and the gray taste a male tennis star of old times, i'm needless to say, a lot of stake here. in the meantime, we've actually managed to speak with a father of the tennis aisd who's out east basically. so i'm the treatment of his son by the australian authorities. he told us exclusively the attempts to cancel his sons visa was politically motivated. seems to be a bit of a consensus about that. but you can read more about that right now at os. he don't go off on the hour here on the russian capital. the next program goes into friday evening at 7 pm. hope you can join us. ah, now we have e cigarettes. i just heard that it was a healthy alternative to cigarettes. do we trust tobacco companies with their message that these new products are actually going to reduce these issues or raising the tobacco of them to

join me every posted on the alex salmon show? and i will be speaking to guess with the world politics sport business. i'm sure business. i'll see you then. mm. ah, ah. hello and welcome to cross doctor. all things are considered. i'm peter level. over the past 2 and a half years, russia and nato of agreed on very little if anything, however, both agreed to meet for a high level meeting and they did in brussels. both sides made their case, nothing was really resolved lots of words. what happens next may be actions. i

cross sucking nato and russia. i'm joined by my guest, david swanson, in charlottesville. he is executive director of world beyond war dot org and del mar, we have scott ritter. he is a former intelligence officer in the united nations weapons inspector, and in prague we have brad blankenship. he is a columnist at c g t n. and a freelance reporter for shin was hart gentleman crosstalk rules and effect. that means he can jump any time you want, and i always appreciate, let me go to scott 1st. here it's got, what is your major take away from this meeting that we had between russia and nato? because the way my, our reading of is at the, the, the americans and nato and general dis, don't take this very seriously. and they always end up saying, well, we just need to talk more. well, when russia showed up with 2 documents saying we got to, we need your reaction to this. we want a legally binding agreements and you know where we stand, but the americans,

i didn't take it very seriously. that's my take away. what do you think scott? with the united states and nato is trapped by, you know, 2030 years of, um, of precedent to that is precedent of by totally disregarding the legitimate national security interest of russia. and um, you know, using of the, um, you know, manufactured threat of russian aggression as a justification or continued expansion of, of, of, of its geographic boundaries. and the expansion of it's a global role. so, you know, there is going to be very difficult for the united states, nato to, uh, back away from a, from this stance of it, it would be akin to a surrender in russia. knew this going in. i mean that's the frustrating aspect of is that there was never any chance for a genuine negotiations because both sides are trapped by their respective positions . rushes position of course is that it cannot accept of you humiliation of military

power on its orders that this is um, an existential threat. and one only has to understand russian history and the importance of a june 22nd 941 to know where the russians are coming from. as of course, with nazi germany and baited a sitting off for years of hell off for the russian people in, for europe as a whole. a russia's hope here wasn't to get the united states or nato to, to come to an agreement. or their hope was to drive home the reality of the consequences of failure. um and get europe european nations theresa there hand and say, wait a minute. um, maybe war isn't in our best interests. and i think that's happening right now. i think we, we've seen the seeds of doubt being sewed enough, france and germany and elsewhere where they're beginning to question the wisdom in the by ability of the hard line stance, taken by the united states, nato. you know, it's got a david david,

me with south and burn the head of of natal. he constantly says like a broken record that nato is a defensive alliance. what kind of defensive alliance needs to constantly expand? because it seems to me that it has to expand to justify its existence and its expanded so much to russia's borders. that now they can say, but see now there's a threat here that though it was, the expansion itself was what created the threat in the 1st place. explained your view is how a defensive alliance has to keep expanding. david, well, i think you're forgetting the wonderful services nato has done in places like afghanistan in libya and the incredible success of 30 straight years and running, containing the warsaw pact to the point where it practically doesn't exist. i mean, this is incredible. success for natalie. you're absolutely right. there is no purpose for nato. i, you know, it's, it exists out of bureaucratic inertia, out of obedience to the united states, out of the drive for weapons sales to eastern europe,

and out of the need to maintain this mysterious substance called credibility. oh, which is not maintained by keeping the promise not to expand nato by adhering to the anti ballistic missile treaty or the intermediate ranch treaty, or any agreements i even committing to maintain future commitments on that's all out the window has nothing to do with credibility. it's just belligerence, it's just hostility. i and that drive a risks, escalating this risks? conflict between nuclear governments. ok, this is what nato has become. you know, a brand. i mean, one of the things, it's very interesting to me because i'm old enough to remember from the oldest one on the program to remember is it, we had a process during the cold war, the helsinki final act, where it was rip, made it very clear that you know, security is indivisible, you cannot attain security when you're risking the security of another state. and this is exactly when nato still need to. i mean that this was

a framework during the height of the cold war. it was a recognition that you know, you cannot have security at the risk of another nato doesn't recognize that anymore . go ahead. brad, him and prague. well, that's exactly right, right at the end of the cold war in 1990 u. s. secretary of state james baker, under george bush, the 1st one george bush. i had made a deal gorbachev and told him if you work with us on the reunification of germany and allow germany unified jer, ally with the west, nato will not expand one inch eastward. this was a verbal commitment. there was nothing signed. and ever since, that nato has moved east or multiple times through the 1990 in 2000. and each and every one of these from the russian perspective is a transgression that the violation of that verbal agreement made between the united states and russia. and now, finally, as nato is potentially about to be at russia border. now russia saying that this is a red line and it's not even. this is not an arbitrary red line. this is literally

a red line. this is right, it rushes the border. and we don't even have to ask ourselves how the united states is react. there was a military build up on its border. everybody remembers and united states 962, the cuban missile crisis, when there was a build up soviet ballistic missiles in cuba. and now was that described in the near a cataclysmic event that could have ended the world. why is it that we in the west, or especially in washington, don't see. russia has a legitimate national security interests, not have a weapon build up on its border with the border with ukraine, where most of the russian population lives in striking distance and moscow. how is it that we can sit here in the united states? american diplomats can look at russia situation and not even understand that they have a legitimate national security interest when we're militarized around its border, especially caucasus right in eastern europe, going right to russia's doorstep. for me, i haven't trouble seeing this as diploma. so we have tried and said that he's going

to focus on diplomacy, diplomacy. first, we're not going to fight wars and regime changing. we're going to focus in diplomacy has this diplomacy when you, when you came in display the most basic people skills that they didn't, scott, i'm glad that brad brought up the cuban missile crisis, because we go back in time. i mean khrushchev, we say, well, cube is a sovereign country, it can have any kind of weapons. it was going to have to be alliance relationships at once. and kennedy made it very clear. he said, if you don't take those missiles out, we will. why is this a reverse situation? because it seemed very clear to me, and this is what the russians referred to as military technical measures. ok. i think that saying pretty much, you know, what a kennedy said. you put these missile systems in there, you don't take them out, we will and i think that's what they are, that basically where we're at right now. i mean, this is so downplayed in western media. this is a really huge story. and i think brad and all 3 of you were right is, isn't it just kind of arrogance and inertia? go ahead, scott. well, we didn't,

we have to preface this discussion with the are the prior actions of the united states. so during the cold war, a, you know, we viewed the soviet union at that time as a, as an equal part. um. and so when we enter into agreements, they were bilateral in nature there, binding to, oh, for the anti ballistic missile treaty was one of the bedrock or no arms control agreements. the intermediate nuclear forces treaty another and de tional arms control agreement. each arms reduction treaty a united states has violated all 3. we've withdrawn from 2 of them. um, you know, and, and so we've created a situation where of, by withdrawing from these treaties which, you know, brought a modicum of stability. um, where now redeploying a ballistic missile defense systems into europe. oh, and we're getting ready to deploy intermediate nuclear forces in to your we've reactivated the 53rd artillery, a group in germany,

a. anybody who has a cold war veteran knows that that's the old pershing to brigade that, that, that, you know, corporate, she her into the hearts of the. so it's because a persian to fire missile that would be in the kremlin in 5 minutes. we're reactivating that we're going to deploy a system called a dark eagle sometime this year, which is a hypersonic, a missile capability. we're reconfiguring um, our yo so called only anti missile system into a potential ballistic missile delivery system that could deliver both. i'm a cruise missiles and i'm a sim, 3 missiles. it can vary for surface to surface use that the russian to say this is totally unacceptable. now, i think russia will do 2 things. one, they'll say, i understand that these are now become targets. so anybody who co host these understand you are now a target. and what i mean target, i mean nuclear because shall, we'll reintroduce

a system similar to the s s 20 which was the intermediate range missile, the brush fear to europe. and it was the mutual fear person to and as, as toys elected the i n f treaty, because both i drill as we don't want the world to end tomorrow, which is what was going to happen. or russia is going to simply re deploy a modernized version of the us as 20, which every capital in europe under risk. great. now what now, what you have a, we have a situation now where we could have military conflict. mitchell mentored conflict in ukraine of that could spread other areas and be a trigger for regional nuclear war in russia. sit at the moment, you fire, look on russian soil, we unleash everything, sla, global and alisha. nothing united states has done is engendered regional or global security and it's been very bad for american security. most americans wake up, you're worried about coded. we're worried about the economy. we should be worried

about whether or not we're going to be alive tomorrow. because if we continue down this path, we won't be, we'll all be dead. the world will be dead. we don't take the stick that a global nuclear annihilation is serious as we used to. i mean, again, i was in the military in the 1980s. we trained every day for the potential new her conflict and we understood the consequences, which is why i was a willing participant in the intermediate nuclear forces treaty. i was one of the 1st inspectors on the ground in the so union help get rid of these weapons has eyes a military person recognized. oh, important. it was for security united. well, it seems like it seems like no one in washington. brussels has a memory of the, of the, of that kind of the lemma. here i'm going to jump in here gentlemen, we're going to go to a short break. and after that show break, we'll continue our discussion on nato and russia. stay with parking

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ah, we embraced lives coursera, the un, sorry, did the united states, talking about human rights talking about press freedom. if you got to talk the talk, you got a walk through. in other words, you've gotta be tristan, you cast out on the one hand we believe impressed freedom. but on the other hand, we're going to exclude julia massage. and i think the hypocrisy of the united states use choice is what really makes a lot of people really mad about the, the guy sitting here in australia where people just don't understand them writing what is the strider citizen which comes down with a ah, welcome act across ok,

we're all things are considered on peter labelle tremonti. we're discussing nato in russia. ah. okay, let's go back to david in charlottesville. let me read to you something that the ahead of nato seldom berg had to say, quote, allies on their side, reaffirm nato's open door policy and the right for each nation to choose its own security arrangements. ok. but i see that that somehow excludes russia from doing exactly the same thing that he's claiming nato countries have. why or our, or does he just simply have no interest section. and understanding that the, the country that nato is faced up against has no legitimate security rights because that's how i read it. go ahead david. i actually agree with you, you know, for almost a month now, u. s. media has been telling me that russia has this outrageous catastrophic list

of demands that will start a new cold war. and you have these 5000 word articles that about this list of demands, but they don't show you the list which he and what, his a 100 words. i and, and, and russia had 8 demands. 3 of them were we recognized the u. n. we talked to each other, we stopped calling each other adversaries. how outrageous the other 5 are, the exact demands that the united states would make of russia, if there was a missile in cuba, right? stop putting missiles on our border, stop putting troops on our border. stop doing military games on our border stop. i stop a enlarging nato and stop it is supporting your so called security at the expense of ours. you know, these are absolutely reasonable things to sit down to discuss. if you think of russia asked a partner in a discussion rather than a misbehaving child to be kicked around to set an example to all the other

misbehaving children in iran and korea and, and a china and around the world. so, you know, nato is not interested in resolving this. i, the last thing i want is russian missiles in, in the western hemisphere. but if you see that you will see the double standard play out quite starkly. you know, brad, 11 of the odd wrinkles in all of this here is that when nato and russia meant it meant a nato, dis, one to harp on ukraine and not on not to go address the 2 documents that of the russians very thoughtfully. ah, formulated about a pan european security about security for everyone, but know the u. s. and it's always one to focus on ukraine. but the irony is, of course, is it all the united states and other many members of nato said that they wouldn't really do anything if there was a conflict between russia and ukraine. i mean, that is this absolute lunacy. so the whole focus is on ukraine. but we're not going

to do anything about it here. i mean, what is the national security interest to nato and to the united states separately for you know, what is the importance of ukraine after all? because as i keep telling people, the more ukraine's western friends help them, the smaller ukraine gets amazingly. go ahead, brad. yeah, i mean, whenever i hear this invoked by the united states national security interest, i honestly, i don't know what it means. i mean, i know i know what it means, but when you're thinking about national security, you're thinking about sovereignty territorial integrity by law. this is what the americans are talking about whenever they're talking about national security, we had to ban why way from the u. k. because the national security interest, we just heard vince cable on monday said nothing to do with that and had to do with you know, competing business interest for united states and orders from washington. this. this doesn't mean anything when we're talking about national security interest. how does it have to do with ukraine?

it's not because this is an existential threat to ukraine or to the europe. that is to say that if nato didn't experience ukraine, what it actually endanger europe, essentially in some way or the united states, of course, not. it has to do with, with the geo political interests of people in washington or people in brussels at one to contain russia. i mean, actually i saw quite revealing off a while ago, i forget who is by where there was some former american diplomat who said that we have to contain russia. we is in washington to contain russia. keep him completely out of europe to be any kind of geopolitical game changer and focus them into asia, forcing russia to become an asian power to compete with china, to keep their training session alliance away from each other. and i just laughed. wow, really like that's your strategy because you understand that that they already know that if they were fighting a 2 front conflict versus trying to rush that this would be an unwinnable conflict

and even acknowledge now that potentially just one of them would be unbeatable in of itself, but i think that genuinely this is what they're trying to do. i mean, they're trying to completely be hard line with russia, keep them kimberly, out of europe for them to can be with china. and this is going to be hilarious. i think next month when vladimir putin goes to b j, i think that will be a very upsetting announcement from him. with regards to china for the west. i think this is a fail. see it or you know, scott, you, you've been around the block for awhile and i know you're history and, and disarmament in it's commendable. it seems to me that the to washington has lost that. i mean, when i think of anthony blinkin and jake sullivan, i mean, they're not really high octane thinkers here. um, you know, i mean what, what is the strategy here? because you know, to try to dina a, it's either, you know, push russia into asia or d, lincoln from china. i mean, the, this is kind of like cartoonish for me because they're not thinking about geo politics. they, there's such a like, mean hatred here. i mean,

we're dealing with states and diplomacy and negotiations, but that doesn't mean that that doesn't have anything to do with this process right now. it or the, the, the of the americans go, they make their barking demands. and then, you know, say they're not listening and they leave here. i mean, i mean, you know, do you want to have to get back into that business of disarmament? i mean, to have to re live another career of doing that. go ahead. scott, remember before there was disarm, i'm also probably the only person on your program right now that i spent many years training actively training to close with and kill russian soldiers. that was my mission. and i understand what that chase. i understand what that was required back to the 1980s. the size of the military forces require the training commitment required. oh, it was immense. and i also understand that the u. s. military today can't do that. well, we don't have the ability to wage orange scale ground warfare in europe, and that's why i always go back in the, in the cold war days, we had

a class of american diplomat in a class of american military officers. i mean, we had foreign airy officers or soviet specialists. i was one of the people who studied the soviet union early to go to war with how to live and can come out of the speech. we have led to disarmament. we don't have this today. we're missing an entire class of diplomatic military intellectual. instead, what we have is what i call the class of guten whispers, and this is where a jake sullivan in a 20 blanket come in. they're not even clever enough to be put, whispered, because they don't know anything about russia, but they're surrounded by people who have spent their entire life focus solely on vladimir putin there. and criticizing him and personifying russia in the person of russia's president. the extent that anything that vladimir putin says or does is inherently evil and must be opposed. and that's what we have right now. as you said,

it's cartoonish in nature because this is actual bullwinkle. you know, boris and natasha kinds of anal. it's not reality. and it's going to lead to disaster because again, i'll leave it with this. we can't fight a war in europe today. we cannot, neither can europe, neither can nieto. nato knows this. i've challenged anybody who's affiliated with nato. tell me how nato can mobilize armored core in 10 days. you will never get an answer because they can't, they would be able to do it in 2 weeks. rush on the other hand, can put 2 combined arms army that are trained for deep offensive operations of in the field was in a week. this is the 1st garge tank army in the 20th combined army. oh, former cold war formation station did east germany that were destroyed in whoa, whoa, whoa, european peace and the aftermath of the solution of warsaw pact to paul the so union, but were brought back into being because of the expansion of nato. so nato,

by expanding as triggered, russia couldn't afford armed formations, that can destroy nato in a heartbeat. and fatal doesn't seem to realizes, absolutely, absolutely. and, and david, let me go to you. i mean, what are policy makers expecting here? because it seems to me when i look at the, the, the jake sullivans and they anthony blanket. i mean, they're just playing to their bubble, their, their russo phobic bubble, the russia gate friends. okay. because these 2 guys were brush, gators, okay, a big time. and it seems to me that they're playing to a domestic audience here. they're not taking in these talks. i was gonna say negotiation, but they're not negotiations at all. i mean, i can understand it's already been said in this program that both sides are locked into their specific world view. i mean, that's fine. i mean, russia is, sees an existential threat. but in the american and western policy makers are just, you know, that they have to play into this, you know, being who could be more,

russo phobic, and who could be more dastardly. and who can demonize more? that's not a foreign policy. actually, henry kissinger said that, and i'm not usual to de quoting henry kissinger, david your thoughts the. the problem of course, is that the more right wing outlets in the u. s. corporate media are already screaming for actual hot war between the us and russia. and the rest of the u. s. media has been known to follow the more right wing us media. and the u. s. burnett has been known to follow the mainstream corporate u. s. media. so this is a danger. i mean, i know people in ukraine who think of a, despite the situation being on russia's border, not the u. s. a think of russia and the u. s. as, as equally horrible menaces in this, but they don't think either side really wants war. they think nato wants ukrainian nato, but not to actually join in any ukraine wars as article 5 would require. and they think russia wants nato out of ukraine,

but doesn't actually want another afghanistan war or, or any sort of occupation. and so everybody wants a neutral ukraine, but nobody wants to say it and nobody wants to act to make it happen. and so things may spiral out of control in a way that very few people actually desire it. david, if i could stay with you, i agree with you completely, but if things go the wrong way, who gets punished the most? it's ukraine, the country, they don't want to say once they capture. i mean, they're the ones that are on the front line here. i mean, i find it really extraordinary. they talk so much about it, but to the ukrainians that have the most to lose, at least initially david, well, at least initially is the key, right? because as scott and others have pointed out, we're dealing with nuclear weapons here. and we're dealing with war mania in the u . s. media that prefers air war to ground war and prefers nuclear war to no war. and you've got olds even in recent years. of the u. s. public thinking

a nuclear war would be okay. out of incredible ignorance of what it means to have a nuclear war. and yes, the people of ukraine are already suffering from this dramatically and would suffer the most and the most quickly. but the entire world could be destroyed yet while gentleman, a just seems to me, the people in brussels in washington are to sleep walking us all into tragedy. it's all the time we have many thanks them, i guess in delmar charlottesville and in prague. and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at ortiz. see you next time? remember rostock rolls. ah, ah, now we have e cigarettes. i just heard that it was a healthy alternative to cigarettes. do we trust tobacco companies with their

message that these new products are actually going to reduce these sugars are making the tobacco up into over 2 years? well, and i make no certainly no bonus and is a tease a, as a merge, we don't have authority. we don't have a vaccine, whole world needs to be ready. people are judgment, common crisis with we can do better, we should do better. every one is contributing each in their own way. but we also know that this crisis will not go on forever. the challenge is great, the response has been massive, so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we're in it

together. ah, the west, when to far less be frank in violation of old international obligations and common sense they chose to escalate this situation. russia, the foreign minister doesn't hold back during his annual press conference with only one topic dominating thought that of nato expansion. with so again, laugh roth once again, outlining russia's red line with the cia has reportedly been training elite, ukrainian special operation teams on us soil. all of this, amid mounting tensions with russia, tennis superstore, novak joker pictures visa is revoked again by australia, meaning he could soon face a 3 year entry ban is all coming after he admits to breaking certain cove. it isolation rule.