Douglas Murray: Putin, Zelenskyy, Trump, Israel, Netanyahu, Hamas & Gaza | Lex Fridman Podcast #463

They end up chanting in front of him,

Lamuete, long live death."

They have their counterparts today.

They are the people who who

taunt Americans, Westerners, Israelis,

and others with like,

"We love death more than you love

The following is a conversation

with Douglas Murray, author

of The War in the West, The Madness of Crowds,

and his new book on democracies and death cults.

We talk about Russia and Ukraine

and about Israel and Gaza.

Douglas has very strong views on these topics and he defends them brilliantly and fearlessly.

As I always try to do for all topics,

I will also talk to people who have different views from Douglas,

including on the next episode of this podcast.

We live in an era of online discourse where

grifters, drama farmers, liars, bots, sickopants,

and sociopaths roam the vast, beautiful, dark land of the internet.

It's hard to know

who to I believe no one is in possession of the entire

truth, but some are more correct than others.

Some are insightful and some are delusional.

The problem is it's hard to tell which is which

unless you use your mind

with intellectual humility and with rigor.

I recommend you listen to many sources who disagree with each other and try

to pick up wisdom from each.

Also, I recommend you visit the places in question

as Douglas has, as I have,

or at least talk face to face with people who have spent most of their

lives living there, whether it's Israel,

Palestine, Ukraine, or Russia.

Let's try together to not be cogs in the machine of outrage,

and instead to reach toward reason

and There is no Hitler, Stalin, or Mao

on the world stage today.

Plus, there are thousands of nuclear weapons ready to fire.

Human civilization hangs in the balance.

The 21st century is a new geopolitical

puzzle all of us are tasked solving.

Let's not mess it up.

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To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

And now, dear friends, here's Douglas Murray.

What have you understood

about the war in Ukraine from uh your visits there?

Just looking at the big picture of your understanding of the invasion of February

24th, 2022 and the war in the 3 years since.

Well, I mean, several things.

There's a political angles which are forever

But on the human level, as as you know, if you visit troops, frontline

troops, you have that

admiration for people defending their country, defending their homes, defending their families.

I'm struck by the way in which that is

at a remove from the sort of political

noise and the media noise and and much more.

Um, it's very easy to get caught up in

the twos and fros of

today's news, but uh that to my mind is is that's the single thing

that struck me most in my visits there

uh is just um

the the people I've

met who who are fighting

for a cause which

at that level is unavoidable, undeniable.

So the thing that struck you that's different from the the media turmoil is

just the reality of war. Yeah, of course.

I mean um you know people who

uh have either lived

under Russian occupation from invading armies and then

come back out into the world having been liberated as in late

2022 or the people now organized

most recently there in recent weeks

who were just getting on with their job as

uh whilst the world was talking about them.

When were you there?

In early on in

this escalated war of 22.

Yes, first time was in uh

I was with the the Ukrainian

armed forces when they retook Kersan

and I was back in recent weeks

and was there when

the Trump Sinski blow up happened.

In fact, I was with

I was in a Ukrainian

dugout at the front lines

when I was watching it. How's the morale?

How's the way the content of the conversations

you've heard different on the from the two visits

separated by I guess two years

one level I mean nothing has changed much

you know it's a sort of

it it's not a

a total standoff because

intermittently each side gains territory from the others but it's it's not I mean

there have been no

very significant military gains by either died

in the interim period.

I think uh my experience of the the soldiers, the people of Ukraine

early on in the war, there's a

intense optimism about the outcomes of the war.

There's a sense that they're going to win

and the definition of what win

means was like all the

territory is going to be one back.

Yeah, I I certainly

uh on the front lines facing Crimea

was uh became quite familiar with people who thought that the Ukrainians

in late 2022 would even be able to get Crimea back.

And that struck me even at the time and I said I I thought

that that was an overreach.

And uh now I

think the people the soldiers

at least in my experience when I visited

the second time are more exhausted.

The morale, the dreams,

the certainty of victory

has has maybe faded

from the forefront of their minds.

Well, 3 years of war will tire out anyone.

What did you think of the blow up between Zilinski

and Trump as you're

uh sitting there in the dugout?

Well, it is it was a very uh

disturbing place to watch it from.

Perhaps anywhere would have been.

and I mean obviously it was a meeting that shouldn't have happened.

It was far too early.

Why do you think so?

There's not enough actual pathways to peace on the table.

Well, I think the mineral deal I mean

I love the fact that everyone's now an expert in

Eastern Ukrainian mineral deposits.

But I think uh as I've learned and we'll talk about Israel and Palestine.

I'm learning that everybody's an expert on geopolitics

and the history of war on the internet and now mineral deposits obviously.

Yes, the I'm really speaking at the

edge of my mineral deposit knowledge here, but

no, I mean I

from what I could see, the deal that that uh the American administration was

trying to uh get the Ukrainian government to sign was was sort of too

early to um forced.

The Ukrainians weren't were ready to sign a deal, but were obviously under intense pressure.

Um, and I think

certainly Zalinski wasn't expecting to

actually wasn't expecting to go until pretty much the day

Um, was obviously visibly

tired and exhausted again as you are after that amount of

pressure for that long a time.

And um no, I mean the thing that struck me and I I said

this in my column in the New York Post from there that

uh the thing that struck me was I said to some of the soldiers

I was with uh

you know what do you make of this?

And um you know, one of them just said to

me, well, you know, we're advised not to follow too closely the ins and

outs of the politics of this, you know, and um but of course, everyone

has Instagram or scrolls and among dog pictures and the

you know, the hot women or whatever is

um you know what happened in the

oval and uh but what struck me was this same guy and saying,

"I've got a job to do." Right.

And uh there's a

clarity and a wisdom to that.

But uh your job

is is is bigger than that, right?

Is to understand the politics as well.

And what do you think about the politics of that moment?

Because that was a real

opportunity to come together

and make progress on peace, right?

And it from by

accounts was not a successful step forward.

I don't think by any account it was a successful step forward

unless to some extent it was a play but from DC

to say to Putin

look we ded off Zalinski

and you know now give us something.

That's the only uh

remedial idea I have about

what might have been behind it.

But I think it was just one of those extremely

uh I mean just awful political moments.

Um, Zalinski was deeply

irritated by the the the

interpretation of the war that he was hearing from Washington.

Uh, it was only a week after

the Trump comments about Zalinski being a dictator.

Um, and people in the administration implying

that Ukraine has started the war.

And I think that's

that must be for Zalinski

a pretty Alice in

Wonderland situation to in.

And uh I had significant

sympathy for him in finding it

bewildering because it would be bewildering.

I think the sad thing to me also

on the mundane details of that meeting

and just the unfortunate

way that meetings happen,

I think it's true that he was also exhausted.

Yes, there was a

of a of a reporter

that was asked a question about outfit

in a way that

listen Zilinski, everybody has their strengths and weaknesses.

He's an emotional being

for better or for worse

and there's a dumb

of a reporter Taylor Green's boyfriend. He is. Yeah.

The things you know.

See, you're a real journalist.

He's he's from one of the the new I'm all for opening up the

White House press pool and all that sort of thing, but it means that

you get some people in who are sort

of yeah from Blogland.

There's nothing wrong with that, but it it means that you get somebody who

will do something like that.

The problem with that interaction as I saw it was that the that guy

asked that well disrespectful

question and uh I I think it was disrespectful

and I I'll very quickly say why.

I mean, I think that

I think that when a man comes from the realm of war

into the realm of peace,

the people in the realm of peace should have some respect

or at least concession

that the other man has come from the realm of

And that if you're sitting in a

political environment where you talk about people being

destroyed and decimated and

defenistrated and much more to a man

who's for whom none of that

is metaphorical, I think that's extremely hard to to accept.

Um and I think

that probably also at that moment there was a sort of

of you know Zilinsky

is being disrespected by

being asked about what

wearing when as everyone knows you know Churchill during World War II used to

wear his fatings uh on foreign

vis to remind people you're coming from the realm of

war and I think that probably in that

in that moment one of the things would have been going through his head would be.

But I mean, if if if

this was Putin sitting here being assaulted by a journalist, you know, you'd

you'd hope your host stepped in and defended you.

I mean, if let me try this one out.

I mean, if if a if a journalist in the Oval Office, if Putin

was sitting there or a putitive journalist

said to Putin, you know, um,

everyone knows you've had a lot of

facial work done and, uh, word is you've used the same guy that Berlesi used to use.

Um, can you comment on on that?

You you'd you'd you'd say, well,

that's a kind of disrespectful

question for journalists to ask and it's a little bit

um off off what needs to be gone over.

Uh, and this the same thing with Zalinsky with the outfit.

I think it was just petty and and and

threw things off in a bad way. Yeah.

And it was poorly researched because

I think Zilinski was

explaining this like 3 years ago at the beginning of the war why he

wears what he wears and he's been consistent wearing the same.

It's also by the way it's an example of the frivolity

of a lot of the

of the attempts to

attempts to understand what's going on.

I mean my view is that is that

since actually most people in fact everybody cannot be an expert on everything.

One of the things that we always do is to seize

on minor and really quite unimportant things.

I mean for I mean every site does it.

Look at the way in which the American right for years talked about the

Churchill bust leaving the White House

Oval Office in the Obama years.

I I didn't want to hear another darn thing about the Churchill bust after

eight years because it just it was in lie

of trying to understand

and actually critique Obama's foreign policy.

It was just an easy shorthand.

I think it's the same.

We we're always tempted to that.

But the thing is

I think you mentioned Putin.

I think Putin would have been able to

uh respond himself to that journalist

effectively and he would have done it in Russian.

Oh yeah, the language thing was Yeah.

So I wanted to sort of lay out several just unfortunate

things that happen in

these situations and I think it happens in all peace negotiations

and it's funny how history can turn in moments like this.

I do think there's a

reporter combined with the fact that the, you know, with all due respect, but

Zilinsk's English sometimes is not very good. Yes.

And apart from anything else, if he had have agreed to not done it

in English, he would have bought himself the extra seconds in some of his

replies that he needed. Yeah. Yeah.

And have the wit.

The guy is funny,

witty, intelligent, you know, he could do that in the native language of whether

it's Ukrainian or Russian

to be able to respond and get the interpreter.

So all of that is really unfortunate because I think on those little moments

it's it's a dance

and there's an opportunity there.

You know, the Republicans,

the the right-wing in the United States have a general kind of

skepticism of Zilinski and

and but that doesn't mean it has to be that way.

It can turn, it can change, it can evolve.

It's very interesting why it has happened.

Why do you think it's

I the politics in the United States is so dumb that at the very

beginning it could just be reduced to

well the left went

Putin bad, Zilinski good, rahrh Ukrainian flags.

Therefore, the right must go the opposite.

It sometimes is literally as dumb as that.

Let's each pick a side and call the others dumb.

I I had a

a line I used recently.

Um the necessity of people who live too long online to try to wade

their way out of the memes.

It is sort of like that, isn't it?

Because yes, I mean, I can understand the people who find it very irritating

that so many people who would put BLM

flags or pride flags or,

you know, trans flags in their bio then put Ukrainian

flags in their bio despite

almost certainly not knowing where Ukraine was.

And uh if that happens, the inevitable

instinct of a lot of

people who aren't really thinking is to say, "That's really annoying.

These people are really annoying.

I'll sock it to them."

But that's where you've got to try to rise above that and say, "Actually,

funnily enough, the fate of a country doesn't depend on my tolerance for memes online today." Yeah.

So, I think the memes

can be broken through

in meetings like the one that happened between Zilinsky and Trump.

there can been real camaraderie.

I've seen the skill of that just

recently having researched deeply and

interacted with uh Narendra Modi.

M here's somebody who has the skill

of, you know, for his country,

for his situation, being able to somehow be friends with Putin

and friends with Zilinski

and friends with Trump

and friends with Biden

and friends with Obama

was to go for and

that while still being

strong for his country and

like fundamentally a nationalist

figure who's like, you

very not globalist, not

uh anything but pro- India, India first, nation first.

In fact, nation first

with a very specific

idea what that nation represents. Sure.

And that, you know, Zilinski could do all of those things

but have the skill of

navigating uh the Trump room

because every single leader has their own peculiar

quirks that need to be navigated. Yes. The obvious one.

I mean, I don't want to make it sound like it was all Zilinski's

fault, but I mean, the obvious one was at the beginning of the meeting

to say yet again, as he has done for three years, thank you to

America and the American

people and American politicians from across the aisle for your support for my country

and it's our need.

We're deeply grateful and

because he for once forgot to say that.

I I think it's not that simple.

I think there's a It's not that simple. It's one reason.

I think saying thank you, he didn't need to say thank you.

There's that was why Vance that was what Vance leapt in on.

He's just picking a thing to leap on.

There's a whole energy.

You have to acknowledge

in your way of being

that you have been very

Biden buddy buddy with the left for the last four years.

There's ways to fix that.

Listen, these people are complicated narcissists. All of them. Biden, Trump.

You have to navigate the complexity of that.

And you basically have to

say a kind word to Trump

which is like showing

there's many ways of doing that but one of them is saying

uh feeding the ego by acknowledging

that he is one of the world's greatest negotiators

right I'm I'm glad we're able to come to the table and negotiate

together because I believe you are the great negotiator

mediator that can uh

actually bring a successful resolution to like

as opposed to have an energy of Like

it should be obvious to everybody that Ukrainian

are the good guys and

Russia is the bad guys.

There's this whole energy of entitlement that he brought.

He forgot that there's a new guy.

You got to like

convince the new guy

that this global mission

that this nation is on, this war

that is in in many ways

the west versus the east

that this there's ideals,

there's whole histories here that this is a war worth winning.

You have to convince them, right? Yeah. No, sure.

And he obviously failed on that occasion.

Um, but as I say,

it must be bewildering

to have landed in a place where

people were seriously talking about Ukraine

starting the war, right?

And Zalinski, not Putin being the dictator.

I I I did the front page of the

New York Post the

day after the president's comments on that saying that the big picture of Putin

just saying, "Right, this is

this is a dictator."

And you know, I think the people can be

uh live enough to be able to recognize

that, you know, you can make criticisms

of Zalinski or the Ukrainians,

but it doesn't mean you have to fall full Putin.

And again, unfortunately, a lot of people in our time don't have that capability.

Can we go right into it?

What is your strongest criticism of Putin?

He's a dictator who's

very bloody, as repressive

as you can be of political opposition, internal opposition.

He's kleptomaniac of his country's resources.

Has enriched himself as much as he could

uh as he has with the cronies around him.

uh he's not just acted to

uh destroy internal opposition

in Russia but has

gone to other countries

including my own country of birth and uh killed people on

there our soil using

as it happens weapons of mass destruction.

The use of pelonium

in the center of London is not good.

the use of incredibly

dangerous nerve agents that could kill tens of thousands of people in a charming

cathedral city like Salsbury. Not good.

If the sort of apologist

of Putin say, "Well, he's just a sort of tough man who's looking after his house business."

Well, I don't think even if you think he has the right to do

that, that he should be doing it in

third countries, deliberately using

uh weapons that are meant to

show that you could

take out tens of thousands of British citizens. Yeah.

I mean, that's just for starters.

What do you make for

uh Do you think he's actually popularly elected?

Do you think the the results of the elections are fraudulent? Yes.

I mean, do you think it's possible that it's just that the opposition

has been eliminated and he's legitimately popularly elected?

It definitely helps a chap if he's killed all of his

Something by using the term chap in that context is just uh marvelous.

But, you know, I know I mean, but I mean, seriously, you you

uh if if if

people are worried about

this is another of the sort of slightly Alice in Wonderland

things recently about Zilinski

is people are saying, why why hasn't he's a dictator?

Because he hasn't held elections during a total war of self-defense.

And it's like, well,

you know, if you're really really passionate

about free and fair elections in that neck of the

woods, you'd at least notice

that that Russian elections are not free and fair in any meaningful sense.

But this doesn't mean that you have to say that therefore

they should have western style elections

and and and freedom, that Russia is is ready to go and become a western liberal democracy.

It doesn't mean any of that at all.

Let's just at least

note that this is what Putin is.

What do you think is the motivation

for his invasion of Ukraine in 22?

It's what he's said for years,

which is uh the basically the reconstitution

of the Soviet Union.

Do you think there is

u empire building components to that motivation?

I would trust most my friends in

Eastern Central Europe who

certainly do think that

there's a reason why the Baltic

countries are the countries that are spending highest in percentage of GDP

on defense and it's because they're very worried.

I I don't think they're faking it.

I don't think they're faking it for me or for anyone else.

I think the Lithuanians, the Latians, the Estonians

and others are genuinely

worried for the first time in some decades.

Do you think there's a

possibility that uh the war continues

indefinitely even if there's a ceasefire and the peace reached,

the war will resume?

He will seek expansion even beyond Ukraine. Yes.

And uh the most obvious thing is that if Trump

manages to negotiate a

ceasefire, it'll be a temporary pause

and whoever comes in as president after Trump,

uh Putin will use the opportunity to advance again.

Uh yes, again, one of the things that I have heard from parts of

the American right and others is that all he wants is Ukraine.

that that's all he wants

and that he has no

history or of rhetoric

or actions that suggest anything else.

And again, it's one of the reasons why it's useful traveling to places and

seeing things with your own eyes because I very much remember being in the

country of Georgia uh after Putin

tried to invade in 2008.

So I just again

people don't have to be the greatest supporters of the Ukrainian cause just to

recognize that that it doesn't seem to be the case

that that Ukraine is the only thing in Putin's vision.

Do you see value and

uh maybe depth and power to the realist perspective of all this?

you know, somebody like John Mir Shimemer's formulation of all this

that uh in these invasions of

Georgia of Ukraine, it's

using military power to expand the sphere of influence Mhm.

in the region in a cold calculation of geopolitics. It's interesting.

One of the one of the fascinating things about the last few years is there's

been an act of sort of

necromancy of certain figures who were totally totally debunked.

uh um in the area of Ukraine,

Mia Shimmer and uh

in the case of Israel,

people like Finkelstein and uh it's been interesting cuz these are people that one

hadn't heard of for some years because

um they were not listened to

for usually for good reason.

But by the way, first of all, I'm

very skeptical of the term realist

in foreign because most

people to some extent will say that they are a realist in foreign policy.

Very few people are

surrealists in foreign policy.

Very few people are unrealists.

I would like to meet them.

A surrealist foreign policy analyst.

We did mention Alice in Wonderland.

So yeah, I mean

maybe we should introduce the term,

but I mean if you want to say if you want to look gimlet

out, eyed out across the world, you you're you're a realist.

I think the steelman

of their argument would

be Russia has or believes it has a sphere of

influence and is regrettable,

but there's very little we can do about

That would be about the best

version of that argument that you can make.

Well, to expand on that, Steelman,

isn't this how superpowers

operate in the dark realist/s surrealist way?

Meaning the United States

uses power to uh have a sphere influence over the whole globe really.

Uh, China appears to be willing to use military

power to expand its sphere of influence and political power. Yeah.

More importantly, in the case of China,

political power, non-kinetic warfare to take over

areas, Hong Kong being the obvious one.

But behind that, isn't there always a kinetic threat? Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah.

I mean, you disappear some book sellers and

and uh students are protesting. Of course.

I just but but to go back to this. Yeah, of course. Okay.

Countries believe they have or or would like to have spheres of influence.

I do think at some point that the so-called realists

on that have to try to decide

how much leeway that allows you to give to

a fairly rapacious uh regime.

Uh and it's not I mean it's it's not the easiest

calculation always to make.

You have to work out whether or not for instance it is true that

if if Russia had if Putin had managed to go all the way to

Kiev in the first weeks of

the war in 22

he would have gone straight on to

other places and you know maybe he would have done maybe he would have taken his time.

Maybe he wouldn't have done and this is a very fine calculation

that changes every week let alone every year.

you know, my friends in Georgia, I thought were

um wildly off the mark when they were believing that after 2008

they could get, for instance, either NATO membership or EU membership.

And I I thought that was completely unlikely and I still think it's unlikely

and almost certainly undesirable

for Europe and for NATO

because you you've got to be very careful as and obviously this is one

of the issues with Ukraine and has been

since the '90s is,

you know, are you going to set up a trip wire to start World War II?

And that's not a small thing to consider.

So what do you think

the uh the peace deal might look like?

And what does the path to peace look like in Ukraine

in in the coming weeks and months?

I have thought it would be

uh regrettably the Ukrainians

seeding some territory in the

east and then um

making sure they rearm

uh during whatever peace

period comes afterwards and

probably all four territories of uh dasparation.

You couldn't lay any of that out because it has to be negotiated on.

But I I mean I think that

and I think the ease with which non- Ukrainians

are currently speaking about

Ukrainian seeding territory is is concerning

because these territories include

hundreds of thousands of

Ukrainian citizens who do not want to live

under Putin's rule and people who have families in the rest of Ukraine and

and and much more.

And um uh you know I I recently

interviewed children who had managed to get out of the Russian occupied

areas and um it's it's it's

brutal for a Ukrainian

to be growing up in that territory.

So I when people say well obviously you know Donetsk

has to be given to Putin I I think that that

is not as easy

a thing if you're in Ukraine

as it is if you're sitting in New York say

um and by the way I think that on the issue of

there is a school of thought that that is

that obviously President Trump to some extent was was

floating in recent weeks

which is that if

if a deal is done a business

deal in relation to minerals or anything else.

You get this great you get a kind of buffer zone of

American businesses and investment

and therefore American business people in the region which

effectively warn Putin not to invade.

I don't uh follow that idea

because not least there were Americans in the regions that were invaded

in 22 and they left fast

and we know from Hong Kong and other places that just because there are

international financial interests in the region does not mean that a dictatorship

will not either um militarily

or covertly take over.

I I don't I don't see

American miners as being an effective buffer zone against Putin.

By the way, what did you

um learn from talking to the children,

Ukrainian children from those regions?

Well, I mean, it's it's it's

heartbreaking because the only schooling

is u Russian schooling.

Uh obviously teaching the Russian language,

Putin's view of history, and effectively indoctrination.

and and people can quibble with that term, but it's

Putin indoctrination schools and

any children or families that do not want that

effectively have to hide and um not go out.

And there were I spoke to children and parents who'd had school friends who

for instance the Russians set up in 22 and 23

uh uh summer camps

uh for the children of some of the areas that have been occupied and

the children went off to the camps and then they didn't come back

but they were just stolen.

Um I mean it's thought that around 20,000

Ukrainian children have been stolen in this fashion.

That's not a small thing.

It's not got very much attention,

but um yes, I mean, children who would hide whenever the Russian

troops came to the door.

Uh one teenage boy who described

to me how when his mother was out, a

a woman came around to the house, knocked on the door,

um and gave him his papers

uh and said that he had to attend

the next week to sign up for the Russian

This is I mean this is this is

this is not good.

And that's obviously what life is like for thousands of people behind the Russian lines in Ukraine.

I just I just have it in mind when people say things like you

know well obviously these regions have to be handed over.

It's not it's it's

very very hard if you're Ukrainian to concede to that. Yeah.

And even if they are as part of the negotiation

handed over, I think it'll

probably be generations or never

that that could be accepted

by the Ukrainian people. Absolutely.

And I would have thought never.

What do we know

about this kidnapping of

children, the stories of the thousands of children that the the Russian forces kidnapped?

Um, some of them were in orphanages in Eastern Ukraine.

Not all by any means, but some were.

And it's a very complicated

story actually because many children were taken from their families.

Uh many the Russians

said, "Well, look at these Ukrainians.

They don't even look after their children.

Therefore, we will look them."

And I was I was recently when I was there looking into this story

because it's it's a very interesting question as to why it hasn't had more attention.

You know, one thinks of, for instance, the abduction of the Chibbach

school girls some 12 years ago now

in northern Nigeria and that

appalling abduction of 300 girls by Boka Haram

uh completely gained the world's attention and I was very interested into why the

Ukrainian children who'd been

taken by the Russians had not gained similar attention.

There's a slight similarity with the war in Israel which I'm sure we'll come on to.

But uh I do think that one reason is that they were effectively

hostages and the Ukrainians

knew this is this is my

estimation of the terrain is that the

Ukrainians knew that if they made a great deal

about this was it were more than they did

that the that the children would effectively be the most effective bargaining chip.

And I do think there's

considerable truth in that because if you look at for instance the way in

which um pressure has been put on the Israeli government by the Israeli

population about the kidnapped

Israelis, you'll see that

it it's it's a pretty effective tactic

for uh any uh

totalitarian regime or terrorist

group to operate in a way that means that the population of the country

you're pressure their government

to do something in terms of concession.

It's it's a it's it's a very effective tool

and I think that story was partly played down

not just outside of Ukraine but also within Ukraine partly for that reason.

As a truth seeker, as a

journalist, how do you operate in that world

where at least to me

it's obvious that there's

just a flood of propaganda on both sides?

Now of course when you go there and directly experience

it and talk to people

uh but those people are still also swimming in the propaganda.

So unless you witness stuff directly

sometimes it's hard to know like I I speak to people on the Russian

side and there's they're clearly first of all

hilariously enough they almost always say there's that there's no propaganda in Russia.

Of Uh, which makes me realize I mean

you you can be completely lied to.

Maybe I am in the United States as well and just unaware.

Um, maybe Earth is run by aliens.

Maybe the Earth is flat.

So, I don't know.

Maybe you've taken mushrooms.

I have before this

and I finally see the truth.

And it's you that are diluted, Douglas. Okay.

But uh back to our round earth discussion,

round earth shills that we are

uh how do you know what is true?

You you can tell it

when the bare facts become not true.

Like you can tell it

when somebody is willing to claim that

everything caused the invasion of 2022

except for Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine. Yeah.

There's a there's a hilarious thing that happens

and I think you've actually speak about this that

uh people are generally just much more willing

to criticize the democratically

elected leader always always

so the interesting thing that happens

is these wise sages that do the narratives

of like NATO started the war

right which there is some

interesting geopolitical depth and truth to that like that NATO expansion

created complicated geopolitical context whatever for But they forget to say

like other parts of that story.

Well, yes, of course.

I mean, and I mean, of course, to some extent, it's rather, you know,

there's a there's a very the most irritating type of question asker at any

event is the person who says, "I was disappointed

that in your 30inut

talk you didn't address X."

And I tend to say, "Well, looking forward to coming to your next talk

where in 30 minutes you'll cover everything that could possibly be covered."

Um, there's always stuff that's going to be left on the sides.

There's always going to be stuff that's left unressed.

There's always going to be other angles.

There's always going to be somebody else who who who who

has this interesting perspective and you can't cover it.

Nevertheless, if you cover everything other than

the central things, then it's suspicious.

Many years ago, I was at a debate in

London and there was a debate about

the origins of World War II and uh Pat Buchanan

talking of necromancy was one of the the the

the speakers and um

Roberts historian was one of the people on the other side

and at one point you know they got so completely

stuck into issues of

iron ore mining in Poland in the

mid you know something like this and the moderator I remember it was just

it was just a melee and the moderator turns to Andrew Roberts and says

Andrew Roberts why did

World War II begin and he says

World War II began

because Hitler invaded Poland

and it was a magnificent moment because

everything had been a marsh

they were just so lost

in all the intricate and clever and interesting things that you can talk about

about the origins of a war

that you you you

forget to mention the thing that's most

And certainly my experience

as a journalist and writer is that one of the reasons why

you need to go and see things with your own eyes

is because people are certain to tell you

that what you've seen with your own eyes didn't happen or hasn't

happened and it helps to steal you. Yes. for that moment.

It's a gradual thing that happens where the obvious

thing starts being taken for granted and people stop saying it because it's like

the boring thing to say at a party

and then all of a sudden

over time you just

almost start questioning whether

whether you know like the obvious thing is even true.

I don't know what that

how that happens psychology.

Yeah, I think it does.

I I think it does.

I've observed it in a lot of different places

which is the important thing is the only thing you do forget.

Everything else is what you remember.

And some of us are for some reason wired in a way where we

we don't we try not to forget the important thing.

Remember the obvious thing. Yeah. Yes.

And as you say

not wanting to be the boring guy at the party who reiterates

what is true cuz what a douchebag you'd be if you were that guy.

Nobody likes Captain Obvious at a party. Okay.

Is it possible that

Donald Trump is a

mediator, a successful negotiator

that brings a stable peace to Ukraine? It's possible.

We'll have to see.

I think it's just

too early and complicated to tell.

That he wants to bring a peace seems to me to be obvious.

He stated it a lot of

Um whether he can, we're just going to have to see.

It's extremely hard to see some of the parameters of the peace still.

And I would suggest that the most

one not the the most difficult,

but one of the most difficult is that there is no

peace guarantee on paper that the Ukrainians can possibly believe.

I I just it doesn't matter because we've we've

we in the west we some of the countries in the west have said

it before that we'd secure

their their peace and we haven't

and so what other than NATO membership

which is not possible in my view

what other than NATO membership would reassure the Ukrainians

that they are going to have their borders

secured and the peace of Ukraine

secured I I can't see

I think uh there's

not going to be ever a

guarantee that you can trust.

I think the way you have a guarantee

implicit guarantees by having

military and economic partnerships with as many partners as possible.

So you have partnerships

with uh the uh

the Middle East, you have partnerships with India,

perhaps even with China,

with the United States,

with many nations in Europe.

All of which still suggests that if there's enough

financial interests in Ukraine,

they would prevent another Russian invasion.

There would be financial pressure.

Yeah, there would be

uh you know, Russia

needs to be friends

with somebody either China or the West.

Um I I think a world that's flourishing

would have Russia trading and being friends with the West and the East.

Thought it would be ideal.

It would be ideal if if if they if the regime in Moscow wanted it.

But that's that not I mean again you get into the thing of

you know people accused of Russophobia.

that I mean um

the I I do believe that after the fall of the wall

uh Russia was illreated

by the west not treated

with the uh some of the courtesy

that it required I do think that

and at the same time that doesn't

uh the actions of Russia in the last

20 years right but let's

descent from the surrealist to the realist

it's very possible for Russia

to uh be on the verge of military invasion of these nations

and that being wrong

while also not doing it because

they're afraid to hurt the partnerships

with the West and with China.

It's possible, but the alliance they formed with this sort of rogue

alliance with China to a considerable

extent, North Korea, not useful.

uh and Iran is

um something they seem to find bearable.

It's not a very it's not a very good alliance in most

people's analysis, but it's an alliance.

It's bearable, but I don't think

maybe you disagree with this.

I don't think the Russian people or even Putin

uh wants to be isolated from the West.

I think it wants to be friends with the West and with the East and with everybody.

He just also wants Ukraine, right?

And there's How Does the Rolling Stones song go? Which one?

Um, not the satisfaction one.

Sympathy with the devil. That's the one.

You got me on that one.

No, like there there's

interests where there's expanding the sphere and influence.

That's one thing on the table.

But that can be put aside

if you want to maintain the partnerships with these nations.

And uh if Ukraine has strong economic

partnerships with those nations,

then that prevents Russia from invading.

I think the premise is

one that I've seen before.

Um there was a famous

uh what was his name? Norman Angel.

He wrote this book which was a fantastic

bestseller in his day

where he believed that Europe would be in a period of

endless cantian peace because

the prospect of European powers going to war was so economically unviable.

The book was reissued

after World War I.

Um, and I never got the second edition,

but I assume it was significantly rewritten.

That's a very kind of cynical take that just because the book is wrong.

I'm not saying just a bookstore.

I'm saying that that the idea

that cooperation on an economic

and other levels is

any significant preventative device

to madness breaking out

is is not something I see.

Could deter some people.

It could deter some very very rational economically driven actors.

But it it fails to take into account all of the other things that

motivate people to go to war and to invade and to go mad. Okay.

Well, I would argue that in the 21st century,

one of the reasons we have much fewer wars

is because of the

much more gloss tools here

on this on the geopolitical stage.

One of them is that

we're just much more interconnected economically, globally interconnected.

and that that is always

a present pressure on the world to keep peace.

There's a lot of money to be made from peace.

There's also a lot of money to be made from war.

There's just there's a lot of uh interest

tension and I I'm just presenting

one of the tools

that a leader should be using.

The alternative is what

military force that is an interesting one

sometimes a useful one

but unfortunately it has its downsides also.

And after 3 years of war

and the hundreds of thousands

dead, you have to start wondering what are the options on the table. I agree.

I'm I'm obviously for

economic cooperation, but my only

caveat is not to think that that

is something which is

ultimate interest or even at the top of the list of interests

of uh despots, tyrants,

extremists who want something else. Yeah.

But uh can you read the mind of Vladimir Putin? No.

A lot of the

ideas I hear about peace

is Putin bad victory must be achieved NATO membership required. Yeah.

There's this kind of

like but what's the what's the there you have to come to the table

to to end the killing

is one and uh

to have different ideas of how to

uh have a nonzero chance of peace.

So that you know the options are it seems to me the only

option not the only option

but the likeliest option is a lot of strong economic partnerships.

There's of course other radical options.

There's uh there's uh Russia joining NATO or something like this or there's

um giving you know doing

flirting with World War II essentially giving nukes to Ukraine

or something like this.

There's like crazy stuff

or a totally new military alliance with France and

and and Britain and Germany and

uh European nations and Ukraine

or some weird network of

military power that threatens Russia in some way or maybe some big breakthrough

partnership between India, China

and Ukraine something like this just some really out there

ideas and I think that's how the Well,

that that's how the world finds a balance and

realigns itself in interesting ways.

And look, it could be.

I I I hope you're

uh I hope your idea is right.

Um I think it's about the

well certainly the most peaceful way

for this to be resolved.

My only caveat as I say is

and also never forget to factor

in that people want different things in this

world and some people don't

dream as you dream.

I think we'll talk about that.

So in your new book death cults

that one is an easier one for me to

understand to the story that you're describing.

I am more hesitant to assign

psychopathy to leaders of major nations. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm I'm I'm not by any means urging you to regard

Vladimir Putin as a millinarian

madman who cannot be

in any way understood.

I think he could be negotiated

and reasoned with from your lips to God's

Can you steal me on the case for and then against Zilinski

as the right leader for Ukraine at this moment?

Is he the right person to take it

to the the the point of peace? We'll see.

If if if if

he can, then he then of course he is.

You know, he deserves enormous respect

for galvanizing his people,

for being elected in the first place,

for galvanizing his nation at a time of incredible peril,

um, for playing the international

game of getting support for his country.

um, and sometimes the person who does that,

not there are many people like that, can be the person who also brings

about a peace deal and sometimes not.

I think there's a degree to which

he may have seen too much

suffering of the people, the land he loves

to be able to sit down

at a table with a world leader who

uh did the destruction

and to be able to that is very hard compromise on anything. That's that's possible.

Again, it puts the onus on him though.

sort of slightly presupposes

that Putin doesn't have the same

human instinct on that.

It is extremely hard.

I've noticed this in

a lot of conflicts.

It's extremely hard the way in which

outsiders come in and others who haven't seen what you've seen or gone through

what you've gone through

and say, you know, it's time to get around the negotiating

table and just, you know, you think you didn't

see what I saw.

You didn't go through what I went through.

who you'd tell me.

Goes back to that thing of the the visitor from the land of war

and the visitor from the land of peace.

The visitor from the land of peace

can easily talk about getting around negotiating

tables, but the visitor from the land of

war has seen other things.

And um it's it's very hard for somebody who hasn't seen it

to tell the person who has that they should act differently.

And the sad thing

about humanity is both

the the person from the land of peace and the person from the land

of war are right. Yes. That's a struggle.

That's definitely a struggle.

It's it's like asking somebody to forgive.

I've seen that at a lot lot of ends of conflicts.

People say, you know, the important thing is that we forgive and move on.

And then the other person

says, you know, your child didn't die of shrapnel wounds.

Yeah, this is, you know, I got a lot of heat for interview with Zilinski.

By the way, people privately,

the people that messaged me is all love and support.

Even the people that disagree in Ukraine, soldiers,

uh, people online are ruthless. They're misrepresenting me. They're lying.

People online are ruthless and misrepresenting and lying. Yeah. Good god, Lex.

You've discovered a new uh phenomenon.

I'm a real radical

Nothing misses your eye.

I see the truth and I'm unafraid

to point it out. Uh, no.

There's a degree this this

idea that you need to compromise

with the person with the leader of a nation you're at war with

and in so doing

to some degree are forgiving their

actions because the actual feeling you have

is you want it to be fair.

And the definition of fair when you've seen that much suffering

is for him and everybody around him and maybe even all of the people

on the other side to just die

because you've seen too much suffering.

But the the other side of that

is yes there's children that have died

but you go coming to the

negotiation other children from dying. Yes, of course.

And so like there is just you had this kind of

way of speaking about it embodying

that perspective that it's naive to say to come to the negotiation

table and it is

for a person from the land of war

but the very smart intelligent

and not naive person from the land of peace

that is often right in some

deep sense about the long arc of

history for them it does

it is the right thing to come to the negotiation

table to end the more killing.

The one thing I would add to that though is,

you know, don't forget that it it's also depends on whether or not there's

a clear shot of winning. Sure.

If there's a clear shot of winning, and that's a

the most important the most important thing in wars is not

uh final negotiations or anything like that.

It's simply winning and losing.

And if you have a clear shot of winning

and you can take it

and you're near it,

um then having somebody else come in and

saying, "Uh, why not

stop just before victory is is is very hard."

That's one of the complex one of the many many complexities of the conflict we're talking about.

You know what's the the other big complexity of that?

Because the clear shot of winning is like a man walking through the desert seeing water.

Uh it could be during war.

It really is an illusion.

So here's what happens.

The really complicated aspect

of negotiation is in order to

negotiate peace from a place of

strength, you have to have victory in sight. Yes.

And so the temptation

from that position is to not negotiate,

is to keep pushing forward to achieve victory.

And this I would say

uh hindsight is 2020

but this is the failure in 22

and two occasions to

achieve to negotiate a ceasefire and peace.

One in the spring

because there was a Ukraine was in a real

big I would say position of strength

he have having fended off the Russian forces around Kiev. That's one.

And then as you mentioned

in the fall of 22

with with Hersan and Hardgave

had a lot of military success.

They were in a place of strength

and from that place they've decided

to keep going because victory was in sight.

But that was also an opportunity to make peace. It's perfectly possible. Yes.

That's the hard thing. It's very hard. It's all hard.

But I'm just again

it's victory can be won in wars and is often won in wars.

Uh and you're right, they can also grind on because

nobody has the capability to make a breakthrough.

Uh it's a case I mean

the wisdom about civil wars tends to be that they sort of burn out

after about 10 years or so

uh for similar reasons.

When you're in the war,

can you actually know that a victory can be won?

It's a very good question.

And um you mean troops on the battlefield or military leaders or political leaders?

Military and political leaders.

It just feels like

like I said man in the desert seeing water.

I think there's a sense

that victory is so close.

There times there's times in a war when you feel like victory is close. No, you're right.

It's and it just slips away. Yes.

It's an interesting insight.

It's like the way in which

um there's a there's a force in nature which is that if you amass

an army um amassing

it will pull you in to using it. Yeah.

Extremely hard to amass an army somewhere and then say

let's go Yes, you're right.

No, it's it's one of many many interesting aspects to warfare.

I think the sad

thing about successful wars, at least in the modern day,

is it takes a

great military leader, which I would argue that Zalinski

really unified Ukraine in this fight in the beginning of the war. Mhm.

You have to be that.

And like you said, after either you amass the army and have military success

to be able to step back and make peace

that those two just don't

often go hand in hand

because again as a wartime leader,

especially one who has seen the suffering firsthand,

walking away is uh is tough,

especially also combined with that

just the realities of war where there is probably corruption

that there There is

things you know once the war ends there has to be investigations

because the war wasn't

won you might not

turn out to be when history looks at it

the good guy and a leader doesn't want to

a leader always wants to be the good guy.

So there's just all psychological

complexities that are and you look at this whole picture

uh in in the basic sense if you want

Ukraine to flourish if you want humanity to

flourish you just ask the question okay so

what is the thing I would like

see there's so many historical analogy

you can give but

just surely not rewarding

Putin's action ictions in any way

would be a good way to

deter him and other

dictators from trying to grab

land in the future.

So yeah, and but this it's nuanced because like

you it's very probably good to be the boring person at the party that

says dictatorships are uh democracies are good.

Many of the ideals of the west democracies are better better.

Yes, that sounds like animal farm but yes

two legs better but yes democracy is better

and uh invading countries is bad.

Uh but World War II is bad too.

So after you say something is bad, what's the next step?

Cuz military intervention in a lot of these conflicts

it'll be about deterrence. Yeah.

But what's what's effective deterrence

that we're going to have to keep

going over for a long time to come?

My question is how

can we achieve peace

in April, in May, right?

Not like the adults at the table all seem to tell me,

well, it's a process. It's complicated.

you know, there it just feels like this is a

thing that might go into the next winter

and there's still um maybe initial ceasefire and the ceasefire is broken and there's more people dying. Sure.

And it it's that mess.

It seems like civility and

ignores the fact that people are dying every single day.

I mean, of course, like we all

almost everybody, not everybody, but almost everyone would like the killing to stop immediately. Of course.

No, like I I think that is the boring thing at the party.

Yes, but they don't say it often enough. Not often.

There has to be a frustration.

There has to be a frustration.

I don't understand why

Putin, Zilinski, and Trump

can't just meet in a room together without anything.

Leaders meeting and discussing

and like the human connection there.

There's so many layers of diplomats.

It's the problem I have with a managerial class.

I don't they they schedule meetings really well.

They don't get done.

And I I I would love it if people got done.

So the soldiers get done.

They have they're fighting the reality of the war.

And then the leaders have the capacity to get done on the on the

scale of nations and geopolitics.

But like this diplomatic

meetings and No, I agree.

I share your frustration about At the same time, I think

um I share your frustration because I've seen it all a lot of it,

you know, with my own eyes.

I mean, there was a

batan as I was with the other week and they were hit just after I

left their base and

you wouldn't believe what

a thermabaric bomb can do to the human

And I share your frustration with that.

At the same time, one of the things that

happens if you are

rushing is that you do, and I've

seen this elsewhere, you you will put pressure

on the people you can

pressurize, and you will not put enough pressure on the people you can't pressurize.

And that is one of the worrying things that could happen with this.

simply you can put America can put

uh diplomatic, financial, intelligence,

military pressure on Ukraine

and it can put

significant pressure on Putin,

but it's much easier

to pressure Zalinski and that's one of the many things that makes it harder

is that the temptation to rush for peace

except accepting that peace is the most desirable thing, accepting the horrors of war,

which you know we can linger on, but you accepting all that.

If somebody says we've got to get peace today and the three of them

around a table, the most likely thing is that it'll be that it'll be

the person who you can pressure most

easily, who will be the person that you pressure

and as a result

have an outcome which yes

might stop the killing

as soon as possible, but might also set up

a situation which rewards the aggressor

and effectively punishes the victim.

And that's an extremely

ugly and common thing to happen. Yeah.

And that's the other boring thing to say,

the boring truth that

uh the easy shortcut here is

uh is to punish Ukraine

and you just have to not do it.

Let's keep being the boring people of the party. Yeah.

Well, nobody's going to invite us.

All right, let's go from

one complicated conflict to uh perhaps an even more

one, Israel and Palestine.

Can you uh take me through what happened on October 7th

as you understand it

and as you outline

at the beginning of the book?

Well, the book on democracies

and death cults is

a mixture of firsthand

reporting and observation interviews

and a wider reflection

not just on the

war that's been going on since

the 7th October but the war that's been going on a lot

longer and also I suppose on the what for me is one of the overwhelming

questions which I'm sure we'll get to which is

the reaction in the rest of the world.

Obviously on the 7th itself

it was a brigades

size attack on Israel from Gaza.

Uh Hamas broke through the security fence

and uh attacked all the softest targets they could.

Uh they swiftly overwhelmed

things like the observation

base in They ran through the communities

in the south uh very peaceful peace neck effect communities of

the kibbutim as they're called

communities um and murdered and raped and burned and

and of course they from their point of view had the great good fortune

of also coming across hundreds of young people dancing in the early hours of

the morning at a dance party

and rampaged through that with

RPGs and Kashnikovs and grenades

and hammers and more

and uh got within

well 20 kilometers into

Israel on places like Offakim

and Sterat important towns and carried out their massacres there as well.

We now know that

the plan was that Hezbollah

did the same thing from the north.

Hezbollah joined in the war within 24 hours by

starting firing rockets again

in very large numbers into northern Israel from Lebanon.

But the plan was

that they would do the same thing from the north and

carry out similar massacres there and

effectively be able to meet in the middle and gar Israel from the center.

The interesting reason why I think it'll be found out in the future, but

why they didn't coordinate better was Hamas

didn't trust any line of communication to Hezbollah

to let them know exactly when they were going to do it that wouldn't

be in it that wouldn't be intercepted.

The Iranian revolutionary government in Thran,

which obviously funds Hamz and Hezbollah

and trains and arms,

knew of the plan.

It was a very

successful attempt to annihilate the state, but

they didn't get close to that, but they got worryingly

closer than people might have thought

they were capable of.

I think from the Israeli side,

uh it was obviously one of the most, if not the most

catastrophic intelligence and military failure since the foundation of the state.

And I think there are several why.

One is a perception problem.

What a lot of

military commanders and others described to me as the conception,

the conception that had prevailed in Israel for some years and security military establishment

was that Hamas were

content with being corrupt

and governing Gaza and

you know lining their pockets and living in

uh Qatar and becoming billionaires.

But that like many other terrorist groups

and you know cults

that they would end up

becoming just corrupt and

not losing their ideology

but the ideology becomes secondary.

That's the first thing was there was just a

massive error of the conception

in Israel and then then there the multiple

manifold security and military failures of the day and leading up to the day.

Um and there will be a there already have been quite a lot of

people held to account for that

and there doubtless will be in the future as well.

Um the the single

uh thing I heard which

I heard most and which was most distressing

in a way was the number of people

who described to me you know who survived the massacres

in the south who said that

you know they'd said to their children

don't worry the army will be here in minutes and they weren't

you know many places it was many

hours till the army got there.

Um and there are reasons for that.

There are some reasons that

will be military failings, leadership failings.

Other things were very I I discovered

were very human failings.

I don't want to overstress

the failure of the army because

actually certain units and things got down very fast.

There's a unit of Dan who got down to the junction

you know by within about

an hour 90 minutes of the

massacres starting and joined in the fight

and then there were self starters who I write about in the book extraordinary

people who just like broke orders and just realized the

magnitude of what was happening and said we're needed in the south go

and fought very hard

for hours days in some

cases but the complexities

on the ground were unbelievable.

I mean, as as

usually happens in warfare,

but what they call the fog of war is a very real thing.

You you you know what it's you can see it in hindsight,

but you can't see when you're in it.

And one of the things that

made it very complicated

was for instance Hamas

coming in uh taking uniforms

off dead Israelis uh

wearing them uh coming in with

Israeli style um apparatus on them.

There's a Muslim doctor I quote in the book I interviewed who

describes how he was going to his he's an Israeli Muslim

Arab and he was going to

he's a doctor he was going to his shift at the hospital at 6:30

in the morning the rockets start coming in because the rockets started first and

then the the full invasion

and he described to me how

um you know he's one of the members of this group hat the United

Hatsella which is a first responders

group and um they sort of, you know, they get an alert and it

tells them that, you know, a car has crashed nearby and they they they

put on their uh, you know, first aid kit and so on and go

and he got one of those alerts at one of the junctions

and uh realized there was a car that something had happened and there were

some dead bodies and he he stops and

he sees these men dressed as soldiers.

Uh, and they start and he's wearing his hats

gear and they start firing at him

and he just thinks, "What the hell?

what the hell is going on?

And uh they turned out to be Hammaz

dressed as Israeli soldiers.

They uh used him as a human shield to try to protect from any

air assault and in the end they

shot him and left him and he survived.

He's a very very brave man.

Um so there was a lot of confusion like that.

There was a girl

father I interviewed, she was at the

Nova party and uh

I met him at one of the reunions

of the party in the weeks after

and the reunions of the survivors and the family and so on and he

described how in the last moments of his daughter's life, she phoned him on

her phone like a lot of people.

you he reassured her that army would get there and so on and

and her boyfriend was shot in the head and was lying on her lap

and she was obviously panicked and

they managed to get into a car and escape the party but they went

to a a community where they thought they'd be safe in the south of

Israel and they were told to stay where they were by somebody who she

said was a policeman and he wasn't the policeman he was Hermes

dressed as police and uh she died she was shot and and killed as

well And um so there was a lot of confusion like that.

Uh it it hopefully

we you know the world will find

out exactly what went wrong.

Israel will find out exactly what went wrong that led to this catastrophe

but I mean it

it was a a complete catastrophe.

Do you have a sense of how

such an intelligence failure could have happened?

So there's a a bit of a temptation to go into conspiracy

land because it's such a giant intelligence failure.

It seems that there was

um some manipulation on the inside

for political reasons or for

you don't need to go into conspiracy land.

I mean I think

there are people who say that there were parts of the intelligence network and

so on that were trying that were withholding the information.

I don't know again

people will find out.

Um there's an awful lot of politics inside

Israel and uh it's it's it's

hard to know that at this stage.

I think most people are sort of still

Israeli and not Israeli including people who are

anti-Israel who just believe

that you know Israeli

military and particularly intelligence

dominance is so so strong

that there must have been some kind of conspiracy

otherwise how could this have happened?

I don't think you need to go into that.

I think that I mean for instance some of the young women