Ed. Note: We at Algora have always thought that it was/is the Anglo-American power that is the Master, using Jews as their remote infiltrators throughout world to further the Anglo-American interests, and NOT the other way around. Not a popular view these days. That is the historical background of the Anglo-Zionist alliance.
These days the Anglo-Saxons have managed to find and prop up that ultimate eschatological maniac Netanyahu and his gang of settlers as the perfect irresponsible, suicidal war criminals hell-bent on all-out war in the Middle East.
Now, we have Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, a rare voice, arguing the same. Contrary to the boring group of “dissidents”, Judge Napolitano, Gen. Macgregor, Prof. John Mearsheimer, Scott Ritter, etc., Doctorow’s position is rather more credible.
Today I was given the opportunity to set out a very different explanation of U.S. policy in the developing regional war in the Middle East/West Asia from what my peers are saying, or from what I myself would have said two weeks ago.
The generally accepted view on the U.S.-Israeli relationship in this war was repeated earlier today by Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a widely watched military expert. He said that it appears the U.S. is now flying blind in the region, or to put it another way is on auto-pilot, following two steps behind Israel.
However, by his own acknowledgment, the successful Israeli bombing of the Hezbollah headquarters and decapitation of its leadership in downtown Beirut was made possible only by direct United States support. The 86 two-ton bombs dropped on the residential buildings to tear deep underground and do the job were American supplied. The intelligence on the whereabouts of the intended victims was provided by the United States, which also brought its AWACS into play off the coast of Lebanon long enough to provide actionable information to the Israelis for their strike.
Let us put it another way: the United States provided Israel with what it needed to do what the United States wanted done. After the confirmed killing of the 30 years plus leader of Hamas, US. officials said the dead man had the blood of American servicemen on his hands and it was good that he had been eliminated.
Then let us consider what Western media are reporting about the limits that Washington is putting on Israel’s coming retaliatory strike at Iran for the ballistic missiles that Iran fired at military targets in Israel a day ago. We are told that Joe Biden has warned Netanyahu against hitting any nuclear sites in Iran. That radical solution to the Iranian nuclear weapons program would surely bring the Russians directly into the conflict given that they are about to sign a comprehensive cooperation agreement later this month with a defense component that effectively makes the countries allies. Since the Americans are duty bound to defend Israel, they would then be fighting Russia, the nuclear superpower, something that the Biden administration is loathe to do. The Israelis are also being instructed not to hit oil and gas installations in Iran since that would drive up global energy prices and do great harm to the chances of the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Does this not sound like Washington’s prohibition on Kiev’s use of ATACMS, Storm Shadow and other long range Western supplied missiles against the heartland of Russia? In both cases, the beneficiary of U.S. military support is being deprived of the possibility of doing great harm to its enemy in a war for survival. The explanation for this similarity is ready to hand: the Israeli rampage in the Middle East is being directed from Washington in the same way as Kiev’s invasion of Kursk and other military operations against Russia are directed from Washington.
Washington is now ready to see Netanyahu fight to the last Israeli to tame the neighborhood for the sake of its Big Brother across the Atlantic. The destruction of the neighborhood by ‘our boy’ in Jerusalem is surely seen by the Neocons who still control the levers of power in Washington as suitable retribution for the humiliations the United States experienced in each of the wars it has ignited or joined in the Middle East over the past two decades. Clipping the wings of Iran has been not only an obsession of Netanyahu; it has been an obsession of successive U.S. administrations since that of Jimmy Carter. Let us remember that the USA is a vengeful and cruel superpower.
I say the Jewish State is being asked to fight to the last Israeli in the knowledge that Israel is being destroyed economically and politically while committing genocide in the neighborhood. The Israeli economy is taking enormous losses from this war which has barely begun, not from destruction of infrastructure by the enemy, as in the case of Ukraine, but by loss of access to shipments of essential raw materials inputs for production, in loss of manpower to operate production since the Israeli army is a nation at arms.
*****
I take the analytical approach to the Middle East conflict set out above following the logic that the Kremlin used to explain its decision to change its nuclear doctrine a week ago. They have lowered the threshold on use of nuclear weapons and specifically state that they may respond with nuclear arms if attacked by a non-nuclear power that is assisted in the aggression against Russia by a nuclear power. That overturns the normal prohibition on use of these weapons against non-nuclear states and moves the threat also to the nuclear co-belligerent, meaning the USA.
The reason for this change is that the Kremlin sees that the United States has moved away from its longstanding doctrine of global nuclear attack using its triad. With the advances of Russian weaponry, the States understand that an attempted decapitating blow would not prevent Russia from still launching a massively destructive counter blow using unstoppable hypersonic missiles. So, instead, Washington is pursuing proxy wars aimed at decapitating the nuclear capabilities of an adversary like Russia but leaving the States at one remove and claiming to be uninvolved.
*****
I fully understand that the contrarian view of the relationship between Israel and the USA set out above will meet objections from those who insist that Israel has bought up Congress through its lobbying activities. Reconsidering the actual relations today is only held up by the vanity of these objectors.
There are also other objectors to what I have proposed who ask incredulously how the USA could approve of the Israeli genocide in Gaza which has killed over 40,000 civilians, mostly women and children. To this I answer firstly that the continued supply by Washington to Israel of the munitions necessary to carry out the genocide speaks for itself.
But I have another argument to add to this. I ask the objectors to open their minds to the reality of a vengeful superpower that has itself committed mass murder of civilians on a far vaster scale. We may put to a side the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima as something from the distant past. But what about the entirely illegal invasion of Iraq undertaken by George Bush which killed perhaps as many as 1,000,000 civilians when the American forces stormed through the country on a wave of ‘shock and awe.’ Or what about the way tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq were allowed to die in the decade before the invasion for lack of medicines caused by U.S. sanctions on the Hussein regime?
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
Full transcript in English
Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:02
So nice to have you back, Gilbert.
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, it’s good to be back.
Alkhorshid:
And let’s get started with Russia’s policy in terms of the new strategy, the new nuclear strategy of Russia and how it sees the United States policy in this new strategy. What’s your take on this?
Doctorow:
Well, there has been a lot of commentary in Western media about the changed Russian nuclear doctrine. There are those like Stoltenberg, who would have you believe that nothing has changed and that Russia’s red lines are meaningless. There are others who are a bit more insightful and a bit more honest, who see a dramatic change and who understand the Russians are saying their red lines will be honored or there will be a war.
0:58
But very little attention has gone into why. Why did this come up now? Other than some need to be tough, Mr. Putin was under pressure, and so he responded to domestic pressures by toughening the Russian stance on use of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. There’s something else that was available to us all, but very few of my colleagues have used it. And that was the clear indication when Russia and Mr. Putin rolled out the new doctrine. But it’s based on a new evaluation of the threat from the United States.
1:40
The longstanding threat was a global strike. The United States had set up various satellites and missile systems to stage a global strike that would be decapitating against its enemy and had invested heavily in this. The Russians in the meantime had invested not so heavily but still substantial resources to frustrate such an attack if it were made.
However, what Russia is saying now, looking closely at American and NATO behavior in Ukraine, is that the United States has moved away from that, because what the United States had built up, in many respects was bypassed by latest Russian strategic offensive and defensive systems, weapon systems. And the United States has moved into a new strategy for holding its global dominance and for crushing the most important adversaries that it has, as it sees it, Russia and China.
3:06
And that is using hybrid wars, using proxy wars. And we know that, everyone has acknowledged, that the war in Ukraine is a proxy war of the United States in brackets NATO against Russia. But now, let’s add to that, what’s going on in the Middle East is also a proxy war by the United States. I was listening a few minutes ago to the latest interview that Colonel McGregor has given on the situation in the Middle East. I have the highest respect for the expertise, the military expertise, that he brings to his commentaries.
And I gather from his interviews useful material for my own work, just as I gather useful material from the work of Scott Ritter, although I make critical comments on these and other of my peers. We are all operating out of our own methodologies, and there is no need to look for identical conclusions if we’re using different methodologies for our analysis. Now, Colonel MacGregor was saying that the United States seems to be flying blind in the Middle East. It is not leading events, it is following events, and this is very dangerous for the American people. On reconsideration, I think he’s wrong.
4:38
I think the United States is fully in command of what’s going on, because they are using Israel the same way they are using Ukraine. And they will fight in the Middle East to the last Israeli. The Israeli economy is wrecked, just as the Ukrainian economy is wrecked. To a lesser extent by any externally administered infrastructure damage; that hasn’t happened yet. But as we know, the war has taken a very big toll on the Israeli economy, not just because its men at arms are essentially the managers and the workers of its industry and economy, but because its ports have been made unsafe, because supplies of vital hydrocarbons and other resources have been endangered by strikes from Houthis and other adversaries.
5:34
So the Israeli economy is suffering. But I don’t want to get distracted by that. The main point is that the United States was behind the attacks, the latest attacks in Lebanon. They were impossible without the American inputs. And so these were American planes. These were American intelligence AWACs off the coast, supplying the Israelis with all they needed to know of where to drop the bombs.
And the bombs themselves, the two-ton bombs, 86 of which were dropped on six apartment buildings downtown Beirut, one after another, going through layer and layer till they reached the “safe havens” of their enemies in Hezbollah. Those bombs were American. And of course, what we’re talking about is, as I see it, a kind of revenge by those same people in the deep state who gave us the war in Iraq, which was a disaster at the end, who gave us the Afghan War, which was a humiliation at the end. And these same neocons have not left the power levers in Washington, the influences in Congress. And they are looking for, and they are now achieving, their revenge for the humiliations that the United States has experienced in the last 20 years as a result of their policies, of the never-ending wars that they have inflicted on others for the purpose of maintaining American global dominance.
7:17
Well, this reality struck a chord in Moscow. The Russians understood this perfectly. They seem to have understood it better than Colonel McGregor, although he was rather disparaging of Moscow’s ability to interpret events in his latest remarks. So the United States is behind the war in the Middle East, and it is using Israel to maintain its global dominance throughout the Middle East and to recover its stature from the, as I say, series of xxxxxx invasions in the recent wars that the United States instigated illegally and lost in a quite ugly manner.
So the Russians have understood this, and therefore they have changed their nuclear doctrine to accommodate to the new facts. The new facts are that the United States will stand back, will use its allies, its proxies, to do whatever it wants to do against Russia or China and to stand back with clean hands and say, “Oh, don’t touch us. We weren’t involved in this”, as you see from all of the latest denials coming out of Mr. Kirby and his fellow spokesman for one or another group in the United States leadership.
8:42
No, the United States is in it up to its neck, and It has taken great pleasure in facilitating the Israeli reign of havoc and destruction in this neighborhood.
Alkhorshid: 8:56
And the question is: to what extent do they want to continue the conflict in the Middle East? Because with this ground offensive on the part of the Israelis, it doesn’t seem that would be successful. And are they willing to sacrifice Israel the way they have been sacrificing Ukraine?
Doctorow:
You answered your own question. Yes, of course they are. The United States is very selfish and very cruel. And despite all of the talk about the brotherhood with, relations with Israel, how we stand up for them and we don’t forget the Holocaust and the rest of it, still they’re not us, they’re not the United States. The United States will sacrifice them, without a moment’s hesitation, to achieve what it believes to be its supreme objective of global domination.
Alkhorshid: 9:53
Yeah. And do you think that the way that they’re trying to attack Russian base in Syria, do you find it related to what’s going on between Iran and Hezbollah, or it’s something else, it’s totally different aspects?
Doctorow:
There are assets of the major powers in West Asia. The biggest assets, of course, are American assets. And I think that any American encouragement of or facilitation of attacks in Syria are in this, must be seen in this context, because American assets have been struck by the allies of the axis of resistance that Iran maintains. So it’s tit for tat. That being said, Iran has much greater capability, both itself and through its fellow fighters in the region, to damage the vast resources that the United States has sitting there as sitting ducks.
11:18
The most obvious sitting ducks, of course, are the aircraft carrier task force in Eastern Med, but there are the bases, the fifth fleet base in the region. There are American troops almost everywhere in those countries. And all of them can be struck by missiles from the Houthis, not from Hezbollah so far, but certainly from Iran. And everyone’s taking their time.
What’s going on in the Middle East is also a confirmation of conclusions that I reached with respect to the Ukraine war. That is, why is Mr. Putin so slow to react? Why has he allowed so many red lines to be crossed? Why did it take till now before the Russians have drawn a line in the sand and said, “Definitely, we will attack you, the United States, if you cross this line”?
12:30
I think what we have to consider is that both on the Russian side and on the United States side, there’s a very– it’s like two scorpions that are circling one another. Both these parties do not want to be drawn into a World War III. That being said, the Russians have a greater restraint on them than the Americans do.
The Americans are the unchallenged leader of NATO and of another 20 countries that have joined in, for example, on the anti-Russian campaign in Ukraine. The Russians don’t have that kind of dominance among their sympathizers, let’s call it. China, India, the global south. Russia does not have that dominance. It’s gaining that dominance.
Thanks to American, very ill-advised, very stupid, very ignorant American policies that have pushed China into Russia’s arms and have just pushed Iran into Russia’s arms. Now, what I’m saying now may sound like the unusual understanding of the man biting the dog. The dog usually bites the man, and the dog biting the man is the assumption throughout Washington, that the Ukraine war has forced Russia into China’s arms, and that they have made rather expensive for themselves deals on raised exports of hydrocarbons to China. That they have, they are dependent on China for various commercial assistance, which makes them a junior partner in the relationship.
14:28
That’s what we usually hear from everybody else. I’m saying now the situation is exactly reversed because of what Washington has done, because of the efforts to build a Pacific NATO, because of the agreements with South Korea, Japan, Australia, and hope for other members in an anti-China coalition, right at the borders, and to station these medium-range nuclear-armed missiles against China there.
Before, when we said that the Chinese didn’t want Russia to go under because they would be next, it was a statement of a general observer of what we supposed could be going on. What we see now is not a question of somebody’s arbitrary interpretation. The United States, by leading a trade war against China, by forcing allies to restrict or prohibit sale of advanced chip-making equipment to China, and by encouraging the EU to follow quickly with similar anti-Chinese trade measures, is trying to strike at the jugular of the Chinese economy and of the Communist Party rule in China.
16:15
And that cannot go on without China changing its policies towards the United States now, not five years from now. That’s going on as we speak. And the result, as I say, is that China needs Russia more than Russia needs China right now. Russia has solved its trade problems out of sanctions with India more than with China.
The Chinese, though, need the defensive systems, like the S-400 or S-500, that the Russians have developed, and other weapons that China has that will always charge potential to maintain Chinese defense against a very aggressive neighborhood led by the United States. Iran, under the newly elected moderate reform-minded prime minister, was speaking two weeks ago about wanting to reopen the talks with the signatories to the comprehensive agreement on a nuclear settlement and relaxing the sanctions on Iranian economy.
17:43
That was two weeks ago. What the United States has done by facilitating the Israeli attacks in Lebanon on Hezbollah is– by the decapitation strike in downtown Beirut, was to leave the new president and his advisors with no choice, but to respond in a way that heads towards a regional war and that makes essential the close military assistance that Russia is giving to Iran in the defense weapon systems. This is something that Scott Ritter has spoken about extensively, and I salute his remarks, particularly the notion that the advanced fighter jets that Russia is giving to Iran may very likely be piloted by Russians, and that the S-400s that are now in Iran, to protect them against Israeli strikes, are very likely manned by Russians, or very least have Russian technicians and advisors next to the Iranian crews who are operating systems.
19:04
Why? Well, the very same reason why there are Americans operating the Patriot systems in Kiev. These systems are very sophisticated. They take a long time to train qualified staff. And the time isn’t there. So the manufacturers of the systems have to be present to ensure that they will function properly on the ground. So we can assume safely that if there is going to be an Israeli air attack on Iran, the Israeli planes will be shot down by Russians. That’s where things stand now.
Alkhorshid: 19:47
Yeah. And the other thing in the Middle East would be other countries. How do you see Turkey and Saudi Arabia in terms of what’s going on? Do you find it that they’re getting what’s going on the way that you were describing it, or they’re seeing something else?
Doctorow:
Well, the predicaments of these countries are specific to the countries. Turkey is the most complicated, because of its NATO membership. I think that very quickly its continued presence in NATO will become impossible for Turkey. If that’s– the closer we come to a regional war, less tenable is Turkey’s membership in NATO, because NATO, or the leaders of NATO, are driving the attack on Turkey’s allies in the neighborhood by their blood and religious brothers. Now, will Turkey take part actively now? I don’t think so. Are they going to become co-belligerents? I don’t think so.
21:05
Mr. Erdogan talks big, and does very little. He is sitting on the fence for obvious reasons. But I think: let’s wait until the dust settles. As for Saudi Arabia, they are on the sidelines. They have changed their fundamental policy from being in favor of the Abraham Accords and reaching a settlement with Israel. They have the latest statements. They deny that they will make any peace with Israel until there is a two-state solution in place. But will Saudi Arabia engage in the war? Their defenses, even with American systems, the Houthis–
I apologize for this noise. I’m in my apartment; some neighboring apartments have decided to do renovations, but I hope that my voice nonetheless carries over this background. The Houthis demonstrate that Saudi Arabia was vulnerable in its most sensitive place, in its oil processing facilities. So, if a group as poorly equipped as the Houthis could achieve that, it’s clear that the Saudis are not going to go up against Israel. However, I’d like to call out the more important fact, as I see it.
23:02
Though these countries, the neighborhood of the conflict, will not sign up with Iran today against Israel, states in general go for winners and abandon losers. And if the conflict ends, as it may very well end, with serious damage to Israel’s war reputation, military reputation, I do not say defeat, because the defeat in the obvious terms will be prevented at all costs by the United States. But if Israel takes a beating in this conflict, then the neighborhood will move against Israel in its geopolitical positions, meaning in every international forum. This cannot be underestimated.
Russia has picked up friends and friends. The BRICS is going from strength to strength because of Russia’s apparent victory against all of NATO in Ukraine. As I said, states are not unlike individual humans in this respect. They all want to be on the side of a winner.
Alkhorshid: 24:32
We know that there would be a comprehensive military agreement between Russia and Iran. How do you see this agreement going to a security agreement between these two countries? Because the way that we are witnessing what’s going on in the Middle East and how is it connected to the conflict in Ukraine, it seems that would be the case at the end of the day.
Doctorow:
Well, as others who are more competent than I am to judge the military capabilities of Iran are saying, Iran is doing quite all right with offensive weapons. Their missiles seem to include Mach 10, which is really fully hypersonic missiles that you cannot, you can’t even detect them when they’re coming in. And so in that respect, Iran doesn’t need help.
25:29
But on the defense side and on the air force side, Iran is deficient, and Russia is by no means deficient. This is why the dispatch of these highly advanced air defense systems to Iran is of major importance. And clearly the Russians could not supply enough of their systems to cover all of the assets and infrastructure that are of value, of great value to the Iranian economy and state. So there’s plenty of room for further development of this, once the security agreement is signed and implemented. It is expected that the signature will take place during the BRICS summit in Khazan, which is 25th, 24th, 26th of this month.
Alkhorshid: 26:30
Yeah. And talking about the conflict in Ukraine right now, we had Zelensky was in the United States talking with Biden and then with Donald Trump. Two different meetings totally in terms of the concept and the way they were talking about the conflict. How did you find it?
Doctorow:
Well, I have not much to say about Mr. Biden and his people around or about Kamala Harris. They are all-in on a failed policy of supporting a dictator in Kiev, a dictator who has played a decisive role in military strategy that has not turned out well for his country, most recently the Kursk invasion of Russia that has taken a very bad turn, and been very costly to the Ukrainian military.
27:32
As for Mr. Trump, the situation is a bit more difficult to understand or explain. He is a man known for bluster. He’s a man known for exaggerated statements of one kind or another. He has backed away a little bit from his statements going back a month or more ago that If elected, he would proceed directly to bang heads together and to find a peace in Ukraine in a day’s time.
Well, I don’t hear about a day’s time any more, but he’s still saying that he would be the person to achieve a peace between these parties that escapes Mr. Biden and Kamala Harris because of their ill-informed support for Zelensky and his military adventures. I don’t believe that Mr. Trump has the ability to bang heads together, or to use his charm with Mr. Putin, or threats on Mr. Putin, to bring an end to the war. Nothing of the sort.
28:59
But having said that, Trump does have the ability to end the war in, say, two weeks’ time, simply by pulling the plug on all further U.S. military equipment and financial contributions to Ukraine. In a matter of a week or two, the Ukrainian army would grind to a halt and collapse. In that sense, what Kamala Harris is saying about Trump is correct. Trump would, by withholding support, force a capitulation on the Ukrainians.
Is that a bad thing? No. It’s a wonderful thing for the Ukrainians, because the continuation of this war is a disaster for the nation. They have lost maybe 40% of their population, now refugees abroad,with a very significant proportion going to Russia. Those who went to Europe will not go back. Therefore, the Ukraine, to continue to exist as an independent nation desperately needs an end to the war. That old talk of NATO’s outgoing chief Stoltenberg and incoming leader Rutte that they support the goal of the Ukrainians indefinitely, all of that is very cynical and heartless destruction of Ukraine as a people and as a state.
30:52
So in this sense, the moral high ground is with Mr. Trump. And I hope that that may be appreciated by some of the voters. But to say that his negotiating skills, his art of the deal, will be behind the peace treaty is utter nonsense.
Alkhorshid: 31:16
And the situation in Ukraine and the way that Zelensky is trying to manage the situation if he’s trying to do that. And it seems that right now within the government we had all of Zeluzhny and the foreign minister of Ukraine right now, the head of intelligence is talking about resigning. And how do you see, because at the end of the day, it’s important what’s going on in Ukraine in terms of any sort of equation that the United States is putting on the table?
Doctorow:
Of course there are changes in the Ukrainian ranking and top administration. This is understandable. Mr. Zelensky is trying to find scapegoats for the various failures of his government and of his military. The United States is encouraging this because the United States will want to replace Mr. Zelensky himself at the first opportunity to give a fresh start to the failed adventure in Ukraine. At the end of the day, it is hard to see that Mr. Zelensky will stay in his post. If he were to enter into talks for peace, meaning capitulation, he would be on the first plane out, because he would be a dead man walking in Kiev. The extreme nationalists have said explicitly, they’ll murder him. And I think he is too smart a dude to test that will and ability of his comrade-in-arms.
Alkhorshid: 33:05
Yeah. And right now in the European Union, recently Macron was talking about the priorities of the United States. He said that the first priority is the United States itself, and then it’s China. And how do you understand what’s going on between the United States considering the conflict in Ukraine, and they know what would be the priority of the United States, why they’re not trying to find a solution for their benefit? And recently they’re talking about that the main threat to France is Russia. How is that, how can we put all of this together?
If the main threat is Russia, and they’re trying to understand the behavior of the United States the way that they’re describing it. And do they have any sort of substantial understanding on what’s going on?
Doctorow: 34:12
I think they don’t. The understanding of what is happening in Ukraine is very limited here. Bad news is considered to be disinformation. There is a lot of censorship in Europe, much more than in the United States. There is no division of the public, by the public I mean the politically active public, in Europe the way there is in the United States. And therefore, there is no big effort to explain the situation variously. It’s all explained in accordance with the Washington narrative here in Europe. There is, of course, a growing skepticism about that narrative, even when you pick up the “New York Times” or the “Financial Times”, and you see very frank and open reporting on the disastrous situation in the front of Ukraine, on the level of deaths of those who were newly recruited and sent to the front.
35:29
This is all frankly stated now. It’s not alternative media that are providing this to the public, but it is not so much in European media. And the European leadership is split, as we know, but not 50-50; it’s maybe 75 in favor of the failing policies of today and 25 percent rising who are opposing it. These 25 percent are generally denounced as extremist rightists, which is a very convenient form of slander against parties that are not extremist at all. They’re simply expressing the popular discontent with the failed policies of existing leadership.
And that is shown in the elections in the two states, well, three states now, of what was East Germany, the latest in Brandenburg. And where the, what they could be called, the traffic light coalition of Mr. Scholz, has failed. The Greens have been thrashed, trashed, and the social democrats have done very, very poorly. The SPD. So there is a movement in the public that finds some expression at the ballot box, but has not been sufficient to overturn the ruling majority and the very censorious policies of the governments, which make it difficult to articulate in public space what you and I are talking about.
Alkhorshid: 37:16
Yeah. And the way, in your opinion, in the eyes of Russians right now, they’re thinking of the conflict in Ukraine as it’s going to continue for years or they know that they can put an end to this conflict as soon as possible?
Doctorow:
Well, it is hard to say with certainty what is a genuine change of policy and what is symbolic. The symbolic part, if you want to call it that, is the increase in the Russian military budget for 2025, I think by around 30 percent. If you look at it, if you look backwards a bit, two or three years ago, the Russian military budget planned for 2025 is double, double the Russian military budget before the start of the Special Military Operation. And of course, the formal Russian military budget does not include a lot of spending on security forces, which one could also consider military spending.
38:30
So Russia now is, I think it’s going to have something like 150, 160 billion dollars allocated directly to the military. It is raising the latest call, the latest numbers put out for the Russian armed forces has been raised by another 180,000 men. Russia is bulking up to do what you just said, to go as long as necessary within this war against NATO on the territory of Ukraine. That is a preparation. Preparation doesn’t mean that you anticipate that it will be used. You are doing that as a deterrent to ensure that it doesn’t have to be used.
Therefore, to say exactly what the Kremlin is thinking would be impossible. Do they seriously intend this war to go on for years in the same way that Mr Stoltenberg does? I doubt it. I think they’re looking to a much earlier solution to this, assuming a collapse of Western will, whether that starts in Europe with the unwinding of the German and French governments and the inability of successor governments to provide any aid of importance to Ukraine, or whether it’s the United States elections which change in the single biggest supporter of Ukraine today, the United States.
40:05
But the Russians have good reason to expect the war to end sooner rather than later. Nonetheless, they do not expect the United States to disappear, to go into hiding, to hide under a rock. They expect the conflict with the United States to emerge and re-emerge in various places, as it’s now doing in the Middle East, where very shortly, if this conflict becomes regional, if Iran becomes genuinely engaged, then Russia will be engaged and engaged against whom? Essentially against the United States again. So the Russian need for a large army is justified by its evaluation of world trends, and not just in the locality of Ukraine.
Alkhorshid: 41:03
Yeah. And do you find it right now on the battlefield? How do you see the situation? Is Russia going to take more territories or they’re just satisfied with what’s already in the hand of Russians?
Doctorow:
I would have a difficult time answering that question if I only based myself on this morning’s “New York Times” or “Financial Times”, because they’re telling you, “Oh yes, the Russians have just taken Uhledar, and they’re moving in on Pokrovsk. And these are very important centers of logistics and support for the Ukrainian forces.
But at the same time, the Russians have had massive losses in this operation. Their army is tired, the same with the Ukrainian army is tired. And so everybody’s looking for an exit.”
41:56
Well, if that’s your news for the morning, then you’d have a hard time answering your question. But if you listen to more generally accepted news of developments, the Russians are rolling on, at great expense in terms of planning, effort, munitions, logistical supplies; as for human lives– it is difficult to judge. I think it is safe to guess still the Russians have a between five and 10 to one advantage in terms of casualties compared to what Ukraine is experiencing. And that is explained by their very cautious approach. Oh, we used to read it in the “New York Times”. They are repeating propaganda from Ukraine, which almost always is a mirror image of what we know from Russian sources.
The Russians are telling us that the Ukrainians are sending human waves into attacks. And then the next day, the Ukrainians are saying the Russians are sending human waves and sacrificing the lives of their soldiers to achieve minimal results. These results are no longer called minimal. Talk about Russian will to take the military action to victory, of achievement of its goals from the outset. I think it’s very clear that is what they’re doing and what they will succeed in doing.
43:29
However, I must caution against the titles that are given to interviews by my peers, not necessarily what my peers are saying, but what those who try to attract, bring attention to what they’re saying, that Russia is steamrolling the Ukrainians and that the end of the war is near. No, the end of the war is not near, except if there is a breakdown in support for Ukraine or if there is, by some weird chance, a coup d’etat in Kiev by the military over the civilian leadership. The war can go on for a long time, in theory, not in practice, because the Russians don’t really intend to go beyond the Dnieper. And they could leave Ukraine as a rump state on the other side of the Dnieper. Perhaps the Russians will, if they have to proceed, at greater length, at more time in this fight, will take Odessa and Nikolaevsk, and they will deprive the rump Ukraine of the sea coast.
44:39
That’s all possible. But the rest of the territory of Ukraine, the Russians have no interest in taking that. They just want to see that that is militarily neutralized. And they may very well achieve that. I expect they will. In what time frame? A bit difficult to say, as they will not be decided on the battlefield. It will be decided in the global capitals.
Alkhorshid: 45:05
It seems that at the end of the day, it would be necessary for Russia to make a buffer zone between what’s the eastern part of Ukraine that’s now part of Russia and the western part of Ukraine, until they get to a political settlement or maybe in the aftermath of any sort of political settlement, they do need a buffer zone between the eastern and the western part. How do you find, do you think, have Russians started thinking about it?
Doctorow:
Well, I think this question would be better posed after November 5th, because the, how the American elections go will have a decisive say in whether the war ends very quickly or not so quickly. Buffer zone would be necessary if the war were to go on. It would not be necessary if Ukraine is facing an imminent capitulation.
Alkhorshid: 46:03
Yeah. And just to wrap up this session, yesterday there was an article in “The Hill”, and it says that why do Russians appear so satisfied despite the war in Ukraine? And you mentioned “New York Times” and these people who are thinking that Russia is losing and all of that. But there are people who are confused with what Russia is doing and why they’re so satisfied with the situation. What would be your answer to them?
Doctorow:
The answer to that came out about a month ago in the “Financial Times”, of all places. As I indicated, “Financial Times” is very deeply committed to the Ukrainian victory and to Russian defeat, but not all their journalists are on side of that. And they had a very lengthy article on why life is so good in Russia now, the prosperity that this war has brought to the Russian working class. That is, where salaries have spiraled, have gone up very rapidly, where they enjoy a great many benefits and subsidies from the government, subsidized mortgages.
47:15
We all know that Russia has an 18 to 19 percent interest rate set by the Russian National Bank. But mortgages to young families or to privileged professions like school teachers or medical workers– these are just a few percent a year. The shopping basket of the Russian middle class and working class, more importantly the working class, has been doing very well since the start of this war.
There’s a labor shortage. The people in menial jobs, people who are truck drivers or taxi drivers, they are earning several times what they were making before this war began. And so that gives you a feel-good factor, which is also adding to patriotic fervor that the invasion of Kursk sparked. It’s one thing for Russians to be sent for geopolitical interests abroad across the frontier into Ukraine. It’s another thing for Russians to be fighting on their own soil. And that has been a great spur to national patriotism.
48:46
So between the patriotism coming out of defending your own country and the feeling of prosperity, that’s not a feeling but a reality, is detailed in the “Financial Times”. That explains the phenomenon that you were asking about.
Alkhorshid:
Yeah. Thank you so much, Gilbert, for being with us today. Great pleasure, as always.
Doctorow: 49:11
Thanks for having me.