did hundreds of years and is likely to last hundreds more. ah. okay, before we go just some news that has emerged. some 10 buildings are reported to be in fire in the russian city of boise, or near the borders of china and mongolia. a wind swept wildfire which started on the nearby flatland steps, apparently spread on cause the damage at rapid gusts of up to 23 meters per 2nd. complicated. the containment of the situation around 60 fire fighters are working to put out the blaze with more emergency crews. on their way, according to rescuers, no one has been hurt. as of now, authorities have as well opened a criminal investigation into what they say could be potential negligence in the matter. well, we're cross talking next that great panel today with peter ortiz debate on discussion show gets going right after the shortest of griggs you stick

with ah ah hello and welcome to cross stock. were all things are considered. i'm peter lavelle . the term strategic autonomy sounds good. the word strategic conjures up a sense of importance and autonomy presents a sense of independence. but when you consider the french president using this term, that we are forced to wonder if he is a serious person, after all, europe is no longer strategic laura thomas with

cross sucking strategic autonomy. i'm joined by my guess, alfred desires in geneva. he is an author and a former you an independent expert on international order in paris. we have john laughlin. he is a university lecture in history and political philosophy. and in washington we cross matthew crossed and he is director of academic transformation about we state university high gentleman cross sack rose in effect. that means you can jump any time you want. and i always appreciate, john, let me go to you in paris. i mean, you and i have known each other knew, but on this program, as long as the french president micron has been in office and you and i have pointed out a number of times that enter dig gall trying to fight its way out of him. sometimes he gets to gall curious, but i don't take him seriously anymore because even when he says those kind of things the next day says something different. i think that is really emblematic of europe's place in the world today. go ahead, john. yeah, i mean,

the big difference between a menu and michael and a charles to go live there are so many of them is that all would never have talked about your european autonomy to gold talked about french or autonomy. and he understood that autonomy can only be national and that any european dimension by definition was incompatible with autonomy. my colon doesn't understand that macaroni thinks that there can be such a thing as european autonomy. he believe all he occasionally, as you said in your question, p t, occasionally says that. but actually there are contradictions in terms. and we saw this, for instance, when he went to china because he took rosella from the line with him. that was supposed to show that he was coming as a representative representative of europe. but between him and no sla from the lion, they're a very substantial differences. and she is much more atlanta assist. i mean,

he's pretty, atlanta says, but she's even more so. so what it him, taking her to china showed was that europe reduces its own autonomy by trying to be a permanent alliance because everybody pulls in different directions and the result is the lowest common denominator. and in addition to the fact of course, that as we all know, the european project, including the military dimension of it, is entirely an american creation and entirely under the control of the american. so these are just words and i've, i've used this quotation once before on this program, but i, i, i think one can repeat myself every, every other year or so. the problem about macklin is the same as a de gardner deep down. he's very superficial. yeah. laugh on for, oh, i'll alfred you know, i mean, and in trying to, you know, in most of the world are talking about multi polarity, are the rise of the global south, the global majority. and it seems like the french president and others like him and

relying upon old troves that really don't make any sense any more use lean more. for example, actually, hallmark are all, all isolated basically we in the west are be savvy, the rest of the world, the chevy, the belt and road initiative. these are the, the fact that most countries in the world have refused to impose sanctions on russia, etc, etc. so it's a question of perception of reality, but in our fanaticism in our self righteousness, that's a perception of reality is totally distorted. and i don't, i'm not optimistic that is going to change any time soon. i'd like to see the european realize that the united states is not, it's friends. the united states is not an asset. the united states is actually a lie of body. the united states interests and those are the europeans do not

coincide. but again, there is an ally and poorly leak. it does coincide. well, i mean if, if there were any kind of democratic impulse left in europe, we might see a different direction. but i'm not counting on that. you met matthew when one of the thing in alpha was pointing out real things belt road. ok. trade diversifying from the dollar. but the europeans and the americans talk about ideology all the time and i can't make any heads or tails of what they're talking. i need a translator, i don't know what they're talking about, and that's why most of the world is turning away ukraine. that's your problem. you made it, you fix it. what do you want from us? oh, and we remember hundreds of years of you telling us what to do, but it didn't work out well for us. ok, i mean how tone deaf can you be mathew i would i love in the comics area that we've had so far as the fact that there, there are pieces that we're touching upon and i think really back up for me. i'm

not, as i won't say cynical, that meant that's too strong, but when macro dox about strategic autonomy. what amazes me is the fact that i think the united states has always utilized strategic autonomy. if we really break down what strategic autonomy is in real terms, it what the united states doesn't like about micron using that term is the idea that your simply comparing it to use that bubble analogy that was just mentioned. these are power bubbles, right? these are bubbles of power that the united states controls and now micron would that one phrase strategic autonomy is at least winking at the idea that there could be a chinese power bubble that might serve interests in europe as forcefully or as powerfully as american ones are and, and that is always infuriated, the americans, the americans are the only ones. and i've always found this fascinating is the fact that they will live ideologically in terms of how they speak before the diplomatic

microphones and how they act in quarters of power in other nations. capitals, but in terms of actual real term efforts, they're not, they will always follow what their national interests are, but they don't want other countries to be able to follow the same. well, i mean, i think, i think, i think maybe in theory, but, i mean, john, i mean, you know, i don't want to have this turned into my favorite hobby horse, but north stream too. i mean, that's kind of a physical real thing. ok. that's being denied europe. ok, that goes beyond you know, double speak one in public, a one in private here. my point is john, here is that the europeans have given up almost all of the leverage that they have to actually have some kind of autonomy. john? well, i think that's because they're afraid. again, i've said this before on your show, they can see what the americans are capable of doing, including to them. and they are afraid that if they were to call the americans out on north stream, that there would be further attacks. so that's the reality of the alliance,

sits in fact, not an alliance at all. it, sir, it's a mafia system of protection. and i think that that explains the extremely dysfunctional behavior of european politicians. there's no other rational explanation other than that, they are afraid. and you know, they're, that, that's what makes all the talk of autonomy, completely bogus. sits there that the talk of autonomy and michael's mouth on michael's lips is simply intended to convince a largely skeptical french audience of the continuing usefulness of the european union. and to pretend that somehow france can protect herself as a world power within that framework. in reality, of course, even those old dreams from the 19 fifties and sixties are unraveling. or we're seeing an incredible geopolitical shift within europe. thanks to american support from germany to poland. poland is now

a main ally of the united states in europe. poland is the gas harb because it opened its norwegian pipeline the day after the north stream, too was blown up by the americans. poland once to recreate and indeed has in the form of some structures recreated a sort of for into maria, a sort of polish lithuanian commonwealth, a sort of glassy against russia. poland has presented a 1.6 trillion bill for the 2nd world war to germany. and so on and so on. and in that context of france is totally marginalized as it germany for that matter. so all this is simply intended to occur. oh, a increasingly skeptical french public opinion, back into some support for the european project, which as everybody knows, is itself completely bogus. yeah, well, alfred, you know, it's interesting about what you can say and what you can't say. okay. and there are plenty of people that would like to see more french autonomy, european autonomy,

and i like the distinction that john has made here. but there's a lot of other people in the elite that say, hey, we're pretty high in the pecking order in the empire. if things are going great for us, and i don't need a batter bako, she's pretty genuine. great in this paradigm. i mean this, this for me is one of the things that i want to talk about in the 2nd half the program is that so much of this is a leak, an ideologically driven alfred. before we go to the break, go ahead. yeah. democracy. if you ask the french people who have the german people there will tell you, they don't want that, and they will tell you they want negotiation. they don't want to send more weapons to ukraine. notwithstanding. what do my grade in linmore goal? if you go all or in, know the frankfurt algamite, a title i speak with people real people. and i don't find anyone who's excited about sending more weapons on to ukraine or about joining the campaign against

a china giving, getting up on the one china policy that's all extremely dangerous. and the europeans have to stay away from this taiwan niandra. i would propose referenda asked the co, i'm fred alfred. oh, don't you know alfred. there's too much democracy in them as it is too dangerous for democracy. that's why when the newest members of nato don't have referenda. no, no, no, because it's too dangerous here. gentlemen. i have to jump in here, we have to go to a short break. and after that short break, we'll continue our discussion on strategic autonomy stay with our team. ah ah. oh.

in 1898. the united states won the war against spain and gained control of the philippines. the people of the philippines hoped that the americans would help over throws spanish rule and grant independence to the country club. the united states was by no means willing to give freedom to the philippines and saw it as just another colony. in 1899, the filipinos began arm resistance to the new occupiers. american troops were barely able to occupy the territory of the philippine republic, but that patriot started a desperate guerrilla war. washington was forced to send new reinforcements and triple the number of its troops on the islands. the u. s. army suffered heavy losses. the americans took it out on the,

bought the elation general jacob smith in revenge for the gorilla tag on the garrison in the city of valon. giga ordered to kill everyone over 10 years old. the monstrous gulf of terror, according to the most conservative estimates, led to the death of about 200000 filipinos. the americans managed to suppress the guerrillas only 14 years after the beginning of the war. but the united states was not able to stop the national liberation. struggle of the filipino people in 1946. after the decades of the dramatic ordeal, the philippines was finally able to achieve independence. ah, canada has outsourced its foreign policy to washington. and washington's agenda is one of the global hegemony. washington will not tolerate. and i think that they're not even, not even subtle about this. they will not tolerate

a global rival. ah, ah, welcome back across sack, where all things are considered. i'm purely built room and you were discussing strategic autonomy. ah okay, let's go back to matthew in, in washington, matthew, before we started our recording here, i was talking privately with, with john. and my kind of lamented that i, that a myself and i think john included or maybe all of it. so for us to talk about politics, when most of us would love to talk about culture in society, and that's how i kind of look at these put these elite here because they have cultural affinity, social affinities. when you listen to a european on a foreign ministers traveling, they talk about ideas. they talk about what kind of society they want and the

creating the new human condition. they don't really talk about what's good for italy are good for him. netherlands, good for france, good for german, they talk about themselves. they talk about their elite and their elite ideas, which of course are superior to the people that a bad that vote for them. go ahead, matthew. well, i think that's very true, but i also think that sometimes what it's missed, especially in terms of the narrative that gets pushed in the united states, is that there's also a hierarchy within the elite itself. yep. and the americans push very hard to make sure everyone is very clear, that at the top of that elite hierarchy is the american elite, tal g for lack of a better term. and they want to make people understand. and that's why i come from a national security intelligence background. so i don't really look at it ideation only when it, when micro talks about strategic autonomy. i see it much more from the practical reality of saying, we're not comfortable with how the united states has largely basically through this conflict and ukraine. told all of europe. where else are you going to go?

you have us and you have no one else. there is no other legitimate idea, there is no other legitimate alliance that you can rely on. and therefore, he's manipulating the phrase almost to me in a terminal, almost making it de facto like classical neutrality, which is i'm going to pursue our interest wherever they may lead us. and i'm not automatically aligning with you on every single issue, just because you're at the top of that ally pyramid. that's what i think what infuriates the american soma. and, well, john, that's kind of like from the soprano and, you know, you had to buy administration say, as a kind of a nice presidential policy out there in france. you know, would be a pity if something happened to it. i mean this is did, this is exactly what it is. i do agree with matthew, that is very high article. everything is high article, okay, everything. and, but, i mean, but what i, what i find fascinating and deplorable is that there are so many people that will bow down to this hierarchy and think it, it's a good gig for them. i mean,

just because your prime minister of a european country, i thought the end of your career, not just the beginning. okay. i mean, it's a, it's all a towards a griff. okay. and you get away with it by siding with, you know, the rare cans, you know, a liberalism, they have all of these convert. it seems as if george stuff, for instance, of nato itself says to china. and so he was trying to suck the chinese opinion or wishes which is ultimately fair enough. but the fact is that he himself has gone far too far down the ideological writ, able to speak about any kind of strategic autonomy with any, any conviction. and, you know, you said you wanted to talk about society and culture and sort of talking about politics. but one of the depressing things about life i would say in europe to day is that there aren't any cultural or social spheres left anymore, which are independent of politics. you know,

let him is. lensky speaks at the vienna venice be anomaly. he speaks at the cannes film festival, he speaks at the frankfurt book fair though there are, there are no, he speaks of the glastonbury festival. there are no cultural events left where politics does not intervene over that matter where l g, b, t writes, or whatever intervene as well. there are no more autonomous fields left and therefore we are in europe, in a situation very similar to that which existed in the soviet union. yeah. the communism where everything had to be brought back to marxism. in europe today, everything has to be brought back to, to post modernism and to the associated values them back or of course himself is an absolute pure product of that, of that, of that, of that phenomenon. yeah, i'm, i'm not worried about zalinski appearing and all those venues. i'm sure he is. his checks are cashed to all across europe without a problem. okay. member chang. i shall remember. his nickname was cash. my check that we have to find a ukrainian version cash. my check, i'll alfred, you know,

we're very pessimistic here right now because i don't see any tools or any ideas or a cadre they can actually shake things up. i think it really seems that, oh, europe is a straight jacket itself to washington. that's not a bad i would take, i mean, because if you look at the middle east, it is but read china's initiatives. i mean piece is breaking out all over the place and the americans have no control over apparently at all i. i see which the arc of history i would like to be on. i'd like to be on the side a piece. alfred. well, of course, but it's amazing that all our pain packs really came. so the heritage foundation, now they have not realized that we are so cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world and that the belton road initiative and everything else is passing over. now the main problem that i see in the west, and that includes switzerland, where i lay, is mainstream media. the main story media is brainwashing is indoctrination

. and 2 books come to my grade, new world of algo, hopefully out of course, 1984 on george orwell. we live in that this dopey and i don't see any awakening right now. thank god, there is something called consortium news and counter punch and truth out. and the real news network on intersect 9 god, there's still sputnik and r p and z and. and asia times, and the mobile times, et cetera. but that is for us, we'll actually go out on our way to get the information. i get different narratives and try to evaluate what the masses they get on the television on their watch, cnn. and that's all they get. and that is the problem. if you have a democracy where the entire population has been indoctrinated into believing as

a matter of faith that we are the good guys believing that we have the right to do what we're doing. i mean, we have locked ourselves into this situation, which is very difficult to get out. yes, yes, absolutely. and pending are themselves into a corner. matthew, i want to take advantage of your past professionalism here. can you comment if you want on these document weeks? what do you think of it? because it's very interesting how some are using it to, to shift at narratives, change perspectives on the crane and other things like that. and i've talked to a lot of people in the intelligence community, mostly retired, and most that were just kind of scratch their heads over. what do you think of it? this is obviously from, from my line of work. this is sort of occupying the front end of the desk,

but it's, it's, it's plastered everywhere within the united states and people are fascinated by it . there are practical aspects that probably go beyond what we're talking about or maybe seen small potatoes in the bigger discussions we're having right here. but i think it is starting to show some regular quote unquote regular citizens in america . that there is definitely a problem in the states in terms of the, the categorization of clearances. we have far too many people that get clearances, security clearances within our, within our governmental military intelligence communities. and we're seeing because of who did the leaks and why that person's as well. ok, matt massey, let me, let me jump to the chase here. how did this kid get these kinds of documents that? well, that's the question. and and are they real ok? oh, i think they are real because that is people too often want to take the hollywood version. they get fed a lot in terms of the intelligence community. we have 1400000 people with security

clearances in the united states. and not all of them are senior officials with decades of experience. we have too many documents that get classified in order to process them. we end up with people like the individual that did the leaking with access to documents that now the thing i'd want to push back on is the idea of just how powerful were these documents that he actually leaked on to his gamer site. right, i mean there was some embarrassing things there to be sure. but the idea that, well, i don't know if taiwan is ready for a chinese incursion militarily. or if we don't keep doing what we're doing in ukraine, ukraine could end up facing real star. wow. it came on math evening and if you bring up a varies or leakers, you bring up a very interesting point because they discussions i've had with people is that if you really put your nose to the grindstone and look at all, you know, the u way, e for example, i like that, and none of these documents say anything particularly new. okay. but they're being presented as some kind of splash. okay. i want to kind of shift gears ramos running

out of time here. but john, i'm a, what is the feeling in the, in france? i mean we, we had this pension reform here. i suppose that you know, i'm a chrome did paula to gall and dis, you had got it down his own way here. what kind of pressures are peep? what kind of pressures are people feeling as this conflict in ukraine continues when the prospects are very bleak for nato, irrespective of all the propaganda that people are being fed and 45 seconds to my friend. well, i'm afraid, i think france is no different from anywhere else. i think there is a mass media problem that albert alfred design mentioned. and while there may be a higher degree of understanding for russia in france than in other countries, i don't think france is substantially different. the west predictions have not come true. i have to say that haven't been power cuts in france. they haven't been, that hasn't been serious hardship just as the west per predictions happen. come through it come true for rush or either. right. so it way it's off the news,

and people instead are worried about, you know, pension reform, as you say, the ukraine thing is not really at the top of the gender at the moment. it's dragging on and i think that's probably part of russia's. i've been strategy, i think russia knows that they will be will fatigue. yeah, pretty good if not already all of the nay sayers that i've had over the last 15 months. i've said the same thing here. there that different size have different agendas and timeframes who's got the cox and who's got the time or a gentleman that's all the time we have. i want to thank my guests in paris, switzerland, and in washington. and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at ortiz, see you next time. remember, cross stuck with me. only one main thing is important for knox. ism internationally speaking,

that is, that nations that's allowed to do anything, all the mazda races, and then you have the minor nations who are the slaves. barragan's, rock, obama and others have had a concept of american exceptionalism. international law exists as long as it serves american interest. if it doesn't, those are the groups by turning those russians into this danger is boy man that wants to take over world. that was a contest strategy and walked out of it on your own. i not leashed off teams. they have on and tablet block. nato said it's ours. we moved east and the reason us, hey jim, it is so dangerous. is it the law? the sovereignty of all the countries? the exceptionalism that american uses and its international war planning is one of the greatest threats to the populations of different nations. if nature,

what disbanded shareholders in united states and elsewhere in large obs companies would lose millions and millions or is business and business is good. and that is the reality of what we're facing, which is fashion a lot of ukraine. i mean, is it a powerful explosion? as most will, miss outbreaks are launched by russian on both is treat call this of course. you train also had this news out. the west again at the well camouflaged stand. i teeth id. how? oh, the follows a from russian odd recruit on the front lines in the classroom with

he says it was a national info for the kids to post.