Portrait of Power: “Putin is in the Mode of the Old, Wicked Czars”

Audio By Carbonatix

Published: March 7, 2022 | Date of Source Audio: March 2, 2022

Modified for publication from the original audio program

Dinesh D'Souza explains Putin's rational, yes rational, pursuit of power

Dinesh D’Souza: Debbie and I were in Florida the last couple of days. And yesterday, we had a very interesting one hour with Trump. We met in Mar-a-Lago and my family was there. Danielle, my daughter was there and her husband. So, it was the four of us with former President Trump. And we talked about a bunch of stuff and I'm not going go into it all. But he was very exercised, as he should be, about the brutality that is being meted out by Putin in the Ukraine. And he rightly pointed out the obvious, which is “this wouldn't be happening if I was in charge, if I was in the saddle.”

In fact, it didn't happen. So, Trump doesn't have to prove it wouldn't happen. It didn't happen. So it's, as the Marxists like to say, it is no accident. It is no accident that this is happening under Biden. In fact, the last time the Russians acted up, a Democrat in the White House.

“There's disturbing escalation at all levels in the Ukraine.”

Now, there's disturbing escalation at all levels in the Ukraine. Perhaps most unnerving here is the foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, he's actually talking about the possibility of nuclear warfare. He was interviewed in Al Jazeera and he says, well, you know, who knows, this could be the start of World War III. And he goes, World War III is going to be nuclear for sure, and unbelievably destructive. And so to have such apparently casual references to nuclear war is disturbing to say the least.

Now again, we should always think that these could be rhetorical tactics. It's a way of telling the West, listen, it's very easy for you to talk about doing this and doing that, but don't forget that you're dealing here with a nuclear-tipped power and nuclear countries with massive nuclear capability deserve at least a modicum of respect because of what we can do to you if things get out of hand.

We're dealing here with brutal people and we're dealing here with the brutal language of power. And I think this is something that is difficult for Democrats and liberals and progressives to sort of get a hold of. Their thing is to wag their finger, “He's not a nice man.” Yeah. He's not a nice man. No one said he was a nice man. I've never said he was a nice man. And so sometimes my critiques of Biden people go, well, are you on Putin’s side? No, I'm not on Putin’s side. Part of my problem is that that if you want to take on an adversary like Putin or like Xi in China, you need to take their full measure and understand how strong these guys are, how tough they are and how they don't necessarily interpret their interests the way you think they do.

You think you've got them figured out, but you really haven't. Now, I use the phrase for this thumbnail with this podcast, “Vladimir, the Terrible.” Why? Because I think Putin is very much in the in the mold –or in the mode – of the old, wicked czars. I'm thinking of the worst of them, not Peter the Great, but somebody like Ivan the Terrible, who was the prototypical kind of murderous czar. Ivan the Terrible, known, by the way, for spearing his own son and putting all kinds of people to that. And the czars in general didn't care about the lives of the people below them. They didn't care about the serfs. Even Peter the Great, otherwise kind of a noble man in some respects, but nevertheless, he's like, listen, you know, we gotta build a new city here, let's deploy like 25,000 serfs and who cares if they break their backs, we will have a city at the end of it.

And so, let's remember that, you know, people say, well, Putin is trying to reconstitute the Soviet empire. No, I don't think he is. I don't think he can. It's just – what’s he going to do, take over east Germany? Germany is already unified. That would start World War III, by the way. Do you think he's going to get all of Eastern Europe back? Nonsense. I don't even think he thinks he can. But the Ukraine is a whole different matter. If you remember a series I did earlier on Russian literature, Russian literature began in the Ukraine. Initially, there was no Russia. There was Kiev and the intellectual class of early Russia was mainly in Kiev. Later, it moved toward Moscow and a kind of new Russia developed around Moscow and the areas around Moscow and that displaced Kiev.

And so, this is part of the history. This part of what Putin, by the way, was talking about in his kind of interesting, although somewhat selective reading of Russian history to make the case, which he tried to do, that Ukraine is sort of, “It’s Russia. It's always been part of Russia.”

Now, Ukraine is a small country. It's a small circle right next to a big circle called Russia. And it is the law of human nature and it is the law of nations that this is a dicey situation. It's always a dicey situation when a big aggressive, powerful country is hovering over a small, relatively defenseless country. And what that means is that you’ve go to, you may say, tread very carefully if you are the small country. Now, the liberal elite in the West has been telling Ukraine the opposite: Oh, listen, you know what? That's all right. You can kick the bully in the shins because after all, we're there behind you, we're on your side. You can be, you know, you are part of the West.

They're not part of the West. Russia's part of the East.

And so, the point I'm getting at here is that all of this, I think, is a little reckless and a little irresponsible because it misses the simple point that if the bear turns around and begins to maul the tourist – in this case the tourist is Ukraine – then the rest of the world suddenly is not all that eager to do anything, or it's willing to beat the war drums, but not actually go to war.

“The United States is not really willing to commit troops.”

The United States is not really willing to commit troops. It's certainly not willing to risk a nuclear exchange, nor should it – nor should it. But the point is that when you're not willing to do certain things, you have to then recognize if you are Ukraine that look, I may have some friends outside the neighborhood, but these are friends who are not going to come to my rescue if I am set upon by this grizzly bear called Putin, called Russia.

And so, all of this is a way not to minimize, but to italicize the brutality of Russia. Just look at the way in which they've deployed a massive convoy of force. They don't hesitate to use it. And you can't say things like, oh, Putin's being really irrational, because that means you are defining rationality different than he is. It's important to realize what matters to people. ISIS is not being rational. Why are they beheading people? Well, they're beheading people because it's rational from their point of view. Obama's not being rational. He's taking down the United States’ wealth and power. Yes, he is being rational because that's what he wants to do. He has ideological reasons for wanting to do that.

And so again, for Putin, world opinion may not be so important. Ukrainian opinion certainly isn't important at all. What is important is the sheer, simple, brutal calculus of power.