Brian Berletic: Is the U.S. Setting a Trap for Russia in Alaska? (Transcript)

They’re trying to force, coerce, draw in Russia to accept a ceasefire so that the United States can have European forces. And they also said non-European forces, whoever that will be, move into Ukraine and freeze the conflict. They have no interest at all whatsoever in resolving this.

We have to understand that the conflict itself is a US War with Russia simply being fought through Ukraine. It is US Commanders at the top of the chain of command of the Ukrainian armed forces. It is the US Central Intelligence Agency overseeing Ukrainian intelligence agencies who are killing journalists, generals and others in the streets of Moscow who are coordinating attacks, using U.S. and European missiles to hit targets all across Russia.

So this isn’t something that’s suddenly going to change. This is simply another ploy by the United States to draw in and outmaneuver geopolitically an adversary. It still considers an adversary and will not give up in terms of encircling and containing.

Russian Concerns About Temporary Ceasefires

GLENN DIESEN: Well, I think this very much reflects Russia’s main concern, though, that anything that comes from the U.S. also, Trump, will be a temporary halt. Simply because the Russians are winning, which is why the Trump shift to a ceasefire was opened up a lot of ice in Moscow that perhaps this motivation by transforming relations wasn’t necessarily the case.

So again, they’re looking for any efforts by the US to temporarily halt the fighting, allow NATO to regroup, reorganize the Ukrainians, and then continue fighting later at some point in the future.

But I assume that if the Russians would accept this deal, it would have to be something that includes no NATO, no de facto NATO, in other words, no trainers and NATO weapon systems in Ukraine, and also no weapons flowing in. And I assume this would have to be the foundation of an agreement.

But so far, what we heard from the American media at least, everything is focused on territory. I’m not sure if this is just narrative control or if they simply are not really aware what they’re going after, but do you think the Russians would go for simply a territorial issue, freezing conflict, without actually addressing the source of the war, that is Ukraine being used as a proxy?

The U.S. Track Record of Betrayal

BRIAN BERLETIC: It’s hard to tell what the Russians will agree to, what their thinking is. We can only go off of what we see represented publicly. But the Trump administration itself, saying nothing of the US’s recent history of even just in regards to Russia trying to “reset” relations, while at the same time preparing to utterly betray any sort of trust Russia places into the United States.

The Trump administration itself has already used negotiations this year, earlier this year, to draw in Iran for a decapitation strike. The US spent months preparing Israel to carry out and use negotiations as. And we were warning about this, that they were going to use the negotiations to lower Iran’s guard, to draw them in and then have Israel carry out this attack that is essentially a US attack carried out through Israel so the US can absolve itself from both responsibility and retaliation once the conflict began, and then the US itself waded into the conflict almost immediately.

And now they’re doing the exact same thing to Russia. They’re asking Russia “come negotiate with us.” And this whole meeting between President Putin and President Trump in the United States should be of great concern to everyone.

The United States has a history of killing national leaders, as I just mentioned. They tried to decapitate the Iranian leadership, military and civilian leadership. They also killed civilian scientists. Last year, the US aided Israel in decapitating Hezbollah’s leadership. And President Trump himself, just earlier this week, was bragging about how Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was lured to Iraq and killed in a US drone strike he says he authorized in 2021.

Why anyone would entertain meeting with the United States when this is their track record is beyond me. I just hope Russia understands all of this, that they’re not blinded by the perception of success on the battlefield and some perceived leverage they have over the United States.

The US doesn’t see things in these terms. They have a single track mind. They have pursued this since the end of the Cold War, up until now, without deviation, without interruption, and they will continue to pursue it. And the things that they are willing to do as they face increasing setbacks drives them to increasing desperation and thus danger. So people saying they would never do anything to President Putin, maybe not, but I think now, more likely now than ever before.

A Pattern of Broken Agreements

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, well, there is a track record here also. If you look at this isolated case of Ukraine, I mean, all the deals that were made, I always make the point that you mentioned the European security architecture. Since the 90s, we actually had agreements with the Russians for a common European security architecture based on indivisible security and not dividing lines. But they walked back those in 2014.

It’s worth noting that when the government of Yanukovych, which was destabilized, the Europeans signed under this deal for a unity government, which they then broke within the next 24 hours. So they broke this agreement. Minsk1, Minsk2, Istanbul. So it’s hard to believe that they’re willing to give up Ukraine as this very powerful dagger in the side of Russia.

Indeed, we saw what happened in the Ukraine war, the attempt to activate Georgia as another front against Russia. I assume that this is the ideal purpose of Ukraine in the future, to have something hanging over which they can use against the Russians for the next time tensions increase.

So I’m not saying that Americans suddenly are now struck by their benign intentions. Trump wants to walk back empire indeed the fact that he shifted to demanding unconditional ceasefire, I think there’s a good indication that they wanted to do exactly the same thing, freeze it and keep this Ukrainian proxy, which it can use against Russia in the future.

But that being said, the Russians, they ignored America or Trump’s 50 day and then 10 day ultimatum. Putin didn’t even respond to it. And when Trump again with his nuclear bluff or sending this nuclear subs, we saw that the Russians then, well, for many reasons decided to move away from any restraints on intermediate missiles.

So they kind of shown that they’re not going to fall for pressure either if it’s sanctions or more weapons being shipped to Ukraine. So I assume that Trump wouldn’t go away from the unconditional ceasefire out of his good nature. But there must be a panic, though, because what is the option to accepting a very unfavorable deal?

I mean, all the important logistics centers are now being encircled. You see the collapse intensifying, essentially. Any bad deal today will be worse tomorrow. I’m just wondering what the mindset might be in Washington, because it doesn’t have to be good intention. They can still want to continue fighting Russia, but wouldn’t this be the best option for Washington now to just put an end to this where it is?

The Overarching Geopolitical Objective

BRIAN BERLETIC: No, because their overarching geopolitical objective is to contain Russia and China and everyone in between. And even now, as President Trump is inviting President Putin to go meet him in Alaska, the United States is still consolidating control over Azerbaijan and Armenia. We just saw that in the news. The corridor that was supposedly being leased to the United States of all countries for 99 years, this is literally in the RAND Corporation paper “Extending Russia” from 2019, which lists all of these options to encircle, contain and eventually collapse the Russian Federation.

And so even as peace is being proposed, they’re still going down the checklist checking off all of these options. They’re still using these options to place pressure on Russia and to encircle it. People have to understand this isn’t a misunderstanding. This isn’t “Biden’s war,” as President Trump continuously refers to it as, this is continuity of agenda. And the Trump administration had picked up exactly where the Biden administration left off. And it only is going to end in betrayal and tragedy for Russia if they were to fall for any of this.

Now, we remember about four months ago, I remember doing a video almost exactly like this. There was the proposed ceasefire. I think it pertained to energy infrastructure targets, and Russia agreed to it. But after carrying out an unprecedented strike on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and they said, “we will adhere to just that” in one month, all of the targets were already destroyed. They agreed to it. This bought them time. And I’m hoping that that is what Russia is doing right now. They are buying time. They are dragging this out.

You say, for the United States, things will never be better than they are now to make a deal. But at the end of the day, they do not want a deal. They want to prevail over Russia and over China, and all they want to do is pause it and restart it later. That does not suit Russia at all. So they have no incentive at all to agree to this as you say this would be a dagger in the side of Russia.

Regardless of the status of the conflict, whether it’s frozen or it continues, it is still hanging over Russia’s head. It still requires resources invested in Ukraine in the direction of Ukraine. And this prevents Russia from helping its other allies, Iran, Syria, which has now collapsed, by the way, and China, who the United States is clearly still aiming for, is still, as we speak, carrying out measures to ramp up conflict with both of these nations.

Division of Labor Strategy

The United States just demanded Lebanon disarm Hezbollah, a key ally of Iran in the region. They are eliminating Iran’s allies, isolating Iran. They want to remove Iran. And as I repeatedly say, this is about division of labor, that the US wants to remove itself from the Ukraine conflict. They want it to continue through Europe.

And so this is my fear is that the Trump administration is posing as wanting peace with Russia. They will even declare peace and walk away, but then they will have their European proxies take over. And they will do it in a way that makes it look like, well, the Europeans did this unilaterally against the wishes of the United States. There is this division between the US and Europe, and they will use that as a means of continuing the conflict.

And again, you mentioned Minsk1 and Minsk2. They admit now in retrospect, that this was all done just to delay, just to buy time, just to reorganize Ukraine, just to continue the conflict longer. So that is exactly what they are doing. And it’ll be up to Russia to maneuver through this minefield successfully.

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, that’s an interesting perspective. I remember back in 2015, 16.

BRIAN BERLETIC: You.

Geopolitical Strategy and European Proxies

GLENN DIESEN: After Crimea, there were a lot of American think tanks and different journals writing about how it would be possible to engage with Russia in Asia while containing it in Europe. We don’t want to go head to head against Russia in Asia because we need the Russians there to diversify, not become too dependent on China, and ideally also help to contain China to some extent.

But this new possible friendship with the Russians – recognizing that the world is multipolar as a reality, not as a desire or a policy – was a very difficult thing to bridge. But this could be a way to do it, I guess, if you continue to contain or confront Russia in Europe, but do it through the European proxy.

So you’re selling weapons to Europeans and the Europeans are doing this against Russia, not – the US has nothing to do with it, even though the US will probably still not just supply the weapons, they will still assist with the logistics, provide the intelligence, the strike data, and of course, have their military planners on the ground.

It’s interesting that this deal comes or this meeting comes within a week from what’s happening in Azerbaijan. The lease of this Zhangsuru corridor for 99 years. This is the only thing I’m wondering – who will it start a conflict with first? I’m assuming actually it will be the Iranians, who more or less said, irrespective of what Russia does, this is not going to be acceptable to them. So this is another conflict which is being sold as a peace agreement.

But if this is the goal of the Americans, then to avoid direct conflict with the Russians in Europe, but in order to try to work with them in other areas, how serious do you think the efforts to establish or improve bilateral relations are?

The US Pivot Strategy and Division of Labor

BRIAN BERLETIC: US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in February – this is another one that I repeat very often – delivered a directive to America’s European proxies in the region, and he said, “We need to pivot to China. You need to step up and do more in Europe.”

So in actuality, when you look at the details of what would be happening, as you mentioned, it will still be US Generals at the top of Ukraine’s armed forces chain of command. It’ll still be the CIA operating through Ukrainian intelligence. It’ll still be US weapons being funneled through the Europeans. It’s all just for appearance. It would still be a US proxy war.

But they want Europe to divert more resources away from the actual interests of the European people into this proxy war rather than the United States itself paying for this. That is the division of labor – that is a term Secretary Hegseth literally used in that directive in February.

His goal is to pivot. This is part of the strategic sequencing. Pivot to China, deal with China, and then circle back toward Russia. There is no partnership, there is no friendship. There is no future between the current interests that run the collective west and Russia. They want Russia to be dismantled and absorbed by the collective West.

There is no future for a sovereign Russia in the minds of the interests running the collective west now. And there won’t be until those interests are pushed aside and a new collection of interests replace them, which is something that I don’t foresee happening anytime in the near, intermediate, or even distant future.

The Trap of False Partnerships

This is not going to change the objective of the United States. It will not change the relationship between the US and Russia. And if Russia were to fall into this trap and work with the United States against China, for example, all they would be doing is setting the stage for their ultimate betrayal down the road.

They would buy themselves maybe some time, but without China helping them in the future, if that was removed from the board, they would be hopelessly outmatched in the future when the US finally circled back around them, which they have openly said is their objective.

Here’s the thing – I don’t understand why world leaders seem to constantly fall for this. They seem like they want to go back to the status quo so badly, they’re willing to believe almost anything.

I remember thinking, with a lot of confusion, why is Iran negotiating with the United States? They are not the arbiters of global nuclear programs. This is their plan. They have written it down on a piece of paper 16 years ago, and they have been implementing it step by step ever since.

When the US carried out its decapitation strike through Israel using US weapons, using US intelligence, they were killing Iranian military and scientific leaders in their homes, in civilian residential buildings. These people should have anticipated the attack during the negotiations. For some reason, they did not. And all of these people were killed in their beds with their families.

This is what worries me about negotiations between Russia and the United States – the fact that we have to stop and think: is Russia actually going to fall for this or not? The fact that it’s not a certainty that they’re not going to – that is what bothers me.

Territorial Negotiations and Media Narratives

GLENN DIESEN: If we look at the actual deal coming through, there’s not much information out about what the Americans proposed. We’ve also seen a lot of flawed – I wouldn’t necessarily call it disinformation, but at least wrong information coming out in the media.

If I’m assuming the issue of no NATO and limits on whatever weapons are being shipped into Ukraine, the territorial issue – that’s the main focus in the West. I would say it’s even out of narrative control, because we don’t want to talk about NATO, because then it undermines the “unprovoked invasion” argument. So we’d like to sell it as a war which is about territory.

The argument would be that there would be a territory swap – these were the words of Trump. What territories would actually be swapped here? I’m assuming Russia wants all of Donetsk and Donbass, and it’s not going to go away from Zaporizhzhia or Kherson.

But is it conceivable that the Russians will be willing to abandon claims to territory it doesn’t hold in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and willing to walk back the territory it has in Kharkov and Sumy? What could be behind these territorial discussions they’re having?

The Core Issue Beyond Territory

BRIAN BERLETIC: Any concession on Russia’s part regarding this would be a complete disaster for Russia because, as Russia itself has constantly stated over and over again, this is not just about territory. This is about the root cause of the conflict.

Even though they don’t spell it out, every time they say this, they’re talking about the United States waging a proxy war against Russia through Ukraine. That is the core of this issue.

Unfortunately, there are no promises the United States can make to Russia regarding the encroachment of NATO, the use of different weapons, arms control treaties, because these are all things the US has systematically, constantly, repeatedly violated.

President Trump in his first term walked away from the INF treaty. Bush Jr. walked away from an arms control treaty. Subsequent presidents, Democrats – supposedly the ideological opposites of these two presidents – then took the lack of these treaties and began positioning previously prohibited weapons in Europe all along Russia’s border.

Nothing the United States says can be trusted. There is nothing that the US can promise that can be trusted by Russia. And if Russia were to place any trust in the United States, it will end in disaster. It’ll end in the exact same way Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 did.

Strategic Calculations and Time Advantage

The only thing we can maybe say about Russia agreeing to anything is if maybe they feel like, just like with Minsk, they knew it was going to be betrayed. If they didn’t, then it is much more hopeless than maybe you or I even think.

They thought they could make better use of that time to prepare for the conflict that was inevitably coming. And they did. They made better use of that time than the US and NATO and they were more prepared when the conflict began in 2022.

Are they thinking along the same lines now? There will be a freeze, it’ll be betrayed obviously, but we can make better use of that time. We could take advantage of this pause. They will try to take advantage of the pause, but we’re better positioned. Maybe that is their line of thinking.

But again, they have to make that agreement with the full knowledge that it will be betrayed by the United States. And they have to understand that the United States itself will not betray it necessarily. They will use their proxies. They will create the illusion of distance, just like the US created distance between themselves and the Israelis before the Israelis carried out what essentially was a US decapitation strike against Iran.

They will do the exact same thing using Europe, using Ukraine, using any number of proxy client states the US maintains in the region along Russia’s periphery.

Russian Alternatives and Strategic Dilemmas

GLENN DIESEN: What is the Russian interest here though, or the Russian alternative? Because if they do not find an agreement that tries to lock in a new status quo, then the fact that the war would just continue to drag on and I guess they can’t go into the western parts of Ukraine either.

So at some point they would have to deal with the Americans in terms of finding an agreement because otherwise the US could just lean in and use the Ukrainians for guerrilla warfare or a weakened proxy for years to come. They can do attacks inside Russia. They can have it in a more or less soft stage of a minor war for a decade more.

So what would be the alternative? Because at the moment it’s not just a lot of killing, but it’s also walking down the possible path to nuclear war. The Europeans keep getting more and more reckless in their language and actions. So at some point it has to be ended somehow.

If you’re advising the Kremlin, what would you be recommending?

Strategic Geography and Military Objectives

BRIAN BERLETIC: Well, I would never presume to advise the Kremlin, however, I would just ask: why initiate the special military operation at all if you’re just going to stop where the current line of contact is now? What did that really accomplish strategically, geopolitically, in terms of the military layout of Europe and where Western Europe is meeting Russia? What did that even achieve?

Now, if Russia were to reach the Dnieper river, that is a significant natural barrier. Whatever is left west of the Dnieper river – would that be as much of a threat to Russia as Ukraine was before 2022? I would say no, it’s not.

I think that Russia could live with whatever is west of the Dnieper River. They could just see it as an extension of, say, Poland, which is already in NATO. They could even see that part of what’s left of Ukraine incorporated into NATO and then that would just bring it right back to the default status quo before this conflict began.

But now there is no longer a Ukrainian, a non-NATO Ukrainian proxy the US can use against Russia in the way that it has been all of these years. So I think that might be part of their reasoning.

Ideally, Russia assuming control over all of Ukraine – that would be the ideal outcome. Is that possible? I don’t know. I’m not privy to all of the information that the Kremlin has.

Military Industrial Considerations

Whether they feel they can do that or not, I think continuing the conflict or allowing the US to recuperate – they need to look at their own numbers in terms of military industrial production and ask themselves: if we pause this and we allow the United States and Europe to continue ramping up military industrial production, are we going to be able to maintain the advantage that we have now, or when this starts again, are we going to be at a significant disadvantage?

This was something they had to ask themselves before the Minsk agreements went into effect. The Ukrainian military at that time was a basket case. After years of NATO training and arming, they were a completely different military.

When Russia decided to initiate the special military operation, some people suggest that was a mistake to wait all of that time. It should have been done sooner. I think even President Putin said it should have been done sooner.

All of these factors depend on information that I do not necessarily have access to. But these are the factors I think that they’re looking at in the Kremlin when making a decision about what this looks like ideally and realistically to resolve.

The Trap of Neutrality Guarantees

GLENN DIESEN: I forgot his name, but I think it was an American general, or at least a high ranking military official or from intelligence who made the same comment that the worst mistake the Russians did was give the US eight years of building the Ukrainian army. And of course the 2014 one would have been very different.

But I think this, well, you have your finger on the relationship between the neutrality issue and territory. Because as the Russians said back, well, since 2014, but also Istanbul: if there will be a neutral Ukraine, then this is the ultimate objective. However, if they don’t trust that there’s a possibility to have a neutral Ukraine, then the solution is to make sure that Ukraine cannot be used as a real threat, which means strip it of its strategic territory and wreck the rest, which is again, a horrible fate for the Ukrainians.

But I’m assuming in Alaska they will have to talk about the neutrality issue. But if there is a commitment on the American side to, and for NATO to give this, you know, ironclad guarantee that there will not be any NATO expansion, wouldn’t this achieve the objectives of the Russians?

BRIAN BERLETIC: But what guarantee could the US have?

GLENN DIESEN: Or I meant ironclad, not iron fist.

The Agreement-Incapable United States

BRIAN BERLETIC: Yes, I mean, yes, but either way, either way it doesn’t matter because the US is agreement incapable, isn’t it? I think President Putin even referred to the US as that. And that is regardless of who is president and regardless of who runs Congress, because again, this is about continuity of agenda.

This is a policy that has been stated as US Foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, has persisted all the way up until now, and they are not going to move on this. The United States is fixated on global primacy. It permeates every aspect of foreign policy making and every aspect of what the United States does beyond its borders.

And you know, it would be great to imagine a Ukraine that is truly neutral, but the United States, and I warn about this all the time, the United States has a super weapon, and that is its ability to reach into a nation and politically interfere, to coerce and to capture it in ways the rest of the world has a very difficult time defending against.

The National Endowment for Democracy, which is still very much active and operating and still being funded despite rumors otherwise. It reaches into these countries and whatever political arrangement was created, they can overturn it. And they can overturn it in a way that appears to be done through democratic means, through elections.

The US is able to reliably and repeatedly fix in a way that produces an outcome for them. And it’s not by rigging the actual election process. It’s this ability to reach into a country, control the information space, to indoctrinate the population and to convince them that serving US interests are somehow in their own best interests, even when demonstrably it isn’t.

Creating a New International Order

And zooming out from the conflict in Ukraine, Russia, China, the rest of BRICS, the multipolar world, they need to understand that the United States obviously cannot be reasoned with. It cannot be negotiated with. The multipolar world needs to create an international order where the United States is just physically incapable of wielding this political control and military power.

They need to create definite lines that cannot be crossed. They need to create a reality that forces the United States either into isolation or to constructively cooperate with the rest of the world. Anything short of that is going to end in failure because again, the people currently driving US Foreign policy are immovable. They have a supremacist mindset.

Again, it is in their policy papers spanning years. It’s in all of the policy papers written years before the 2024 election even took place. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, that is those all people that are now in Trump’s current cabinet. And they all wrote out this as their policy. They are going to expand NATO. They are going to get Europe not to end the war in Ukraine, but to take over the war so they can pivot towards China. And these are all things the United States is now doing.

So if that calculus is not changed, nothing else can change, which is bringing us back to where we started in the beginning. The US Foreign policy objective is to eliminate all rivals, all peer and non peer, near peer competitors, to eliminate them. That is their policy. And there is no other policy.

So if they’re pretending to negotiate with you on something other than this, the elimination of Russia as a peer or near peer competitor, then it is just a short term ploy to buy them time to achieve their ultimate objective, which is to eliminate Russia as a peer or near peer competitor. And the same goes for China, Iran and everybody else.

Trump’s Shifting Narrative on Ukraine

GLENN DIESEN: I think that’s one of the things that made me lose hope in Trump’s goal of actually ending the Ukraine war. That is when he started, in the beginning of his presidency, or at least during the election campaign, he was talking a lot about how this, at least on two occasions, how the war started as a result of NATO expansion, he tried to put at the feet of President Biden, but this had been a huge mistake. And as Hegseth said, there will be no NATO, there will have to be neutrality.

But then suddenly he did this interesting shift. Suddenly he keeps talking about being a mediator for a Ukraine, Russia war. But this is not a Ukraine, Russia war alone. Once we begin to conceptualize it as a Ukraine, Russia war and America being the mediator, as you say, you take away the core, you remove the core of what has to be in a solution, which is addressing the broken European security architecture where you do have NATO, which continues to roll closer and closer to the Russian borders.

The Strange Choice of Alaska

My last question, though, is about the location of this. I knew it wouldn’t be in Europe because in Europe, we don’t have any neutral countries anymore. There’s no more Helsinki, there’s no Geneva. You know, these are all. They’ve all given up on their neutral status. Also, we don’t have diplomacy in Europe either. We don’t even talk to the Russians. So it couldn’t be Europe. That was kind of evident.

Also, given that this is a NATO Russia war at the core, I think it would have been a strange thing. I thought, yeah, Istanbul could be a possibility, even though obviously Turkey is also participating in this war as a NATO member, but most likely would be the UAE or one of the Gulf states, but Alaska.

What do you make of this? This is a curious. I did not see that coming. I thought that was very strange indeed. Putin then traveling to America in the middle of a, well, a proxy war between the two countries. It’s very, very strange. I was wondering how you make sense of this.

An Inconceivable Security Risk

BRIAN BERLETIC: It’s almost inconceivable. I have no idea why Russia would agree to this unless ultimately they have no intention of attending this meeting. It is a huge security risk. People who say they would never even think about doing anything to President Putin because they have nuclear weapons and they would retaliate. This is what everybody said about using U.S. and European cruise air launched cruise missiles against targets all across Russia. And yet now that has become more or less routine.

And again, it’s. You said it’s essentially, it’s a US War against Russia. It’s the United States killing Russians in Ukraine. It is the United States killing Russians inside of Russia. It was the United States who organized this campaign to invade into Belgorod, across the border, into what is indisputably Russian territory. And now President Putin is going to go meet the President of the United States in the United States. It is inconceivable. It makes absolutely no sense. It is such a huge risk.

Again, the United States has no intention at all of budging on anything. This is all theater. And to take such a tremendous risk just to participate in this theater, it just doesn’t make any sense on any level. And of course, there’s a possibility nothing at all will happen. But I think the possibility of something happening. President Putin’s safety and security being compromised is very high.

And the United States doesn’t have to do anything directly. They have a global army of proxies that can be tasked to do this and give the United States plausible deniability. The President of the United States himself while he was campaigning, wasn’t even safe from gunfire and other acts of violence. So how can they guarantee the safety of the Russian president even if they wanted to, which I don’t think that they want to?

And again, anything that does happen could have been co organized with the US itself. It’s essentially a trap. It is the same trap that was laid for Iran. And even as President Putin is being invited to the United States, we just listened to the Trump administration talking about arresting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, an ally of Russia. They’re dismantling Hezbollah, they’re still targeting Iran. They’re still talking about encircling and containing China. All of these are Russian allies. And we mentioned Armenia and Azerbaijan.

So this process of encircling and containing the multipolar world, including Russia, continues unabated. And now President Putin is talking about visiting the United States itself. I just don’t understand it. I hope nothing happens. But at this point, considering the unprecedented steps the US has taken recently, especially in regards to Iran, should give everybody misgivings about this. Honestly, it is one of these junctures where I hope and pray that I’m wrong.

The Symbolism of Alaska

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, it seems a bit crazy that something could be done to the Russian president while he’s there. On the other hand, a few weeks ago there was an attack on Russia’s nuclear deterrent. So I guess, yeah, well, you can’t dismiss that this will be a massive security risk. But even if he’s now going to Alaska, wouldn’t they need more than a few days to organize the security on the Russian side? I mean, this seems again, it seems very strange, but I was wondering the symbolism of this.

You think it’s about this again, the bilateral issue, that the purpose is to improve bilateral relations. So, you know, meeting at the border between the Russians and the Americans as a way of, I guess, transforming relations to. Even if the United States want to continue this proxy war against the Russians for decades to come, but they want to do it through the Europeans. As I said before, the goal then would be to be able to engage with the Russians in Asia while still confront them through a European proxy in Europe. Could this fall in the same category as, you know, you soften up relations in the east while working more through the Europeans in the West.

The Same Trap, Different Dagger

BRIAN BERLETIC: But ultimately it is still a trap to subordinate and dissolve the Russian Federation. So why would they walk into that trap? That’s what doesn’t make any sense about any of this. The United States, nothing about its foreign policy has changed in regards to its overall objective, which is again, is to eliminate all peer near peer competitors. They have no interest in working with Russia.

The only interest they might have is appearing to want to work with Russia to lure them in, into a state of lower guard so that they can drive the dagger in, as they have done so many times in the past. As a matter of fact, the history, especially in the 21st century of US Russian relations is the US luring Russia in and then driving the dagger in over and over and over again. This will not be any different.

The only thing that could be different is how significant and how damaging the dagger is this time when it’s driven in. Because, as you can see, the United States realizes that there is a shift in global power and that their time is very limited. And this has spurred them onto doing things much more reckless.

And again, Iran, just this year, earlier this year, that is an example of something. If the US felt it had time, they would have given that more time. They would want conditions to be more ideal before launching that type of military operation against Iran. Ideally, they would hope to be able to topple Iran without such a military operation, but they are out of time.

And so how does that desperation translate in regards to this meeting and this maneuvering by the United States, which is disingenuous? How does it translate to what the US is doing with Russia in regards to this supposed meeting and everything that follows? That is the question.

Diplomatic Skepticism and Cautious Optimism

GLENN DIESEN: Well, I guess by Friday we’ll know what they’ve been discussing. Obviously, a lot of things have to happen. Well, usually these discussions happen behind closed doors, but I think even now because of the climate, not just within the political west, but also within the United States, indeed, talking with the Russians is a huge, very controversial thing in Europe.

To begin with, the idea of finishing the war on unfavorable terms will be fought tooth and nail here. So I can understand why there’s a lot of secrecy around this. But no, I’m very curious to see what they’re actually coming forward with or if Trump will then change the terms.

Whatever. Ushakov, he made the comment, Yuri Ushakov, that the proposal put forth by the Americans seemed acceptable. I wouldn’t dismiss that. They show up in Alaska and there’s a different agreement there.

But again, I’ve grown very cynical over the past few years, especially the past three and a half years in terms of what can be achieved. But it would be… Yeah. I hope you’re wrong. Very much so. But I very much fear that you are correct.

So yeah, Brian Berletic, as always, thank you so much for sharing your insights.

BRIAN BERLETIC: Thank you.

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