thing that can get us in trouble

Lex Fridman (55:56.180)

in the United States as well,

Lex Fridman (55:58.020)

and lead us to wars, the illegal wars and so on.

Lex Fridman (56:01.460)

But the United States,

Stephen Kotkin (56:02.620)

there's repercussions for breaking the law.

Lex Fridman (56:07.140)

You're going to pay for illegal wars in the end.

Stephen Kotkin (56:09.900)

You're saying that in authoritarian regimes,

Lex Fridman (56:13.420)

the sentimentality can really get out of hand,

Lex Fridman (56:15.980)

and you can, by charismatic leaders,

Lex Fridman (56:17.860)

they can take that to manipulate the populace to make,

Stephen Kotkin (56:21.660)

that in the span of history led to atrocities,

Lex Fridman (56:25.340)

and in today's world, lead to humanitarian crises.

Stephen Kotkin (56:30.100)

It's not just the kleptocracy, it's a belief system.

Lex Fridman (56:33.260)

It's passion, it's conviction.

Stephen Kotkin (56:35.900)

It's, you can call them illusions,

Lex Fridman (56:39.380)

you can call them fantasies,

Stephen Kotkin (56:41.500)

whatever you want to call them, they're real.

Lex Fridman (56:44.140)

They're real for those people.

Lex Fridman (56:45.860)

And so yes, they're looting that very state

Lex Fridman (56:48.960)

that they're trying to make

Stephen Kotkin (56:50.180)

one of the great powers in the world.

Lex Fridman (56:52.340)

And they resent the fact that the West

Stephen Kotkin (56:55.860)

doesn't acknowledge them as one of those great powers.

Lex Fridman (56:58.360)

And they resent that the West is more powerful.

Stephen Kotkin (57:01.200)

People talk about how Putin doesn't understand the world

Lex Fridman (57:05.900)

and that he gets really bad information.

Stephen Kotkin (57:08.380)

Lex, if you're sitting there in that Kremlin,

Lex Fridman (57:11.820)

and you're trying to conduct business in the world,

Lex Fridman (57:14.260)

and you're getting reports from your finance minister

Lex Fridman (57:16.940)

or your central bank governor,

Stephen Kotkin (57:19.620)

your whole economy, everything that matters,

Lex Fridman (57:21.900)

somehow all your trade is denominated in dollars and euros.

Lex Fridman (57:27.860)

Do you have any illusions

Lex Fridman (57:29.260)

about who controls the international financial system?

Stephen Kotkin (57:32.740)

I don't think so, Lex.

Lex Fridman (57:34.920)

You're looking over your industrial plan for the next year,

Lex Fridman (57:39.520)

and you're looking over how many tanks you're gonna get,

Lex Fridman (57:42.340)

and how many cruise missiles you're gonna get,

Lex Fridman (57:44.580)

and how many submarines you're gonna get,

Lex Fridman (57:46.580)

and fill in the blank.

Lex Fridman (57:49.620)

And you know what?

Lex Fridman (57:51.180)

It says right there in the paperwork

Stephen Kotkin (57:53.060)

where the component parts come from,

Lex Fridman (57:54.940)

where the software comes from,

Stephen Kotkin (57:56.860)

comes from the West, Lex.

Lex Fridman (57:59.020)

Your whole military industrial complex

Stephen Kotkin (58:01.220)

is dependent on high end Western technology.

Lex Fridman (58:05.060)

And let's say you're in Beijing, not just in Moscow,

Lex Fridman (58:08.620)

and you go to a meeting in your own neighborhood.

Lex Fridman (58:11.580)

You're the leader of China.

Stephen Kotkin (58:13.420)

You go to a meeting with other Asian leaders.

Lex Fridman (58:16.860)

Do they all speak in Chinese with you?

Stephen Kotkin (58:19.900)

No, Lex, they don't speak Chinese.

Lex Fridman (58:22.800)

You go to an international meeting as the leader of China,

Lex Fridman (58:25.420)

and guess what language is the main language of intercourse?

Lex Fridman (58:29.080)

Yes, the same one you and I are speaking right now.

Lex Fridman (58:32.980)

And so you live in that world.

Lex Fridman (58:34.740)

You live in the Western world,

Lex Fridman (58:36.220)

and it's very hard to have illusions

Lex Fridman (58:38.580)

about what world you live in.

Stephen Kotkin (58:40.580)

When you're under that, you need those Western banks.

Lex Fridman (58:44.260)

You need that foreign currency, right?

Stephen Kotkin (58:46.780)

You need that high end Western technology,

Lex Fridman (58:48.960)

that technology transfer.

Stephen Kotkin (58:51.020)

You're speaking, or you're forced to speak,

Lex Fridman (58:53.220)

or your minions are forced to speak

Stephen Kotkin (58:54.920)

at international gatherings in English.

Lex Fridman (58:57.380)

And I could go on.

Stephen Kotkin (58:58.600)

All the indicators that you live in.

Lex Fridman (59:01.200)

And so Putin lives in that world.

Stephen Kotkin (59:02.940)

He's no fool.

Lex Fridman (59:04.460)

Well, to push back, isn't it possible that,

Lex Fridman (59:07.340)

as you said, the minions operate in that world?

Lex Fridman (59:11.020)

But can't you, if you're the leader of Russia,

Stephen Kotkin (59:14.020)

or the leader of China,

Lex Fridman (59:15.180)

or the leader of these different nations, still put up walls

Stephen Kotkin (59:20.700)

where actually when you think in the privacy of your mind,

Lex Fridman (59:24.620)

you exist not in the international world,

Lex Fridman (59:27.540)

but in a world where there's this great Russian empire,

Lex Fridman (59:30.260)

or this great Chinese empire,

Lex Fridman (59:32.500)

and then you forget that there's English,

Lex Fridman (59:34.360)

you forget that there's technology and iPhones,

Stephen Kotkin (59:36.900)

you forget that there's all this US keeps popping up

Lex Fridman (59:41.820)

on all different paperwork.

Stephen Kotkin (59:43.520)

That just becomes the blurry details that dissipate,

Lex Fridman (59:46.620)

because what matters is the greatness of this dream empire

Stephen Kotkin (59:51.260)

that I have in my mind as a dictator.

Lex Fridman (59:54.180)

I would put it this way, Lex.

Stephen Kotkin (59:56.620)

After you absorb all of that from your minions,