Jeffrey Sachs: [03:37.000 --> 03:51.000] Michael, thank you so much, and thanks to all of you for the chance to be together and to think together.
Jeffrey Sachs: [03:51.000 --> 03:59.000] This is indeed a complicated and fast-changing time and a very dangerous one.
Jeffrey Sachs: [03:59.000 --> 04:04.000] So we really need clarity of thought.
Jeffrey Sachs: [04:04.000 --> 04:13.000] I'm especially interested in our conversation, so I'll try to be as succinct and clear as I can be.
Jeffrey Sachs: [04:13.000 --> 04:22.000] I've watched the events very close up in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Russia,
Jeffrey Sachs: [04:22.000 --> 04:28.000] very closely for the last 36 years.
Jeffrey Sachs: [04:28.000 --> 04:33.000] I was an advisor to the Polish government in 1989,
Jeffrey Sachs: [04:33.000 --> 04:39.000] to President Gorbachev in 1990 and 1991,
Jeffrey Sachs: [04:39.000 --> 04:50.000] to President Yeltsin in 1991 to 1993, to President Kuchma of Ukraine in 1993, 94.
Jeffrey Sachs: [04:50.000 --> 04:55.000] I helped introduce the Estonian currency.
Jeffrey Sachs: [04:55.000 --> 05:03.000] I helped several countries in former Yugoslavia, especially Slovenia.
Jeffrey Sachs: [05:03.000 --> 05:10.000] I've watched the events very close up for 36 years.
Jeffrey Sachs: [05:10.000 --> 05:16.000] After the Maidan, I was asked by the new government to come to Kiev,
Jeffrey Sachs: [05:16.000 --> 05:22.000] and I was taken around the Maidan, and I learned a lot of things firsthand.
Jeffrey Sachs: [05:22.000 --> 05:28.000] I've been in touch with Russian leaders for more than 30 years.
Jeffrey Sachs: [05:28.000 --> 05:39.000] I know the American political leadership close up our previous secretary of treasury
Jeffrey Sachs: [05:39.000 --> 05:47.000] was my macroeconomics teacher 51 years ago, just to give you an idea.
Jeffrey Sachs: [05:47.000 --> 05:51.000] So we were very close friends for a half century.
Jeffrey Sachs: [05:51.000 --> 05:53.000] I know all of these people.
Jeffrey Sachs: [05:53.000 --> 06:00.000] I just want to say this because what I want to explain in my point of view is not secondhand.
Jeffrey Sachs: [06:00.000 --> 06:02.000] It's not ideology.
Jeffrey Sachs: [06:02.000 --> 06:08.000] It's what I've seen with my own eyes and experience during this period.
Jeffrey Sachs: [06:09.000 --> 06:17.000] In my understanding of the events that have fallen Europe in many contexts,
Jeffrey Sachs: [06:17.000 --> 06:29.000] and I'll include not only the Ukraine crisis, but Serbia 1999,
Jeffrey Sachs: [06:29.000 --> 06:35.000] the wars in the Middle East, including Iraq, Syria,
Jeffrey Sachs: [06:36.000 --> 06:44.000] the wars in Africa, including Sudan, Somalia, Libya.
Jeffrey Sachs: [06:44.000 --> 06:51.000] These are to a very significant extent that would surprise you perhaps
Jeffrey Sachs: [06:51.000 --> 06:56.000] and would be denounced about what I'm about to say.
Jeffrey Sachs: [06:56.000 --> 07:02.000] These are wars that the United States led and caused.
Jeffrey Sachs: [07:02.000 --> 07:10.000] And this has been true for more than 40 years now.
Jeffrey Sachs: [07:10.000 --> 07:18.000] What happened more than 30 years, I should say, to be more precise.
Jeffrey Sachs: [07:18.000 --> 07:25.000] The United States came to the view, especially in 1990, 1991,
Jeffrey Sachs: [07:25.000 --> 07:28.000] and then with the end of the Soviet Union,
Jeffrey Sachs: [07:28.000 --> 07:33.000] that the U.S. now ran the world.
Jeffrey Sachs: [07:33.000 --> 07:41.000] And that the U.S. did not have to heed anybody's views, red lines, concerns,
Jeffrey Sachs: [07:41.000 --> 07:50.000] security viewpoints, or any international obligations, or any UN framework.
Jeffrey Sachs: [07:50.000 --> 07:57.000] I'm sorry to put it so plainly, but I do want you to understand.
Jeffrey Sachs: [07:58.000 --> 08:05.000] I tried very hard in 1991 to get help for Gorbachev,
Jeffrey Sachs: [08:05.000 --> 08:11.000] who I think was the greatest statesman of our modern time.
Jeffrey Sachs: [08:11.000 --> 08:18.000] I recently read the archive to memo of the National Security Council
Jeffrey Sachs: [08:18.000 --> 08:26.000] discussion of my proposal, how they completely dismissed it and laughed it off the table,
Jeffrey Sachs: [08:26.000 --> 08:33.000] when I said that the United States should help the Soviet Union in financial stabilization
Jeffrey Sachs: [08:33.000 --> 08:36.000] and in making its reforms.
Jeffrey Sachs: [08:36.000 --> 08:42.000] And the memo documents, including some of my former colleagues at Harvard,
Jeffrey Sachs: [08:42.000 --> 08:49.000] in particular, saying, we will do the minimum that we will do to prevent disaster,
Jeffrey Sachs: [08:49.000 --> 08:54.000] but the minimum, it's not our job to help, quite the contrary,
Jeffrey Sachs: [08:54.000 --> 08:57.000] it's not our interest to help.
Jeffrey Sachs: [08:57.000 --> 09:06.000] When the Soviet Union ended in 1991, the view became even more exaggerated.
Jeffrey Sachs: [09:06.000 --> 09:14.000] And I can name chapter and verse, but the view was we run the show.
Jeffrey Sachs: [09:14.000 --> 09:22.000] Cheney, Wolfowitz, and many other names that you will have come to know.
Jeffrey Sachs: [09:22.000 --> 09:29.000] Literally believed this is now a US world, and we will do as we want.
Jeffrey Sachs: [09:29.000 --> 09:34.000] We will clean up from the former Soviet Union.
Jeffrey Sachs: [09:34.000 --> 09:43.000] We will take out any remaining allies, countries like Iraq, Syria, and so forth will go.
Jeffrey Sachs: [09:43.000 --> 09:54.000] And we've been experiencing this foreign policy for now essentially 33 years.
Jeffrey Sachs: [09:54.000 --> 10:01.000] Europe has paid a heavy price for this because Europe has not had any foreign policy
Jeffrey Sachs: [10:01.000 --> 10:04.000] during this period that I can figure out.
Jeffrey Sachs: [10:04.000 --> 10:10.000] No voice, no unity, no clarity, no European interests.
Jeffrey Sachs: [10:10.000 --> 10:16.000] Only American loyalty.
Jeffrey Sachs: [10:16.000 --> 10:23.000] There were moments where there were disagreements and very, I think, wonderful disagreements,
Jeffrey Sachs: [10:23.000 --> 10:30.000] especially in the last time of significance was 2003 in the Iraq war.
Jeffrey Sachs: [10:30.000 --> 10:39.000] When France and Germany said we don't support the United States going around the UN Security Council for this war,
Jeffrey Sachs: [10:39.000 --> 10:51.000] that war, by the way, was directly concocted by Netanyahu and his colleagues in the US Pentagon.
Jeffrey Sachs: [10:51.000 --> 10:55.000] I'm not saying that it was a link or mutuality.
Jeffrey Sachs: [10:55.000 --> 10:59.000] I'm saying it was a direct war.
Jeffrey Sachs: [10:59.000 --> 11:02.000] That was a war carried out for Israel.
Jeffrey Sachs: [11:02.000 --> 11:09.000] It was a war that Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith coordinated with Netanyahu.
Jeffrey Sachs: [11:09.000 --> 11:16.000] And that was the last time that Europe had a voice.
Jeffrey Sachs: [11:16.000 --> 11:27.000] And I spoke with European leaders then, and they were very clear and it was quite wonderful.
Jeffrey Sachs: [11:27.000 --> 11:34.000] Europe lost its voice entirely after that, but especially in 2008.
Jeffrey Sachs: [11:34.000 --> 11:48.000] Now, what happened after 1991 to get to 2008 is that the United States decided that unipolarity
meant that NATO would enlarge
Jeffrey Sachs: [11:48.000 --> 11:53.000] somewhere from Brussels to Vladivostok, step by step.
Jeffrey Sachs: [11:53.000 --> 11:58.000] It would be no end to eastward enlargement of NATO.
Jeffrey Sachs: [11:58.000 --> 12:02.000] This would be the US unipolar world.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:02.000 --> 12:13.000] If you play the game of risk as a child, like I did, this is the US idea to have the peace on
every part of the board.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:13.000 --> 12:19.000] Any place without a US military base is an enemy, basically.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:19.000 --> 12:24.000] Neutrality is a dirty word in the US political lexicon.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:24.000 --> 12:26.000] Perhaps the dirtiest word.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:26.000 --> 12:29.000] At least if you're an enemy, we know you're an enemy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:29.000 --> 12:33.000] If you are neutral, you're subversive.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:33.000 --> 12:35.000] Because then you're really against us.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:35.000 --> 12:37.000] Because you're not telling us.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:37.000 --> 12:41.000] You're pretending to be neutral.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:41.000 --> 12:47.000] So this was the mindset and the decision was taken formally in 1994.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:47.000 --> 12:52.000] When President Clinton signed off on NATO enlargement to the east.
Jeffrey Sachs: [12:52.000 --> 13:05.000] You will recall that in February 7, 1991, Hans Dietrich Gensher and James Baker III spoke
with Gorbachev.
Jeffrey Sachs: [13:05.000 --> 13:14.000] Gensher gave a press conference afterwards where he explained NATO will not move eastward.
Jeffrey Sachs: [13:14.000 --> 13:21.000] We will not take advantage of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.
Jeffrey Sachs: [13:21.000 --> 13:28.000] And understand that was in a juridical context, not a casual context.
Jeffrey Sachs: [13:28.000 --> 13:35.000] This was the end of World War II being negotiated for German reunification.
Jeffrey Sachs: [13:35.000 --> 13:42.000] And an agreement was made that NATO will not move one inch eastward.
Jeffrey Sachs: [13:42.000 --> 13:51.000] And it was explicit and it is in countless documents and just look up national security archive of
George Washington University.
Jeffrey Sachs: [13:51.000 --> 13:54.000] And you can get dozens of documents.
Jeffrey Sachs: [13:54.000 --> 13:59.000] It's a website called what Gorbachev heard about NATO.
Jeffrey Sachs: [13:59.000 --> 14:05.000] Take a look because everything you're told by the US is a lie about this.
Jeffrey Sachs: [14:05.000 --> 14:09.000] But the archives are perfectly clear.
Jeffrey Sachs: [14:09.000 --> 14:18.000] So the decision was taken in 1994 to expand NATO all the way to Ukraine.
Jeffrey Sachs: [14:18.000 --> 14:23.000] This is a project. This is not one administration or another.
Jeffrey Sachs: [14:23.000 --> 14:34.000] This is a US government project that started more than 30 years ago.
Jeffrey Sachs: [14:35.000 --> 14:42.000] In 1997, Zbigno Brzynski wrote the Grand Chess Board.
Jeffrey Sachs: [14:42.000 --> 14:45.000] That is not just musings of Mr. Brzynski.
Jeffrey Sachs: [14:45.000 --> 14:53.000] That is the presentation of the decisions of the United States government explained to the public.
Jeffrey Sachs: [14:53.000 --> 14:57.000] Which is how these books work.
Jeffrey Sachs: [14:57.000 --> 15:07.000] And the book describes the eastward enlargement of Europe and of NATO as simultaneous events.
Jeffrey Sachs: [15:07.000 --> 15:18.000] And there's a good chapter in that book that says what will Russia do as Europe and NATO
expand eastward?
Jeffrey Sachs: [15:19.000 --> 15:25.000] And I knew Zbigno Brzynski personally. He was very nice to me.
Jeffrey Sachs: [15:25.000 --> 15:29.000] I was advising Poland. He was a big help.
Jeffrey Sachs: [15:29.000 --> 15:35.000] He was a very nice and smart man and he got everything wrong.
Jeffrey Sachs: [15:35.000 --> 15:47.000] So in 1997, he wrote in detail why Russia could do nothing but exceed to the eastward
expansion of NATO and Europe.
Jeffrey Sachs: [15:47.000 --> 15:52.000] In fact, he says the eastward expansion of Europe and not just Europe but NATO.
Jeffrey Sachs: [15:52.000 --> 15:56.000] This was a plan, a project.
Jeffrey Sachs: [15:56.000 --> 16:01.000] And he explains how Russia will never align with China.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:01.000 --> 16:06.000] Unthinkable. Russia will never align with Iran.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:06.000 --> 16:11.000] Russia has no vocation other than the European vocation.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:11.000 --> 16:16.000] So as Europe moves east, there's nothing Russia can do about it.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:16.000 --> 16:21.000] So says yet another American strategist.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:21.000 --> 16:26.000] Is it any question why we're in war all the time?
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:26.000 --> 16:32.000] Because one thing about America is we always know what our counterparts are going to do.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:32.000 --> 16:35.000] And we always get it wrong.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:35.000 --> 16:43.000] And one reason we always get it wrong is that in game theory that the American strategists play,
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:43.000 --> 16:46.000] you don't actually talk to the other side.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:46.000 --> 16:49.000] You just know what the other side strategy is.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:49.000 --> 16:51.000] That's, it's wonderful.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:51.000 --> 16:54.000] It saves so much time.
Jeffrey Sachs: [16:54.000 --> 17:00.000] You don't need any diplomacy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:00.000 --> 17:08.000] So this project began and we had a continuity of government for 30 years
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:08.000 --> 17:14.000] until maybe yesterday, perhaps.
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:14.000 --> 17:23.000] 30 years of a project, Ukraine and Georgia were the keys to the project.
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:23.000 --> 17:24.000] Why?
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:24.000 --> 17:30.000] Because America learned everything it knows from the British.
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:30.000 --> 17:36.000] And so we are the wannabe British empire.
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:36.000 --> 17:41.000] And what the British Empire understood in 1853,
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:41.000 --> 17:45.000] Mr. Palmer, Lord Palmerston, excuse me,
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:45.000 --> 17:49.000] is that you surround Russia in the black sea
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:49.000 --> 17:54.000] and you deny Russia access to the Eastern Mediterranean.
Jeffrey Sachs: [17:54.000 --> 18:04.000] And all your watching is an American project to do that in the 21st century.
Jeffrey Sachs: [18:05.000 --> 18:10.000] The idea was that there would be Ukraine,
Jeffrey Sachs: [18:10.000 --> 18:19.000] Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Georgia as the black sea literal
Jeffrey Sachs: [18:19.000 --> 18:29.000] that would deprive Russia of any international status by blocking the black sea
Jeffrey Sachs: [18:29.000 --> 18:36.000] and essentially by neutralizing Russia as more than a local power.
Jeffrey Sachs: [18:36.000 --> 18:39.000] Brzezinski is completely clear about this.
Jeffrey Sachs: [18:39.000 --> 18:43.000] And before Brzezinski, there was Mackinder
Jeffrey Sachs: [18:43.000 --> 18:47.000] and who owns the island of the world, owns the world.
Jeffrey Sachs: [18:47.000 --> 18:50.000] So this project goes back a long time.
Jeffrey Sachs: [18:50.000 --> 18:56.000] I think it goes back basically to Palmerston.
Jeffrey Sachs: [18:56.000 --> 19:01.000] And again, I've lived through every administration,
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:01.000 --> 19:06.000] I've known these presidents, I've known their teams.
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:06.000 --> 19:14.000] Nothing changed much from Clinton to Bush to Obama to Trump one to Biden.
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:14.000 --> 19:18.000] Maybe they got worse step by step.
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:18.000 --> 19:22.000] Biden was the worst in my view.
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:22.000 --> 19:27.000] Maybe also because he was not compostmentist for the last couple of years.
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:27.000 --> 19:32.000] And I say that seriously not as a snarky remark.
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:32.000 --> 19:36.000] The American political system is a system of image.
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:36.000 --> 19:40.000] It's a system of medium manipulation every day.
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:40.000 --> 19:43.000] It is a PR system.
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:43.000 --> 19:47.000] And so you could have a president that basically doesn't function
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:47.000 --> 19:55.000] and have that in power for two years and actually have that president run for re-election.
Jeffrey Sachs: [19:55.000 --> 20:00.000] And one damn thing is he had to stand on a stage for 90 minutes by himself.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:00.000 --> 20:02.000] And that was the end of it.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:02.000 --> 20:07.000] Had it not been that mistake, he would have gone on to have his candidacy,
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:07.000 --> 20:12.000] whether he was sleeping after 4pm in the afternoon or not.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:12.000 --> 20:15.000] So this is actually the reality.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:15.000 --> 20:17.000] Everybody goes along with it.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:17.000 --> 20:21.000] It's impolite to say anything that I'm saying.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:21.000 --> 20:27.000] Because we don't speak the truth about almost anything in this world right now.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:27.000 --> 20:31.000] So this project went on from the 1990s.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:31.000 --> 20:35.000] Bombing Belgrade, 78 straight days.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:35.000 --> 20:39.000] In 1999 was part of this project.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:39.000 --> 20:43.000] Splitting apart the country when borders are sacrosanct,
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:43.000 --> 20:46.000] except for Kosovo.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:46.000 --> 20:48.000] That's fine.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:48.000 --> 20:54.000] Because borders are sacrosanct, except when America changes them.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:54.000 --> 20:58.000] Sudan was another related project.
Jeffrey Sachs: [20:58.000 --> 21:00.000] The South Sudan rebellion.
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:00.000 --> 21:05.000] Did that just happen because South Sudanese rebelled?
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:05.000 --> 21:09.000] Or can I give you the CIA playbook?
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:09.000 --> 21:16.000] To please understand as grownups what this is about.
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:16.000 --> 21:19.000] Military events are costly.
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:19.000 --> 21:27.000] They require equipment, training, base camps, intelligence, finance.
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:27.000 --> 21:30.000] That comes from big powers.
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:30.000 --> 21:35.000] That doesn't come from local insurrections.
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:35.000 --> 21:44.000] South Sudan did not defeat North Sudan or Sudan in a tribal battle.
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:44.000 --> 21:47.000] It was a U.S. project.
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:47.000 --> 21:55.000] I would go often to Nairobi and meet U.S. military or senators or others
Jeffrey Sachs: [21:55.000 --> 22:00.000] with deep interest in Sudan's politics.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:00.000 --> 22:05.000] This was part of the game of unipolarity.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:05.000 --> 22:10.000] The NATO enlargement, as you know, started in 1999 with Hungary, Poland,
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:10.000 --> 22:13.000] and the Czech Republic.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:13.000 --> 22:16.000] Russia was extremely unhappy about it.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:16.000 --> 22:20.000] But these were countries still far from the border.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:20.000 --> 22:23.000] Russia protested.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:23.000 --> 22:26.000] Of course, to no avail.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:26.000 --> 22:31.000] Then George Bush Jr. came in when 9-11 occurred.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:31.000 --> 22:34.000] President Putin pledged all support.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:34.000 --> 22:50.000] And then the U.S. decided in September 20, 2001 that it would launch seven wars in five years.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:50.000 --> 22:55.000] And you can listen to General Wesley Clark online talk about that.
Jeffrey Sachs: [22:55.000 --> 23:00.000] He was NATO supreme commander in 1999.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:00.000 --> 23:04.000] He went to the Pentagon on September 20, 2001.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:04.000 --> 23:07.000] He was handed the paper explaining seven wars.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:07.000 --> 23:11.000] These, by the way, were Netanyahu's wars.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:11.000 --> 23:15.000] The idea was partly to clean up old Soviet allies
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:15.000 --> 23:20.000] and partly to take out supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:20.000 --> 23:25.000] Because Netanyahu's idea was there will be one state.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:25.000 --> 23:27.000] Thank you. Only one state.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:27.000 --> 23:31.000] It will be Israel. Israel will control all of the territory.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:31.000 --> 23:35.000] And anyone that objects, we will overthrow.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:35.000 --> 23:39.000] Not we, exactly. Our friend, the United States.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:39.000 --> 23:43.000] That's U.S. policy until this morning.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:43.000 --> 23:46.000] We don't know whether it will change.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:46.000 --> 23:53.000] Now, the only wrinkle is that maybe the U.S. will own Gaza instead of Israel own in Gaza.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:53.000 --> 23:59.000] But the idea has been around at least for 25 years.
Jeffrey Sachs: [23:59.000 --> 24:10.000] It actually goes back to a document called Clean Break that Netanyahu and his American political
team put together in 1996
Jeffrey Sachs: [24:10.000 --> 24:15.000] to end the idea of the two-state solution.
Jeffrey Sachs: [24:15.000 --> 24:18.000] You can also find it online.
Jeffrey Sachs: [24:18.000 --> 24:21.000] So these are projects. These are long-term events.
Jeffrey Sachs: [24:21.000 --> 24:27.000] These aren't, is it Clinton? Is it Bush? Is it Obama?
Jeffrey Sachs: [24:27.000 --> 24:32.000] That's the boring way to look at American politics as the day-to-day game.
Jeffrey Sachs: [24:32.000 --> 24:36.000] But that's not what American politics is.
Jeffrey Sachs: [24:36.000 --> 24:43.000] So the next round of NATO enlargement came in 2004 with seven more countries.
Jeffrey Sachs: [24:43.000 --> 24:50.000] The three Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Slovakia.
Jeffrey Sachs: [24:50.000 --> 24:55.000] At this point, Russia was pretty damn upset.
Jeffrey Sachs: [24:55.000 --> 25:04.000] This was a complete violation of the post-war order agreed with German reunification.
Jeffrey Sachs: [25:04.000 --> 25:21.000] Essentially, it was a fundamental trick or defection of the U.S. from a cooperative arrangement is
what it amounted to because they believe in unipolarity.
Jeffrey Sachs: [25:21.000 --> 25:28.000] So as everybody recalls, because we just had the Munich Security Conference last week in 2007,
President Putin said,
Jeffrey Sachs: [25:28.000 --> 25:35.000] stop, enough, enough, stop now.
Jeffrey Sachs: [25:35.000 --> 25:44.000] And of course, what that meant was in 2008, the United States jammed down Europe's throat
enlargement of NATO to Ukraine and to Georgia.
Jeffrey Sachs: [25:44.000 --> 25:48.000] This is a long-term project.
Jeffrey Sachs: [25:48.000 --> 25:55.000] I listened to Mr. Sakushvili in New York in May of 2008.
Jeffrey Sachs: [25:55.000 --> 25:59.000] And I walked out called Sonia and said, this man's crazy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [25:59.000 --> 26:02.000] And a month later, a war broke out.
Jeffrey Sachs: [26:02.000 --> 26:08.000] Because the United States told this guy, we save Georgia.
Jeffrey Sachs: [26:08.000 --> 26:14.000] And he stands at the Council on Foreign Relations, says, Georgia's in the center of Europe.
Jeffrey Sachs: [26:14.000 --> 26:19.000] Ladies and gentlemen, it's not in the center of Europe.
Jeffrey Sachs: [26:19.000 --> 26:30.000] And the most recent events are not helpful for Georgia, for its safety and your MPs going there,
or MEPs going there, and European politicians.
Jeffrey Sachs: [26:30.000 --> 26:38.000] That gets Georgia destroyed. That doesn't save Georgia. That gets Georgia destroyed, completely destroyed.
Jeffrey Sachs: [26:38.000 --> 26:48.000] In 2008, as everybody knows, our former CIA director William Burns sent a long message back to
Condoleezza Rice.
Jeffrey Sachs: [26:48.000 --> 26:52.000] Net means net about expansion.
Jeffrey Sachs: [26:52.000 --> 27:05.000] This we know from Julian Assange, because believe me, not one word is told to the American people
about anything, or to you, or by any of your newspapers these days.
Jeffrey Sachs: [27:05.000 --> 27:11.000] So we have Julian Assange to thank, but we can read the memo in detail.
Jeffrey Sachs: [27:11.000 --> 27:19.000] As you know, Victor Yanukovic was elected in 2010 on the platform of neutrality.
Jeffrey Sachs: [27:19.000 --> 27:27.000] Russia had no territorial interests or designs in Ukraine at all.
Jeffrey Sachs: [27:27.000 --> 27:32.000] I know, I was there during these years.
Jeffrey Sachs: [27:32.000 --> 27:41.000] What Russia was negotiating was a 25-year lease to 2042 for Sevastopol naval base.
Jeffrey Sachs: [27:41.000 --> 27:48.000] That's it. Not for Crimea, not for the Donbass, nothing like that.
Jeffrey Sachs: [27:48.000 --> 27:59.000] This idea that Putin is reconstructing the Russian Empire, this is childish propaganda, excuse me.
Jeffrey Sachs: [27:59.000 --> 28:06.000] If anyone knows the day-to-day and year-to-year history, this is childish stuff.
Jeffrey Sachs: [28:06.000 --> 28:11.000] Childish stuff seems to work better than adult stuff.
Jeffrey Sachs: [28:11.000 --> 28:19.000] So no designs at all. The United States decided this man must be overthrown.
Jeffrey Sachs: [28:19.000 --> 28:23.000] It's called a regime change operation.
Jeffrey Sachs: [28:23.000 --> 28:33.000] There have been about a hundred of them by the United States, many in your countries, and many all over
the world.
Jeffrey Sachs: [28:33.000 --> 28:38.000] That's what the CIA does for a living.
Jeffrey Sachs: [28:38.000 --> 28:44.000] Please know it. It's a very unusual kind of foreign policy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [28:44.000 --> 28:55.000] But in America, if you don't like the other side, you don't negotiate with them, you try to overthrow them.
Jeffrey Sachs: [28:55.000 --> 29:02.000] Preferably covertly. If it doesn't work covertly, you do it overtly.
Jeffrey Sachs: [29:03.000 --> 29:09.000] You always say it's not our fault. They're the aggressor. They're the other side. They're Hitler.
Jeffrey Sachs: [29:09.000 --> 29:18.000] That comes up every two or three years. Whether it's Saddam Hussein, whether it's Assad, whether it's
Putin, that's very convenient.
Jeffrey Sachs: [29:18.000 --> 29:26.000] That's the only foreign policy explanation the American people are ever given anywhere.
Jeffrey Sachs: [29:26.000 --> 29:32.000] Well, we're facing Munich 1938. Well, we're facing Munich 1938.
Jeffrey Sachs: [29:32.000 --> 29:37.000] Can't talk to the other side. They're evil, implacable foes.
Jeffrey Sachs: [29:37.000 --> 29:44.000] That's the only model of foreign policy we ever hear from our mass media.
Jeffrey Sachs: [29:44.000 --> 29:52.000] And the mass media repeats it entirely because it's completely subordinate by the US government.
Jeffrey Sachs: [29:52.000 --> 30:02.000] Now, in 2014, the US worked actively to overthrow Yanukovych.
Jeffrey Sachs: [30:02.000 --> 30:10.000] Everybody knows the phone call intercepted by my Columbia University colleague, Victoria Newland.
Jeffrey Sachs: [30:10.000 --> 30:14.000] And the US ambassador, Peter Piot.
Jeffrey Sachs: [30:14.000 --> 30:21.000] You don't get better evidence. The Russians intercepted her call and they put it on the internet.
Jeffrey Sachs: [30:21.000 --> 30:32.000] Listen to it. It's fascinating. I know all these people, by the way, by doing that, they all got
promoted in the Biden administration.
Jeffrey Sachs: [30:32.000 --> 30:49.000] That's the job. Now, when the Maidan occurred, I was called immediately, oh, Professor Sachs, the new
Ukrainian Prime Minister would like to see you to talk about the economic crisis.
Jeffrey Sachs: [30:49.000 --> 30:59.000] Because I'm pretty good at that. And so I flew to Kiev and I was walked around the Maidan.
Jeffrey Sachs: [30:59.000 --> 31:06.000] And I was told how the US paid the money for all the people around the Maidan.
Jeffrey Sachs: [31:06.000 --> 31:11.000] Spontaneous revolution of dignity.
Jeffrey Sachs: [31:11.000 --> 31:18.000] Ladies and gentlemen, please. Where do all these media outlets come from?
Jeffrey Sachs: [31:18.000 --> 31:23.000] Where does all this organization come from? Where do all these buses come from?
Jeffrey Sachs: [31:23.000 --> 31:33.000] Where do all these people call the income from? Are you kidding? This is organized effort.
Jeffrey Sachs: [31:33.000 --> 31:46.000] And it's not a secret except to citizens of Europe and the United States. Everyone else understands it
quite clearly.
Jeffrey Sachs: [31:46.000 --> 31:58.000] Then came Minsk, and especially Minsk two, which by the way was modeled on South Tyrolean autonomy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [31:58.000 --> 32:04.000] And the Belgians could have related to Minsk two very well.
Jeffrey Sachs: [32:04.000 --> 32:12.000] It said there should be autonomy for the Russian-speaking regions in the east of Ukraine.
Jeffrey Sachs: [32:12.000 --> 32:17.000] It was supported unanimously by the UN Security Council.
Jeffrey Sachs: [32:17.000 --> 32:25.000] The United States and Ukraine decided it was not to be enforced.
Jeffrey Sachs: [32:25.000 --> 32:33.000] Germany and France, which were the guarantors of the Normandy process, let it go.
Jeffrey Sachs: [32:33.000 --> 32:53.000] And it was absolutely another direct American unipolar action with Europe as usual playing completely useless
subsidiary role, even though it was a guarantor of the agreement.
Jeffrey Sachs: [32:53.000 --> 33:04.000] Trump won, raised the armaments. There were many thousands of deaths in the shelling by Ukraine in the Donbass.
Jeffrey Sachs: [33:04.000 --> 33:11.000] There was no Minsk to agreement. And then Biden came into office.
Jeffrey Sachs: [33:11.000 --> 33:18.000] And again, I know all these people, I used to be a member of the Democratic Party.
Jeffrey Sachs: [33:18.000 --> 33:29.000] I now am strictly sworn to be a member of no party because both are the same anyway.
Jeffrey Sachs: [33:29.000 --> 33:46.000] And because the Democrats became complete warmongers over time, and there was not one voice about peace, just
like most of your parliamentarians, the same way.
Jeffrey Sachs: [33:46.000 --> 34:02.000] So at the end of 1991, Putin put on the table a last effort in two security agreement drafts, one with Europe
and one with the United States.
Jeffrey Sachs: [34:02.000 --> 34:09.000] The U.S. put on the table December 15, 2021.
Jeffrey Sachs: [34:09.000 --> 34:17.000] Our call with Jake Sullivan in the White House begging Jake, avoid the war.
Jeffrey Sachs: [34:17.000 --> 34:26.000] You can avoid the war. All you have to do is say NATO will not enlarge to Ukraine.
Jeffrey Sachs: [34:26.000 --> 34:32.000] And he said to me, oh NATO's not going to enlarge to Ukraine, don't worry about it.
Jeffrey Sachs: [34:32.000 --> 34:38.000] I said, Jake, say it publicly. No, no, no, we can't say it publicly.
Jeffrey Sachs: [34:38.000 --> 34:45.000] Say Jake, you're going to have a war over something that isn't even going to happen.
Jeffrey Sachs: [34:45.000 --> 34:50.000] He said, don't worry Jeff, there will be no war.
Jeffrey Sachs: [34:50.000 --> 34:59.000] These are not very bright people. I'm telling you, if I can give you my honest view, they're not very bright people.
Jeffrey Sachs: [34:59.000 --> 35:07.000] And I dealt with them for more than 40 years. They talk to themselves, they don't talk to anybody else.
Jeffrey Sachs: [35:07.000 --> 35:16.000] They play game theory. In non-cooperative game theory, you don't talk to the other side. You just make your strategy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [35:16.000 --> 35:22.000] This is the essence of game theory.
Jeffrey Sachs: [35:22.000 --> 35:28.000] It's not negotiation theory. It's not peacemaking theory.
Jeffrey Sachs: [35:28.000 --> 35:34.000] It is unilateral, non-cooperative theory, if you know formal game theory.
Jeffrey Sachs: [35:34.000 --> 35:40.000] That's what they play. It started at the RAN corporation. That's what they still play.
Jeffrey Sachs: [35:40.000 --> 35:45.000] In 2019, there's a paper by RAN, how do we extend Russia?
Jeffrey Sachs: [35:45.000 --> 35:52.000] Do you know they wrote a paper which Biden followed? How do we annoy Russia?
Jeffrey Sachs: [35:52.000 --> 35:57.000] That's literally the strategy. How do we annoy Russia?
Jeffrey Sachs: [35:57.000 --> 36:06.000] We're trying to provoke it, trying to make it break apart, maybe have regime change, maybe have unrest, maybe
have economic crisis.
Jeffrey Sachs: [36:06.000 --> 36:14.000] That's what you call your ally. Are you kidding?
Jeffrey Sachs: [36:14.000 --> 36:24.000] So I had a long and frustrating phone call with Sullivan. I was standing out in the freezing cold.
Jeffrey Sachs: [36:24.000 --> 36:33.000] I happened to be trying to have a ski day. And there I was, Jake, don't have the war.
Jeffrey Sachs: [36:33.000 --> 36:43.000] Oh, there'll be no war, Jeff. We know a lot of what happened the next month, which is that they refused to negotiate.
Jeffrey Sachs: [36:43.000 --> 36:50.000] The stupidest idea of NATO is the so-called open door policy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [36:50.000 --> 37:00.000] Are you kidding? NATO reserves the right to go where it wants without any neighbor having any say whatsoever.
Jeffrey Sachs: [37:00.000 --> 37:06.000] Well, I tell the Mexicans and the Canadians don't try it.
Jeffrey Sachs: [37:06.000 --> 37:19.000] Trump may want to take over Canada, so Canada could say to China, why don't you build a military base in Ontario?
Jeffrey Sachs: [37:19.000 --> 37:27.000] I wouldn't advise it. And the United States would not say, well, it's an open door. That's their business.
Jeffrey Sachs: [37:27.000 --> 37:36.000] I mean, they can do what they want. That's not our business. But grownups in Europe repeat this.
Jeffrey Sachs: [37:36.000 --> 37:49.000] In Europe, in your commission, your high representative, this is nonsense stuff. This is not even baby geopolitics.
Jeffrey Sachs: [37:49.000 --> 37:59.000] This is just not thinking at all. So the war started. What was Putin's intention in the war?
Jeffrey Sachs: [37:59.000 --> 38:10.000] I can tell you what his intention was. It was to force Zelensky to negotiate neutrality.
Jeffrey Sachs: [38:10.000 --> 38:17.000] And that happened within seven days of the start of the invasion.
Jeffrey Sachs: [38:17.000 --> 38:26.000] You should understand this, not the propaganda that's written about this. Oh, that they failed and he was going
to take over Ukraine.
Jeffrey Sachs: [38:26.000 --> 38:32.000] Come on, ladies and gentlemen, understand something basic.
Jeffrey Sachs: [38:32.000 --> 38:44.000] The idea was to keep NATO and what is NATO? It's the United States off of Russia's border. No more, no less.
Jeffrey Sachs: [38:44.000 --> 38:53.000] I should add one very important point. Why are they so interested?
Jeffrey Sachs: [38:53.000 --> 39:10.000] Because if China or Russia decided to have a military base on the Rio Grande or in the Canadian border, not only
would the United States freak out, we'd have war within about ten minutes.
Jeffrey Sachs: [39:10.000 --> 39:23.000] But because the United States unilaterally abandoned the anti-ballistic missile treaty in 2002 and ended the
nuclear arms control framework by doing so.
Jeffrey Sachs: [39:23.000 --> 39:27.000] And this is extremely important to understand.
Jeffrey Sachs: [39:27.000 --> 39:35.000] The nuclear arms control framework is based on trying to block a first strike.
Jeffrey Sachs: [39:35.000 --> 39:46.000] The ABM treaty was a critical component of that. The US unilaterally walked out of the ABM treaty in 2002. It
blew a Russian gasket.
Jeffrey Sachs: [39:46.000 --> 39:53.000] So everything I've been describing is in the context of the destruction of the nuclear framework as well.
Jeffrey Sachs: [39:53.000 --> 40:02.000] And starting in 2010, the US put in Aegis missile systems in Poland and then in Romania.
Jeffrey Sachs: [40:02.000 --> 40:17.000] And Russia doesn't like that. And one of the issues on the table in December and January, December 2021,
January 2022, was does the United States claim the right to put missile systems in Ukraine?
Jeffrey Sachs: [40:17.000 --> 40:30.000] And Blinken told Lavrov in January 2022, the United States reserves the right to put missile systems wherever it wants.
Jeffrey Sachs: [40:30.000 --> 40:35.000] That's your punitive ally.
Jeffrey Sachs: [40:35.000 --> 40:44.000] And now let's put intermediate missile systems back in Germany. The United States walked out of the INF treaty
unilaterally in 2019.
Jeffrey Sachs: [40:44.000 --> 40:53.000] There is no nuclear arms framework right now. None.
Jeffrey Sachs: [40:53.000 --> 41:09.000] When Zelensky said in seven days, let's negotiate. I know the details of this exquisitely because I've talked to
all the parties in detail.
Jeffrey Sachs: [41:09.000 --> 41:22.000] Within a couple of weeks, there was a document exchanged that President Putin had approved that Lavrov had
presented that was being managed by the Turkish mediators.
Jeffrey Sachs: [41:22.000 --> 41:31.000] I flew to Ankara to listen in detail to what the mediators were doing.
Jeffrey Sachs: [41:31.000 --> 41:38.000] Ukraine walked away unilaterally from a near agreement.
Jeffrey Sachs: [41:38.000 --> 41:43.000] Why? Because the United States told them to.
Jeffrey Sachs: [41:43.000 --> 41:56.000] Because the UK added icing to the cake by having Bojo go in early April to Ukraine and explain.
Jeffrey Sachs: [41:56.000 --> 42:05.000] And he has recently, and if your security is in the hands of Boris Johnson, God help us all.
Jeffrey Sachs: [42:05.000 --> 42:14.000] The former turns out to be even worse. It's unimaginable, but it is true.
Jeffrey Sachs: [42:14.000 --> 42:31.000] Boris Johnson has explained and you can look it up on the website that what's at stake here is Western hegemony,
not Ukraine, Western hegemony.
Jeffrey Sachs: [42:31.000 --> 42:45.000] Michael and I met at the Vatican with a group in the spring of 2022 where we wrote a document explaining nothing
good can come out of this war for Ukraine.
Jeffrey Sachs: [42:45.000 --> 42:58.000] Negotiate now because anything that takes time will mean massive amounts of deaths, risk of nuclear escalation
and likely loss of the war.
Jeffrey Sachs: [42:58.000 --> 43:04.000] I want to change one word from what we wrote then. Nothing was wrong in that document.
Jeffrey Sachs: [43:04.000 --> 43:17.000] And since that document, since the US talked the negotiators away from the table, about a million Ukrainians have
died or been severely wounded.
Jeffrey Sachs: [43:18.000 --> 43:32.000] And the American senators who are as nasty and cynical and corrupt as imaginable say this is wonderful expenditure
of our money because no Americans are dying.
Jeffrey Sachs: [43:32.000 --> 43:42.000] It's the pure proxy war. One of our senators nearby me, Blumenthal says this out loud.
Jeffrey Sachs: [43:42.000 --> 43:53.000] Mitt Romney says this out loud. It's best money America can spend. No Americans are dying. It's unreal.
Jeffrey Sachs: [43:53.000 --> 44:08.000] Now, just to bring us up to yesterday. This failed. This project failed. The idea of the project was that Russia
would fold its hand.
Jeffrey Sachs: [44:08.000 --> 44:20.000] The idea all along was Russia can't resist as big New Brzezinski explained in 1997. The Americans thought we have
the upper hand.
Jeffrey Sachs: [44:20.000 --> 44:29.000] We're going to win because we're going to bluff them. They're not really going to fight. They're not really going
to mobilize.
Jeffrey Sachs: [44:30.000 --> 44:42.000] The nuclear option of cutting them out of swift. That's going to do them in the economic sanctions. That's going
to do them in.
Jeffrey Sachs: [44:42.000 --> 44:49.000] The high mars, that's going to do them in the attackums, the F-16s.
Jeffrey Sachs: [44:49.000 --> 45:00.000] Honestly, I've listened to this for 70 years. I've listened to it as semi-understanding I'd say for about 56 years.
Jeffrey Sachs: [45:01.000 --> 45:14.000] They speak nonsense every day. My country. My government. This is so familiar to me. Completely familiar. I begged
the Ukrainians.
Jeffrey Sachs: [45:14.000 --> 45:21.000] And I had a track record with the Ukrainians. I advised the Ukrainians. I'm not anti-Ukranian, pro-Ukranian completely.
Jeffrey Sachs: [45:22.000 --> 45:30.000] I said, save your lives, save your sovereignty, save your territory. Be neutral. Don't listen to the Americans.
Jeffrey Sachs: [45:30.000 --> 45:42.000] I repeated to them the famous adage of Henry Kissinger that to be an enemy of the United States is dangerous,
but to be a friend is fatal.
Jeffrey Sachs: [45:42.000 --> 45:53.000] So, let me repeat that for Europe. To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.
Jeffrey Sachs: [45:53.000 --> 46:07.000] So, let me now finalize a few words about Trump. Trump does not want the losing hand.
Jeffrey Sachs: [46:08.000 --> 46:22.000] This is why it is more likely that not this war will end, because Trump and President Putin will agree to end the war.
Jeffrey Sachs: [46:22.000 --> 46:31.000] If Europe does all its great war-mongering, it doesn't matter. The war is ending.
Jeffrey Sachs: [46:31.000 --> 46:46.000] So, get it out of your system. Please tell your colleagues, it's over. And it's over because Trump doesn't want
to carry a loser.
Jeffrey Sachs: [46:46.000 --> 46:55.000] That's it. It's not some great morality. He doesn't want to carry a loser. This is a loser.
Jeffrey Sachs: [46:56.000 --> 47:02.000] The one that will be saved by the negotiations taking place right now is Ukraine.
Jeffrey Sachs: [47:02.000 --> 47:11.000] Second is Europe. Your stock markets rising in recent days. By the horrible news of negotiations.
Jeffrey Sachs: [47:11.000 --> 47:21.000] I know this has been met with the sheer horror in these chambers, but this is the best news that you could get.
Jeffrey Sachs: [47:21.000 --> 47:30.000] Now, I encouraged. They don't listen to me, but I tried to reach out to some of the European leaders.
Jeffrey Sachs: [47:30.000 --> 47:42.000] Most don't want to hear anything from me at all. But I said, don't go to Kiev. Go to Moscow.
Jeffrey Sachs: [47:43.000 --> 47:54.000] Discuss with your counterparts. Are you kidding? You're Europe. You're 450 million people. You're $20 trillion economy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [47:54.000 --> 48:04.000] You should be the main economic trading partner of Russia. It's natural links.
Jeffrey Sachs: [48:04.000 --> 48:16.000] By the way, if anyone would like to discuss how the US blew up Nord Stream, I'd be happy to talk about that.
Jeffrey Sachs: [48:17.000 --> 48:29.000] So the Trump administration is imperialist at heart. It is a great powers dominate the world.
Jeffrey Sachs: [48:29.000 --> 48:44.000] It is we will do what we want when we can. We will be better than a senescent Biden and we'll cut our losses
where we have to.
Jeffrey Sachs: [48:46.000 --> 48:53.000] There are several war zones in the world, the Middle East being another. We don't know what will happen with that.
Jeffrey Sachs: [48:53.000 --> 49:02.000] Again, if Europe had a proper policy, you could stop that war. I'll explain how.
Jeffrey Sachs: [49:02.000 --> 49:09.000] But war with China is also a possibility.
Jeffrey Sachs: [49:09.000 --> 49:24.000] So I'm not saying that we're at the new age of peace. But we are in a very different kind of politics right now.
Jeffrey Sachs: [49:24.000 --> 49:44.000] And Europe should have a foreign policy. And not just a foreign policy of Russophobia, a foreign policy that is a
realistic foreign policy that understands Russia's situation, that understands Europe's situation, that
understands what America is and what it stands for.
Jeffrey Sachs: [49:44.000 --> 49:59.000] That tries to avoid Europe being invaded by the United States because it's not impossible that America will just
land troops in Danish territory.
Jeffrey Sachs: [49:59.000 --> 50:09.000] I'm not joking. And I don't think they're joking. And Europe needs a foreign policy, a real one.
Jeffrey Sachs: [50:09.000 --> 50:24.000] Not a yes, will bargain with Mr. Trump and meet him halfway. You'll know what that will be like. Give me a call
afterwards.
Jeffrey Sachs: [50:24.000 --> 50:32.000] Please don't have American officials as head of Europe. Have European officials.
Jeffrey Sachs: [50:32.000 --> 50:41.000] Please have a European foreign policy. You're going to be living with Russia for a long time.
Jeffrey Sachs: [50:41.000 --> 50:49.000] So please negotiate with Russia. There are real security issues on the table.
Jeffrey Sachs: [50:49.000 --> 51:18.000] But the bombast and the Russophobia is not serving your security at all. It's not serving Ukraine security at all.
It contributed to a million casualties in Ukraine from this idiotic American adventure that you signed on to
and then became the lead cheerleaders of solves nothing.
Jeffrey Sachs: [51:18.000 --> 51:29.000] On the Middle East, by the way, the U.S. completely handed over foreign policy dendent Yahoo 30 years ago.
Jeffrey Sachs: [51:29.000 --> 51:43.000] The Israel lobby dominates American politics. Just have no doubt about it. I could explain for hours how it works.
It's very dangerous.
Jeffrey Sachs: [51:43.000 --> 52:01.000] I'm hoping that Trump will not destroy his administration and worse the Palestinian people because of
Benjamin Netanyahu who I regard as a war criminal properly indicted by the ICC.
Jeffrey Sachs: [52:01.000 --> 52:16.000] And that needs to be told no more that there will be a state of Palestine on the borders of the 4th of June 1967
according to international law as the only way for peace.
Jeffrey Sachs: [52:16.000 --> 52:34.000] It's the only way for Europe to have peace on your borders with the Middle East is the two state solution.
There is only one obstacle to it, by the way, and that is the veto of the United States and the UN
Security Council.
Jeffrey Sachs: [52:34.000 --> 52:46.000] So if you want to have some influence, tell the United States, drop the veto. You are together with 180 countries
in the world.
Jeffrey Sachs: [52:46.000 --> 53:08.000] The only ones that oppose a Palestinian state are the United States, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Polau,
Papua New Guinea, Mr. Malay, and Paraguay.
Jeffrey Sachs: [53:08.000 --> 53:25.000] So this is a place where Europe could have a big influence. Europe has gone silent about the JCPOA and Iran.
Netanyahu's greatest dream in life is a war between the United States and Iran.
Jeffrey Sachs: [53:25.000 --> 53:45.000] He's not given up and it's not impossible that that would come also. And that's because the U.S. in this regard
does not have an independent foreign policy. It is run by Israel. It's tragic. It's amazing, by the way.
Jeffrey Sachs: [53:45.000 --> 54:03.000] And it could end. Trump may say that he wants foreign policy back. Maybe. I'm hoping that it's the case.
Finally, let me just say with respect to China, China is not an enemy. China is just a success story.
Jeffrey Sachs: [54:03.000 --> 54:14.000] That's why it is viewed by the United States as an enemy, because China is a bigger economy than the United States.
Jeffrey Sachs: [54:14.000 --> 54:17.000] That's all.
Jeffrey Sachs: [54:17.000 --> 54:20.000] Thank you.
Jeffrey Sachs: [54:20.000 --> 54:27.000] Thank you.
Jeffrey Sachs: [54:27.000 --> 54:34.000] Thank you very much.
Jeffrey Sachs: [54:34.000 --> 54:55.000] Very well. Now, questions. Please don't make any statements. Just make questions because we are too many and we don't have that all that meant much time.
Jeffrey Sachs: [54:55.000 --> 55:05.000] So, where do I start? I start this on the left side. I have a preference to the left. Yes, you know, you come on.
Jeffrey Sachs: [55:05.000 --> 55:18.000] Yeah, great. Thank you, Geoffrey Saks, from the Czech Republic. We are glad we have you here. We have a problem. We were cursed by a witch who told the EU and the EU is marked.
Jeffrey Sachs: [55:18.000 --> 55:44.000] So, it won't be improved until 2029. But what we, the central Europeans, should do in the meantime, especially if the Germans don't happen to vote for Saravagenknecht enough, are we supposed to create some kind of neutrality for the central Europe? Or what would you suggest us to do?
Jeffrey Sachs: [55:44.000 --> 56:11.000] So, first of all, all my grandchildren are Czech. I want you to know. And Sonia is a Czech born and Czech citizen, so we're very proud. I'm the trailing spouse in this, but I'm a Czech wannabe.
Jeffrey Sachs: [56:11.000 --> 56:28.000] Europe needs to have a foreign policy that is a European foreign policy. And it needs to be a realist foreign policy. Realist is not hate. Realist is actually trying to understand both sides and to negotiate.
Jeffrey Sachs: [56:28.000 --> 56:51.000] There are two kinds of realists, defensive realists and offensive realists. My dear friend, John Mirschheimer, who was the offensive realist, I were very close friends and I love him, but I believe more than he does, you talk to the other side and you find a way to make an understanding.
Jeffrey Sachs: [56:51.000 --> 57:10.000] And so, basically, Russia is not going to invade Europe. This is the fundamental point. It may get up to the deeper river. It's not going to invade Europe.
Jeffrey Sachs: [57:10.000 --> 57:33.000] But there are real issues. The main issue for Russia was the United States, because Russia as a major power and the largest nuclear power in the world was profoundly concerned about US unipolarity from the beginning.
Jeffrey Sachs: [57:33.000 --> 57:52.000] Now that this is seemingly possibly ending, Europe has to open negotiations directly with Russia as well, because the United States will quickly lose interest and you're going to be living with Russia for the next thousands of years.
Jeffrey Sachs: [57:52.000 --> 58:06.000] So, what do you want? You want to make sure that the Baltic states are secure. The best thing for the Baltic states is to stop their ruse of phobia.
Jeffrey Sachs: [58:06.000 --> 58:21.000] This is the most important thing. Estonia has about 25% Russian citizens or Russian-speaking citizens, ethnic Russians, Latvia the same.
Jeffrey Sachs: [58:21.000 --> 58:48.000] Don't provoke the neighbor. That's all. This is not hard. It really isn't hard. And again, I want to explain my point of view. I have helped these countries, the ones I'm talking about, trying to advise I'm not their enemy, I'm not Putin's puppet, I'm not Putin's apologist.
Jeffrey Sachs: [58:48.000 --> 59:07.000] I worked in Estonia, they gave me, I don't, it's not, I think it's the second highest civilian honor that a president of Estonia can bestow on a non-national, because I designed their currency system for them in 1992.
Jeffrey Sachs: [59:07.000 --> 59:28.000] So, I'm giving them advice. Do not stand there, Estonia, and say, we want to break up Russia. Are you kidding? Don't. This is not how to survive in this world. You survive with mutual respect, actually.
Jeffrey Sachs: [59:28.000 --> 59:45.000] You survive in negotiation, you survive in discussion, you don't outlaw the Russian language. Not a good idea when 25% of your population has a first language of Russian.
Jeffrey Sachs: [59:45.000 --> 01:00:04.000] It's not right, even if there weren't a giant on the border, it wouldn't be the right thing to do. You'd have it as an official language. You'd have a language of, in lower school, you wouldn't antagonize the Russian Orthodox Church.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:00:04.000 --> 01:00:22.000] So, basically, we need to behave like grown-ups. And when I constantly say that they're acting like children, Sonya always says to me, that's unfair to children.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:44.000] Because this is worse than children. We have a six-year-old granddaughter and a three-year-old grandson, and they actually make up with their friends. And we don't tell them, go, just ridicule them tomorrow and every day.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:00:44.000 --> 01:00:59.000] We say, go, give them a hug and go play. And they do. This is not hard, by the way. Well, anyway, I won't be laver at the point. Thank you.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:13.000] So, elect the new government. Now, I shouldn't say that. What all I should say is change policy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:01:13.000 --> 01:01:26.000] Does that work? Hi, my name's Kira. I'm a reporter with the Brussels Times. Thank you for the fascinating talk, Jeffrey. I just wanted to ask you about Trump's statements about wanting NATO members to increase their spending by 5%.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:40.000] And we're now seeing lots of countries scrambling to prove that they're going to do that, including Belgium. And given that Belgium is also the NATO headquarters, I wanted to ask you, what would be the appropriate response to those statements by NATO members? Thanks.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:01:40.000 --> 01:02:00.000] We don't see exactly eye-to-eye on this question. So, let me give you my own view. My first recommendation with all respect to Brussels is move the NATO headquarters somewhere else.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:02:00.000 --> 01:02:19.000] I mean it seriously, because one of the worst parts of European policy right now is a complete confusion of Europe and NATO. These are completely different, but they became exactly the same.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:02:19.000 --> 01:02:42.000] Europe is much better than NATO. In my opinion, NATO isn't even needed anymore. I would have ended it in 1991, but because the US viewed it as an instrument of a Germany, not as a defense against Russia, it continued afterwards.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:02:42.000 --> 01:02:58.000] But the confusion of NATO and Europe is deadly, because expanding Europe meant expanding NATO, period. And these should have been completely different things.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:02:58.000 --> 01:03:23.000] So, this is the first point. My own view, again, with all respect to Michael, we only had a brief conversation about it, is that Europe should have its own foreign policy and its own military security, its own strategic autonomy, so-called.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:38.000] And it should. I'm in favor of that. I would disband NATO, and maybe Trump is going to do it anyway. Maybe Trump's going to invade Greenland. Who knows? Then you're really going to find out what NATO means.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:03:38.000 --> 01:03:59.000] So, I do think that Europe should invest in its security. Five percent is outlandish, ridiculous, absurd, completely absurd. No one needs to spend anything like that amount.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:03:59.000 --> 01:04:06.000] Two to three percent of GDP probably under the current circumstances.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:04:06.000 --> 01:04:29.000] What I would do, by the way, is buy European production, because actually, strangely, weirdly, unfortunately in this world, and it's a true, trueism, but it's unfortunate, so I'm not championing it.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:41.000] A lot of technological innovation spins off from the military sector, because governments invest in the military sector.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:04:41.000 --> 01:04:52.000] So, Trump is a arms salesman. You understand that. He's selling American arms.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:04:52.000 --> 01:05:05.000] He is selling American technology. Vance told you a few days ago, don't even think about having your own AI technology.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:16.000] So, please understand that this increase of spending is for the United States, not for you.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:05:16.000 --> 01:05:31.000] And in this sense, I'm completely against that approach. But I would not be against an approach of Europe spending two to three percent of GDP for a unified European security structure.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:05:31.000 --> 01:05:43.000] And invested in Europe and European technology. And not having the United States dictate the use of European technology.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:05:43.000 --> 01:05:57.000] It's so interesting. It's the Netherlands that produces the only machines of advanced semiconductors. Extreme ultraviolet lithography. It's ASML.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:05:57.000 --> 01:06:06.000] But America determines every policy of ASML. The Netherlands doesn't even have a footnote.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:06:06.000 --> 01:06:17.000] I wouldn't do that if I were you, hand over all security to the United States. I wouldn't do it. I would have your own security framework.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:06:17.000 --> 01:06:27.000] So, you can have your own foreign policy framework as well. Europe stands for lots of things that the United States does not stand for.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:06:27.000 --> 01:06:45.000] Europe stands for climate action. By the way, rightly so, because our president is completely bonkers on this. And Europe stands for decency for social democracy as an ethos. I'm not talking about a party.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:06:45.000 --> 01:06:52.000] I'm talking about an ethos of how a quality of life occurs.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:06:52.000 --> 01:07:00.000] Europe stands for multilateralism. Europe stands for the UN charter. The US stands for none of those things.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:14.000] You know that our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, cancelled his trip to South Africa because on the agenda was equality and sustainability.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:07:14.000 --> 01:07:28.000] And he said, I'm not getting into that. That is an honest reflection of deep Anglo-Saxon libertarianism.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:07:28.000 --> 01:07:44.000] Egalitarianism is not a word of the American lexicon. Sustainable development, not at all. You probably know, by the way, that of the 193 UN Member States,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:07:44.000 --> 01:08:00.000] 191 had SDG plans presented as voluntary national reviews. 191, two have not. Haiti and the United States of America.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:10.000] The Biden administration wasn't even allowed to say sustainable development goals. The Treasury had a policy not to say sustainable development goals.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:16.000] Okay, I mention all of this because you need your own foreign policy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:08:16.000 --> 01:08:28.000] I issue a report to reports each year, won the World Happiness Report, and 18 of the top 20 countries, I remember correctly, are European.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:08:28.000 --> 01:08:37.000] This is the highest quality of life in the whole world. So you need your own policy to protect that quality of life.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:08:37.000 --> 01:08:53.000] The United States ranks way down. And the other report, or as my colleague, Guillaume, is somewhere in the room. Here there is. Guillaume Lafertune is the lead author of our annual sustainable development report.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:08:53.000 --> 01:09:07.000] And almost all of the top 20 countries are European countries because you believe in this stuff. And that's why you're the happiest except in geopolitics.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:09:07.000 --> 01:09:19.000] But quality of life. So you need your own foreign policy, but you won't have it unless you have your own security. You just won't.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:09:19.000 --> 01:09:48.000] And so, and by the way, 27 countries cannot each have their own foreign policy. This is a problem. You need a European foreign policy and a European security structure. And by the way, although Michael assures me it's dead, I was the greatest fan of OSCE and believe that OSCE is the proper framework for European security. It could really work.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:57.000] Thank you. Thank you very much.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:09:57.000 --> 01:10:16.000] Yeah, okay. Well, thank you, Professor. I am from Slovakia and my prime minister Robert Fitzgerald was almost shot that because the opinions you had the similar with him. Yes, we are as a Slovakia, Slovak government of the few countries in the European Union. We are talking to Russians.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:10:16.000 --> 01:10:28.000] Two months ago, I was talking with Mr. Medvedev in two weeks. I will be talking in Duma with Mr. Slootsky who is the chairman of the Russian Foreign Affairs Committee in Moscow.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:10:28.000 --> 01:10:57.000] Maybe my question is, what would you be your message to Russians in this moment? Because as I heard, they are on the victorious wave. They have no reason not to conquer the Dombas because that's their war aim. And what can Trump offer to them to stop the war immediately? What would be the message for Russians from your side? Thank you very much.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:10:57.000 --> 01:11:14.000] Lots of important things are now on offer and on the table. And I believe that the war will end quickly because of this. And this will be at least one blessing in a very difficult time.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:38.000] Exactly what the settlement will be. I think is now only a question of the territorial issues. And that is whether it is the complete four oblasts, including all of Herzone and Zapparizia, or whether it is on the contact line and how all of this will be negotiated.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:11:38.000 --> 01:12:01.000] I am not in the room of the negotiation, so I can't really say more. But the basis will be territorial concessions. There will be neutrality. There will be security guarantees for Ukraine, for all parties. There will be at least with the U.S. and of the economic sanctions.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:12:01.000 --> 01:12:18.000] But what counts, of course, is Europe and Russia. I think that there are, and maybe there will be a restoration of nuclear arms negotiations, which would be extraordinarily positive.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:12:18.000 --> 01:12:44.000] I think that there are tremendously important issues for Europe to negotiate directly with Russia. And so I would urge President Costa and the leadership of Europe to open direct discussions with President Putin, because European security is on the table.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:12:44.000 --> 01:13:01.000] I know the Russian leaders, many of them, quite well. They are good negotiators, and you should negotiate with them. And you should negotiate well with them.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:13:01.000 --> 01:13:19.000] I would ask them some questions. I would ask them, what are the security guarantees that can work so that this war ends permanently? What are the security guarantees for the Baltic States? What should be done?
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:13:19.000 --> 01:13:37.000] Part of the process of negotiation is actually to ask the other side about your concerns, not just to know what they know as you think is too true, but actually to ask, we have a real problem. We have a real worry. What are the guarantees?
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:13:37.000 --> 01:13:57.000] Well, I want to know the answers also. By the way, I know Mr. Lavrov, Mr. Lavrov, for 30 years, I regard him as a brilliant foreign minister. Talk with him, negotiate with him, get ideas, put ideas on the table, put counter ideas on the table.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:13:57.000 --> 01:14:23.000] I don't think all of this can be settled by pure reason, because of oneself. You settle wars by negotiating and understanding what are the real issues. And you don't call the other side a liar when they express their issues. You work out what the implications of that are for the mutual benefit of peace.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:14:23.000 --> 01:14:47.000] So the most important thing is stop the yelling, stop the war mongering, and discuss with the Russian counterparts, and don't beg to be at the table with the United States. You don't need to be in the room with the United States. You're Europe. You should be in the room with Europe and Russia.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:14:47.000 --> 01:15:11.000] If the United States wants to join, that's fine. But to beg no. And by the way, Europe does not need to have Ukraine in the room when Europe talks with Russia. You have a lot of issues. Direct issues. Don't hand over your foreign policy to anybody.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:15:11.000 --> 01:15:23.000] Not to the United States, not to Ukraine, not to Israel. Keep a European foreign policy. This is the basic idea.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:15:23.000 --> 01:15:30.000] Thanks.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:38.000] Hans Neuhoff from the Sauronist's political group in this parliament, alternative for Germany as political party.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:15:38.000 --> 01:15:56.000] First of all, let me thank you, Mr. Saxe, for being here and sharing your ideas with us and be assured that many of your ideas and of your colleague, John Merchheimer, have well been received by political groups here and have been integrated into our agenda.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:15:56.000 --> 01:16:12.000] I widely share your views. Yet there's one question regarding a historical account that you gave where I would like to go in some detail. This concerns the beginning of NATO expansion.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:16:12.000 --> 01:16:29.000] I would like to report it from the website, what Gorbachev heard, that there are many quotations from Gensher, for example, that NATO will not move one inch eastwards.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:16:29.000 --> 01:16:41.000] Now the two plus four treaty has been signed in September 1990, right, in Moscow. So at that point in time, the Warsaw Pact still existed.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:16:41.000 --> 01:16:49.000] And countries like Poland, Hungary and Czechia were not part of the negotiations for the two and four treaty.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:16:49.000 --> 01:16:58.000] So the Warsaw Pact actually dissolved in July 1991, and the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:16:58.000 --> 01:17:15.000] So nobody who was present in the negotiations could speak for Poland, could speak for Hungary, could speak for Slovakia, that they would not try to become member of NATO once the overall situation has changed.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:17:15.000 --> 01:17:33.000] The other argument, which we have to counter, is that it was on the will of these countries, of Poland, of Hungary, of Slovakia, that they wanted to join NATO because of the very history they had with the Soviet Union.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:17:33.000 --> 01:17:42.000] And of course Russia was still perceived in a way as a follower of the Soviet Union. So how do you counter that argument?
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:17:46.000 --> 01:17:58.000] I have no doubt of why Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, wanted to join NATO.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:17:58.000 --> 01:18:15.000] The question is what is the US doing to make peace? Because NATO is not a choice of Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, or Slovakia. NATO is a US-led military alliance.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:18:15.000 --> 01:18:33.000] And the question is how are we going to establish peace in a reliable way? If I were making those decisions back then, I would have ended NATO altogether in 1991.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:18:34.000 --> 01:19:01.000] When those countries requested NATO, I would have explained to them what our Defense Secretary William Perry said, what our lead statesman George Kenan said, what our final ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock said, they said, well we understand your feelings, but it's not a good idea because it could provoke a new Cold War with Russia.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:19:01.000 --> 01:19:18.000] So that's how I would have answered it. When those countries joined in the first wave, I don't think it was that consequential, in fact, except that it was part of a bigger project.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:19:18.000 --> 01:19:40.000] And the project was spelled out already in 1994. There's a very good book by Jonathan Haslam, Harvard University Press, called Huvers, which gives a detailed historical documentation of step-by-step what happened. And it's really worth reading.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:19:40.000 --> 01:20:02.000] So this is now, but the point I would really make is that Ukraine and Georgia were too far. This is right up against Russia. This is in the context of the complete destabilization of the nuclear framework.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:20:02.000 --> 01:20:23.000] This is in the context of the U.S. putting in missile systems on Russia's borders. If you listen to President Putin over the years, probably the main thing if you listen carefully that he's concerned about is missile seven minutes from Moscow is a decapitation strike.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:20:23.000 --> 01:20:33.000] And this is very real. The U.S. not only would freak out, but did freak out when this happened in the Western hemisphere.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:20:33.000 --> 01:20:48.000] So it's the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse. And fortunately, Nikita Khrushchev did not stand up and say, open door policy of the Warsaw Pact.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:20:48.000 --> 01:21:01.000] We can go wherever we want. Cuba has asked us. It's none of America's business. What Khrushchev said is war. My God, we don't want war. We end this crisis. We both pull back.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:21:01.000 --> 01:21:12.000] That's what Khrushchev and Kennedy decided in the end. So this is the real consequential. Russia even swallowed with a lot of pain.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:21:12.000 --> 01:21:34.000] The Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia. It is Ukraine and Georgia. And it's because of geography. It's because of Lord Palmerston. It's because of the First Crimean War. It's because of the missile systems. That this is the essence of why there was this war.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:21:42.000 --> 01:22:11.000] Thank you very much, Professor Sax for coming. You've mentioned that the European Union needs to formulate its own foreign policy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:22:11.000 --> 01:22:21.000] In the past, the German Franco alliance was a big driver for those policies. Now with the Ukraine war arguably that received the crack.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:22:21.000 --> 01:22:37.000] Do you think that in the future when the European Union is going to formulate this new foreign policy that they are going to be again in the front seat or should it be other countries or other blocks trying to make that change? Thank you very much.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:22:37.000 --> 01:22:55.000] Oh, it's hard. It's hard because of course you don't yet have a constitution for Europe which really underpins a European foreign policy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:22:55.000 --> 01:23:09.000] And it can't be by unanimity. There has to be a structure in which Europe can speak as Europe even with some dissent but with the European policy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:23:09.000 --> 01:23:20.000] I don't want to oversimplify how to get there exactly but even with the structures you have you could do a lot better with negotiating directly.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:34.000] The first rule is your diplomats should be diplomats, not secretaries of war.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:23:34.000 --> 01:23:57.000] Honestly, that would go halfway at least to where you want to go. A diplomat is a very special kind of talent. A diplomat is trained to sit together with the other side and to listen to shake hands, to smile and to be pleasant.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:23:57.000 --> 01:24:21.000] It's very hard. It's a skill. It's training. It's a profession. It's not a game. You need that kind of diplomacy. I'm sorry we are not hearing anything like that.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:24:21.000 --> 01:24:40.000] I'll just make a couple complaints. First, Europe is not NATO as I said. I thought Stoltenberg was the worst but I was wrong. It just keeps getting worse.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:24:40.000 --> 01:25:01.000] Could someone in NATO stop talking for God's sake about more war? And could NATO stop speaking for Europe and Europe stop thinking it's NATO? This is the first absolute point.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:25:01.000 --> 01:25:11.000] Second, I'm sorry but your high-represented vice presidents need to become diplomats.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:25:12.000 --> 01:25:29.000] Diplomacy means going to Moscow, inviting your Russian counterpart here, discussing this doesn't happen till now.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:25:29.000 --> 01:25:46.000] So this is really my point. Now, I believe that Europe should become more integrated and more unified in the years ahead. I'm a strong believer in subsidiarity.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:25:46.000 --> 01:26:07.000] So we were discussing, I don't think housing policy is really Europe's main issue. I think this can be handled at the local level or at the national level. I don't see it as a European issue but I don't see foreign policy as being a 27 country issue. I see it being as a European issue.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:26:07.000 --> 01:26:26.000] And I see security being at a European level. So I think things need to be readjusted but I'd like to see more Europe for truly European issues and maybe less Europe for things that are properly subsidiary to Europe at the national and the local level.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:26:26.000 --> 01:26:41.000] And I hope that such an evolution can take place. You know when the world talks about great powers right now, they talk about US, Russia, China, I include India.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:26:41.000 --> 01:27:01.000] And I really want to include Europe. And I really want to include Africa as an African Union. And I want that to happen. But you'll notice on the list Europe doesn't show up right now. And this is because there is no European foreign policy.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:27:11.000 --> 01:27:31.000] Thank you very much. And thank you very much professor for this very courageous speech, very clear speech also that you made. I'm an MEP from Luxberg.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:27:31.000 --> 01:27:45.000] My question is the following what are the long term consequences of this lost war? We lost the war. Now we have an uncertain future for NATO. We have also clearly and to refer to the marginalization of Europe.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:27:45.000 --> 01:28:02.000] We have a strengthening of the BRICS countries which can be rivals in many respects. So will there be a future for a collective West over the next 20 or 30 years? Thank you very much.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:28:02.000 --> 01:28:20.000] I don't believe there is a collective West. I believe that there is a United States and Europe that are in some areas in parallel interests and in many areas not in parallel interest.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:28:20.000 --> 01:28:33.000] I want Europe to lead sustainable development, climate transformation, global decency.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:28:33.000 --> 01:28:57.000] I believe if the world looked more like Europe, it would be a happier, more peaceful, safer world. And longevity and better food by the way. But just saying in any event Europe has a vocation that is rather different from the American tradition.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:28:57.000 --> 01:29:26.000] And frankly from the Anglo-Saxon tradition, because it's been 200 years of Anglo-Saxon hegemony or aspirational hegemony, the British still believe they were on the world. It's amazing what nostalgia means. They don't even stop. It's almost like a Monty Python skit actually. But in any event, where was I?
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:29:27.000 --> 01:29:41.000] I'm thinking of Monty Python when the night gets all his limbs cut off and says everything's fine. I'm victorious. That's Britain unfortunately. And so it's really terrible.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:29:41.000 --> 01:30:04.000] So no, I don't believe in the collective West. I don't believe in the global South. I don't believe in all these geographies don't even make sense because I actually look at maps a lot and the global South is mostly in the North. And the West is not even West. And so I don't even understand what this is about.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:30:04.000 --> 01:30:27.000] I do believe that we could be in a true age of abundance if we got our heads on straight. We're in the biggest technological advance in human history. It's truly amazing what can be done right now.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:30:27.000 --> 01:30:42.000] I marvel at the fact that somebody who knows no chemistry won the Nobel Peace Prize for chemistry because he's very good at deep neural networks, a genius.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:30:42.000 --> 01:31:12.000] (inaudible)
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:31:12.000 --> 01:31:42.000] (inaudible)
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:31:42.000 --> 01:32:04.540] there are no deep reasons for conflict anywhere because every conflict I study is just a mistake. It's not, we are not struggling for Labour's qualms that idea that came from Maltus and that became anatsy idea was always a wrong idea.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:04.540 --> 01:32:09.540] It was a mistake, a fundamental intellectual mistake.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:10.540 --> 01:32:12.540] An intellectual mistake, by the way,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:12.540 --> 01:32:17.540] because leading scientists adopted the idea that we had race wars,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:17.540 --> 01:32:20.540] we had national wars, we had wars of survival
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:20.540 --> 01:32:23.540] because we don't have enough on the planet.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:23.540 --> 01:32:27.540] As an economist, I can tell you, we have plenty on the planet
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:27.540 --> 01:32:29.540] for everybody's development.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:29.540 --> 01:32:30.540] Plenty.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:30.540 --> 01:32:33.540] We're not in a conflict with China.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:33.540 --> 01:32:35.540] We're not in a conflict with Russia.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:37.540 --> 01:32:42.540] If we calm down, if you ask about the long term,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:42.540 --> 01:32:45.540] the long term is very good, thank you.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:45.540 --> 01:32:51.540] The long term, if we don't blow ourselves up, is very good.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:51.540 --> 01:32:54.540] And so this is what we should aim for,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:32:54.540 --> 01:32:59.540] a positive shared vision under international law.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:00.540 --> 01:33:05.540] Because of our technology, things operated a regional scale now.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:05.540 --> 01:33:10.540] It used to be, it was villages, then it was small areas,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:10.540 --> 01:33:12.540] then it was unification of countries.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:12.540 --> 01:33:13.540] Now it's regional.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:13.540 --> 01:33:17.540] That's not just because regions are wonderful,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:17.540 --> 01:33:20.540] it's because the underlying technological reality,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:20.540 --> 01:33:24.540] say Europe should be an integrated area by transport,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:24.540 --> 01:33:27.540] by fast rail, by digital, by, and so there's Europe.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:27.540 --> 01:33:31.540] The politics follows the technological realities
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:31.540 --> 01:33:33.540] to a very important extent.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:33.540 --> 01:33:36.540] We're in a world of regions now.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:36.540 --> 01:33:41.540] So Europe should be Europe with subsidiarity.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:41.540 --> 01:33:45.540] Don't lose all of the wonderful, wonderful,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:45.540 --> 01:33:48.540] national, and local elements.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:48.540 --> 01:33:50.540] But Europe should be Europe.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:50.540 --> 01:33:55.540] So the good side is, let's, I want Europe to have diplomacy,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:56.540 --> 01:33:58.540] for example, with ASEAN.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:33:58.540 --> 01:34:01.540] I spend a lot of time with the ASEAN countries.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:01.540 --> 01:34:07.540] If the EU green deal, wonderful idea.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:07.540 --> 01:34:11.540] I said many years ago, okay, to the ASEAN leaders,
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:11.540 --> 01:34:14.540] make an ASEAN green deal.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:14.540 --> 01:34:19.540] And then talk with the Europeans so that you have this wonderful
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:19.540 --> 01:34:22.540] relationship, trade, investment, technology.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:22.540 --> 01:34:26.540] So last year they announced an ASEAN green deal.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:26.540 --> 01:34:28.540] What did Europe do about it?
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:28.540 --> 01:34:29.540] Nothing.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:29.540 --> 01:34:33.540] It said, sorry, we're in the Ukraine war, thank you.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:33.540 --> 01:34:34.540] No interest.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:34.540 --> 01:34:36.540] So this is my point.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:36.540 --> 01:34:43.540] The prospects are very positive if we construct the peace.
Jeffrey Sachs: [01:34:44.540 --> 01:34:46.540] Thank you.