so the war started what was Putin's intention in the war I can tell you what his intention was it was to force zalinski to negotiate neutrality and that happened within seven days of the start of the invasion you should understand this not the propaganda that's written about this oh that they failed and he was going to take over Ukraine come on leave ladies and gentlemen understand something basic the idea was to keep NATO and what is NATO it's the United States off of Russia's border no more no less I should add one very important Point

why are they so interested first because if China or Russia decided to have a military base on the Rio Grand or in uh the Canadian border Not only would the United States freak out we'd have War within about 10 minutes but because the United States unilaterally abandoned the anti-ballistic missile treaty in 2002 and ended the nuclear arms control framework by doing so when zalinski said in 7even days let's negotiate I know the details of this exquisitly because I've talked to all the parties in detail a couple of weeks there was a document exchanged that President

Putin had approved that lavro had presented that was being managed by the Turkish mediators I flew to anchora to listen in detail to what the mediators were doing Ukraine walked away unilaterally from a near agreement why because the United States told them to because the UK added icing to the cake by having Bojo go in early April to Ukraine and explain and he has recently and if your security is in the hands of Boris Johnson God help us all Keith starmer turns out to be even worse it's unimaginable but it is true I want to

change one word from what we wrote then nothing was wrong in that document and since that document since the US talked the negotiators away from the table about a million ukrainians have died or been severely W 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 it's the pure proxy war one of our Senators nearby me uh says this out loud Mitt Romney says this out loud it's best money America can spend no Americans are dying it's unreal 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 Michael and I met at the Vatican with a group in the spring of 2022 where we wrot wrote a document explaining nothing good can come out of this war for Ukraine negotiate now because anything that takes time will mean massive amounts of deaths risk of nuclear escalation and likely loss of the war and this is extremely important to understand the nuclear arms control framework is based on trying to block a first strike

the ABM Treaty was a itical component of that the US unilaterally walked out of the ABM Treaty in 2002 it blew a Russian gasket so everything I've been describing is in the context of the destruction of the nuclear framework as well and starting in 2010 the US put in AIS missile systems in Poland and then in Romania and Russia doesn't like that and one of the issues on the table in December and January to December 2021 January 2022 was does the United States claim the right to put missile systems in Ukraine and blinkin told lavro

in January 2022 the United States reserves the right to put middle missile systems wherever it wants that's your putative Ally and now let's put intermediate missile systems back in Germany the United States walked out of the INF treaty unilaterally in 2019 there is no nuclear arms framework right now none the United States came to the view especially in 1990 91 and then with the end of the Soviet Union that the US now ran the world and that the US did not have to heed anybody's views red lines concerns security viewpoints or any International obligations or

any un framework I'm sorry to put it so plainly but I do want you to understand when the Soviet Union ended in 19 the view became even more exaggerated and I can name chapter and verse but the view was We Run The Show Cheney woltz and many other names that you will have come to know literally believe this is now a US World and we will do as we want we will clean up from the former Soviet Union we will take out any remaining allies countries like Iraq Syria and so forth will go and we've

been experiencing this foreign policy for now essentially 33 years I tried very hard in 1991 to had help for gorbachov who I think was the greatest Statesman of our modern time I recently read the uh archived memo of the National Security Council discussion of my proposal how they completely dismissed it and laughed it off the table when I said that the United States should help the Soviet Union in financial stabilization and in making its reforms and the memo documents including some of my former colleagues at Harvard in particular saying we will do the minimum that

we will do to prevent disaster but the minimum it's not our job to help quite the contrary it's not our interest in my understanding of the events that have befallen Europe in many contexts uh and I'll include not only the uh Ukraine crisis uh but uh Serbia 1999 the wars in the Middle East including Iraq Syria the wars in Africa including Sudan Somalia uh Libya these are to a very significant extent that would surprise you perhaps and would be denounced about what I'm about to say these are War Wars that the United States LED and

caused and this has been true for more than 40 years now what happened uh more than 30 years I should say to be more precise Europe has paid a heavy price for this because Europe has not had any foreign policy during this period that I can figure out no voice no Unity no Clarity no European interests only American loyalty okay I mention all of this because you need your own foreign policy I issue a report two reports each year one the world happiness report and 18 of the top 20 countries if I I remember correctly

are European this is the highest quality of life in the whole world so you need your own policy to protect that quality of life the United States ranks way down and and the other report where's my colleague Gom is somewhere in the room here there he is Gom La forun is the lead author of our annual sustainable development report 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 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 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 occe and believe that occe is the proper framework for European security it could would really work 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 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 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 and I hope that uh such an evolution can take place so no I don't believe in the collective West I don't believe in the global South uh I don't believe in uh I all these geographies don't even make sense because I'm actually you know I look at Maps a lot in the global South is mostly in the north uh and the West is not even West uh and so I don't even understand what this is about I do believe that um 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 you know 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 Demis hbus um they figured out protein folding that generations of biochemists spent their whole lives on and now Deep Mind figured out how to do it you know by the thousands of proteins we have friends that spent their entire life on

one protein brilliant friends and uh now what we can do I I don't believe there is a collective West uh I believe that there is a United States and Europe that are uh in some areas uh in parallel interests and in many areas not in parallel interest I I want Europe to lead uh sustainable development climate transformation Global decency I believe if the world world looked more like Europe it'd be a happier more peaceful safer world and long longevity and better food by the way uh but uh just saying um in any event Europe has

a vocation that is rather different from the American tradition 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 run the world it's amazing what nostalgia means uh they don't even stop it's almost like a Monty Python skit actually uh but in any event there were moments where there were disagreements and very uh I think uh wonderful disagreements especially in the last time of significance was 2003 in the Iraq War when France and Germany said we don't support the United States uh going around

the UN Security Council for this war that war by the way was directly concocted by Netanyahu and his colleagues in the US Pentagon I'm not saying that it was a link or mutuality I'm saying it was a direct war that was a war carried out for Israel it was a war that Paul wolfowitz and Douglas FEI coordinated with Netanyahu and that was the last time that Europe had a voice so this was the mindset and the decision was taken formally in 1994 when President Clinton signed off on NATO enlargement to the east you will recall

that in February 7th 1991 Hans Dietra genter and James Baker III spoke with gorbachov genter gave a press conference afterwards where he explained NATO will not move Eastward we will not take advantage of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and understand that was in a juridical context not a casual context this was the end of World War II being negotiated for German reunification and an agreement was made that NATO will not move one inch Eastward and it was explicit and it is in countless documents and just look up National Security AR iive of George Washington

University and you can get dozens of documents it's a website called what gorbachov heard about NATO take a look because everything you're told by the US is a lie about this but the archives are perfectly clear and I spoke with European leaders then and they were very clear and it was uh quite wonderful Europe lost its voice entirely ly after that but especially in 2008 now what happened after 1991 to get to 2008 is that the United States decided that unipolarity meant that NATO would enlarge somewhere from Brussels to Vlados step by step there would

be no end to Eastward enlargement of NATO this would be the US unipolar World 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 any place without a US military base is an enemy basically neutrality is a dirty word in the US political lexicon perhaps the dirtiest word at least if you're an enemy we know you're an enemy uh if you are neutral you're subversive because then you're really against us cuz you're not telling us you're pretending to

be neutral finally let me just say with respect to China China is not an enemy China is just a success story that's why it is viewed by the United States as an enemy because China is a bigger economy than the United States you know when the world talks about great Powers right now they talk about us Russia China I include India 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 so if actually and same with renewable energy as everybody knows the prices come down by more than two orders of magnitude the costs we could transform the planet we could protect the climate system we could protect biodiversity we could ensure every child gets a good education we could do so many wonderful things right now and so what do we need to do that in my view we need peace most importantly and my basic point is there are no deep reasons for conflict anywhere is every conflict

I study is just a mistake it's not we are not struggling for laan's real that idea that came from malus and that became a Nazi idea was always a wrong idea it was a mistake a fundamental intellectual mistake an intellectual Mistake by the way cuz leading scientists adopted the idea that we had race Wars we had National Wars we had Wars of survival because we don't have enough on the planet as an economist I can tell you we have plenty on the planet for everybody's development plenty we're not in a conflict with China we're not

in a conflict with Russia if we calm down if you ask about the long term the longterm is very good thank you the long term if we don't blow ourselves up is very good and so this is what we should aim for a positive shared Vision under international law because of our Tech technology things operate at a regional scale now it used to be it was Villages then it was a it was a small areas then it was unification of countries now it's regional that's not just because regions are wonderful it's because the underlying technological

reality say Europe should be an integrated area by transport by fast rail by digital by and so there's Europe the politics follows the technological realities to very important extent we're in a world of regions now on the Middle East by the way the US completely handed over foreign policy to Netanyahu 30 years ago the Israel Lobby dominates American politics just have no doubt about it I could explain for hours how it works it's very dangerous Europe has gone silent about the jcpoa and Iran nany whose greatest dream in life is a war between the United

States and Iran he's not given up and it's not impossible that that would come also and that's because the US in this regard does not have an independent foreign policy it is run by Israel it's tragic it's amazing by the way and it could end Trump may say that he wants foreign policy back maybe I'm hoping that it's the case I'm hoping that Trump will not destroy his administration and worse the Palestinian people because of Netanyahu who I regard as a war criminal uh properly indicted by the IC 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 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 so if you want to have some influence tell the United States Drop The veto you are together with 180 countries in the world the only ones that

oppose a Palestinian state are the United States Israel Micronesia naaru poao Papa guini Mr Malay and Paraguay so this is a place where Europe could have a big influence but the point I would really make is that Ukraine and Georgia were too far this is right right up against Russia this is in the context of the complete destabilization of the nuclear framework this is in the context of the US 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 missiles 7 minutes from Moscow is a decapitation strike and this is very real the us Not only would freak out but did freak out when this happened in the Western Hemisphere so it's the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse and fortunately Nikita kushev did not stand up and say open door policy of the Warsaw Pact we can go wherever we want Cuba's asked us it's none of America's business what kushev said Is War my God we don't want war we end this crisis we both pull back that's what kushev and Kennedy decided so the

most important thing is stop the yelling stop the warmongering 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 if the United States wants to join that's fine but to beg no I have no doubt of why Hungary Poland Czech Republic Slovakia wanted to join NATO 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 and the question is how are we going to establish peace in a reliable way 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 not to the United States not to Ukraine not to Israel keep a European foreign policy this is the basic idea if I were uh making uh those decisions back then I would have ended NATO alog together in 1991

when those countries requested NATO I would have explained to them what our defense secretary William Perry said what our lead Statesman George Kennan said what our final ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock said uh they said well we understand your feelings but it's not a good idea because it could provoke a new cold war with Russia so that's how I would have answered it when those countries joined uh in the first wave I don't think it was that consequential in fact except that it was part of a bigger project and the project was spelled

out already in 1994 there's a very good book by John Harvard University press called hubris which gives a detailed historical documentation of step by step what happened uh and uh it's it's really worth reading so this is the real consequential Russia even swallowed with a lot of pain 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 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 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 second I'm sorry but your high representative vice presidents need to become diplomats of course you don't yet have a a constitution for Europe which really underpins a European foreign policy and it can't be by Union ity there has to be a

structure in which Europe can speak as Europe even with some uh descent but with the European policy 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 the first rule is your diplomats should be diplomats not secretaries of War 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 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 diplomacy means going to Moscow inviting your Russian counterpart here discussing this doesn't happen till now finlandization landed Finland number one in the world happiness report year after year Rich successful happy and secure that's prenado so finlandization was a wonderful thing number one in the world when Sweden and Finland and Austria were neutral Bravo smart when Ukraine was neutral smart if you have two superpowers keep them apart a little bit you don't have to be right with your

nose up against each other especially if one of them the US is pushing its nose into the other one so Europe should be Europe with subsid don't lose all of the wonderful wonderful national and local elements but Europe should be Europe so the good side is let's I want Europe to have diplomacy for example with Assan I spend a lot of time with the Assan countries if the the EU green deal wonderful idea I said many years ago okay to the Assan leaders make an aan green deal and then talk with the Europeans so that

you have this wonderful relationship trade investment technology so last year they announced an Assan green deal what did Europe do about it nothing it said sorry we're in the Ukraine war thank you no interest so this is my point the prospects are very positive if we construct the peace and so finlandization to my mind has a very positive connotation so does Austrian isation Austria 1955 signed its uh neutrality the Soviet Army left and Austria is a wonderful place by the way absolutely wonderful and so this is a basic how to avoid conflict if the United

States had any sense at all it would have left the countries as a neutral space in between the US Military and Russia but that's where the US lost it