Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed: Welcome to this Conversations on Groong episode. Today, we’re talking about Russia and the incoming New World Order. We have with us Dr. Glenn Diesen of the University of Southeast Norway.
Hello, Dr. Diesen. Welcome to the show.
Glenn: Hi, good to meet both of you.
Asbed: Thank you. Same here. So it is the first time that you are on our podcast. Obviously, in academia, especially in international relations, you’re a well-known name.
Can you introduce yourself to our audience?
Glenn: Sure. Yeah, my name is Glenn Deeson. I’m a professor at the University of Southeastern Norway. And I’m also an editor for or associate editor at the Russian Global Affairs Journal.
So I initially was teaching mostly in Australia for many years and then I moved to Moscow where I was working as a professor there for another two years as a professor and then For the past four years, I’ve been in Norway teaching at this university. Initially, my main research focus was on the development of the security architecture after the Cold War in Europe. and how this would likely result in huge conflicts in where we would put the new dividing lines, which meant Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and this border region, which have to choose between either one side or the other.
And after this, after 2014, when this effectively played out as my thesis had, well, as my hypothesis would have suggested, I started to look more at Russia’s greater Eurasia initiative, which is Russia giving up effectively on this greater Europe. So the past 300 years of looking to the West for development, and instead began to look to the East and develop what they refer to now as the greater Eurasia initiative. So this is my main research interest.
Asbed: Very good. You live in Norway, which is a NATO member and a major supporter of Ukraine in this current war. In 2022 and 2023, Norway provided over $3 billion of support to Ukraine and has pledged to provide even more in coming years. This includes military support, such as the F-16s from NATO fighter jets.
What is driving Norway’s international policy towards supporting Ukraine, do you think?
Glenn: Well, I think it’s been a huge shift because Scandinavia has always been, you can call it a region of peace. Most of them countries were neutral. Norway chose after World War II to effectively position itself as a NATO light, that is being part of NATO. but putting restrictions on itself, so no foreign troops on its soil, not too much activities in the high north, because we have a border there with the Russians in the Arctic. So effectively, our policy was to be a good friend of the United States and a good neighbor to the Russians.
But after the Cold War, this balance was given up effectively, and we went all in with being a good ally to the United States. I think this has come at the expense of good neighborly relations with Russia. And I think a lot of the principles we had before, which was don’t send weapons into a war zone, all of this is now deemed, put on his head, said it’s now immoral. And I think the public, to a large extent, has supported the government’s policy, which is to send more weapons Don’t speak about peace.
Now, why is it like this? I think the media has a huge reason behind it because they are overly excited about this war. The war enthusiasm is very high. This is a war between good and evil.
We’re fighting Hitler. All our future security depends on defeating Russia or whatever. We haven’t defined what that means. But of course, I think it also helps that the NATO Secretary General is our former prime minister, which also makes it difficult to criticize some of his wild decisions or statements such as weapons are the path to peace, all these things.
From my perspective, this was unthinkable rhetoric only a few years ago, but this is And this is how things have become now. So I do agree. I think Norway is one of the most enthusiastic countries in terms of sending weapons and continuing to fuel this conflict.
Asbed: You mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were originally pretty much neutral in these affairs, but over the last two, three years, Sweden and Finland have also joined NATO. Whether the reasons for those were very well known or just induced by certain events, including the war in Ukraine, how did you greet the joining by those two countries?
Glenn: Well, again, throughout the Cold War, we had a belt of neutral state throughout Europe from north to south, because in security, you want to deter the other side, but you don’t want to provoke them. So you need a difficult balance between deterrence and reassurance. This is what we tried to do during the Cold War. But this is, again, common sense, which we no longer have.
And, of course, Finland especially has been a great success story of neutrality since the Second World War. They’re now possibly the greatest success story of neutrality, but they flipped this and they have now become the largest… front line NATO has against Russia. And I can understand why there would be a lot of concern two years ago when the war began and reasonable fear and the whole security situation collapses. The first impulse is to seek security within the military bloc.
But keep in mind that military bloc, yes, it can defend, but it also provokes. So now Russia will have to take measures against this. And I guess I’ve been missing discussion about how this enhances security.
Asbed: I was actually going to ask you if this move had enhanced or hurt Norway’s security.
Glenn: Well, I think no one believes that Russia had any plans to invade Finland. I think this is cartoonish. This was not going to happen. But now this is a huge northern flank against the Russians.
And if you see what’s happened now as a part of this, The Americans are now opening their military base across Finland, Sweden, Norway. And it’s always this assumption if your allies or your interests are the same. But it’s important to look, what are America’s interests? Well, the overarching strategic approach to security is to preserve global hegemony, and this means to weaken key rivals.
So I think the Americans have been very outspoken what they want to do. They want to put more pressure on the Russians in the Baltic Sea and also in the Arctic. So my question has been, is this in the interest of the Scandinavian countries, or are we making ourselves into a frontline against Russia? Because we obviously want stability on our borders with Russia. while the Americans see possible frontline states, which they can be used to contain Russia or even disrupt or challenge its Arctic territory.
So there’s, again, I’m very critical of the approach Norway is taking. Of course, I could be right, I could be wrong, but I would like, I wish there would have been a discussion around this. Either now it’s either you support going fully under American protection and essentially outsourcing our foreign policy. Otherwise, they look at you suspicious, like perhaps you’re carrying water for Putin.
So it’s either one side or the other. My main argument is the point of departure should be what increases our own security. To what extent do we seek deterrence or avoid provocation? And we’re not having these discussions here, unfortunately.
Asbed: Coming back to Norway’s vehement support for Ukraine, what’s the level of popular support in the country by the citizenry for that foreign policy?
Glenn: Well, I think it was much higher two years ago because the nature of the conflict, I think, was misrepresented. We presented this as being another Hitler. Russia wants to restore the Soviet Union. So in other words, it was unprovoked.
And the Russians merely saw this as an opportunity to seize more territory. Now, if this is the premise and you buy into this premise, then it makes a lot of sense. Why wouldn’t you send more weapons? Then you increase the costs significantly. and of this military adventurism.
But again, the media has also eliminated the whole discussion around the background of this, why that Russia has actually seen this as being an existential threat, and we have known this for many years. Also, we have this argument with the media that it’s very hard to get Putin to negotiate, but the Russians have been open to the negotiations. They did negotiations. It was the Americans and the British who sabotaged diplomacy and negotiations at every end.
And this is already proven, but it doesn’t matter if it’s facts or not, because it does not come in the media. It’s very narrative driven media we have. So the argument is always, you know, if you say, well, the Americans sabotaged and the British sabotaged the Istanbul peace negotiations. Well, now it’s seen as legitimizing the actions which Russia took in terms of invading Ukraine and you’re blaming it on America. which suggests you’re taking the side of Russia.
And that’s all they hear. So the objective reality doesn’t really matter. It’s all about which side do you give legitimacy and which side do you deprive legitimacy. So it’s very narrative driven.
And so again, this is why I think people become very misinformed.
Hovik: Professor Diesen, I want to talk a little bit about your book, which we briefly mentioned. And it seems like, as I said, the book was well received, 4.7 stars on Amazon. And a glowing review from John Mearsheimer, who said that this book is, I’m quoting, a must read for anyone who wants to understand the great shift in the global distribution of power that is taking place before our eyes. And the title of the book is The Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order.
So what is the main thesis of your book?
Glenn: Well, the book is primarily about world order. So how it changes… Now, it’s usually recognized that the birth of the modern world order was the peace of Westphalia, because after the decline of the Roman Empire, we had the Thirty Year War in Europe, and effectively it was impossible for any one state to restore or reassert hegemony, so to have peace by having one dominant state. So the result of this was, part of the reason was also no power distribution that allowed hegemony, but also because of the Reformation, the Catholic Church wasn’t able to represent, they didn’t have the legitimacy either to represent everyone.
So for that reason the New World Order was defined by having a balance of power, so many centers of power, and each center effectively promotes its own cultural uniqueness, which is why it should not succumb under any claims of universalism. Now, my argument is, well, I looked through the history, of course, in 1648, but my main thesis is after the Cold War, the world order changed significantly because for the first time, there was a real possibility of essentially restoring this Pax Romana or now Pax Americana, the idea they have one center of power. and also claiming to represent universal values, which is the liberal democratic norms.
So suddenly it has the power distribution and the legitimacy to effectively claim to represent the entire globe. And this is a very new world order. And this is also very specific, outlined very clearly in American security strategy that global primacy is the main source of stability and peace. And it can be justified from two reasons.
One, if you have uh one center of power then the entire entire international anarchy in the international system is reduced because great powers won’t fight each other if according to america’s security doctrine no one can even aspire to challenge america militarily so that can reduce tension and also the argument was in terms of values if you elevate the role of liberal democratic values the world will become more benign, less confrontational. So there could have been very good intentions behind essentially overthrowing this 500-year-long world order.
However, as we saw, it was temporary for many reasons. the international distribution of power. Only having one center depends on holding other countries down, be it Russia, China, even India. So over time, the more the US will try to hold these countries down, the more they would begin to cooperate to balance the American hegemon. That’s what you’re seeing now with institutions such as BRICS.
Also, the whole legitimacy of ruling through liberal democratic norms, this is what we call the rules-based international order, is also being rejected because this is effectively sovereignty for the hegemon, but not for its adversaries, which is why we have these concepts now of a humanitarian intervention. So, you know, the US can breach your sovereignty, democracy promotion, the US can interfere in your domestic affairs. And so effectively coming up with a whole new language as well. Again, much of this could have been good intentions.
But all of this is now falling apart. And I think this culminated in the war in Ukraine because this is really NATO expansion was really the manifestation of this. This was the rejection of an inclusive European security architecture, a multipolar one, and instead go full for hegemony, which is create a Europe where everyone is invited except for the Russians. This is to weaken Russia.
And I think this has failed spectacularly. So Ukraine is both the cause of this failure or the collapse of the unipolar world order, but it’s also intensifying it because the rest of the world has been seeing what the US has done. And not just the US, the collective West has done over the past two years, seizing Russian funds, abandoning a lot of liberal democratic ideas. So this is only intensifying the shift into a multipolar order.
Hovik: Yeah, it’s interesting. You mentioned values. So I think that you’re right in that the main thrust of soft power from the West has been to promulgate these liberal democratic values. And I believe in one of your interviews, you also mentioned the return of traditional values.
And I wanted to understand what the relationship between these value systems is and multipolarity. Essentially, does going to multipolarity necessarily mean that there will be more traditional values altogether? For instance, we’re seeing some of the conservative parties, even in Europe, taking more prominence now. What are your thoughts on that?
Glenn: Well, first in terms of the values, it’s important to see how they begin to fall apart. Because when we talked about human rights, the whole idea was it’s supposed to reduce the scope of coercion for a state. There’s some things you’re not allowed to do, but instead now human rights isn’t used to constrain states. Instead, it enables.
If you say there’s human rights abuse here, now we can use military power. Same as democracy was supposed to self-governance of other states. But look what we’re saying now in Georgia. Some protests are saying, well, now we can interfere.
We can start to put sanctions. We can try to push for regime change. This has nothing to do with democracy. Everything has been turned on its head.
Now, in terms of the difference between universal values and… the particular values of each civilization or state, it reflects the international distribution of power because, let’s say, well, for example, in the early 1800s, you had France, it represented very liberal universal values, which meant that effectively it legitimized reducing sovereignty of other states. Now, And this goes also back to the idea of Rome. If you represent universal values, then that undermines the legitimacy for sovereignty of other states.
Now, in a multipolar system, it makes sense for each civilization or state to argue that they have unique values, specific values, because then the dominant state can’t pretend to represent your people. So this is the problem of this international idealism is when you proclaim to represent the freedom of other people. This is why also after the French Revolution, the French said, you know, we’re going to come out and protect the other peoples. After the Bolshevik Revolution as well, they’re going to come out and protect other peoples.
And this is to a large extent what the West did also more and more after the Cold War. In contrast, what I say is why I’m optimistic so far about the rise of China is because they seem committed still to multipolarity. In other words, they’re not trying to simply replace an American hegemony.
And you see this not only in the way they’re working with other states in terms of permitting or not obstructing many centers of power, but they also have this initiative called the Global Civilization Initiative. effectively saying that all civilizations are different, they develop in different ways, and it’s not for one country to dictate to another how they should develop. Now, this advocates for particular values. Now, if you’re a hegemon, if you aspire to dominate the region, this is not what you want to say. You want to pretend or argue that you’re representing all peoples because now you can promote sovereign inequality.
So sovereignty for me and not for you. But the Chinese haven’t done this yet. So this is an indication that they are not looking, at least for the moment, to push for hedge money. And in contrast, in the West, look what we did after the Cold War, when there was no more balance of power.
There was only one center of power. What new ideas did we promote? Democracy promotion, humanitarian interventionism, global war on terror, all of these things. But what did it all mean?
It meant we maintain our sovereignty. The rest of the world will have limited sovereignty because we’re effectively representing their people now. So if universalism is the push for sovereign inequality, then… particularity or distinctiveness of civilization is the antidote. This is why I’m comparing a lot of the rhetoric now coming from Russia and China with what the Germans were saying in the early 19th century with Harder, for example, arguing if we all just subscribe to French universal values, then the foundation for sovereignty is gone.
And I think this still applies.
Hovik: Ukraine is on its last leg, or at least that is what many commentators were saying before Ukraine made a brazen attack against Russia on August 6 and actually captured territory in Kursk, Russia. And it has been able to hold it so far. So we wanted to begin with is Ukraine really on its last leg? And what is the logic behind this attack?
Glenn: Well, yeah, I think they were on their last leg and they noticed that every day their situation got worse and worse. So they decided to make a big gamble, which I think everyone recognized, the Ukrainians, Russians, the Western commentators, everyone recognized this was a huge gamble in which they invaded Russian territory. Now, there could be many objectives. It was to seize the Kursk nuclear power plant. to disrupt the logistics of the Russians.
They really doubt it has anything to do with a buffer zone. It could be to humiliate Putin, to make Russians go against him. It could also be to prove to the West that, look, we can do anything we want with the Russians. They’re not going to retaliate in a big way.
In other words, stop these red lines. Let’s just give us long-range missiles and start striking Moscow effectively. But I think the leading objective was obviously to pull the troops away from Donbass, because the Russians were beginning to break through all the Ukrainian front lines, defensive lines. And instead of losing the war in Donbass, if the Russians would all have to send all their troops up to Kursk, then they would be fighting on Russian territory instead, and it would alleviate that area.
Now, obviously, this has not worked. It was a gamble, and it was a gamble that didn’t work. What you saw instead was the Ukrainians sending all their best troops, all their best equipment to conquer Russian territory in Kursk. However, it’s worth remembering that this is a war of attrition, so you’re looking to exhaust the adversary.
So they’re sending in all these troops, which used to be behind well-fortified defensive line. Now they’re in the open. And as the numbers suggest, they’re losing a lot of manpower and all of their best, not all of their, but much of their best equipment. And they’re having poor supply lines.
They can’t get, you know, engineering equipment to build any defensive lines. They can’t get the fuel in. So they’re suffering greatly in Kursk. And it’s not clear for what, because you know, strategy territory in a war of attrition is it has to improve your attrition rates or your, your position, your logistics, something, but instead they’re in a much weaker situation.
And so this is territory. They’re not going to be able to hold in the long run and it doesn’t give them much strategic advantage. Meanwhile, all these troops to actually sent from Donbass. And this is the, what was really perplexing because there they had built a well-defined defensive lines, multi-layered over 10 years.
And, um, And this is good for favorable attrition rates, because if the Russians come, they will have to spend a lot of manpower and equipment to break through these front lines. And when the Russians are able to do so, the Ukrainians can simply fall back at the next defensive line. So this was a great place to hold. And now it’s undermanned, and the Russians are just pushing through one front line after another, and the Ukrainians have to flee the They’re taking large cities now in three, four days without even sending in armored vehicles.
And there’s not much the Ukrainians can do anymore. So all these well-prepared defensive lines are now seemingly useless. And this is where their main troops should have been. But that’s why I said this was a gamble, and it’s a gamble that failed.
So if they were on their back like before, then things are really, really bad now.
Hovik: Yeah. And unfortunately, failure in this gamble means more lives lost. And, you know, I think that if you don’t mind, we, you know, I frequently get asked about Ukraine at work and with American colleagues, and I talked about it a little bit in this podcast, but One of my most memorable experiences in childhood was every summer visiting my uncle in Donetsk. And when Chernobyl happened, I remember our teacher asking us, well, what are you going to do during the summer?
And I said, I’m going to go to Ukraine, giddily. And the teacher reminded me that actually, you might not want to do that this summer. And the reason I mean this is I think that we sometimes, when talking about this conflict, we overlook the tremendous, I mean, human cost that is going to be borne by the entire world. You know, personally, for my own family, it has been so divisive.
Like, imagine… know parents and children like taking different sides in this conflict so uh it doesn’t bring us joy to talk about ukraine of course there’s a lot of conflicts that uh happened in artsakh as well or nagorno-karabakh but you know i think it’s worth reminding
Glenn: Can I just have one comment there? Because actually my wife, she grew up close to Chernobyl as well. Her family had to move because of that disaster. But I agree, I think.
But this is why it shouldn’t be that divisive on Ukraine. Because I think we can all agree that what’s happening there is just horrific, is gruesome. All this death… of young men, both Ukrainians and Russians, is terrible. It should not have happened.
But we never start with this. Our point is always, you do support sending weapons and continuing this war. Otherwise, you don’t care about Ukraine.
But my argument has been the same for more than a decade now, which is, you know, we should do what we can to protect Ukraine. um Ukrainian people and make sure that they be able to keep as much territory of their own as we can but what does that mean because as I warned for more than a decade now if we start to push NATO up on Russia’s border what is Russia going to do well obviously they’re never going to be able to accept this because that would mean de-russifying a lot of Ukraine which would mean discrimination against millions of Ukrainians which lean towards Russia but also means NATO in Ukraine, which would be an existential threat to Russia.
They would then effectively strip Ukraine of territory. There would be war. They would lose hundreds of thousands of men. They lose huge parts of their territory.
It would be a death of a nation, exactly what we’ll be seeing now. It’s a huge disaster. And this is why I said we should have avoided this. And we knew this would happen.
The British, French, German, American leaders, they all predicted this for the past 20 years, that this could happen if we went down this road. And we did it anyways. So this is why I find the debate so dishonest. Because when you warn about this for a decade, they’re saying, well, you’re blaming it on NATO, which means you’re taking Russia’s side.
So now you’re anti-Ukrainian. Meanwhile, the people who pushed all these policies, which has brought us to this point, they’re labeling themselves pro-Ukrainians. And I’m just… I would like them to justify this labeling because if we hadn’t pushed NATO into Ukraine against the will of Ukrainians, by the way, until 2014, none of this would have happened.
But this is not the point of departure. What creates security for Ukraine? No, it’s either back NATO or back Russia. So it’s very simple minded.
Asbed: It’s very black and white.
Glenn: Very much so. And this is very destructive, very, very destructive. And it’s dishonest.
Hovik: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. There’s a lot of talk about after Kursk, what will Russia do? And I believe you have also in the past, I think you’re on the record saying that Russia must do something to return deterrence.
Do you believe that Russia will retaliate? And if so, how? Because I just can’t see how far the escalation ladder will go before we all are in a nuclear war.
Glenn: Yeah, now this is the problem. Again, a country has to keep its deterrence. And the problem with NATO, it has these gradual escalations. So keep in mind in the beginning, you know, Biden’s own words, he said, oh, we can’t really send tanks and artillery system because that would maybe trigger war with the Russians.
F-16, out of the question, this will trigger World War III. Well, we’re doing all of this now. Now we’re talking about the missiles bombing deep into Russia. And also if you look at NATO’s involvement in the invasion of Russian territory, we crossed every single red line.
And the question there and what we’re writing in our newspapers is, look, we don’t have to care about Russia’s red line because they’re not enforcing them. And they’re saying the same in Russia. We have a huge problem now. We haven’t been enforcing our red lines and now it is emboldening NATO to do whatever they want.
They can begin bombing Moscow if they want, if we don’t retaliate. So the need to restore deterrence is very important. The dilemma, if you try to restore deterrence by striking against logistics centers within NATO territory, it could spark World War III. But if you don’t do it, you embolden them.
And this is the huge dilemma for the Russians. But now with the invasion of Russian territory, they really have to do something. The main thing which is convincing Russia not to strike or retaliate directly against NATO is exactly because it’s not having that much effect yet because the Russians see every day their their position is getting stronger in this war. So they try not to rock the boat too much as long as it’s going in the right direction.
Once our escalations actually become effective and turns the tide, that’s when you’re going to see things go really bad really quick. So this is the great dilemma for us. How much do we want to succeed against the Russians? Because once our attacks on Russia becomes significant, that’s when the retaliations are more or less guaranteed.
So we’re walking down a very dangerous path at the moment. And the more Ukraine is moving towards collapse, the more NATO has to find a way of coming to this dilemma. Do we either start now negotiations and find a compromise or do we escalate further? And I’m very convinced if we escalate further now, this is the end of the escalation ladder.
We will have a direct war and it will end terribly for everyone.
Asbed: Hovig, let’s just take a moment here. We’d like to remind our listeners to go to our donate page, podcasts.groong.org slash donate, or just go to podcasts.groong.org, and there’s a donate link there, and consider buying us a coffee, or better yet, become a sustaining member of Groong through our Patreon link and give us monthly.
Hovik: You know, there aren’t that many shows like us who digest Armenian news weekly and bring you interesting discussions relevant to it in English language and in a regular manner. We’ve always operated as a labor of love and we’re not only nonprofit, but we’re also non-budget, unfortunately. So we rely on listeners like you to help us. Just two to three friends who have committed our lifetime and effort to understand the world around Armenians and Armenia and sharing that understanding with you.
Asbed: So we will continue to do our work as we always have, but your support will help us expand our reach to more people who are interested in Armenian affairs around the world.
Hovik: So please visit our donate page. Again, podcasts.groong.org forward slash donate and consider supporting us. Thank you in advance. We appreciate your listening to us and we take that trust and your support very seriously.
Asbed: Thank you. Thank you.
Hovik: It’s curious because we’re talking about some kind of a peace plan, but Zelensky, at least outwardly, does not appear to be in a negotiating mood. At least he’s talking about a victory plan, quote unquote. demanding more weapons from NATO in order to continue fighting. But do you see, like what is the most, let’s say it doesn’t get to the worst case scenario that we all fear and dread, What would be the most logical way this is resolved with humanity still surviving?
Glenn: Well, this is the irony. I mean, if NATO says weapons are the path to peace, we’re also arranging all these peace summits from Denmark, Saudi Arabia, and we’re going to have more Switzerland. And we would never invite Russia, which is a weird peace summit. And this is also what… when Europeans go, for example, to visit China to say, hey, can you help us promote peace in China?
Yes, we have peace plans. And then, oh, no, we want to just put pressure on Russia, crush the Russian economy. Russia has to capitulate. So we’re not talking about peace.
We’re talking about victory. And this is the same. If you’ve seen the 10-point peace plan of Zelensky, this is the same. Well, Russia pulls out, their leaders are arrested, they pay reparation, and they They apologize and look at the president of Poland or the new EU foreign policy chief.
What are they saying? Well, victory would be if Russia breaks into many countries because then they couldn’t threaten us in the future. So, you know, we’re looking for the destruction of Russia. And this is also something that was evident.
One of the reasons why the British and Americans sabotaged the Istanbul peace agreement is You know, you have people like Niall Ferguson, who interviewed all these top American and British officials, who said immediately in February of 2022 that the only acceptable outcome for them now was regime change in Moscow. This is why they convinced Zelensky to reject the peace agreement and instead choose war. It was, you know, we’re looking to destroy Russia. So I don’t think our peace has been defined any differently.
Because again, if you fight against Hitler, what is peace? Well, you have to destroy them. This is how peace is created. So there can’t be any compromise, I think.
But at some point, reality, I think, will have to catch up. And it could happen much sooner than we think, because I think the fall of Pokrovsk, which is not too far away, will be a huge dent. And it will change the situation dramatically. And we’re already seeing things going from bad to worse on a day-to-day basis.
But how the peace should look, I… I don’t really know. The foundation of any peace agreement will have to be restoring the neutrality of Ukraine, which is very difficult to achieve now because Ukraine has every reason in the world to be very fearful of Russia. So the idea that they should have no protection anymore, this is a very hard sell, obviously.
But this has to be the foundation of any peace agreement. And again, in Istanbul, that was the only thing the Russians actually insisted on. No NATO in Ukraine, stop expanding this military block on our border. But of course, over the past two years, this has also become a conflict of territory.
So the Russians aren’t going to give up on the territory they have now for many reasons, but also they don’t trust us anymore. So, you know, what if we rip up any agreements tomorrow? The Russians will not want these territories to ever again possibly be used as a dagger against Russia. So it’s a very hard sell.
It’s going to be very difficult. And I think we’re moving towards, I think, a collapse in Ukraine. And then in NATO, we either have to choose to go war directly against Russia or come to grips with reality and make a very peaceful compromise. i think uh yeah the ukrainians will lose uh lugansk donetsk zaporozhye and herson but if they don’t make a peace agreement i think they will also uh they will lose also uh uh karkov they will lose the dnipro they will lose uh um yeah at least odessa and nikolayev as well so it’s uh i mean they could lose all of their
Asbed: coastline on the black sea
Glenn: Yeah. And this war is to a large extent about the Black Sea. So I agree. And this is terrible.
But for Russia, if their option is either Odessa falls to NATO or to Russia, they will choose Russia. But that’s why it’s so stupid that we haven’t put neutrality on the table. Neutrality is, I think, is the best option.
Asbed: Mutually beneficial. Absolutely.
Glenn: Yeah.
Asbed: Can you say what role rising powers or superpowers like China and India have in resolving this Russia-West conflict? And how can they help contain it from exploding into a full-on world war?
Glenn: Well, I think they can play an important role. Usually in Europe, we have neutral countries. Again, this belt of neutral states I talked about. So we have Finland, Switzerland.
We don’t have neutral countries anymore. Neutrality now is suddenly a bad thing. And so it’s very difficult for any of these countries to mediate anything. And in contrast, I think large countries would be much better.
China would be a good one, but I don’t think the Americans would… permitted that China should be able to be the one who sold this war. So I think actually the best option would be India because India has good relations with most countries, at least in Europe. So I think they can play quite an important role. It’s just that we have to be honest about what peace means, because they would like to see diplomacy start and find a compromise.
But at the moment in the West, we’re just looking for partners and allies to break Russia. And this is why it’s so weird when the Americans go to China, try to convince them to put pressure on Russia and cut their economic ties. At the same time, you have numerous American leaders saying, yeah, after we break Russia, China loses in Port Nella, then we can break the Chinese. And they’re saying this in the open, and then they’re traveling to China asking them, hey, can you help us break Russia?
It makes no sense. Also for India. They don’t want to go back to a unipolar world where the West will dictate everything. They want multipolarity, which is why they don’t want to see Russia defeated.
It doesn’t mean they support an invasion of Ukraine. They want peace there as well. But they can’t accept this idea that the West will break Russia and restore a unipolar world order. They want this multipolar world order, which is coming.
And this is why… driving a lot of their decision. This is also my argument why the Ukraine war has to be seen as a key component in this shift of world order from unipolarity to multipolarity, and why the rest of the world outside NATO is not willing to back us on this campaign, this proxy war against the Russians.
Asbed: Yeah. So when talking about the new world order that’s being established, we frequently talk about the orientation of major powers, superpowers, regional powers. But given that we are Armenian and we care about Armenia, let’s talk just a little bit about the plight of small states. And you have argued that a multipolar world order could lead to more stability.
How does this work for a country like Armenia?
Glenn: Well, it could be more stability. Well, first of all, a lot of middle powers can now have independent foreign policy. It doesn’t have to be that big. Look at Turkey, look at Saudi Arabia.
The reason why they’re linking themselves with the US, with China, with Russia and all centers of power is because if you’re only linked to one state, which is more powerful than you, you’re not going to have any political sovereignty anymore. If you want political sovereignty, you really have to diversify your economic partnerships. And this is what a lot of countries are doing. This is why the Saudis, the Turks, they’re not joining a Chinese bloc.
They’re diversifying simply because they want to be able to have more political autonomy. So that’s, I guess, my first point. And I think it’s more benign. I believe that the multipolar system is more benign. simply because in a unipolar system, states don’t constrain themselves.
So what happens when there’s no constraints on a country, such as after the Cold War? Well, we saw this. This was a key argument by Stephen Walt. He asked, what’s going to constrain us?
We’re going to constrain ourselves? Of course not. And you saw this starting wars left and right, these forever wars. And it drains American resources.
It makes enemies across the world. So it’s not a very stable system. And after a while, the whole legitimacy of empire also begins to collapse. Then you have bipolarity.
When you have two powers during the Cold War, for example, I think this is also very unstable. Because if one side gains, the other one the other one loses so it’s either one side or the other and this leads to very zero-sum logic so let’s say for example Russia or the Soviet Union could have had a war which would eliminate 50% of the American population and it would take out 10% of the Soviet population. In relative power, this would be a good thing. And this is the problem of everything being zero-sum.
One gains, the other one loses. But in a multipolar system, it’s quite different. If one country leans too heavily on another one or becomes too aggressive, then that country has alternatives.
And so… and you can see this also in the in the economic sphere so if the chinese for example begin to put too much weight on the russians try to bully them well then china russia are going to lean more towards europe more towards india and then to balance off the aggressive behavior of the chinese so suddenly if there wasn’t other centers of power if china was able to weaken russia a little bit and subordinated that would only be a gain so i think it’s good with these alternatives and the This used to be recognized in Europe as well.
I mean, when Russia begins to lean more east, a lot of countries were worried they were going to get too close with the Chinese. So the Indians, the Japanese, everyone started to accommodate the Russians more. Even in France and Germany, they recognized we shouldn’t push the Russians too hard after 2014 because we’re going to push them too far towards China. So this was a mechanism for more benign relations.
But instead, we didn’t follow this logic. We went to fight the proxy war with them and now we’re essentially reaping the punishment, the economic costs of this.
Asbed: Right. Of course, Russia is a huge country, 150 million people. Of course, it’s got its problems, but it’s not on the verge of disappearing or anything. Meanwhile, countries like Armenia, they’re surviving almost like interstitially between these regional powers and these major powers.
Our region, for example, if we talk about the three plus three, You know, Iran, Turkey, and Russia, the big countries surrounding Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. It’s one area. In general, are you saying that there will be the possibility, the potential for more sovereignty for these smaller countries in the multipolar world order? Because there is also speculation that some countries may actually disappear from the map of the coming world order.
Glenn: Yeah. Well, it depends on the policy they take. I think The important thing in a multipolar system is to avoid all this block mentality of the Cold War. So you’re either in this block or that block, because the main thing, again, if you want political autonomy, is diversify to as great a possibility as you can.
I mean, this is what the Hungarians are doing. They’re feeling the pressure from the Germans and the EU, so they’re also leaning a bit towards China. And then this is, I think, the way to go.
And I think Armenia… for Armenia to prosper strengthen it it should have also done the same link itself closely with the Europeans the Americans but also of course the Russians Chinese India and and other countries so I don’t I don’t think this is what Armenia is doing though I think they are they they leaned well very heavily towards Russia and then suddenly now they’re doing this huge swap where they’re now cutting all ties, it seems, with Russia to abandon these relationships and then going to the West instead.
I don’t think this is necessarily a very good strategy because this approach has strengthened their main adversaries, be it Turkey, Azerbaijan. Also, it entails turning their back on friends, be it Iran or Russia, And one has to ask the question as well, why try to jump into this Western bloc now? The West can’t really project that much power into the region. And also, what is the interest?
We have to be honest there. It’s a little bit like Ukraine. No one in the West cared about Ukraine. It was not that we wanted Ukraine to be part of Europe, it was that we wanted to take them away from Russia.
This is the same with Armenia. We would like to weaken Russia’s position in that region. And so given that the West can’t project that much power, our interest in Armenia is to be a disruptor to Russia. And it reminds me of what the Georgian prime minister said a few weeks ago.
He said that the Americans were trying to topple their government so they can open a second front against the Russians. This is the role of Armenia.
Hovik: And Armenia said, hold my beer. Yes. But, I mean, it’s dumbfounding because, you know, your logic, which I think it clearly makes sense to me, is that in a multipolar world, you can have more choice in terms of aligning and using one power against another. So that logic would dictate that Armenia could at least rely on a country that… so far has been most vocal about defending Armenia’s own sovereignty, which is Iran.
Iran has said that it’s a red line for them to give up any sovereignty or any geopolitical change over the south of Armenia, the Sunni province. So this logic would dictate maybe Armenia could use that, whether it’s military exercises, whether it’s weapons, which Iran seems to have plenty of and has advanced weapons. But unfortunately, Armenian policy so far, at least policy dictated by Pashinyan is pushing more of the West. Is there any… frame of reference where this would make sense.
I mean, we’re just trying to understand what’s the logic behind this.
Glenn: No, again, I’m all for closer economic ties with the West. I thought that was also a good idea for Ukraine, by the way. I always said the best thing for Ukrainian sovereignty would be don’t become too dependent on Russia, only one side, because if all your economic connectivity is only with Russia, you’re going to be de facto Russian, you’re going to be absorbed almost. So So this is not what you want to do.
If you want independence, diversify your economic connectivity, not just one side, but deal with everyone. And if anyone tries to step too much on your sovereignty, then you lean a bit more in a different direction. Not just one, but several. This is what Armenia should have done as well, which is why this makes…
I’m not sure what Pashinyan is doing. I think it’s a little… possibly a bit ideological. But I think it was quite obvious what the Americans at least were hoping for, because between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russia tries to have close relations with both. And obviously, the relations with Armenia I guess, a deeper significance on many levels.
But if you can make these two countries go to war, what is Russia going to do? Either it stands up for Armenia to protect it, but then it alienates Azerbaijan. And this is also a catastrophe for the Russians because Azerbaijan is a very key node in this Greater Eurasia Initiative, which the Russians are pursuing. So this would be a very dangerous position for the Russians.
Because if they don’t help Armenia, then Russia will look weak. Its security guarantees means nothing. But as it turned out, Pashinyan, he didn’t even want to stand up for the Pentagon in Karabakh. He effectively said, well, this is Azerbaijani territory.
So it was unclear to me what Russia would do at this point. Are they going to fight for… territory which Armenia renounces, nothing really made sense. So I have a very hard time understanding what the goal of Pashinyan was, except for cutting ties with Russia and pivoting to the West. But again, how will that benefit the economy?
How will it benefit security? As I said, now it’s turning its back on the two friends it had, which is Russia, Iran, emboldening and empowering Turkey and Azerbaijan, which does not have Armenia’s best interest at heart. But you two will probably know better about Armenia, so I’m very happy to be corrected on this, because this makes no sense to me.
Hovik: If it doesn’t make sense to you, then I think the entire existence over the last three, four years for most Armenians has been trying to find the answers to this question. But assuming that a more sort of rational leader comes to Armenia, how would resolution of conflicts in a multipolar world be different than, I guess, what we have seen in the past?
Asbed: Let me interject real quick. For me, when I was reading and catching up on all of these topics that we want to discuss, I was thinking, how would multipolarity have changed the situation with the OSCE Minsk Group in the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, for example? How would it be different when we had the US, France and Russia, which are part of the polls that might be emerging? We already have them in the body that is mandated to resolving the issue.
How would that have been different in what we think is emerging at this point? And also, how would multipolarity, for example, affect the United Nations or at least the United Nations Security Council as it’s currently constituted? Because if you ask me, it’s fully dysfunctional, right? Especially in a conflict like this, when Russia and the United States are essentially in some kind of a proxy war, then it is completely broken and not going anywhere.
Everything gets stopped. They don’t talk to each other. And all these other festering problems just keep festering there there’s no resolution
Glenn: for them well regarding the u.n security council i think well institutions they function to the extent they reflect the international distribution of power now after world war ii the reason why you gave these five countries effectively veto powers because they were the leading powerful states and uh And the reason why the UN has lasted so long is exactly because you gave soft power to the country which had the hard power. But this is why I’m also critical. If institutions no longer reflect the international distribution of power, then they lose the power point, which is why I’m very critical of removing the veto power, for example.
Because if America can’t veto things, then with soft power, it will veto with hard power. So if the world says, you know, let’s do a humanitarian intervention into Israel, well, America would send its military. It’s not going to accept this. Same as what you saw now with Russia.
We have all made all these efforts that Russia should have no voice in Europe and no ability to veto expansion, even military block on this border. Well, if it doesn’t have soft power, if there’s no institutions providing this, then it will use hard power. So this is the purpose of institutions. They should reflect power. the distribution of power.
But we also have to be honest now that the UN doesn’t do this anymore. It reflects 1945. So a reform probably would be required because you would have to bring in India or Brazil or some other states to actually reflect. I mean,
Asbed: The current world powers.
Glenn: The current distribution power. Otherwise, why would huge countries like India want to be too constrained by the UN, where the French and the British should be able to lay down veto on what India should do? It doesn’t make any sense. So it doesn’t reflect the power, the value of the institution will begin to falter.
Now, I guess in a multipolar system, there’s more mechanisms to punish aggressive behavior simply because unlike a block system where I said everything is very zero-sum, it would work different. So for example, if you look at how the Eurasian space is organizing itself, now that you have China becoming more and more powerful, Russia wants to lean, get much closer to China. However, China’s much more powerful than Russia. So because of this asymmetrical interdependence, China could begin to assert a lot of influence and power over Russia.
So what does Russia do? Again, diversify. So now it’s also linking itself closer with… Iran, India, Korea, other countries.
And the main point there is no one can really exert too much pressure and aggression against others. And this is also why we have all this east-west corridor, which is led by China. But this is also why the Russians have been pushing this international north-south transportation corridor, which is Russia Iran, India. This balances China because now you have north-south, so all power isn’t concentrated in China.
But for Armenia, I think this is also important because this north-south corridor, it goes through the Caspian Sea, so Azerbaijan is very important. And which means it’s a stock value, if you will, in Eurasia just increased, which is why the Armenian choice makes even less purpose now. So, yeah.
Asbed: Yeah. After the 44-day war, Armenia lost a lot of agency on the international scene. It seems like instead of sitting at the table, it’s now on the menu. Was Kharapov actually a trap for Russia and a prelude to the war in Ukraine, you think?
Glenn: Well, it could have been a trap if Russia would have gone in because then, yeah, they would have, well, either they would have either failed one of the sites or whatever. You have to go then alienate everything with Azerbaijan.
So now it’s hard to say. um i know from the americans they’ve had all this uh you know if you read the rand reports on how to weaken russia there’s a very famous 2019 report on over 300 pages where they have all these strategies how to extend overextend and weaken russia so ukraine obviously is important there because you want to bleed russian resources by intensifying conflicts a bit in donbass but also you know the regime change in belarus would be great uh and kick Russian influence out of Moldova. But also Azerbaijan and Armenia comes up because a conflict there would also force Russia to use its resources.
It would also undermine its ability to keep good relations with both sides. And as you said, they can also trap Russia in the region. This didn’t happen though. But again, they came at the expense of relations between Armenia and Russia, because many now see in Armenia, Russia didn’t come to their rescue either.
Hovik: And in fact, one more circumstantial piece of evidence in this is that Turkey, a NATO member, this time had a direct role in this conflict. There are confirmed reports that Turkish generals actually played a direct role and they still serve under the Azerbaijani general staff. There are reports, there are various reports, special forces, but the most important one that I would like to bring up is, you know, and no one, I believe this is the most difficult one to prove, but essentially during the very first moments of the war, all of the Armenian critical… air defense critical targets were destroyed.
I mean, you know, to me, it seems like if you were so incompetent that you’re, you know, just like it will be very so easy for Azerbaijan to destroy you in 15 minutes or 30 minutes, then Armenia would not have survived this long. So something changed. And in my opinion, that change was not just Turkey, but the alliance that Turkey is a member of, which is NATO. NATO has this joint ISR, Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance, where essentially I’m looking at their website and they’re saying that we jointly look at all the intelligence and all of our members then can use it to their maximal effect.
And I’m just wondering, how does one… prove or disprove whether Turkey could have used, for instance, all the combined power of NATO satellites, all the drones that are flying in the air, all the aircraft that are continuously surveilling this territory in order to deliver one powerful blow to Armenia, which would serve this goal of NATO, which is to weaken Russia, and exactly what happened. But maybe I’m just sort of putting very hypothetical questions on there. But also in this war with Ukraine, how powerful is the role of actually NATO military planning and intelligence in the day-to-day operations of the war? Does NATO actively do that?
Asbed: Well, do you think that the West was basically throwing Russia a bait in Nagorno-Karabakh, and then they realized it was not a big enough bait, so they threw Ukraine at Russia, and this time it picked up?
Hovik: Well, I mean, it just continues the thesis, which is that the West could have, I mean, I don’t know if they willingly did it, but maybe at some point they said, oh, look, here’s an opportunity. Let’s get Turkey involved through NATO. And Turkey willingly did that because they knew this was coming. I’m not sure.
We don’t want to engage in too much conspiracy theories. But I mean, does this seem plausible to you, Professor Diesen?
Glenn: Well, in Ukraine, I think the role of NATO has been quite profound and not just the weapons, the training, the munition, the military planning, providing intelligence, they contributed with targeting, even managing complex weapon systems, the organized mercenaries. Keep in mind during the counteroffensive last year, Ukrainian generals complained in the Washington Post that they didn’t want to do this counteroffensive because it would lose too many men, but they were pressured by the Americans. So the idea that the Americans are just sitting on the side, not contributing here, I think that now seems ridiculous.
But in terms of with Armenia, Again, I want to be careful what I say. I don’t have any evidence of NATO supporting, but obviously the way the war went, it’s not unreasonable to put the hypothesis there that they had the help. uh assistance the azerbaijanis but and also what you can prove though is you can look at the media coverage of this because uh you know look at the devastation for all these armenians who were run out of the garden karabakh this was a human humanitarian disaster you know all these people who lived there for centuries you know, we’re being ethnically cleansed. This is terrific.
So you would, you would, horrific, sorry, not terrific, horrific. Anyway, so, so my, so my point is you would expect the media headlines then to outline what a terrible humanitarian tragedy this is. Instead, well, what did you read in papers? Like, oh, this is a huge defeat for Russia.
Their influence in the region is collapsing. I mean, this was almost close to celebration. And this shows that, you know, the strategic interest, obviously Trump, the, any humanitarian concerns to a great extent. So given that the interest was there, you have all this intelligence documents saying it’s good to reduce Russian influence in the region.
You have this happening. Obviously, they seem to get some support. And then as a result, you’re celebrating the reduced Russian influence. So I think Armenia, again, a little bit like Ukraine, is seen as a dagger in the side of Russia as opposed to uh any you know any love for for the people that’s what’s apparently motivating us uh but uh regarding trapping the russians in ukraine one doesn’t really have to there i don’t think it can be called a conspiracy theory anymore because keep in mind during the istanbul negotiations in 2022 in the beginning you had a dual track you had the israelis and the turks They both said the same thing.
The previous prime minister of Israel, as well as the foreign minister of Turkey, they said exactly the same thing. They said, you know, they were close to an agreement. The Russians were willing to compromise on everything except for neutrality for Ukraine.
This was a must. were close to an agreement but the british and americans they saw an opportunity to kill russians to weaken a strategic rival and yeah given that they could shoot at the russians but they could really shoot back this so this was a good opportunity to weaken the russians and then of course you have all these americans and british officials saying that yes this is opportunity to topple the government And how many American leaders have gone out, political, military, gone out and said, you know, this is a great war, we can weaken a strategic rival, we’re not even losing any of our own troops.
So I think, yeah, conspiracy theory, I think we left that parking lot a long, long time ago. But otherwise, I’m glad you mentioned Turkey, because they’re also quite important, I think, if…
Hovik: I mean, Turkey has their own interest, obviously. But it seems like all the interests, both Turkey’s and NATO’s, coincided. So it is plausible to me also, I just want to put it out there, that Turkey, for instance, has access to all this intelligence. You know, they see daily reports.
You know, there’s a… S-300 unit that moved from here to here. And it could be possible that, what is it called, plausible deniability, right? You know, NATO could say, you know, we didn’t know that, you know, we didn’t authorize Turkey to do this, you know, but Turkey said, okay, well, hit, you know, pass the message to Azerbaijan saying, you know, hit coordinate X, Y, and Z.
And everyone wins in the end unfortunately well it would be strange if the turks did
Glenn: not because they had every interest to do so they have the capabilities they have the intentions with this information so why why wouldn’t they because you know of altruism morality i i just don’t i don’t i i find it very likely but again i don’t have any evidence for it but but keep in mind though if russia would have intervened militarily on the side of Armenia, this would not only have destroyed relations with Azerbaijan. Imagine the relations between Turkey and Russia as well. This would be devastating. But it would also impose block loyalty, and this is what unipolarity depends on.
If you want unipolar world order, you need to divide the worlds into dependent allies versus weakened adversaries.
This is why it’s good with some tension between India and China, between Russia and the Europeans and this has also been with the Turks if the Turks would have and found themselves on the other side of the Russians then Turkey’s ambitions to diversify and have more independent foreign policy would have diminished instead America would have gained a more loyal Turkey which would have been more committed to containing Russia so no matter what the Russians would have done in in that part of the world they would have ended up much much weaker and But you see this also with NATO policy.
Whenever we go anywhere in the world, what is our main objective? When we deal with Turkey, we’ll try to, well, they’re part of NATO, but try to reduce relations with Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia. You know, we go to China, India. It’s always the same.
Let’s cut ties with the Russians or any other adversaries. And I think, yeah, this is how you maintain unipolarity. And I think that would have been a trap for the Russians if they would have gone in.
Asbed: All right, well, let’s leave it there for today. Thank you very much, Dr. Diesen, for joining us today. We appreciate your time.
Hovik: Professor Diesen, thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank you so much. Let’s do it again sometimes.
Asbed: We will definitely talk again. Bye-bye. That’s our show today. This episode was recorded on August 30th, 2024.
We’ve been talking with Dr. Glenn Diesen, who is a professor at the University of Southeastern Norway, an associate editor of Russia and Global Affairs, and editor of Political Economy, Russian Foreign Policy, and Eurasian Integration. For more on Dr. Diesen and our show, please check our pages through our show notes at podcasts.groong.org.
I’m Asped Bedrosian.
Hovik: And I’m Havik Manucharyan.
Asbed: Please find us on social media and follow us everywhere you get your Armenian news. The links are in the show notes.
Hovik: And make sure to comment on YouTube if you watch this on YouTube on any feedback that you can give us. We would really appreciate it. Very much.
Asbed: Please, please put comments on our YouTube videos.
Hovik: Bye-bye. All right, that’s our show. We hope you found it useful. Please find us on social media and follow us everywhere you get your Armenian news.
The links are in our show notes. If you feel that we’re doing a good job, please help us increase our reach by subscribing to our Patreon or buying us a coffee through Buy Me a Coffee. Thank you in advance. Please like, share, and comment on this podcast episode, especially if you’re watching this on YouTube.
This helps us immensely. Thank you to Laura Osborne for the music on our podcast, and most importantly, thank you. We’ll talk to you soon.