0:00

Support for this podcast and

0:02

the following message come from

0:04

Korea and Korean provides wealth

0:06

management services centered around you.

0:08

As one of the largest

0:10

integrated V only registered investment

0:12

advisors in the U S,

0:14

Korea has experience teams who

0:16

can craft custom solutions designed

0:18

to help you reach your

0:21

financial goals no matter how

0:23

complex real wealth requires. real

0:25

solutions. Connect with a wealth

0:27

advisor today at korean.com that

0:29

korean.com. Hello

0:34

and welcome to the Ram and

0:36

review I'm Gideon Rachman Tree Foreign

0:38

Affairs Commentator of The Financial Times.

0:41

This week's podcast is about Russia

0:43

and Security and your my guest

0:45

is Anne Applebaum. Pulitzer prize winning

0:47

Historian of Russia and Right From

0:50

World Affairs for the Atlantic. So

0:53

how serious is the Russian

0:55

security threat to Europe? I

1:06

would like suing was a new

1:09

chin and all. That

1:12

was yeah everybody will pregnancies and

1:14

his not his government so I

1:16

want is analyst.know the last night

1:18

strangling be punished fox why he

1:20

wanted the way they have done

1:22

with us I am also I

1:24

will listen to my family and

1:26

he just did that with my

1:28

habits. I thought that they will

1:30

be brought you're chatting dislike. That.

1:33

Was union about me, the widow of

1:35

Alexei in the Valley. Speaking to the

1:37

Munich Security Conference just hours after the

1:39

death of the Russian opposition leader was

1:41

announced. The found

1:43

these fierce and brave opposition to

1:46

prove inspired enormous admiration across Europe

1:48

and indeed in much Russia. But.

1:51

It didn't save him from death in a

1:53

remote prison. Novell. Needs

1:55

refusal to back down is, in

1:57

all probability, What? sealed his

1:59

fate Navalny's

2:02

death contributed to the dark atmosphere

2:04

at the Munich Security Conference, and

2:07

so did the news that Russian

2:09

troops in Ukraine are now making

2:11

territorial gains as Ukraine runs low

2:13

on ammunition. Several

2:16

European politicians have warned that

2:18

Putin's ambitions do not stop at Ukraine, and

2:21

that the Russian leader could well attack a

2:23

NATO state in the coming years. And

2:26

Applebaum was at the Munich Conference, along with

2:28

much of the West's security elite. So

2:31

I began our conversation by asking Anne about

2:33

the mood in Munich. I

2:37

have been going to Munich on and off for

2:39

about 15 years, and this

2:41

was the worst version

2:43

of that security conference that I have

2:45

ever been to. And there isn't

2:47

a close second. I

2:49

think maybe the best way to explain it

2:52

is to say that I talked to a

2:54

German MP, a member of the Bundestag,

2:57

who said to me, we've suddenly come to

2:59

realize in Europe that we may wake up

3:02

to face a world in which

3:04

we are competing with three autocracies,

3:07

China, Russia, and the United States.

3:11

And he wasn't joking. I mean, the fear is

3:13

that a second

3:16

Trump administration would not be

3:18

exactly isolationist. It would be

3:21

aggressively anti-European, and

3:23

it would seek to damage Europe. And

3:26

I think it might not be wrong. And

3:29

the behavior of Trump out

3:31

of office, he has

3:33

no power right now. He's no formal job

3:35

in the American government. And

3:37

yet it seems that he controls

3:39

this minority in the House

3:42

of Representatives that is now

3:44

able to dictate U.S. policies. And

3:47

in the summer, for months

3:49

now, they have been blocking aid

3:51

to Ukraine successfully. Even

3:53

though a majority in Congress supports it, a majority

3:55

in the country supports it, the White House

3:57

supports it, this pro-Trump minority has succeeded.

4:00

successfully done that. And

4:02

it feels like a very bad omen

4:04

for the future. It feels that Trump wants

4:06

Ukraine to lose. He

4:08

wants Russia to be empowered. And

4:10

that's very, very dangerous for Europe. And

4:13

in fact, as well as that news

4:15

about Trump's statements about letting Russia do

4:17

whatever the hell it likes, which was

4:19

just a few days before the Munich

4:21

conference, you then also had the incredibly

4:24

grim, sad news just on the

4:26

brink of the conference of the death

4:29

of Navalny. How does

4:31

that affect the mood, but also just the

4:33

calculations? Does it tell us anything new

4:36

about Russia? The added element

4:38

of the death of Navalny was that the

4:40

leader of his organization and his wife were

4:42

in Munich. They'd come to

4:44

make a presentation or do some kind of

4:46

event at the security conference. And

4:49

it was almost eerie. I mean, Yulia

4:51

Navalnya minutes probably after she'd learned this

4:54

news, stood up in front of a room full of people

4:57

and said a few words. I

4:59

think it's another illustration of the

5:01

level of impunity that Russia enjoys

5:04

and the level of aggression

5:06

that Putin feels towards his own

5:09

opposition, as well as

5:11

towards us. He believes or says

5:13

he believes that the Russian

5:16

opposition is somehow funded or paid for

5:18

by the Western world. His

5:20

vision of how he should be able to rule,

5:22

that he decides what the law is, he decides

5:24

what the rule from here. He sees

5:26

that the opposition to that comes both from

5:28

inside his country, from people like Navalny, and

5:30

from outside his country, from the US and Europe.

5:33

And he's determined to destroy both. So I

5:35

think there was a way in which the

5:37

death of Navalny reinforced some of the other

5:39

messages. And frankly, the fact that Trump has

5:42

been unable to express sympathy

5:44

for the family, anything like that. And

5:47

not only that made a weird posting on

5:49

his own social media called Truth Social,

5:52

in which he compared himself to Navalny. I'm

5:55

a victim of the Biden regime, which

5:57

is so sick and perverted. it's

6:00

hard to know how to cope with it. I

6:02

mean, it just reinforced the larger

6:04

message, which is that the United States could be

6:06

on the brink of becoming a very different kind

6:09

of player in the world. You

6:11

wrote a classic history of the Gulag.

6:14

Does the news of Nubalni's death make

6:16

you think that those

6:18

events aren't entirely in the past?

6:21

So it's very weird. I mean, I've written

6:23

three books about Soviet history and all three

6:25

of them. I genuinely believed I was writing

6:27

about things that would never happen again. And all

6:30

three of them in different ways. The themes

6:32

of them have reemerged. I don't think Putinism

6:34

is Stalinism. And actually, it's quite important to

6:36

understand what the differences are. Putin doesn't

6:39

do mass arrests. What he

6:41

likes to do instead is single out particular

6:43

people to set an example for others. And

6:46

obviously, he chose Nubalni because of Nubalni's bravery.

6:49

But some of the seeds of the old system

6:51

are clearly still there. The main one being that

6:53

the law is what the person in charge says

6:55

it is. That's the total control of the court

6:57

system, the total control of the media, the

7:00

use of really vicious, ugly propaganda,

7:02

contradictory propaganda in the case of

7:04

Putin. That's a little different from

7:06

Stalin as well. So it's almost

7:08

as if the seeds of Putinism you can

7:10

find in the Stalin regime, they're not exactly

7:12

the same. But yeah, I mean, we see

7:14

abuse of prisoners or torture of

7:16

prisoners through putting them in very cold places

7:19

and giving them very bad food. These

7:21

are things we know from the Soviet past. And

7:24

to add to the sort of litany

7:26

of gloom and actually quite frightening news,

7:29

you also have the sense that

7:31

this inaction by Congress, the

7:33

failure to supply Ukraine with ammunition is now

7:35

having an effect on the battlefront. Russia

7:38

beginning to make gains. And

7:40

Zelensky too was in Munich. How does that

7:42

news from Ukraine affect the atmosphere? I

7:45

mean, it's part of the same story. Yeah, I

7:47

mean, the Ukrainians are short of ammunition. I

7:49

hear different statistics. The Russians have four

7:51

bullets for every one that Ukraine has

7:54

that is overwhelming, superiority and

7:56

artillery. The Ukrainians still have a

7:59

lot of tools. in the toolbox. They're still

8:01

better at asymmetric warfare. They're still

8:03

better at drones. There's been a problem in the

8:05

last few months of the Russians

8:08

learning how to use electronic warfare to block

8:10

Ukrainian drones and Ukrainian guided missiles, and the

8:12

Ukrainians are working on overcoming that. So I

8:14

wouldn't say there's necessarily a big collapse coming,

8:16

but yeah, they did just lose a kind

8:18

of fortress city that they would not have

8:20

expected to lose earlier on. And

8:22

it is directly related to the lack

8:24

of weapons and it's directly related to

8:27

this blocking of Congress. Clearly,

8:29

Trump has inspired this group of Congressmen,

8:31

and particularly the Speaker of the House,

8:33

Mike Johnson, to block this aid.

8:35

And you can see the effect of that

8:37

decision on the ground and everyone knows it.

8:40

So it's part of the bigger story. Trump wants

8:43

Ukraine to lose, or wants Ukraine to become

8:45

weak so that he can, when he takes over

8:47

in January, which he thinks he will, that he

8:49

will be able to dictate terms. And I

8:51

think that's the game right now. Now,

8:53

Munich always hosts a very

8:55

big congressional delegation, a bipartisan

8:57

delegation, and usually

9:00

the message is pretty clear. America is

9:02

committed to European security and so on.

9:05

But given everything you've described, what

9:08

was the reception of the Americans like and

9:10

what was their behavior like? Most

9:12

of the Americans in Munich were

9:15

people who support aid for Ukraine,

9:17

support NATO. Remember, the majority of

9:19

Congress supports Ukraine and supports NATO.

9:21

So we had several

9:23

senior Republicans in the House and

9:25

the Senate saying very positive, encouraging

9:27

things. Hakeem Jeffries, who

9:30

is the minority leader of the House

9:32

of Representatives, the Democrat leader in

9:34

the House, was joking with somebody saying, I've

9:37

never had so many Europeans sidle up to

9:39

me and ask me to explain discharge motions.

9:41

This is a kind of parliamentary procedure

9:44

in the U.S. Congress that would allow

9:46

Congress to vote on the aid bill,

9:49

even if the Speaker doesn't put it on the floor. I'm

9:51

told that's how some civil rights legislation was passed

9:54

in the past, how you can

9:56

get around the Speaker. So most

9:58

of the ones who were there were very Very positive,

10:00

an enthusiastic and welcome did so on.

10:02

There was one exception which was date

10:04

events. Who. Is the senator from

10:07

Ohio. Who has identified himself

10:09

as trumpet. He was playing it

10:11

somewhat. Weird games be a very few

10:13

others appearances he may one where he

10:16

said. Well. It's all because we

10:18

need to visit to China in a we're not interested

10:20

in Europe anymore and there were a lot of. Inconsistencies

10:22

with what he said of it grow organs of

10:24

given a lot of different versions for why they

10:26

can't pass the aid and for long time it

10:29

was of because we need to deal with our

10:31

border crisis first. But. When. The

10:33

senate came up with a border crisis bill

10:35

that was very tough. day turned. Down.

10:38

A Now they're saying oh no it's to the we

10:40

need to deal with China firsts. But. This

10:42

all feel like excuses. I mean they're hiding the

10:44

basic story which is that Trump wants something to

10:46

deal with two ton and I can't Exactly how

10:48

he's going to end of the he wants to

10:50

end the war in Ukraine by letting food and

10:52

wins. Your back in the States now

10:55

And so Biden is condemned. What? Trump?

10:57

As soon as seems to me from

10:59

a distance to be trying to make

11:01

this into an Alexa, listen to say

11:03

that what Trump is doing is. Disgraceful

11:06

and against the American history

11:08

and will America's interests. Do.

11:11

You think there's any chance that that have

11:13

passed through and max the make a difference

11:15

in the election soon. As it will mean the

11:18

election is still far away. A lot

11:20

will happen between now and. November.

11:23

Their of course many other. Issues that move

11:25

people. You know, abortion, women's rights,

11:27

other kinds. Of civil rights issues that people

11:30

feel very strongly about. The. American

11:32

electorate seems to be only just waking up

11:34

to the realization that Trump is the candidates

11:36

and they're going to have to think about

11:38

him again. I think up until.

11:40

A few weeks ago, people still imagine

11:42

there was some kind of Republican contests

11:44

and people were watching. Trump in the

11:46

past has been a very polarizing figure

11:48

in that he brings out his base

11:50

which again is a minorities, but he

11:52

also inspires people to vote against him.

11:55

And Twenty twenty, we had the largest

11:57

number of voters ever. And more people.

11:59

voted for Biden than anyone else ever in

12:01

history. And that's because Trump inspires a huge negative

12:03

reaction. And it's so very possible that we'll get

12:05

to that. And I know plenty of people who

12:08

do think that will be the outcome. I

12:10

think these issues will play depending on

12:12

how well they're framed or described. They

12:14

play when they're connected to larger issues

12:16

in the U.S. about democracy,

12:19

about America's role in the world. What

12:21

is America? What kind of a country

12:23

are we? Although these are so-called foreign

12:25

policy issues, they are pretty tightly

12:27

bound up with America's self-definition. I

12:29

mean, are we a good country? Are we a bad

12:32

country? Are we a country that is aligned with

12:34

decatorships? Are we a country that's aligned with

12:36

democracies? I mean, I think, again, those sound

12:38

like foreign policy issues, but they're also issues

12:40

of identity. I think those will be at play

12:43

once the campaign really gets underway. Back

12:46

to Europe now. You mentioned

12:48

that when we started this very bleak

12:51

comment from the German politician about facing

12:53

three autocracies, I had

12:55

the feeling until quite recently that many

12:57

Europeans were saying, well, yeah, sure, we're

13:00

worried about the possibility of

13:02

a Trump presidency, but

13:04

it's too soon to start planning, too difficult

13:06

to start planning. Do you think that's

13:08

changed now? Yeah, I do think so. I

13:10

think people are planning. There's

13:13

a dilemma that people have

13:15

between talking about it too much

13:17

in public and then therefore somehow making

13:19

it a self-fulfilling prophecy and taking seriously

13:21

the need to prepare. So there's both

13:23

going on. There have been

13:25

a few big weapons donations

13:27

just in the last few days. The

13:29

Danes gave all of their artillery to

13:32

the Ukrainians, I think everything. And the

13:34

Swedes have just come up with another

13:36

big package. You know, there are a number

13:38

of European packages coming. I mean, the

13:40

countries that feel most threatened are

13:42

Eastern Europe, obviously, but also Scandinavia,

13:44

particularly Sweden and Finland, who have just

13:46

joined NATO. So the awareness

13:49

is pretty high in those places and

13:51

people are beginning to think about alternatives.

13:53

Everybody still hopes Biden will win and everybody still

13:55

hopes that aid package will pass. It's still might,

13:58

I should say. motion

14:00

might work, there's a lot of pressure being put on

14:02

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker from different

14:05

directions. So it could still

14:07

go the other way, but yeah, I think people

14:09

are aware and they're preparing in a way that

14:11

they haven't in the past. Remember

14:14

also that during the previous Trump administration,

14:16

the military threat from Putin still

14:18

seemed very distant. It didn't

14:20

seem like something that was going to be of concern for

14:22

Germany. Now it is. You

14:25

know, there's a real war in Ukraine, you

14:27

know, there's been a massive use

14:29

of horrible violence against cities and

14:31

the awareness that the Russians really are

14:33

willing to destroy modern European cities is

14:35

now with us. And that's

14:37

also a part of the explanation of the different mood. Yeah.

14:41

And what's the atmosphere like in the other country? You

14:43

know very well Poland, and I should

14:46

add your husband Radak Sikorsky has just

14:48

been made Polish foreign minister

14:50

in the new government. Much to my surprise, but

14:52

yes. Well, congratulations. But

14:54

it struck me that in

14:57

that now fairly notorious Tucker

14:59

Carlson interview with Vladimir Putin,

15:02

that Putin almost went out of his way

15:04

to kind of make threatening noises towards

15:06

Poland and bizarrely accuse them of starting

15:09

the Second World War. Did the Poles notice

15:12

that and feel

15:14

that he was deliberately threatening them? Yes.

15:17

And Putin has said this before. It's

15:19

not the first time he came up with that

15:21

weird formulation. I mean, I think it's

15:24

a way of justifying

15:26

his war in Ukraine. You know,

15:28

Ukrainians brought it upon themselves. I'm

15:30

attacking them because they inspired me to attack

15:32

them in that same kind of argument. It's

15:34

also a way of writing the Soviet Union

15:37

out of the history of the Second World

15:39

War, because in 1939, the Germans invaded Poland

15:41

on September the 1st and the Soviet Union

15:43

invaded on September the 17th. And

15:46

they actually partition Poland. And

15:48

there was a period when there was a

15:50

Soviet German pact. And I think he's

15:52

trying to write that piece of history out. So

15:55

in Poland, the war in Ukraine has

15:57

always felt very present. You

15:59

know, Ukraine. looks like Poland and the

16:01

images on television look like things we

16:03

know. I went to Ukraine,

16:06

I'm part of a group that has

16:08

been driving aid to the frontline, and I went with

16:10

a Polish friend of mine a few months ago and he

16:13

said to me, you know, it was only when I got here I

16:15

thought this landscape could be my landscape.

16:17

It looks very familiar, the photographs look like pictures

16:20

from the Second World War and so it

16:22

feels very close and of course there are

16:24

a lot of Ukrainians in Poland now, they've

16:26

actually integrated pretty well mostly. There aren't refugee

16:28

camps or anything like that, they're mostly working

16:31

in supermarkets or indeed in banks.

16:34

I was in a radio studio in Warsaw a few

16:36

months ago and there was a radio engineer from Donetsk,

16:38

you know, that's just kind of normal now. So

16:41

they're there, it feels very close and yes

16:43

the Poles are preparing,

16:45

I mean there are Russian information operations in

16:47

Poland too and there's been a farmer's strike

16:49

to do with grain from Ukraine that has

16:52

some real roots but may also

16:54

have some roots in

16:56

Russian agitation. So there's some

16:58

conflict inside Poland as well but overwhelmingly

17:00

the population is in favor of aiding

17:02

Ukraine and is aware that they would

17:04

be next on the list. Well

17:07

to summarize then, do you think by

17:09

the end of the year that

17:12

it's not only possible but really quite

17:14

likely that Europe will be facing a

17:16

full-scale security crisis because if

17:18

you combine a

17:21

potential Trump victory with

17:23

Russia making progress in Ukraine,

17:26

the atmosphere in Europe could go

17:28

from apprehension to something

17:30

much closer to a sense of crisis

17:32

really quite soon. I don't want

17:35

to say that it's likely because there are a lot

17:37

of things that could happen that would make it less

17:39

likely, you know, there are clearly some cracks inside

17:41

Russia. I mean Putin, if

17:43

he felt really secure and confident he

17:45

wouldn't be killing his political opponents, right?

17:48

The money could pass, it's possible a lot of people want

17:50

it to pass, it might pass, you know, in the next

17:52

few weeks and that could make a difference. Trump

17:54

might lose, I mean there are many reasons to think

17:57

that that won't happen but it is a

17:59

scenario out there that has to be taken

18:01

into consideration. Yes, we could be a year

18:03

from now facing a security crisis on a

18:05

new scale if we aren't able to prevent

18:07

it, either by making sure Biden wins the

18:10

election or by making sure

18:12

that Ukraine wins the war. That

18:18

was the historian Anne Applebaum ending this edition

18:21

of the Rackman Review. Thanks

18:23

for listening and please join us again next

18:25

week. Support

18:37

for this podcast and the

18:39

following message come from Coriant.

18:41

Coriant provides wealth management services

18:43

centered around you as one

18:45

of the largest integrated fee-only

18:47

registered investment advisors in the

18:49

U.S. Coriant has experienced teams

18:51

who can craft custom solutions

18:53

designed to help you reach

18:55

your financial goals no matter

18:57

how complex. Real wealth

18:59

requires real solutions. Connect with a

19:02

wealth advisor today at coriant.com. That's

19:05

coriant.com. At At

19:07

Airbus, our products make the world

19:10

a safer place and help nations

19:12

protect their sovereignty. Whether

19:15

it's air ambulance services at home or

19:18

evacuations overseas, our

19:21

technology protects citizens, safeguards security,

19:23

safeguards security, and

19:25

aids responses to crises. At

19:28

Airbus, we're pioneering sustainable aerospace

19:30

for a safe and united

19:33

world. Learn more

19:35

at airbus.com.