russian states, oh, never the unwillingness landscape. divest jingles, all sons within the sissy battle displayed. okay, so mine is too far from speaking with. we will van in the european union, the kremlin. yup. machines. the state aren't russia today, and split marquee sputnik given our video agency, roughly all band to on youtube with ah,

i'm african ritathui and welcome back to going under ground 2022 has been the had dominated by the brutal proxy war in ukraine and an entire geopolitical realignment minimized in censored nato nation media and celebrated across the global south. the scale of the brutality may for now be lost in the mists of the fog of war. but we know, do know that billions of dollars worth of weapons are being poured into ukraine. both nato and russia emphasize the humanity of their actions. so how are ethics and the idea of humanity in war playing a part in modern conflicts, and are they, in fact capitalists? well, joining me now from yale university in new haven, connecticut to talk about transformations in the humanity of wars. as professor samuel moines, he's the chancellor kent, professor of law in history at yale, an author of the book humane how the united states, abandoned peace and reinvented war. thank so much our professor moines for coming

on the show. i better start than with the fact that, though we don't know in detail what the kremlin strategy is in ukraine, a given the so progress sometimes fast progress. again, it is the fog of war. how you think the, the idea of humane war may be affecting kremlin policy? much as you've written about it affecting washington policy? well, i'm no expert, but from what i've seen, at least in the initial weeks of the war, it seemed as if the russian audience really did care about the reassurances given by the kremlin that the, the fighting was humane and that's changed it and, and not least because of the use of, of missiles on that on wish glamour,

couldn't showed more restraint at the beginning of the war than lately. but i think that the main way, the idea of humane war is playing out is on the western side. since from the beginning, there have been a pronounced discourse of russian atrocity. and i think that's done a lot to to, to a fact the way that westerners think about the war. and i just tried to argue in my work that those are old roots to concerns about atrocity and war. the intensity of those concerns is something new and the way that they have affected warfare is very reset. and so we don't, we're in a new situation and wish statesman really do care about the humanity of their wars because global audiences expect war to be far more humanely and demand it so. so it

is kind of a p r and a media element and dimension to this rather than codified human rights law as, but geneva conventions and un security council un charter elements. well, the un charter says nothing about the ways war should be thought it tries to control aggression. and of course, of both the west and russia have engaged an illegal war in starting wars. but these other bodies of law, i think, do matter the geneva conventions, and especially later bodies of law like the $977.00 revisions to the geneva convention, which for example, prohibit access casualties of civilians even when states target combatants. i would say that those laws do matter,

but they matter because they're changing public expectations. and of course media have a lot to do with public knowledge of what's going on in the field as well as, you know, the spread of distorted understandings of what's happening in the old days media media with central to war frenzy. and in fact, most often communicated to an enthusiastic public for a war, that brutality was going on. and nowadays, brutality is reported to horrify audiences for war. and of course, that's measured by these laws. and so the laws still are part of the picture, but i don't think that they come 1st. they're more reflections of growing concerned for how war is far. and therefore, politicians are forced to fight differently and order different kinds of wars and

they did in, in even the recent past all be it that it's kind of unprecedented the censorship of media in nato nations. this time around that goals for c g t n, the chinese channel to be banned across europe. t is band. the range in general is bad. i know your book humane talks about a seismic events like the a covering of my lie. and abu ghraib sy hersh has been a guest on this show where they are benjamin and other figure that you mentioned in the peace movement of the u. s. again, kind of regular on this show as is i richard fork, been ab ironic that day you didn't, you didn't mention ukraine in the book, but you did mention a russian in particular. prince andrei, the character in warren peace by dall strike, just to remind us why that sir, that sir character exposes such a tension today, in the midst of this ukraine war, while the count also,

i went to war as a young man, actually in the crimea. and when he wrote war and peace, a couple of, of, of, of years later, he dramatized this new project of, of swiss origin of using a laws to make war humane. and he had one of his immortal characters prince andre reject. making war humane on the grounds, that humane war would be more tolerable for more people and in a way obscure that the real evil, at least most of the time of going to war. now as toaster i lived on, i think he, he perfected is his argument in this regard because prince sandra, prince andrew and the novel actually suggests that war should be left

brutal because then people would know what they're allowing their states to do. and i not sure we should take that view, but i do think tolstoy as he made sure it was right that every time we pressed for more humanity and warfare were incurring the risk that it will be easier to go to war and easier to sustain war as of course, both as, as of course, the parties to the ukraine. we're currently doing making it something that is seemingly interminable. yes, i mean, professor moines, i know, secretly you don't to favor prince andrei's view because you don't want ality. i'm, i'm sure. but i says, i can't resist saying that there's a yale professor there that brady johnson distinguished professor at yale is none other than victoria newland. i don't know whether you meet her in the corridor. was

the yale university who was clearly secretly plotting in ukraine. we have the leaked phone call. is there a case for saying that the brutality is now concealed? there always has been to an extent, which is why seymour hersh and takes her and had to take such pains in trying to expose what happened in my life, vietnam. but. but there's that secret brutality that goes behind this curtain of un resolutions and let alone historic conventions well, of security and secrecy. close to both the origins of war and then how is conducted . and you're totally right that states have an interest in secrecy in keeping gory photos, in the case of me, ally, and later on to grade from the public. but it's also important to understand that once information gets out, it can end up helping statesman reset wars. and i emphasize in my work

that american politicians like barack obama understood that making the war on terror, more humane, couldn't make it more sustainable. precisely because the information that you know was eventually so well publicized about detainee abuse and even torture had, hadn't, hadn't had so offended the global public and even the american public. and what barack obama did as a reset the war on terror, by making it last brutal and promising that it would be conducted more humanely. now you raise secrecy in the origins of war. and i, i can't comment on this particular war because you haven't moved into the corridor, then i have not met her. i don't believe she's there right now. but of course she has been a central figure into democratic administrations in,

in ukraine policy. and of course, the origins of this war are not simple, but i don't think we will know for many years. precisely because of the secrecy you mentioned. who said what, who authorized what? who's to blame? although clearly we wouldn't want a cent. vladimir putin from the, his illegal action of crossing a sovereign states, the border, ah, ah, west west were in, in the, in the flagrant way. he did, especially when the, on the eve of the invasion, couldn't himself complained about the illegality of western actions. giving a very in away persuasive litany of all the times. western government, including the american one, have gone to war illegally irrespective of how, ah, they've gone on the site is worse. of course, they're from their perspective. it might have been military strategy. and from

their perspective, it's 7, it's the uminski chords are authorized in un security council resolution due to 02 that was violated, which gives them that excuse that known the by a warfare program, i should just say as regards what you said about obama, but much of what you write about there in the book against to factor against a bomb. i don't think is known by many in nato nation media. we say hi to 35, guantanamo prisoners, still there if, if they're watching this program as a, as we understand from lawyers actually. but i have to say that your work is avowedly disinterested in and, and scholarly. but i did note that you used to work in the belly of the beast where power was as an intern, as you've studied and as your scholarly work is progressed. and how do you look back being an intern in, in the white house? i understand you, you were there when secrecy and media manipulation was all there because it was

about the, the war on you need to warn you is lava. that's right. i served as a lowly in turn, in the national security council at the time of the bombing of belgrade and serbia . and of course, there is always secrecy and in military operations and selective ways of informing the public to make your, your side look better. i do think in the aftermath of that experience, i became much more skeptical of great power, militarism in general. and the origins of my own work are not in particular and the critique of that war up, you know, with which i was associated as a youth. but much more concerned about the failure of humanity in, you know, to fulfill tolstoy to dream of

a more peaceful world. and i think that is why i spend so much attention looking at the formation of the united nations in the original, the origins of the original contest between the west and the soviet union. and why it was that we've ended up with an international law that in practice, exams the great powers, like the united states and russia from any real controls on the initiation of war. prevent samuel mine. i'll stop you there. more from the universities, johnson again professor of law and history after this break. ah ah

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ah ah, welcome back to going under gran i'm still here with professor samuel moines. yale university chancellor, kent, professor of law in history and alter the book humane how the united states, abandoned peace and reinvented war i detect in, in your work. one key element is the bottom up way that society can change and, and transform rather than supernatural law. treaty and convention, but them because yugoslavia is iconic in the global south. it's certainly iconic to be ging, where they are. embassy, of course is bombed in yugoslavia, let alone to russia, which was supporting serbia. do you think her then that am

also your critiques of recent critiques of putin's policy? to an end, to an extent what you're saying is he shouldn't have done this and from what their perspective is defended, the people who has come to an yet because he's undermined the peace movement in western countries. i mean that's, that's what you're saying to do. an extent i think that's right. i mean, i mean apart from whether it was a grow strategic error on could inspire it seems as s, ah, he, he, and on the basis of his very strong critique of western ill legality. a series of illegal wars has, has in the and added insult to injury by declaring yet another. but if for, if we're to take that or to one extent, it does sound ironic then that if the dead sign is appearing and for villas in

brazil and rushes are going in to defend lance can don't. yes. as, as the much of the global south, the saw seen it at the un resolution that was made, the representatives representing most of humanity were against the you and the u. s . arguable proxies. you're literally saying over the peace movement in, when nato countries we need to protect them and they've destroyed all the work they've done. and i'll be failed. that while the whole of the global south is now talking bricks and shang, i cooperation organization, doesn't it just mean actually the, you in the u. s. you know, forget them. that's what the putin action has really signaled. i think the, you know, the, the response of the global south is, is quite interesting. so, it's worth remembering that in the beginning there, there was a near universal condemnation by the general assembly of any annexation us war. but

you're, you're entirely right that we should ponder the, the, the response of the global, which i read a little differently. i think it reflects a pox on both their houses and just fatigue with selective righteousness. and it really testifies to our collective failure globally to build a security architecture that would be a last hostage to taking size amongst these squabbling great powers, each with their own gray power agenda. now what that would look like, i think, in more productive practical terms, is thinking about a way in which there could be multi lateral solutions. in the case of, you know, the eastern provinces of ukraine and some kind of governance that didn't involve america or nato. and russia,

you know, getting control of these lands, but the kinds of things that have been proposed for other disputed territorial situations like palestine. and so i think we do need to think about in at least the long term about how the global south can really push us to reform. the un security council empower the general assembly and relay the united nations more broadly for the sake of a peace that is going to elude us as long as we're forced to pick size between great hours. or in fact, is that never really going to happen over see because the united states holds the cards there, the un that god is in new york, and is the global south now making its own arrangements, leaving the dollar for instance, and making massive deals in the wake of the invasion of u grain at so seismic an event, was it and just forgetting about it. and as for all those human rights

organizations that were seen as part is an no matter how much of the good work amnesty international human rights watch, whatever have done there alliances and links to state to, to washington. it's disposed golf and it suits those in elite power in the global south, but more generally, a feeling that this is the end of the u. s. m. well, is there a couple things to say and in response to that really interesting question. one is just that there's a promising evolution in, in the non governmental sector. in response to this war, i've critique that sector and my were for merely monitoring how wars are conducted once they start in the absence of any commitment to peace mobilization. but more broadly, of course, you're right that the united nations reform isn't the only game in town. but it,

while couldn't, is right about one thing. and in a recent speech that this war is about whether and who accepts the passing of a unilateral a unify unipolar world, we don't know the shape of a multi polar world and the exact institutions that ought to prevail. of course they use a multi polar world, could be worse for humanity rather than better. but it could be better than the the unit polar world we've experienced in the last 25 years. and i think it's an open question exactly, whether it's the un or some other set of institutions to be built or rebuilt in the name of progress. and he's, well, one response, arguably, is this increased rhetorical attack. if not warship presents against china very much so that, that seems to be one big response from washington. thus completely true. and

it's very easy to see that for all there. the hatred of, of western ally for donald trump. they've, they followed him really and declaring a new era of confrontation with china and really behind the ukraine war which shouldn't be, you know, treated as a side show is, is this much larger specter of a new cold war. wish america and the west generally seems to be initiating against china. and i think if that happens, it will make our days of a local east european war ah, seen, seem relatively happy because the original cold war, global scale with most of the damage and violence visited outside europe was, was disastrous. and yet,

it seems as if the ukraine war is in part, ah, you know, for all of us local, significant part of a global reset of the west after some difficult years. ah, it's a, it's inspired a lot of self confidence among western elite that they should resist the passing of unit polarity and even confront china to ensure that you know, polarity, it remains alive and well on that i think is, is chilling because that kind of dollar custody has not gone well in the past. well, if the average worker doesn't have much time to look at the guy, the things you do as a scholar, especially in the media landscape in nato nations, which is a phase censored, as we so often found, this program julian sondra did expose lots of secrets according to the u. n. being tortured in britain. what's it like as a scholar to work in this field?

knowing that there are vested interests and i know you, you make the point in your work that you try to be as independent as you can. given that there are vested interests in the field, you're in trying to pressure, and that not be as disinterested as they might appear to be calling for that, that new war on china, which, you know, to, to, some is already the richest country in the world by g d p purchasing power parity i think that there, there is a space in various countries for critiquing any new cold war. and i think there is a substantial body of opinion that arose roughly over the years of barack obama, the presidency. and especially donald trump's, that these great power wars ought to be resisted by

a new kind of progressive internationalism. and it's not for nothing that the hash tag and list wars became. so has your monarch during trumps administration that he himself began using it before he was booted off to wear? and i think the clearest evidence for that is that joe bite in for all of his own hawkish asked, was compelled to choose to complete trumps withdrawal from afghanistan. but he didn't go into syria, of course he's, it, he's right now. i mean, it's a very complex picture because in the speeches defending the afghan withdrawal bite and promise and the continuation of the war on terror in the more secretive

mode with arm drones and special forces that had actually transformed it already starting. and the later years of george w bush's presidency, and there are, there was a lot of other, more military choices under biden. but my, my point is really about the rise of a kind of public exhaustion with an endless war before ukraine changed everything. yeah, just just tell me where that goes. i know you talk about j g r o being great. i'd love one of the protagonists ratner a prominent that he wore lawyer during the was on, on terror across give ira ended up in moscow as in badging. isn't that than a new fight, the global fight with these great powers, but this time with the entire global south, much more in a much more sophisticated fashion than it was during the cold war, or even in the non line movement. a founded in indonesia. i think we are

at the beginning with which really is a global south utterly pivotal once again of an attempt to imagine a progressive international movement. and it wouldn't just be concerned with war and peace, but also with distributional justice in a world that is still incredibly unequal and, and which oligarchs rule and lots of places in including my country. so what, what exactly is the form of that progressive international movement that seem to be emerging and, and i think will continue to do so. it remain so hate to me. i think that in my defense because we're in the earliest days is reimbursement and away it, it, it, it the, the demise of a unit polar moment does allow for some excitement about new alternatives. now what

the relationship of that progressive movement is to grade pro hours, it will remain to be determined. i think it should be much more skeptical of siding with one or another great power than was the case during the cold war, which also allow for neutral est alternatives and global southern alternatives that tried to sidestep the cold war confrontation. professor samuel moines. thank you, and that's it for the show will be back next week with another brand new episode. but until then you can still keep in touch. why will a social media, if it's not sensitive in your country, but you can always head to the channel going, undergoing tv on rumbled com to watch new and old episodes of going underground. so you very soon. ah ah ah,

ah . the breaking news this our bluffs are reported across ukraine with explosion seen in the nation's capital, where a hotel reportedly housing foreign mercenaries was damaged to coming up more than 80 russian soldiers are returned from ukrainian camp and see where there were in mortal danger. according to the ministry of defense, the men are set to receive treatment and rehabilitation on homes and russia goals the west had shoot to the men's good grievance. a formalization of the trail after a former french president confesses that.