Is Russia Escalating? George Friedman Breaks Down the Threat

Episode Transcript Christian Smith: The CIA’s director jets into Moscow for an unscheduled meeting at the Kremlin. A drone packed with explosives found at Leipzig Airport is blamed on Russia. And the Financial Times reports that Russia is helping Iran develop supersonic missiles. All the while, the war in Ukraine carries on, with Russia warning of massive attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and Ukraine declaring Russian airspace effectively closed. Safe to say it’s been an interesting few days for relations with Moscow, but how does it all link together? And does it signal an expansion of the war in Ukraine? Hello. Hi, I’m Christian Smith. This is a podcast from Geopolitical Futures. And to look at the geopolitics of all these developments, I’m joined by Geopolitical Futures chairman and founder, George Friedman. George, let’s start with, well, with the top, really, with that news from last week of John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, visiting Moscow very publicly. Why did he do it, do you think? George Friedman: Well, not because he liked guys that he met with. He obviously went there to make a point. It seemed at the time that the major point he was going to make is that if they attack Europe, as was thought at the time, the United States would intervene and pointing out to them that the US had troops in the Baltics, and if they were going to invade, they were going to engage in American troops, that would be reinforced. The second theory that I had was that there had been rumors that the Russian intelligence services were growing hostile to Putin based on his execution of the war and his unwillingness to end it. Now a new story comes up that might be it, which is that the Russians were building, helping the Iranians build facility for creating supersonic missiles, and that this is what might have been talked about. The fact is, no one is sure at why they talked. What is clear is that after the talks, Donald Trump invited the Russian finance minister to the meeting of the G20, enraging the Europeans, but clearly pleasing the Russians. This was, I suspect, part of the negotiation process. And it could be that all of the things I’ve said are true, or two or three of them are. One, we don’t know why they went. These are the things that they might have been the cause. I don’t think there’s something outside that all the surprises we’ve had, it’s done. But what it fundamentally was about was a showdown between the United States and Russia. The United States obviously saying it’s not going to tolerate this going on anymore. You’re not going to invade the Europeans. You want to get rid of Putin, by all means, and you’re not going to go into Iran. Now, what appears to have come from this is very little yet, but there was no attack on Europe. And there was that finance minister, the G20, as a guest of Trump, enraging the Europeans. Christian Smith: I want to come back to that in a moment. I mean, there could also be, you know, an alien invasion that we don’t know about, George, that they’re deciding how to deal with, and that’s why he’s jetted over there. There could be any number of things on their minds. I suppose what I suppose we do know is that the John Ratcliffe wanted to be seen. He did this in a. In a fairly deliberately public manner. Why would he do that? George Friedman: Well, he wanted to signal to the American public that the US Was confronting Russia. Okay. And to some extent, telling the Europeans that that’s what we’re doing. At the same time, he wanted the Russian public to know this, that there was this meeting. And I don’t know what he said during the meeting. I suspect it was very pleasant conversations with only implicit threats being made on both sides. But it worked. It fundamentally shook up the system. Everybody’s trying to figure out what’s going on. The more predictable the nation is in its actions, the less successful it will be. One thing this created was great doubt about what the US Is doing, creating the need for Russia to respond in some way, which is hard to see what they’ve got to do. But it created uncertainty. And sometimes in negotiations, that’s what you want for them not to be certain what you would do if they did went the other way. And so it’s a negotiation process. But it was certainly not the first time the US And Soviet or Russian officials met. Senior officials met. The last time was just before the Ukraine war started. The US Had a meeting with the heads of air intelligence saying, don’t do it. Didn’t work. So this is not abnormal. At high levels, sometimes at low levels, various hostile nations have conversations. I used to call that bars in Vienna where two guys would meet and chew the brief, so to speak. Christian Smith: Yeah, I mean, I mean, let’s look at this idea that was floated around that you talked about at the top, really was about the idea that Putin might want to expand the war in Ukraine somehow that might want to test NATO resolve, have an attack on one of the Baltic states, that sort of thing. Do you think that he would want to do that? Or perhaps more importantly, do you think that he would. Would do that? George Friedman: I don’t think he dared to do that. The Baltic states all have U.S. troops in rotation based on them. Okay. Any attack on the Baltics would inevitably involve American casualties. Now, Trump may be reluctant to get into war, but if they attacked the Baltic states and there were American casualties, the American national mood would change profoundly on that basis. And the Russians know that given the American presence there, plus 10,000 troops in Poland, plus 80,000 troops in NATO, this is the extent to which we’ve abandoned the Europeans. There’s only 80,000 troops there. Okay. The Russians are not going to mess with this. Okay. And the idea that they would in some ways get involved. Well, yes, we hear that. A, some forget. We hear that a drone was left in the airport. Okay. Now, you can buy drones. You can go online and buy these drones. Now, they say that there was an explosive warhead. If this was a Russian drone, that drone would have exploded. So we don’t know who put that drone there. It could have been the Russians, but I don’t think that’s the way they operate. So before we’re certain that this drone came from Russia because it wasn’t seen to be not damaged, somebody placed it there. Let’s think it through. Okay. Why would the Russians try to, having been totally unsuccessful in Ukraine, decided to widen the war, facing US Troops and sending drones to Germany? Christian Smith: Well, Germany has accused Russia of it directly. Earlier this week, they basically said it was Russia. Do you think it’s less clear than that? George Friedman: The Germans have to blame it on someone, and Russia is certainly, possibly, very possibly the source. I find it difficult to see why Russia would want to inflame the Europeans, given that even the Ukrainians have made them stumble badly in this war for almost five years. Going into the Baltics and killing American troops in the process would not be healthy. And the Europeans would be quite capable of intervening as well. So I don’t see the Russians having an interest in this. But it’s possible that they did this? Christian Smith: Well, I mean, in that respect, I suppose in many ways, is this all just a bit of bluff and double bluff? We’re going to come on to the sort of hybrid warfare side of things in a bit. But this talk of potentially attacking NATO, of things like allegedly the drone in Germany, is this just part of an escalation of bluffing? George Friedman: Well, I think the Russian view of the Europeans is. I’ll say what I think the Russian view is, is that gutless, that given that they have done everything but send troops into Ukraine, leaving the Ukrainians to fight, they may think that they can intimidate the Europeans by the thought of war and it’s possible, and it may well be the Germans are right. This was a Russian drone that was directed against an airport with explosives designed not to explode. Why the Russians at this point, having so much trouble with the Ukrainians, would want to take the chance of European armies, particularly the Polish army, which is very good, getting involved in it? Well, I don’t see the logic here, but it may be there. Okay, Putin, maybe. I see Putin as in a desperately dangerous position. He has fought this war for four and a half years. He has failed to get anywhere near reaching his goal, which is occupying Ukraine. He refuses to end the war because to end the war would be failure. He’s also been proposing a new. Vast enrollment of new soldiers, shall we say? Now he’s saying that we’re not going to do that, and we never planned to, but he had said it, and so on. So you see a leader of Russia in extreme trouble. The Europeans. Well, there’s no such thing as Europeans. The Germans in this case, being hypersensitive, and the Americans playing the role of. Let’s try. Calm down, boys. Let’s go. And that’s a very strange position for Donald Trump to be in. Christian Smith: Take a moment to follow and rate us on your preferred podcast platform. If you’re already watching on YouTube, don’t forget to like and subscribe. Talk me through the practicalities of what would happen with an attack on the Baltic. In terms of U.S. troops, are they automatically drawn in to an attack like that with US Stationed? Is there a chance for Donald Trump to say or any US Leader to say, no, we’re not getting involved. Just go past us. George Friedman: Lithuania is a small country. Estonia is a small country. Latvia is a small country. U.S. troops are there, five miles inland. Who knows where they’re going to be engaged? Okay. And the probability is it would start with air attacks trying to clear the way. And it’s very hard from 5,000ft to notice if that’s an American uniform or so. The probability of them killing Americans in this attack is great. At the same time, they’re having great difficulties in logistics, keeping their troops supplied. When you are on the attack, logistics are essential. And the most difficult things to do. Your forces are moving forward. You have to anticipate how forward, and you got to get the supplies to them at the same time. Okay? So logistics are the basis of war. You don’t have them, you don’t, and they’re the hardest thing to do. The Russians have demonstrated very poor logistics capabilities on land. Moving forward into this area as well would indicate A greater view of the Russians on their capabilities, shall we say? As for, would the United States choose to have those forces there engage? Because the size of the country means they’ll be engaged. They’re going to be part of that element. And being American, I know what it would mean if the Russians started killing Americans. And the Russians know that that would be a reaction that Trump would have to massively respond to and so on. So I don’t think that they were going to do that. Okay. That they may have wanted to jerk the European chain. Well, what was the European supposed to do as a response? Attack, Mobilize. The whole story doesn’t fit. Okay. So at the same time, the question was, the other theory I had, there were rumors, and rumors are worth fairly little to nothing. Okay. There was rumors. I’d heard that the FSB and svr, the Russian security forces, were becoming appalled at the ongoing war that wasn’t being won. Massive losses, and there was tension between the intelligence forces and Putin. Total theory rumor. Not saying it’s true, but that was one of the explanations, which is that the CIA guy knew their views on the war and sat down with them to try to talk about that. That’s an unlikely scenario, but it’s there. Okay. The idea that they would invade Europe, having failed completely in Ukraine, and by the way, how do they reach that area? They have to go through Belarus. So that is very hard to understand. At the same time, you should notice that Trump did something very interesting. He reopened his fundamental offer to the Russians from the first meeting. End the war, and the US Will have economic cooperation with you, including investment. And so when he bought the financial minister, finance Minister, to the G20 meeting, terribly upsetting the Europeans by placing him there, he sort of reopened the door whose primary promise in the first place didn’t work. So all sorts of things are going around, and one way to deal with this is go to sleep for a few days and wake up and maybe you’ll find out. Pulling it apart this way, it’s not gonna work. Christian Smith: I mean, so often in the current political climate, shall we say, Trump world in other ways, you can sort of ignore things for a week and nothing might have changed. But in that week, if you’ve been paying attention, everything’s changed. But then by the time you get to the end, it’s back to the start. George Friedman: This is not just this president. This is a normal occurrence when there’s attention. I lived through Vietnam War. One week we were winning, the next week, everybody was withdrawing from there. It was constant uncertainty Everywhere. So this is. The nature of war is inherently uncertain, but if you pay too much attention to it, you’ll go crazy. Christian Smith: Wow. Yeah, absolutely. We’re in the wrong profession, then. Look, speaking of The G. The G20 summit there, obviously, yes, as you say, Russia’s finance minister was invited. The first time since the war in Ukraine that happened. Are you sort of saying that was a signal to Russia rather than a. A sort of promise to Russia, shall we. Shall we say, rather than an actual definitive move by the US well, it George Friedman: was a definitive move in the sense that it was the first offer Trump made. He publicly said that if the Russians end the war, the United States will be happy to invest in Russia. Russia is a nice place to invest. Land is cheap, many minerals, and so on and so forth. So that was the first offer Putin wouldn’t take. It has always been on the table. The Russians never took it. This time, I think he went to the intelligence chiefs, made the same welfare primarily, and to back it up, invited the Russian finance minister, the right guy, to do it, to come to the meeting. He may not have told the Europeans that he’s coming. He might have forgotten that part. But it seems to me that there’s a logic going back to the beginning of the Trump presidency and the first negotiations that this is how he thought the war would end. And it’s possible under these circumstances, Russia is in terrifically bad financial straits, that this would be it. On top of that, it’s possible that the Russians are also building weapons for the Iranians, which would add to it as well. So those two don’t cancel each other out. There just might be another dimension to these talks saying, don’t do that. Christian Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me ask you about the Iranian side of things in that respect, then. What would that mean? I’m saying, what would that mean If Iran and Russia were doing that, presume that the Financial Times report is correct, and. And they are doing that, what does that mean for America? What does that mean for the wider geopolitical system when it comes to Russia and Iran? George Friedman: Well, from the American point of view, if the Russians are involved in that, they truly are enemies. Okay? It’s not just the Ukraine war that we’re piddling in. It is not just a minor issue that we live with. It becomes something, whether right or wrong, we went to war with Iran. Whether right or wrong, we have troops stationed there, around there. Whether right or wrong, we have to protect those troops. So from my point of view, whatever you think of the war, the idea of the Russians providing weapons to a hostile force of the United States, okay, maybe logical and reasonable, but we can’t afford that as a nation, okay? Because our troops can’t be exposed to that. And rather than being intimidated by it, we now see Russia in a different light. Previously was the gang who couldn’t shoot straight, don’t take them seriously. They can’t even take Ukraine. Now it escalates. And possibly, if the Financial Times story is true, one of the things he discussed in talking to these people was that you know what’s going to happen if you do this in Iran. You know that we can’t end the war at the same time showing a path to ending the war by bringing the finance ministers the meeting. So it’s not simple, it’s not completely algorithmic of your piece, but these are the pieces I see. Christian Smith: And I mean, to be clear, we’re talking about the sorts of weapons, these supersonic cruise missiles, which, which can, you know, do well, in many ways, as yet unseen damage, because they haven’t. They’ve been used by Russia against Ukraine and often against ground targets, but they haven’t necessarily been used against a bit against ships, as far as I’m aware. You know, they get hit. Ships in the Gulf cause huge casualties. George Friedman: If their desire was to engage in potential war with the United States by arming Iran, well, that would be a very silly thing for the Russians to do. And I think this is why we weren’t talking to Putin. He’s kind of off the ranch. We talked to two guys, the SVR head and the FSB head, internalizers, foreign intelligence. And we talked to them. That tells us something about the internal process inside of Russia itself that these talks would be to carry out. And I suspect that these guys said, now, I can’t calculate what the Americans are going to do under these circumstances. One of the odd benefits of Donald Trump, he’s profoundly unpredictable. This makes it very difficult to live in the United States at times and in Europe. But you really can’t predict what he’s going to do. And by discovering this thing going on inside of Iran, well, what will he do? So by this meeting, I think with the United States was saying, this can’t go on. They added in possibly, I don’t know, the question on this plant they were building in Iran, and I doubt they made any threats. They probably said, well, we’re intel guys. If you were my pelta place, what would I advise the President to do without saying what he did? I think that sort of conversation may have taken place. Now, does this evolve anything inside of Russia? Well, we’ll have to see. It’s not going to be quick. Is my interpretation of the views of the Russian intelligence service correct? I’m not sure. I’ve heard rumors, but I’ve also heard rumors that they’re going to invade Europe. When they can invade Europe, it’s not going to be invasion of Europe. They couldn’t take Ukraine, they could take Europe. Christian Smith: Want actionable insight from geopolitical futures? Introducing geoeconomic lens, helping you understand not just what is happening, but how global power dynamics shape economic stability, dependency and opportunity. Explore the first issue for free@geopoliticalfutures.com Lens well, look, let’s go back to that. In this sort of hybrid war that, that has been talked about for a long time now, not talking necessarily about this, this drone attack on Leipzig airport, but I mean, Russia has, as in particular in recent weeks and months, been upping its, its hybrid warfare against European countries. We’ve had drone incursions into NATO and EU air space. We’ve had more cyber attacks, all that sort of thing. What is behind, A, do you think, this uptick, and B, is it just simply a matter of aggravating these countries, of keeping them busy? What do you think it is? George Friedman: As a start, I would like to say how much I hate the term hybrid warfare. It’s sabotage. It’s psychological warfare. It’s the oldest game in the book, okay? This is not a new version of warfare that they would invade, act without an invasion, covertly carrying out covert operations, possibly send a missile or two into Europe, These are natural forms of war. If you want to keep the other side from coming into the war, if you want the other side to come into the war, this is also a way to get them into the war. So the idea of waging what you call hybrid warfare, carrying out sabotage that kills people, wrecking the Internet, having stories in the Internet about how evil the Americans are and everything else like that, this would seem more likely to provoke warfare than to intimidate. And the nature of hybrid warfare is to create a situation where a country feels vulnerable and seems to have an option not to get involved. And trying to bribe that, that’s a risky thing because sometimes the country evolves differently. Now, given that in Europe, the easternmost country, Poland, is a massive economic force with 10,000American troops stationed there. Okay? And certainly the first place they’re going to meet because the Baltics don’t count that much, it really doesn’t matter what the French do this time. The Americans are there and the Poles are powerful and they couldn’t beat the Ukrainians, which I will repeat over and over again, the idea that this army that can’t take out the Ukrainians that is fighting for inches in the Donbass, is about to launch an attack deep into Europe and believes it has the capability of doing so, it’s very hard to grasp this logic, but it’s very hard to be European. Christian Smith: Well, look, at the same time, I mean, at the other end of Europe, Russia has been escalating its threats against Britain. Been lots of back and forth verbal exchanges, largely about the Britain’s supply of arms to Ukraine in the past few weeks. And Britain’s new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham was in Ukraine last week or the week before and promising potentially long range missiles for Ukraine. Yesterday, I think it was on earlier this week, Putin said he was asked a question by a journalist about whether or not the Russian army would consider striking British armaments factories in Britain. And he did, the very Putin way that he likes to do. He said that was classified. George, is this just saber rattling? I mean, they’re probably, they could do it, but George Friedman: I grew up in the Bronx. We had to say money talks and BS walks, fully spelled out. Okay? So in a time of war, particularly in a war that is not going well, pay little attention to what the President says. Again, I refer back to Lyndon Johnson in LBJ in the Vietnam War. Okay? He was always about to win that war. Okay. It just never happened. So what I’m saying here is that the leaders in war cannot tell the truth because one of the foundations of war called hybrid now is disinformation. There is no person in a war that’s going to say, well, I can’t win this war, but you know, I’m going to really endanger you. So making threats is a normal thing. Now, let’s assume that they opened up on the Brits. Okay, well, two things happen. The polls go crazy and charge, but more than that, you cannot predict what Trump’s going to do. All right, so one thing to say to the Europeans, screw you, we don’t care. Another thing to see the Brits go down in an attack. And if we don’t respond to that, what’s the next time when we go into Cuba going to happen? What’s going to happen to the United States? If Putin actually does the things he’s threatened, he opens up a Pandora’s box. It may be that the British will therefore surrender and give up. It may be they won’t. It may be The Poles will hit them because they figure they’re next. Worse yet, the United States might decide, this guy is really serious, let’s act before he hits us. So I just. You can make threats anytime you want. There was a guy in my class in high school, I threatened a lot. It was meaningless because he’d kill me if I tried to hit him. It was not possible. So always take a look when you’re looking at not at what people say, but what they can do and what they cannot do. And in my view, Russians cannot invade Europe. They can carry out sabotage. They can carry out, you know, warfare, psychological warfare, you know, planning stories on the Internet. But waging war in Europe at these circumstances, with these forces facing them, not an option. Christian Smith: Well, during the Cold War, Russia may well have been able to invade Europe, particularly at certain points. That may have changed now, but what hasn’t changed is nuclear weapons. George, is something we’ve talked about before, something that is always worried about. It’s always saber rattled by the Russians as well, of course. But in any confrontation with the west, there is that risk that everyone is very well aware of, of escalation in that sense. Does that come into it here at all? When we’re talking about CIA trips to Moscow and. And supersonic weapons going to Iran and George Friedman: everything else, we’re looking at this as a tense moment, is nothing like the tense moments during the Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis as an example. There is a principle that’s always held based on mad mutual assured destruction. About 30 minutes after impacts of nuclear weapons on the United States, there’d be similar impacts on Russia in some ways. There was always intelligence trying to know where the Russian leader was so the first strike would also kill him. All right, so when you take a look at this principle of mutually assured destruction, which is, yeah, you can launch a missile, but boy, a lot back. More coming back at you based on that. It never was a war. The most interesting thing about the United States and the Soviet Union is we never had a direct war, conventional or unconventional, with each other. This was because each side understood the calamity that would happen to both sides. It was not like Pearl harbor that you could hit, go home and wait. Nuclear war is very fast moving, has to be, and you have an excellent chance of being vaporized in the next 30 minutes if you voted it. So there’s a reason why there’s never been a nuclear war. I just want everybody to consider this is the first major geopolitical confrontation, one that divided Europe, fought over the former European empires. All of these things. But the United States and Soviet Union never came to blows. Why? Because in a strange way, nuclear weapons are pacifists, impose specific actions. Christian Smith: Do you think both sides still understand that? They understood that then. Do you think they still do now? George Friedman: Well, unless they’re brain damaged, yes. I mean, launching an attack on the United States, given all the satellites we have and all the missiles we have standing by, or launching the missiles at Russia, there are whole teams of people working those things. That’s not going away. It’s what kept the Cold War from becoming a world war. There was no question, given the First World War, Second World War, that had there not been nuclear weapons, at some point, Russia would have not tried to take Europe, or the United States would not try this or that or other things. They could take risks. The interesting thing about the Cold War was everybody was so careful in what they did. Even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States did not strike Cuba, okay? It threatened to. It went on full alert and the Russians decided, let’s can this game, okay? But when we look at nuclear weapons, and I’m not saying this will be the case in every country, there may be countries that don’t care if they’re destroyed in the process, so and so forth, but Russia and America had a long standing 80 year understanding with each other. About 78 years until they got nukes. Okay? You don’t screw with me, I don’t screw with you. We can fool around in Vietnam all we want, we can enjoy all our games in Africa, Congo, but we do not make war directly on each other. And I think that principle still is intact. Christian Smith: Well, on that cheery note, let’s leave it there. George, as always, as you say, a period of heightened tension and one that we will be following very closely at Geopolitical futures. Go to geopoliticalfutures.com of course, for. For this and everything else, you might want to read about geopolitics all around the globe. George, thank you. Thank you out there for listening. We’ll be back again soon with another podcast, but until then, you take care and goodbye. George Friedman: Right. Christian Smith: You can find all of our expert geopolitical analysis at geopoliticalfutures.com.