Michael McFaul: Trump Is Just 'Fine' with Mass Murder

Tim Miller (0:12)

Hello, and welcome to The Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome to the show a former US. Ambassador to Russia, a member of the National Security Council during the Obama administration.

He's now political science professor at Stanford. He's written 10 books. His last one, he told me in the green room, Autocrats vs Democrats, China, Russia, America and the New Global Disorder. It's Michael McFaul. How are you doing, sir?

Michael McFaul (0:34)

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

Tim Miller (0:35)

Well, shit. Much to talk about in your area of expertise this week. So I appreciate you giving us the time.

Michael McFaul (0:42)

Yeah.

Tim Miller (0:42)

I guess I wanted to start with the big picture before we go with the blow by blow. You posted this yesterday. If you haven't studied the history, culture, politics or language of these countries, and it's very convenient to have a theory of the world which asserts that all states behave alike. Unitary actors guided by rational calculations of self-interest, i.e. they're just like us, but they aren't. Putin does not think like us.

Why did you share that? Where are we at in the biggest picture as far as how Putin is looking at the scenario we're in right now?

Michael McFaul (1:13)

Well, I shared that in part because there's an academic tradition in international relations called realism. I don't think it's very realistic, but what I just described there is their theory. And there are folks in the Trump administration, around the Trump administration. I don't know about President Trump. I'm guessing he doesn't know what realism is. But they have this attitude that we're all just seeking our national interests and transactions. And this is the way the world is, like it or not, this is the way it is. And Putin is just like that.

And I don't think that's true for any country. Imagine having that theory for the United States of America, that leaders don't matter, ideas don't matter. We just have our rational national interests. And whether it's Trump or Obama, we behave the same. So that would be ludicrous in my mind to have that theory about us. But a lot of people have that about Putin. And it's just if we could just treat him nicer, do transactions that he likes, we'll get along with them, we'll end this war, and we can make a lot of money. And I was just pointing out that those theories tend to be championed by people that don't know much about other countries. And I realized there's a selection bias here, because I've lived many years of my life abroad, including in Russia, and I speak Russian, and I've met Putin many times. I've dealt with him, not lately, he doesn't really like me. He banned me from his country in 2014 But this notion that this is all about a transaction, you just give him another thing, you cut off assistance to Ukraine, he's gonna be our friend. You say Ukraine can never be in NATO, he's gonna be our friend. The latest rounds, buying his diesel fuel or cutting off the Ukrainians from our intelligence, treat him nicely and then he'll be our friend and he'll do things we want. That's not the Putin I know.

And tragically, that's the Putin that Trump thinks he knows, but I don't think it's ended very well for the Ukrainians, for the Europeans, or most importantly for me, for Americans and our national interests.

Tim Miller (3:16)

Trump might not know academic realism, but I think he does think he's doing a real estate deal.

SPEAKER_3 (3:21)

Yes.

Tim Miller (3:22)

Which in some ways is similar, right?

SPEAKER_3 (3:24)

Very related, yes.

Tim Miller (3:26)

Yeah, down market version of it, at least. So talk about what you think Putin's mindset is right now. I mean, he has been... They have been at a basic stalemate for quite a long time. Obviously, this did not go as he had hoped. He'd lost a lot of troops. Ukraine's technological advances have kind of run circles around them.

But he's in this moment now where it feels like he has geopolitical momentum, I guess, at the very least, with Trump. What he thinks in his mind right now is what is achievable or what they might want.

Michael McFaul (4:00)

Tragically, I think he's just locked into his original wartime objectives. He gave a big speech. It was 73 minutes long, two days before he launched his full-scale invasion.

I watched every word of it. I'm probably the only one that watched to the end. But I wanted to hear the whole thing.

In it, he outlined his strategy. He wanted to unite the Slavic people, because he doesn't think Ukrainians are a separate nation. They're just Russians with accents. He said that. Two, he wanted to rule by proxy the territory of Ukraine with his occupied forces. He uses horrible phrase to describe what he wanted to do with Zelensky, did not suffocation, so to get rid of the regime there. Three, he wanted to demilitarize Ukraine. And fourth, stop NATO. And when you go back and you look at that list, he's failed at all of them, right? He hasn't conquered Ukraine. As you just pointed out, he's stuck in a stalemate, and he's even losing territory in the last few weeks, by the way, on the front line, so that hasn't worked out.