Observations: Carlson vs Putin
Essential insights: 10 key takeaways
This free publication follows on from the free insights I provided in Global entropy and its potential for a rapid descent into global disorder, as I described in Global entropy: Enter the dragons.
Introduction: Misapplied focus
In Leitmotif 7: A Western crisis of confidence, I detailed the long history of unmitigated failures of the West’s intellectual, political and business elite, how those failures have driven a collapse in confidence in Western institutions among the governed, and the dangers posed to markets (and Western survival) when the bubble in which Western elites live pops. But what could better illustrate all three points than the petty, jealous and irrelevant focus of the West’s intellectual and news media elite on who interviewed President Putin and why, rather than on what one of the world’s most critically important decision makers said about a global crisis that he shaped as much as anyone? Most of the analyses I read focused almost exclusively on Tucker Carlson, his motivations and his failures as an interviewer.1 The few that did delve into the content of the interview attended mostly to fact-checking Mr. Putin’s monotonous, obviously prepared and biased version of Russian history, and prospects for release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, with all else dismissed as “propaganda.”2
Ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East now have claimed roughly a half-million lives, the former directly instigated by Russia and the latter likely supported by it.3 Both wars are taking place against a rapidly deteriorating global security environment in which Russia, holder of the world’s largest nuclear stockpile, is playing a key role. Shouldn’t we instead focus on and analyze what Russia’s president said in the interview? Of course it was propaganda! What interview with a politician is not? But propaganda is useful information: the focus of the propaganda tells us what the propagandist perceives is important; its framing helps us to understand their perception of the conflict, and evasions tell us where the propagandist’s weak spots lie.
My discussion of the misplaced focus of our elites is no non sequitur. Nearly three decades of Apex neoliberalismplayed a crucial role in creating both Global entropy and its potential for a rapid descent into global disorder, as I described in Global entropy: Enter the dragons. More pertinently, Western elites’ myopia and self-absorption remains the West’s soft underbelly, which President Putin explicitly and repeatedly poked throughout out the interview.
Ten essential takeaways from the interview
That was not the only point on which Mr. Putin affirmed much of the analysis I put forward in Global entropy: Enter the dragons. Mr. Putin’s responses in the interview also echoed many other themes from it, including the concept of Global entropy itself, the risks of a Complexity cascade into chaotic disorder, a likely bifurcated world order to supplant the current US dominated order, several of the fundamental internal weaknesses of the West, its cultural distance from much of the “Global South”, and Russia’s own weaknesses. Here are my ten geostrategic takeaways from the interview:
1. President Putin’s prepared remarks/history lesson were directed to non-Western countries as an attempted legitimization of the Ukraine invasion in international law.
Mr. Putin’s long monologue on Russian history – fashioned and re-written to fit his case – that took up the entire first half of the interview, much to Mr. Carlson’s annoyance, was clearly a prepared statement. It also was not directed at a Western audience, but rather at what is often called the “Global South,” and was framed as a legal case to legitimize both Russian claims to Ukrainian territory and its grounds for war. This is why Mr. Putin repeatedly deflected Mr. Carlson’s question that premised the war on the perceived Western threat that Mr. Putin used for justification in 2022. Mr. Putin’s soliloquy was highly legalistic and focused on historic territorial claims, claimed violations of agreements by both Ukraine and the West, accusations of Nazism and Nazi collaboration by Ukraine (and Poland), and, in his telling, the good-faith actions of Russia throughout. Many of his claims are untrue, but that didn’t matter. It was an argument for legitimacy that would make sense to much of the non-Western world and his untruths had enough threads of reality, or at least contention, to sow doubt in a fertile audience. He even ostentatiously had an aid bring him a folio of archived documents to present to Mr. Carlson to verify his claims.
2. The post-War liberal order (PWLO) dominated by the West is discredited and fading.
Twice Mr. Putin noted that China’s economy had already over taken the US in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. He also claimed (wrongly) that Russia had become the largest economy in Europe, despite ineffective Western sanctions. Expanding his point to the BRICS – of which he noted Russia is the current president – he noted that the group had overtaken the economies of the G7. He described the transformation of the global order “like the rise of the sun — you cannot prevent the sun from rising, you have to adapt to it.” Further, he attempted to discredit the US as trying to cling to power “With the help of force: sanctions, pressure, bombings, and use of armed forces.” He went on to belittle the leader of the free world by claiming not to remember when he last spoke to President Biden – “I have my own things to do. We have domestic political affairs.” – despite being able to effortlessly reel off precise dates, facts and figures throughout the interview. He further blamed the war in Ukraine on his ineptness: “I said to him then: ‘I believe that you are making a huge mistake of historic proportions by supporting everything that is happening there, in Ukraine, by pushing Russia away.’ I told him, told him repeatedly...”
3. A new order is inevitable; the only choice is whether its creation will be an orderly evolution, or rapid and painful.
Mr. Putin’s description of both the current state of the world and its two potential paths forward was remarkably similar to what I articulated in Global entropy: Enter the dragons. Mr. Putin characterized Global entropy as “in accordance with the inherent laws” of history, likening the PWLO’s end to that of the Golden Horde and the Roman Empire. Of its future, he said, “The world is changing… the United States are nonetheless gradually changing their position in the world… The only question is how this would happen – painfully and quickly or gently and gradually.”4
4. His vision for a new international order is bipolar with Metternichian cooperation between the spheres securing global stability.
Mr. Putin likened his ideal world order to the hemispheres of a brain: each side distinctly different with its own unique functions, but working together to solve problems. Similarly, he stated that “security should be shared” and that this arrangement is “the only scenario where the world could be stable, sustainable and predictable.” He contrasted that with the present order which he described as a “head is split into two parts…an illness…a severe disease.” His vision appears closest to that orchestrated in the early 19thcentury by Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich, which balanced powers between liberal and monarchical regimes, with a common agreement to suppress any revolutions within either camp.
5. He also sees clear areas for active international cooperation under such a system.
While Mr. Carlson can rightly be criticized for lack of preparation – e.g. studying Russian history given that most of Mr. Putin’s monologue was not new – he managed to catch the President of Russia off-guard with a few unexpected questions, like “So when does the AI empire start do you think?” that led to some interesting insights. Mr. Putin responded to the question by navigating between the fallacy of control (“It is impossible to stop research in genetics or AI today, just as it was impossible to stop the use of gunpowder back in the day.”) and Effective accelerationist (e/acc) utopianism (comparing both AI and genetics to the “existential threat coming from nuclear weapons”), pointed towards a common understanding of the real threat they pose – including “negligent use” – and suggested “the time will come to reach an international agreement on how to regulate these things.”
6. He knows the West’s weak spots and actively poked them.
From the Politics of Rage and its roots in perceived disenfranchisement and Western leadership failures, to inequality, to immigration and debt, to nationalist divisions within Europe, Mr. Putin unerringly probed all the West’s open, festering wounds with a sharp point.
Legitimacy & disenfranchisement
With prompting from Mr. Carlson – who’s made a career riding the underlying causes of the Politics of Rage – he effectively claimed the West is ruled by its elites and an unelected bureaucracy rather than by its elected leaders (with whom Mr. Putin claimed “very good” relations). To stir the pot, he pointed to three examples. First, he claimed that he had asked former President Bill Clinton if Russia could join NATO, to which he initially received a positive response before Mr. Clinton’s staff shot down the idea. Second, he described presenting to former President George W. Bush evidence of US support for separatists in the Caucuses, to which Mr. Bush promised to “kick their ass”, but which resulted instead in a letter from the CIA that the US would continue to support the separatists because it was the “right thing to do”. Finally, he claimed that then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates undermined President Bush’s openness to build a joint missile defense system proposed by Mr. Putin. Neither Messrs. Bush nor Clinton nor their respective staffs have yet responded to Mr. Putin’s claims.
Continuing in this vein, Mr. Putin also implied that Western elites live by a different set of rules. Twice, he referred to an Illuminati-like group controlling the West and the PWLO. In describing his idealized world order (takeaway 4 above), he compared it to the current situation in which the “golden billion” are responsible for global security. Later he names this group again as manipulating Western values for their own benefit (in contrast the Russia’s “human-oriented” and “eternal” values). Finally, he refers to Elon Musk as a law unto himself: “Well, I think there’s no stopping Elon Musk, he will do as he sees fit. Nevertheless, you need to find some common ground with him, search for ways to persuade him.”
Failing Western leadership
Mr. Putin went on to identify what he believed were several Western policy failures that he blames on “the elites’ mindset” rather than “the personality of the leader,” and that until that changed, “it will only get worse.” He claimed that he had worked tirelessly to negotiate and implement the Minsk Agreements to settle separatist movements within Ukraine, but that “nobody wanted that, everybody wanted to resolve the issue by military force only.” He also said of the West’s use of dollar sanctions, which he characterized as illegal, “You know, to use the dollar as a foreign policy instrument to fight is one of the gravest strategic mistakes made by the US political leadership. The dollar is the cornerstone of the United States' power.” He then went on to describe de-dollarization of reserves and trade that followed as unforced American errors that both promoted rival China’s currency and undermined US debt financing.
Western elites in a bubble
Illustrating the point that I opened with and discussed at greater length in Leitmotif 7 of the May you live in interesting times series, he also describes Western elites as living in a bubble of “self-conceit” that blinds them to their errors and the reality of the world around them. He first refers to Western elites’ self-conceit and ignorance in his discussion of the consequences of weaponizing the dollar: “Do you even realize what is going on or not? Does anyone in the United States realize this? What are you doing? You are cutting yourself off… You are killing it with your own hands.” He then uses the phrase later in the interview to describe elites’ lack of awareness and consequent lack of competence: “This is about self-conceit. Your political establishment does not understand that the world is changing, under objective circumstances, and in order to preserve your level — even if someone aspires, pardon me, to the level of dominance — you have to make the right decisions in a competent and timely manner.”
Immigration & debt
He also pointed to the problems the West is having with immigration and debt, questioning why they aren’t addressing their own problems rather than funding Ukraine: “You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt – more than US $33 trillion. You have nothing better to do, so you should fight in Ukraine?” Further, he made sure to tie the prospects for the dollar to the US fiscal debt: “But they won't stop printing. What does the debt of US $33 trillion tell us about? It is about the issuance.”
Ethnic & nationalist divisions
Consistent with reported Russian efforts to support Brexit, Hungarian disputes with the EU, European separatist parties, and NATO fissures, Mr. Putin also prodded several ethnic and nationalist fault lines within Europe. He spent a good portion of his monologue demonizing Poland, whose ruling PiS party has many disputes with the European Union and who lately has been at odds with Ukraine. Not only did he accuse Poland of Nazi fraternization, but also pointedly noted that much of Western and Northern Poland was historically German land. Similarly, he pointed out that portions of Western Ukraine were seized from Romania and Hungary by the same Soviet Union that had wrongly given Russian lands to the Ukrainian SSR. When asked if he had coordinated with Hungarian President Vikto Orbán, he responded “Never, not once. He and I didn’t even have any conversations about this. But I know for sure that the Hungarians who live there [in Ukraine], of course, want to return to their historical homeland.”
7. But he also revealed by deflection and flattery some of Russia’s own soft spots.
Mr. Putin quickly deflected and pivoted from two questions he clearly didn’t like from Mr. Carlson. When asked whether Russia and the BRICs were just exchanging one “colonial power” for another by risking domination by China, Mr. Putin called it “a boogeyman story,” and gave a non-answer about not being able to choose one’s neighbors, and about Europeans and the US being just as dependent on China. But perhaps tellingly, he then brushed off Mr. Carlson’s following question to circle back to brag about Russia’s economic cooperation with China through his relationship with “my colleague and friend President Xi Jinping.”
He also tried to deflect an unwanted question about his use of Orthodox Christian legitimacy to claim Ukraine. When asked if he was a “Christian leader” and what effect that had on his decision to invade Russia, Mr. Putin first tried to deflect by returning to a history lesson on Russia’s conversion to Christianity. But he then pivoted to Russian Orthodox tolerance for all religions, remarking that the many Russian citizens who adhere to other religions “consider Russia their Motherland, they have no other Motherland. We are together, this is one big family.” Yet Mr. Carlson persevered, asking Mr. Putin to reconcile war with Christian values of “Turn the other cheek, don’t kill.” Again, Mr. Putin deflected by claiming self defense. Then, consistent with my analysis in Global entropy: Enter the dragons, he pivoted to what he perceives as a Russian cultural advantage in realigning the global order: Russian religiosity versus Western heartless materialism and science. He sermonized that religion is a matter of the “heart” and a part of the “Russian soul,” contrasting Russian culture that he characterized as “human-oriented” and “eternal” with “Western society [that] is more pragmatic… [which] makes it possible for today’s ‘golden billion’ to achieve good success in production, even in science.”
8. He left the door open for negotiated settlement, but with a high reserve price.
Contrary to many media reports that Mr. Putin dismissed peace talks or negotiation, he left the door to negotiations open, but with an aggressive opening bid. The media focused on one early question on negotiated settlement to which Mr. Putin responded, ”If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons. It will be over within a few weeks.” But that ignored Mr. Carlson later repeatedly pressing him in his five final questions whether he would be open to negotiations directly with the US and with the potential for territorial concessions. While Mr. Putin was cagey, clearly not wanting to box himself in, he was clearly amenable to direct negotiations with a US president to resolve the war. Asked directly if “you are saying you want a negotiated settlement to what's happening in Ukraine?” Mr. Putin responded “Right.” While he then went on to describe what he considered Western perfidy and mistakes, he closed that answer with, “But they stopped negotiations. Is it a mistake? Yes. Correct it was. We are ready. What else is needed?” Asked if he might accommodate resistance due to Western pride, he said, “I said let them think how to do it with dignity. There are options if there is a will.”
9. But he also firmly pointed to an asymmetry of interests that works in Russia’s favor.
Mr. Putin questioned US and Western security interests in Ukraine while making it clear it was a national security priority of the highest order for Russia: “Do the United States need this? What for? Thousands of miles away from your national territory! Don't you have anything better to do?... Wouldn't it be better to negotiate with Russia? Make an agreement, already understanding the situation that is developing today, realizing that Russia will fight for its interests to the end.” Later, he again emphasized that Ukraine was a crucial national interest for Russia: “Up until now there has been the uproar and screaming about inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield. Now they are apparently coming to realize that it is difficult to achieve, if possible at all. In my opinion, it is impossible by definition, it is never going to happen.”
10. And subtly but pointedly threatened other European neighbors.
While Mr. Putin explicitly stated the opposite, he implicitly threatened to expand the war in Europe. Asked if there were a scenario where Russia might invade Poland, Mr. Putin responded, “Only in one case: if Poland attacks Russia. Why? Because we have no interest in Poland, Latvia or anywhere else.” Pressed if he had territorial aims across the continent, he said, “It is absolutely out of the question. You just don't have to be any kind of analyst, it goes against common sense to get involved in some kind of global war. And a global war will bring all of humanity to the brink of destruction. It's obvious.”
Yet, in his long monologue on Russian historical lands, he repeatedly mentioned the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which he pointedly claimed “It was even called Lithuanian-Russian, because Russians made up a significant part of this state. They spoke Old Russian and were Orthodox.” He further claimed that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth seized Russian/Ukrainian lands that were then made to submit “to the authority of the Pope” and “Polonization”, and that the Poles “treated this part of the Russian lands quite harshly, if not cruelly.” Later in the interview, he also accused Poland of collaboration with the Nazis.
“‘Talkshow or a serious conversation?’ Tucker Carlson’s interview of Putin offered neither,” Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian, 9 February 2024; “Putin mocks Tucker Carlson in freewheeling interview about Ukraine and jailed journalist: Updates,” Gustaf Kilander, The Independent, 10 February 2024; and “Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview: 9 takeaways, POLITICO watched the 2-hour love-in with the Russian president so you don’t have to,” Eva Hartog & Sergey Goryashko, Politico, 9 February 2024.
E.g. “Putin tells Tucker Carlson he's "ready to talk" on releasing WSJ journalist,” Rebecca Falconer, Axios, 8 February 2024; “Tucker Carlson interview: Fact-checking Putin's 'nonsense' history,” Ido Vock, BBC, 10 Feburary 2024; and “Decoding Putin’s ‘obsessive ideas’ in the Tucker Carlson interview,” Mansur Mirovalev, Al Jazeera, 9 February 2024.
“U.S. intelligence assesses Ukraine war has cost Russia 315,000 casualties -source,” Jonathan Landay, Reuters, December 12, 2023; “‘Too high a price’: Ukraine’s war widows forge a path towards an uncertain future,” Joanna York, France 24, 19 December 2023; “More civilian casualties recorded in 2023 than any year since 2010,” Dan Sabbagh, The Guardian, 9 January 2024; and 2023/24 Israel-Hamas conflict: UK and international response, Research Briefing, UK Parliament, 5 January, 2024.
While I am unaware of any Kremlin or FSB subscriptions to Thematic Markets, perhaps Mr. Putin was referring to Global entropy: Enter the dragons when attributed the analyses to which he referred as “written by people who are not anti-American; they simply follow global development trends.”