Having lived in the former USSR before immigrating to the US, Dmitry Orlov has an invaluable perspective on both the US and Russian perspectives, as well as Ukraine.
With the western propaganda flying thick and heavy, it's more important than ever to cut through the chaff and learn what we can about the most important geopolitical realignment (and renewed tensions) in recent memory.
Well, look, Russia is a place that's extremely dynamic as changing response to challenging environment, to changed environment, very popular throughout the world, at peace with most of the world, even with nations that are at war with each other, both sides will still talk to Russia and have friendly relations. Russia has a splendid relationship with both Israel and Iran for instance.
The United States is a nation that can't get anything together, can't get anything on, not education, not healthcare, nothing. It's basically sinking into a cesspool of its own making it can't respond at all. And now, it is basically being shown up to be quite incompetent in playing this international game. Now, what happens if you can't play a game by the rules is you're penalized and you forfeit the game. So, either the US leadership will learn how to play by the rules or they forfeit. I see those are as the only two real outcomes.
There's a difference to how the Russians approach the world and how the Americans approach the world. So, for instance, Americans like to threaten. If you don't do this, then we will do X, Y and Z. That's a typical American behavior.
That's not something that the Russians would ever do because they don't threaten, they just act because if you threaten, then you take away the element of surprise which is very important. The other thing is Americans refuse to talk to their enemies, they won't negotiate with terrorists, they won't do X, Y and Z and can't be reasoned with at all. You can just listen to them and do what they say or they'll bomb you whereas the Russians always talk to their enemies. Russia keeps the channels of communication open.
And the other thing is that all of this endless trash talking is very detrimental to the business of democracy and there's been a constant stream of basically garbage emanating from the west, some of it social media, some of it through the old fashioned press. But, just basically all kinds of lies and disinformation and slander, which makes the tedious business of diplomacy establishing various links at various levels very difficult, if not impossible. So there's just this incredible level of disgust with their, as they say, partners in the west in Moscow and the result is they're not really eager to talk anymore. They're not very interested in communicating. They're far more interested in acting. So, what we'll probably see is a constant stream of surprises coming from Russia that will be completely unannounced and not predicted by anyone.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Dmitry Orlov (51m:10s):
by jaypaul