Ray McGovern and Glenn Diesen discuss Russia-Japan tensions, US deep state involvement in strikes on Russia, and nuclear risk
Glenn Diesen interviews former CIA analyst Ray McGovern on escalating tensions between Russia and Japan, US involvement in drone strikes deep inside Russia, and the risks of nuclear miscalculation.
Summary
Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran who chaired national intelligence estimates and briefed presidents daily, joins Glenn Diesen to examine the Russia-Ukraine-NATO conflict and its expanding dimensions. McGovern argues that Putin's visit to the disputed Kuril Islands was a deliberate show of strength directed at Japan, whose prime minister he describes as adopting a hostile posture toward Russia while US missile guarantees to Japan have been quietly withdrawn. McGovern's central thesis is that Putin's overriding preoccupation is not Ukraine but Donald Trump's unpredictability — and that Putin calls Trump only when he needs something, as demonstrated by the Tomahawk missile episode and the May 9th parade ceasefire. McGovern also raises the claim that a drone strike on Putin's residence near Valdai was programmed to hit the president's house directly, and that the control mechanism was presented to the US defense attaché in Moscow as evidence — pointing to deep state actors operating outside Trump's knowledge or control. He further notes a story that Trump was on a phone call with Putin at the very moment the drones were dispatched. Both speakers express alarm at European leaders dismissing nuclear deterrence as mere "blackmail," and McGovern states that the risk of nuclear use is higher now than at any point since Hiroshima and Nagasaki — and that his primary fear of first use concerns Israel or the United States, particularly in the Iran context, rather than Russia.
A significant portion of the discussion concerns the Anchorage summit: McGovern notes that Lavrov has declared there was no spirit of Anchorage, Rubio appeared to confirm this, yet Putin insists an understanding was reached and then violated. McGovern reads Putin's account of the summit's closing — where Putin said "next time in Moscow" and Trump responded with evident reluctance — as evidence that Trump is not fully his own man, perhaps only 60% autonomous. McGovern also discusses the Avangard hypersonic weapon, suggesting that after deliberate test firings to measure penetration depth, Russia may now be in a position to use it operationally for the first time. On European politics, McGovern argues Putin is playing a long game: Macron has less than a year, Merz has the lowest approval rating of any German chancellor in history, and the AfD's rise signals a possible shift toward a less hostile posture toward Russia — including potentially reopening the one intact Nord Stream pipeline Putin has publicly offered to turn back on.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and the Kuril Islands Visit
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. Ray McGovern joins us today — a CIA analyst for 27 years who chaired the national intelligence estimates and prepared the president's daily brief, and very recently also a recipient of the prestigious James Joyce Award. Congratulations on the award, and thank you for coming back on the program.
Ray McGovern: Thank you, Glenn, for having me.
Glenn Diesen: I wanted to discuss the developments in the proxy war between NATO and Russia, because it seems to be escalating in many ways. One interesting aspect was President Putin's recent visit to what the Russians refer to as the Southern Kuril Islands and the Japanese refer to as the Northern Territories — disputed territories, but under Russian administration since World War II and considered by Russia to be sovereign territory, inhabited by Russian citizens. This did not go down well with the Japanese, but from the Russian perspective, they had attempted to have good relations with Japan and Japan essentially jumped on the anti-Russian bandwagon of sanctions and hostilities. So the Russian logic is: who cares what you think? Or am I reading this incorrectly? What is actually happening? Because none of us need a further expansion of this conflict.
Ray McGovern: I go back several decades, as you know, and one of my first portfolios included Soviet foreign policy toward Japan. Thinking this morning — do I still remember the name of those islands? I do, actually. It's Habomai, Shikotan, Kunashiri, and Etorofu. Why was that important? Because they're disputed only by the Japanese. The UN has ruled that those were Russian territory conquered in the war. The fact that the Japanese have prevented a peace treaty ending the state of war — and when I say war, I go back to World War II — has been prevented by Japanese claims to these four islands. They're of marginal strategic significance, but they mean a lot in terms of the symbolic end of World War II, and they have been recognized under international law as Russian territory.
Agreement was quite close to working out an arrangement on this under Japanese Prime Minister Abe. The Russians proposed some joint administration, economic development, and so forth. But new leadership came in in Japan. And now, with Russia feeling not only able but required to show its strength — both in Europe and Ukraine and in the Far East because of NATO meddling in the Far East — I think Putin just decided: how long has it been since a Soviet or Russian leader visited Etorofu? It's not in the records. Must be about 40 or 50 years. Well, why don't I go, just to show these Japanese that they don't have any real cards?
Why would he say that? Because the Americans have cannibalized or withdrawn some of the missiles that were supposed to protect Japan and brought them offshore to Iran or Ukraine. Even the Saudis and the Gulf states are wondering whether the US guarantee to come to their defense is really worth anything. So why not go to Etorofu, see some of the folks there, plant the flag again, and say: don't fool around. You can rage and rave in your media as the Japanese are doing. You can have a prime minister who is really quite troublesome in her attitude toward Russia. Let's remind these people where those missiles the US gave them are — are they even still there? And besides that, China is our ally now. We recognize what you did to China, and China feels as threatened by your new militarism as we do.
That's a long-winded answer, but it's really important. Number one, Putin feels very strong. Number two, Putin feels very threatened. This doesn't come through in his joie de vivre during his meetings on Etorofu — if you saw the film, he's there, these very comely women are there, and he's saying, "You know, this weather is terrific," and one of them says, "We thought you ordered it."
He's got strong support, but — and this is what I'd like to get into later — he's afraid of Trump. He's afraid of Trump's deteriorating mental and physical condition. That, of course, is 90% of Putin's preoccupation. He will show the flag in places like Etorofu, and increasingly in Iran and Ukraine, but he's overwhelmingly worried that the next time he calls Trump — and I want to emphasize this — when Putin calls Trump, it's because Putin wants Trump to do something.
Why would I say that? Last October, Trump was saying he thought he'd give Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. It was very much in the news that Zelensky was coming to seal the deal. What happened? Putin called Trump. He said: this is a no-go. You don't want to do this. Please don't do this. They spent over an hour and a half on that conversation. The next day, Zelensky shows up at the White House and Trump says, "Well, I'm really sorry, but we need all the Tomahawks we have, so the answer is no."
More recently, the May Day celebrations on May 9th in the Kremlin — Zelensky was threatening to send drones in there to disrupt the whole thing. Air defenses in Moscow are pretty good, but you can't exclude the notion that one of those drones would get through. So what does Putin do? He tries to get Zelensky to back off and he can't, so he calls Trump. Another hour and a half. He says: look, Mr. Trump, you pretend to have some influence on Zelensky. Tell him it's a no-go. He can't disrupt the May Day celebrations on the 9th of May. What happens? That's precisely what Trump does. He leans on Zelensky, and there's a four-day ceasefire — not just one or two days — promised by Zelensky not to disrupt the parade.
So what am I saying here? On the one hand, Putin thinks he has some leverage over people like Zelensky because he can persuade Trump to work his will where Trump has influence. Does he have complete influence over Zelensky? No. The US is still giving Ukraine intelligence, still giving them support they can't do without if they're going to hit deep inside Russia. That worries Putin. And the whole notion that the fellow on the other side of the Atlantic has his fingers on the nuclear codes and is unpredictable — that's 90% of Putin's worry. He'll show the flag. He'll demonstrate how Russia is going to win in Ukraine. But he's going to be really cautious.
About two weeks ago, at a Duma Q&A, Putin was asked: why don't we go faster? Are we going to finish the job? And Putin said: I hear you. I hear you. But we have to be cautious. We have to proceed along the lines we're proceeding along, and it's going to turn out all right.
I think the Russians are probably at the point — just my guess, because I'm not in Russia anymore — where, when they see Ukraine blockaded from the sea, a basket case economically, with the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions under Russian control, they can be persuaded that these pinprick attacks way inside Russia are a last-gasp effort. We're winning. Let's be patient.
As Putin very openly acknowledges — one last thing — he was up in Murmansk, in a submarine about 15 months ago, talking ad-lib with no notes to sailors, and he said: "I hope I'm not being too trustful of the Americans. I think about that." Even then he was willing to raise the issue. He said: Minsk, all these other deceptions — we remember all that. This should not have happened, this Ukraine thing. He's mindful of that. He's not reluctant to raise it. But the way he advises caution is, I think, good for all of us, because nobody — least of all Putin — knows what Trump will end up doing in his very feeble psychological, psychiatric, and physical condition.
Japan, the 1956 Peace Negotiations, and US Interference
Glenn Diesen: I think that's a good point. Also, if you look at the ongoing defeat of the United States in Iran — you can interpret this in different ways. On one hand, for the Russians, they can say: yes, it exhausted some American vital military resources they can't use against us. Ideally, the United States would be a little humbled and more cautious going against Russia. An alternative thesis, though, would be that the US — especially Trump — could be seen as being in a more vulnerable, desperate position, willing to take much greater risks in need of a victory. I get the cautionary impulse, the efforts to be a bit cautious, because you don't want to back your opponent into a corner. This is why in great power politics you don't want to defeat your opponent completely — it can be a very dangerous thing.
Just a very quick note on the issue with Japan and the territorial dispute. It is interesting that back in 1956, Japan and the Soviet Union were actually negotiating a diplomatic solution in order to get a peace treaty, which of course never came. If I'm not mistaken, the Soviet Union offered to return either only Habomai, or Habomai and Shikotan, in return for agreement that they would retain Kunashir and Iturup. And it was the United States who essentially blocked this, saying: if you're going to accept Soviet control over these islands, then maybe we'll take Okinawa. Why the US did this — people have speculated. I think the thesis with the most support is that if there had been a peace deal, it wouldn't have been ideal for the US alliance system they were building up in the region. Once peace breaks out, your adversaries won't be contained and your allies won't be obedient. I'm not sure if you have any thoughts on that — again, this was your job, so I should ask you.
Ray McGovern: Glenn, my job was glorified analyst-journalist — not that glorified, actually. We had access to all kinds of sensitive information, but it was day-to-day. Under Reagan's regime, the first four years, I actually briefed the president's daily brief in person. So it's a myopic look at what's going on today. Over a period of years, sure, you learn a lot about the broader history, but I really compliment you — I keep forgetting you're a real historian. I'm not. I didn't know what you just said. I'm not surprised by it, but in 1956, that's exactly how the US would act. If you look at why the Northern Territories, or the Southern Kuril Islands as we call them, are the way they are today — as usual, a very myopic view by the United States for its own little Weltanschauung made it that way.
The other thing I'll say is that I think you and I are probably the only people — historian and current intelligence person — who can say Habomai and Shikotan and remember that Kunashiri and Etorofu were the other two of the four. My compliments. You remember as much as I do, but I go back a ways, so I remember a little bit more — though not the historian part of what's going on. Thanks. I learned a lot.
Glenn Diesen: I wrote a book a decade ago titled Russia's Geo-Economic Strategy for Greater Eurasia, essentially about the political economy of the incentive for Russia to organize its political economy eastward, and Japan has an important role. The Russians would ideally, as they pivot to the east and become less reliant on the West, not put all their eggs in the Chinese basket because of the asymmetry of their economies. So the Russians want to diversify, and this is also in Japan's interest — because if the Russians and the Japanese can connect their economies, then the Russians would be less compelled to take China's side against Japan in any bilateral dispute. The Japanese and the Russians have a common interest in promoting deeper economic ties, and this was commonly understood. But then the Ukraine war started and the Japanese jumped on it, and all of those considerations began to fall apart. Both sides had kind of agreed: we have to move forward with our economic connectivity even though we have a territorial dispute. But now that's all burned down. That's what I thought was quite significant about Putin's visit.
Putin's Mindset, World War II Memory, and Demonstrative Gestures
Ray McGovern: Let me just interject here. I spent decades putting myself in the position of people like Putin, rulers of Russia and the Soviet Union. I was a child of World War II — I was alive during the whole four or five years of it. I spent a lot of time in Russia as well as five years in Germany. If I'm looking at this as Putin does — Putin, whose big brother Vitya perished in the blockade of Leningrad, where not only the Nazis but the Finns kept that blockade on for over 900 days — I would be, as Putin is, mindful of that. And then the whole business about 27 million Soviet citizens dying in the war against the Nazis. Where were the Nazis? Oh, they were in Germany — but they're gone now, right? No, they're not. They're in Ukraine as well. And what about Nazi-like activity in Japan? These are the two — can we have a beat at the tune of 27 million? Since we are stronger than they are now, we have to show our strength by demonstrative gestures like visiting Etorofu and firing an Oreshnik or two as the situation warrants, just as a warning.
Nazism is something ever-present in Russian calculations. The Great Patriotic War — they call it that for patriotic reasons. It's not just a sobriquet they put on this damn war. And so now it looks like the US is receding. It's time for Putin to show the flag in places like — almost Nazi Japan, the way their prime minister is talking — and just kind of lay out the land in a demonstrative but cautious way so that the Japanese know their place. They know they come second to whatever the US wants. If the US wants to pull its missiles out of Japan to put them around Iran, they'll do it — and they have done it, and the same with South Korea. The big thing, of course, is China, and Russia and China are joined at the hip now.
So it's time to show the flag in demonstrative ways while at the same time not succumbing to those who say: "Vladimir Vladimirovich, for God's sake, don't be such a coward — finish them off in Ukraine." I think he really wants to avoid that. Number one, because it's not necessary. Number two, you don't want to provoke an unpredictable person with his fingers on the nuclear codes. That's my view anyway.
Escalation Risks and the Limits of Restraint
Glenn Diesen: Yeah, you often hear these comments — especially on the Russian hawk side — that it's time to teach the Europeans and Americans a lesson, not just out of vengeance but out of strategic necessity, to restore deterrence. But the counter-argument would be: as soon as the missiles are in the air, no one's going to have any escalation control anymore. Even the politicians making decisions won't be able to control this. Once that decision is made to teach the other side a lesson, it's a very dangerous place to go. People are oversimplifying when they say: just hit them a few times, strike and blow up a couple of weapons manufacturers in Germany, and the Europeans will step back. Perhaps that could happen — or they could go after Kaliningrad, and the nuclear weapons will be in the air before the weekend. There's a lot of risk here.
I'm glad the Russians are restrained so far, but I'm also worried that their restraint appears to be interpreted as weakness on NATO's side — that Russia doesn't dare do anything, we have Article 5, they're too weak. That's also dangerous.
On that, I did want to ask you about Lavrov's comments recently, because he has apparently formally asked the US State Department for evidence of US involvement in strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure — not near the front line, but deep inside Russia. Essentially making the point that the US is effectively at war with Russia. The anger is boiling over, and there's also a recognition that any restraint on Russia's side is simply seen as weakness in the West: Russia doesn't dare do anything, we have Article 5, they're too weak. This is also dangerous. How do you see this change in the rhetoric from Russia? Because they wouldn't bring these things up unless they were prepared to do something about it. If you bring it up, you have to back it up with force at some point. Or am I reading too much into this?
Ray McGovern: Well, who knows, Glenn. That is one school of thought, and as you know, I have not subscribed to it taken to its natural end. Medvedev, even Lavrov now, and Ryabkov — they're taking a much harder line. Lavrov, the foreign minister, has said: I've concluded that this whole Anchorage episode was just another deception, like Minsk, like Istanbul, like the promise not to expand NATO. Just all made out of the same cloth. There is no spirit of Anchorage anymore. And Rubio, three days later, says: you're right, there was never any understanding at Anchorage. Then, three days later, Putin says: there was an understanding at Anchorage, and it was violated. Now, I'm a Kremlinologist — I don't know how to put Lavrov's views together with Putin's and make a lot of sense out of it, other than to conclude there is a freedom of expression there, and that Putin sees some merit in people taking a harder line than he does. Look at Mishustin — he's threatening major consequences against Japan if it moves in certain directions.
What I'm saying is that I am overly influenced by this backdrop I've seen ever since Trump came in: this overriding, overweening desire on the part of Putin not to exacerbate a fellow who is totally unpredictable. Even on Ukraine, the last sentence is always: "We're ready to talk when other people are ready to meet our terms, but we are willing to talk, and the Americans sincerely want to help us — they can't help us right now." The rhetoric is of that nature.
US Deep State Involvement in Strikes on Russia
Now, on the ground, you have US intelligence enabling the firing of these drones and other missiles into deep Russia. How do you figure that out? Well, there is such a thing as the deep state, and Trump does not control it completely. That comes through in bar relief in the hearings about Dr. Fauci. Who ordered this? Was it just Dr. Fauci? Who ordered the cover-up? You have the head of the intelligence agencies — a woman named April Haines, Director of National Intelligence — running the cover-up. The cover-up of what? Of how the COVID-19 virus escaped from the Wuhan lab where Fauci had funded gain-of-function research. These senators are baffled. They say: who ordered that? Who's in charge here? The president — so there are forces here that are kind of autonomous in a way, and I think the Russians sort of agree to that.
When this bunch of drones hit the president's residence near Valdai at the very end of December, the Russians collected the control mechanism from one of these drones and very ostentatiously presented it to the US defense attaché in Moscow, saying: take this home. Make sure you find out the particulars about where this thing was targeted, and don't give us any more BS about it being targeted at some nearby weapons depot. It was targeted on the president's house. Verify that and get back to us.
That was about two months ago, as memory serves. What happened? Well, the CIA and the other technical people had the option of saying: they got us on this one — yeah, of course it was programmed right on that target, we thought he was there. Or they can obfuscate and say no, it wasn't. But the Russians know. The Russians know where it was targeted: the president's residence.
And there is this story about Trump being on the phone with Putin at the time, and Trump saying, "Oh, would you hold for a second? I've got to do something here." And that's apparently when those drones were sent. Now, I don't know if that's 100% true, but if it is true, then the Russians conceive that somebody — whether Trump himself or someone else — thought that Putin was there in that house near Valdai and wanted to assassinate him. It wouldn't be the first time the deep state did this kind of thing.
What I'm saying here is that Putin is especially cognizant of the fact that the president isn't necessarily in charge of everything and doesn't bless everything — doesn't even know about everything. I'm thinking now of Putin's famous remark, going back about seven years. He said: "You know, when new presidents come in, we expect a fresh start, and they say really good things initially. And then the men with the attaché cases and the big overcoats come in and sit them down and say: 'This is the way it works, Mr. President. You're not completely in charge. We're the deep state. Please understand that your predecessors had to learn the hard way sometimes, but we're telling you right up front.'" Putin says that. Is it true? I have to confess it took me a while to believe it, but yes, it is true.
And I think that's what's going on, and it makes Putin even more nervous. He only calls Trump when it's really necessary, and he can't be sure that Trump will do everything he wants. One example is Trump's inability — I think it is inability — to prevail on those in the CIA and the Defense Department who insist on giving Ukraine the wherewithal to target these depots and warehouse-type facilities inside Russia.
In a way, it's good that Putin is aware that Trump can't control everything. But in another way, my God — is that any better? It makes it even worse. And that, I think, accounts for Putin's caution.
I'll say one more time what I've said on your show before. I see Putin lining up his advisers — Lavrov, Medvedev, Dyukov, Ushakov — and saying: all right, look. You guys, or at least the military, say: why the hell don't we take out those manufacturing places in Ramstein, in Holland, and in other places where we know they're making those damn drones? Okay, so you think that's a good idea? Yeah, we ought to do that. Well, what do you think the chances are that Estonia or Finland or some other country — or Germany, where Ramstein is — would invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty: an attack on one is an attack on all? Five percent? Ten percent? Okay. And you — you're head of the psychological unit. What do you say about predictability on the part of Trump? Zero? Okay. So we have zero predictability on the part of Trump, and you guys are saying we ought to risk his reacting to an invocation of Article 5 of the NATO treaty — and that's only a 10% chance. That's too high. You don't want to take that risk when we're winning already, when we've sealed off maritime access to Ukraine, without which they have no economy, when we're winning in the field. Why would I take that 10% chance? We're not going to do it.
That's how I diagnose this thing so far. With these latest indignities, I do not rule out the fact that Putin will persuade himself: well, just one Oreshnik might give these people pause. And I don't see that Oreshnik being fired at London or any of the places in Germany or Holland — it'll be fired right at Ukraine, as has been the case. After all, the Russians are escalating. And that hopefully would give everybody some religion and say: oh, they could do that to us as well. Maybe they'd back off.
In other words, right now I'd say there's a 50/50 chance that Putin — in his own calculations, not because of great pressure from the Russian public, but saying: you know, these guys need to be taught a lesson — will not only go and visit the Kurils, but will send an Oreshnik into one of these decision-making centers in Kyiv. And maybe that would give them a lovely example of what we can do, and maybe it'll give them some religion. Meanwhile, we're winning, for God's sake. Let's not even take a 10% chance of getting NATO back together again.
Trump's Unpredictability and Escalation Paths
Glenn Diesen: It's an interesting point about Trump — whether he's being deceptive toward the Russians, as he has been toward Iran, or whether he's incompetent, or not in control at some level. You would think they would ask in Moscow: what's the difference for us? It's still a war. But you're probably right. What you're seeing now — the efforts to deter NATO — it seems this is being done by making the Ukrainians pay the cost: be more ruthless against Ukraine, pummel Kyiv, landlock the country, go after targets which were previously not targeted. We haven't seen the end of it. It wouldn't surprise me if Russian non-nuclear strategic weapons were put into greater use, and then essentially hope that this sends a message to the NATO countries.
Otherwise — and again, this is not advocacy, just recognition — it's not either strike Europe or not. There are also sabotage possibilities. Recently a manufacturing plant went up in smoke in Bulgaria, then in Italy. I have no information on whether this was sabotage or not, but it is an option if you want to go up the escalation ladder. A massive surprise attack I don't think is necessarily in the cards, but this gradual escalation — it is possible that this is what's happening. Again, I have no reports, no one saying anything to me, so I have no way of knowing.
I wanted to ask just one last question about possible paths to peace. The Europeans keep talking about an unconditional ceasefire, which is a non-starter. Ukraine, backed by Turkey, suggested a ceasefire in the Black Sea — but the way the Russians see it, the Ukrainians and NATO started a 40-day campaign striking Russian ships and conducting deep strikes, and now that Russia is retaliating, any peace proposal is just because the advantage has shifted, so they're not going to go with this. And of course the US proposed a deal in Anchorage, the Russians accepted, and then the Americans apparently walked away from their own deal. There have been very few details, but my question is: do you see any possibility of a negotiated end to this? Fighting this to the end looks like it would very likely end in a Russian victory, but as Professor John Mearsheimer often points out, it will be a very ugly victory — a landlocked Ukraine, destroyed, a dysfunctional rump state that couldn't threaten Russia. This is a horrible mess, not just for the Ukrainians but destabilizing for the Europeans and the Russians as well. Lavrov has also argued that the European demands for an immediate ceasefire are not acceptable — he argued that what's needed is a long-term, reliable, and sustainable solution. How do you read what Russia means by that?
Ray McGovern: Putin plays the long game and is cautious in the extreme. He's been criticized for that, but I think he's successfully rebuffed that criticism. He's on the offensive. He is escalating in Ukraine. And as we both believe, it's not to be excluded that the Avangard might be used for the first time in an operational mode. Those three earlier firings were experimental. Even Putin himself — that last one, where we hit a place where nobody really thought anything was there, that was deliberate because we wanted to measure the crater. We sent drones into that crater and they went straight up and — whoa, so that goes that deep? And that's the kind of granite? Okay, so now we know. Now we can use them operationally. And if they are being mass-produced, there's a formidable capability right there.
Anchorage, Trump's Limitations, and the Nuclear Question
Now, I'd like to talk about Anchorage just one more moment. It seems clear to me that at Anchorage, Putin thought there was a good chance he had prevailed. He had dissuaded Trump from calling for an immediate ceasefire. He had convinced Trump that Trump had the wherewithal to get the Europeans and Ukrainians in line, and let's deal. The latter didn't happen. At the final ceremony, as you'll recall, only Putin gave a real substantive summing-up of things, and he finished by saying: "Next time in Moscow." What was Trump's reaction? "Oh, that would be really hard to do." Here's the president of the United States hosting a summit, Putin says everything went quite well and next time in Moscow, and the president of the United States can't say: deal, you give us a date, we'll continue these discussions. No, he's got to say: oh, no, that would be an uphill stretch.
So what does Putin take away from that? That Trump is not 100% his own man. Maybe he's only 60% his own man. And that's big. Now, who are these people in the deep state making it possible for the Ukrainians to strike deep inside Russia? Are they the kind of people who might have enough people in the military to think they could use a nuclear weapon?
My fear about a nuclear weapon is much larger that the United States or Israel might use one — much more than in the Ukraine situation. So let's look at that. In extremis, can you predict what Trump might do? I can't. I don't think Putin can. In extremis, can you predict what Netanyahu will do before the September or October election? I can't. So how do I, as Putin, act? Very, very gingerly. I cause no big provocations. I tell the Iranians — me, Putin — I tell the Iranians: look, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the American president then, John Kennedy, said the main thing we have to do is prevent a situation where one nuclear power faces the other with a choice between humiliating defeat and using nuclear weapons. So Putin to the Supreme Leader, or whoever he talks to: you've got the upper hand now, right? You have put the Gulf states in their place. Don't sink one of those aircraft carriers, for God's sake. What would Trump do if you did that? Look, it's worked in Ukraine for us. It'll work for you. We'll give you lots of support. The Chinese will as well — very important intelligence and other support. Don't do anything really stupid that would face Israel or the United States with a choice between humiliating defeat and the use of nuclear weapons.
I don't see where Putin can be relaxed about that at all. And if a nuclear weapon were used in Iran, that would be almost as bad as if it were used by the US in Ukraine. All I'm saying here is I don't think this subject has been addressed adequately. What bothers me greatly is that when the discussion gets into this, very often people say: I don't want to think about that. But we have to think about that. And I think it's a godsend that Putin thinks about that all the time, in my view, and maybe we'll get through all this without the worst happening. But in my 70 years of watching this stuff, it's more likely that this could happen now than at any other time since we developed the bomb and used it on the Japanese people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Nuclear Deterrence, European Rhetoric, and the Long Game
Glenn Diesen: That's always been our key problem with nuclear deterrence — that it's such a powerful weapon that often it might not be credible that it would be used. But again, I think this is also a dangerous sentiment: that it would be so over the top that we shouldn't even think about it. Once we dismiss the possibility of nuclear weapons being used, it's more likely that they would be. People have to appreciate the nuclear peace — how it restrained all sides during the Cold War. This is why I'm very frightened, especially about the European rhetoric, because European leaders now refer to nuclear deterrence as nuclear blackmail: we can't let the Russians get away with nuclear blackmail, we have to call their bluff. They've become like a cult. This is just insane. You have to recognize the nuclear peace. You have to recognize that if the great powers do not have a credible deterrent, they will do something quite dramatic. The idea that we'll just call their bluff and Russia will capitulate — it's insane. It really is.
Ray McGovern: Glenn, you have said many times that you don't understand the Europeans. That has been a big affirmation for me, because I don't understand Europeans either. You are one. I lived there for over five years. So what's my takeaway? Well, neither does Putin. But he does know that he plays the long game. He does know — I'd give Macron less than a year. Scholz is already gone. Merz has the lowest approval rating of any German chancellor in history. The AfD is coming in, with a much more benign look toward Russia.
And one thing I'll say that nobody has mentioned: Putin, in one of his long Q&As — I think it was on May 9th — said: "Look, one of those Nord Stream pipelines is open. All I have to do is turn the valve, push a button, and you could get Russian gas again." Do you remember him saying that? Nobody pointed that out. What the hell is going on with these Germans? Are they so browbeaten that even in extremis economically, they're not going to take advantage of this side offer — hey, we'll open that thing and let you have gas again?
It reminds me of 1933, when a young German lawyer named Raimund Pretzel was studying to be a judge. As he watched what was going on after the Reichstag fire, he pointed out that the Germans reacted with Schafmichelkeit — sheepish submissiveness. I couldn't understand why this most cultivated, most well-educated people in Europe succumbed to the Third Reich. I can't understand why they still succumb — a good portion of them, not all of them anymore — to this notion that they have to bow and be subservient, and when the US cuts off their lifeline of gas for their industry and their homes, they act like sheep and submit.
Maybe that will change. But my God, it's an eye-opener for me. Last time I was stationed in Germany was 1980 — that's a long time. They still haven't learned much, in my view. All the more reason for Putin — who I think has the same conceptual problem as you and I have — to be really cautious and just watch what happens, because Merz and Macron will be gone, and maybe the people in these democratic socialist countries will start acting like democratic socialists and realize that their societal needs are being sacrificed on the altar of the military-industrial complex. And maybe, just maybe — you know better than I do — this will ameliorate the situation over a period of years. And I think that's what Putin thinks: in terms of a period of years. And I hope nobody assassinates him in the interim, because I don't know what would happen if Medvedev or somebody else came in and was less cautious.
Glenn Diesen: I think we would very quickly miss Putin. I always make this point that he is not one of the hardliners. A common comment was always that he was too liberal and too committed to integrating into the West along the Gorbachev common European home line. So: careful what you wish for, because you might just get it. Anyway, Ray, I want to thank you for coming on, and I also wanted to congratulate you again on your very well-deserved award.
Ray McGovern: Thank you very much, Glenn.