Bloggers Note: Anne Applebaum, to discuss Ukraine and Russia
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On today’s episode of Leading, Rory and Alastair are joined by American-Polish journalist and historian Anne Applebaum, to discuss: What constitutes an autocratic state? How did populism come to dominate global politics from 2012-2014? When and how will the war in Ukraine end? 00:32 Anne’s relationship with Eastern Europe 02:34 How Putin made Russia a dictatorship 05:31 ‘Londongrad’ and Russian influence in the West 23:51 Being married to the Polish foreign minister 25:30 Populism and the link to autocracy 30:12 Viktor Orbán 36:28 How does the Ukraine war end? 38:18 How social media changed how we talk about politics 43:45 Debrief
TRANSCRIPT
historian journalist that both of us have known for quite a long time by the name of Anne Apple bound and
particularly
interesting at the moment because she's written many books but her
latest is about well it's called autocracy Inc and it speaks to a lot of
the
things that we've talked about for some time I suspect the name Putin
may come up quite a lot I suspect that Ukraine may come up quite a lot I
bet
populism may come up quite a lot I bet Trump may come up quite a lot now an i want to start by asking you quite a big
question
but allows you to tell us something about yourself and your life and
that is if you could give us the various chapters of your relationship
with Eastern Europe I thought you were going to ask for my relationship to to a more complex relationship but no I my
first experience with Eastern Europe was a trip as a student to the Soviet Union in the 1980s when it was still the
Soviet Union and I actually now in retrospect feel lucky that I was one of the last generations of students who did
see it because a couple of years later it was already different uh I then lived in Poland in
1989 and watched 1990 and watched the transition year so that's kind of part
two part three um I married somebody who became a Polish politician so had an
Insider view to how complex that is um
uh and that there was a sort of happy part of that and then a less happy part of that and then maybe chapter 4 is I
watched Poland be almost taken over by an autocratic populist party that was
trying to undermine the political system and then maybe chapter five is then I watched a kind of broad Coalition
pro-democracy Coalition win an election in October so we have at the moment we're at the Happy Endings phase but of
course life goes on and it could go the other way tell us a little bit you said married a politician was a happy part
and a less happy part to that what did you mean by that well politics changed um in the some like around
2012 2013 2014 and you will both know this too the way that people talked
about politics and the rise in the level of scorn for politicians and the focus
on everything you do in your life and you know when you walk out the door you have to worry about who's going to take
your picture and how they're going to use it um the all-encompassing nature of media change the you know it sort of
made it much less fun than it had been a few years earlier I was interested that in the the the name puon didn't come up
in your account of your relationship is that because you're trying to block it out a bit it feels to me that's a very
very important part of your relationship with Eastern Europe yes I mean it's not really um I mean I was thinking about my
personal relationship I mean it's a I suppose my I'm aware I I became aware of
Putin and who he was very early and I suppose I've written a lot about him and I did start you know I did feel from the
moment he was appointed that he I worried about him as a as as somebody who bragged about and talked about his
past in the KGB he talked about himself you know using the language of sort of leninism about about about himself and
and how important the secret police were even even when he was uh uh when he was president so I worried about what he was
going to do and then I almost the first thing he did actually was he when he became head of the FSB which was the the
new KGB he put a portrait of Yuri and dropof up in the old in the in the
building and and dropup was famous for one thing when he became head of the KGB in the 1980s uh he was the one who led
the first really harsh Crackdown on what was then a really tiny wasn't even a
democracy movement it was just little tiny dissident groups andropov had been the head of the Moscow Embassy in
Budapest in 1956 and he was obsessed with this idea that you need to crush the opposition and when I saw Putin do
that I thought right that's that's that's which way it was going and and it did so you you were born in America but
you
spent a lot of time in Britain married as you say now to a Polish
politician who's also well known in Britain went to Rory's old
school part of the bullingdon I believe when he was Oxford University so let's just set him in the in the UK context as
well what did you think and how did you feel about the way that we and I'm I
mean we as in the Blair government but also we the West handled Putin when he when it first became clear that he was
going to be president were we too soft were we were we taken in so people were too willing
to believe that there was a way to trade with Russia neutrally in other words
that we can have just an economic relationship with them and that the politics of Russia won't ever affect
that we were also far too willing to allow our our financial institutions to
be used by what we came to be known as the Russian oligarchs to essentially
steal and launder their money and to hide it whether they hid it in Anonymous companies or offshore accounts or indeed
London property we were much too willing to accept that and we somehow assumed
that it wouldn't affect us that it was somehow you know we could allow this to happen and it was you know it was kind
of
their problem over there and there would be no impact on us but I'm
afraid there was an impact on us and it was corrupting you studied at
Yale and as
you say you you went to Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall so there must have been a a strange shift
from I suppose a kind of the Cold War mentality of the 1980s and you would have seen American anti-communism you
then will have spent more and more time in Britain in in the '90s and the and the 2000s did you find a distinctive British
view of central EAS Europe that was different to an American view was there a form of British naivity or American
naivity
what was the strength and weaknesses of the kind of establishment views
of those two countries during that period the phenomenon of London grad
has
no American equivalent so the the feeling that you had it one by it's not really the 990s it's later you that you
had in London that there there's kind of Russian money pouring in and Russians
dominating the art world and you know Russians in m nightsbridge and Mayfair I
mean I don't think there's exact us equivalent to that sort of felt like London was the place that the oligarchy
made its home um and some of that might just be proximity and you have some nice houses here that kind of thing um but
some of it obviously was this is the where the you know it's not a very nice word but where the enablers were you
know the accountants and the lawyers and the and the and the property dealers and so on um and clearly the law made it
possible or made it more likely that I don't know that Boris barzowski would live here or that um or or that
Abramovich would be here is sort of history there certainly bits of the kind of British establishment that often
thinks America is is too black and white about the world too confrontational I guess we probably would have taken that
view about the Iraq War we probably many people took that view around the Cold War particularly the British left is
that something that you you picked up on that that was a bits of British political culture which tended not to
want to get into to a confrontational relationship with Russia I mean that's a that's that's it's that's more of a
German problem you know the Germans really really really don't want any confrontation with Russia and that must
be some deep historical kind of psychosis here actually I mean actually one of the things I liked about Britain
you know in the in the 80s and 90s um was I liked the clarity not was this is
not just about this more about Eastern Europe than Russia you know the the O the welcoming uh attitude at least in
the
beginning towards the idea of integration of Central Europe into
Western Europe you know the sort of positive feeling and the the feeling
that the end of Communism was good and that we were going to be a country that that led the way in in in bringing down
that system and all the British advisers who went over there and I mean I that was a that felt to me very positive and
maybe the naive T it wasn't exactly naive T it was B more cynical than that but maybe the um the the the attitude
towards Russia you know in the case of Russia it was almost the there's an American expression the soft
bigotry of low expectations you know we just assume the Russians are immoral and so if they come here and spend their
money
in ugly ways or if they kill people in central London well that's just
what Russians do and I I think it took a long time for people here to
understand as I said that how how corrupting that was and and ultimately how dangerous but I liked the British
attitude towards Central and Eastern Europe um and I liked the idea that that
you
know that Britain was an open welcoming place as I said initially but
the word you used was enablers the enablers whether that be
and in a sense your latest book is autocracy Inc sort of speaks to this theme of of kind of global networks
where the policy makers and the law enforcement agencies to some extent are kind of turning Blind Eye to stuff that
they deep down know is going on and know as you say is corrupting and as that
game has gone on and I think for the Russians part it has been a game they must look back at that and think they
were winning that game um not only did they think they were winning it um they
they saw it as evidence of hypocrisy and so actually this is I learned about
money laundering from the Russian opposition it was the Russian opposition who were watching this stuff happen and
who became very cynical about Western democracy because they said you guys talk about human rights you know and you
talk about the rule of law but then you let all this stolen money flow through the city of London not only the city of
London but it was it was somehow visible particularly visible in the city of London so do you really believe what you
say you believe so it began it it began which a fa point I mean of course it was a fair point I mean I I started writing
about kleptocracy and the problem of um you know of of anonymous companies and so on you know a decade ago inspired by
them I mean my understanding of autocratic regimes has often come from their opponents who who of course
analyze
them and know them very well and the Russian opposition were very clear
about this a decade ago or more this word hypocrisy is is very
interesting
isn't it because it's true of the way in which many many regimes view US view Us
in the United States you know they will say you talk about human rights but you're doing this in Yemen or you're
doing this in Iraq or you're doing this in Israel or I've met African leaders say you know you claim to care about
whatever you're talking about how we treat our opposition but you're still giving us development Aid and those big
tropes
going all the way back to the Soviet Union of saying you know you claim
care about civil rights but look at how you're treating people in own
country Etc
so as autocracies build an argument against democracy it's always been true that hypocrisy is the central allegation
and has been for 100 years yes I mean there's something about foreign policy that is almost inherently involves
hypocrisy because you need to deal with people who you disagree with and I don't sort of and I don't disagree with that I
mean my argument in my book is not that we should not speak to dictatorships or not deal with them or not have any trade
with them it's just to be clear about who they are and of course the hypocrisy argument works the other way I mean the
Russians go around the world talking about Western imperialism and yet they have just launched the most bloody and
brutal Imperial War of this Century uh you know and they are they you know they
and they talk about conquering neighboring Nations and using language we haven't heard since the 19th century
so there's plenty of hypocrisy to go around and as I said it's almost a a given I mean I think it was this
particular it was the you know it was it was the the money and the the way in
which the the Russians perceived that the money was not only corrupting Russia but was corrupting us that I think
surpris how how did it corrupt us so just to sort of spill that out in a little bit more detail so I I suppose
the benign way as well you know which presumably the optimists were saying which is well it's going to be bring a
lot of money into London and which it did yeah give us the bad side how did it corrupt us so first of all I know this
story a little bit better in the US than I know it here but the the vehicles that are used to hide money from tax you know
or from you know your your your regime back home are also often the same vehicles that are used to hide money in
politics so if you want to donate money to a political cause and you want to do it anonymously there the the same ways
you know the the the the vehicles that are set up to do it are are there in the US is actually a huge problem and you
know there's a way in which the modern autocracies operate as opaque untransparent political systems where
people have power and they have money and you don't really know why and that's that's that's the that's the source of
their power it's the source of what makes people afraid of them and the degree to which our systems have also
become like that and that people you know people can become wealthy in strange ways and um and that there's a
lack of transparency in the system and that money can be hidden and so on and our politicians effectively are becoming
corrupt our political parties in Britain and the US are being bought by interest I don't I don't think everybody has been
bought but you if you are determined to try to buy something somebody um and if somebody is interested in being bought
there are obviously ways to do it funny life in the UK it's often very on very low levels it's very small amounts of
money you know to know you're you're you're you're a member of the conservative friends of Russia or
something
and somebody takes you to dinner I mean it's sort of you know whereas
it can be quite spectacular elsewhere I mean if you think about the
most famous example actually is the former German Chancellor Gard schroer who left office and almost immediately
afterwards went to work for the Russian gas industry and has been doing so ever since um and you can of course find
examples of American politicians who leave and and go and work for all kinds of dictators usually in the form of a
lobbying organization or a PR Company actually I think in the US there's also there are so many hidden ways to donate
money now I mean we have this pack system um political action committees and we don't really know who gives money
to
them in some cases even though it's I mean it's technically illegal for
foreigners to give money but you know a rush with a US passport who
some
mysteriously gets a lot of money from his uncle and donates it to a political party I mean that's probably legal
political funding here one of the best known routs for buying political influence has been the presence of
Russian the Russian oligarchs that you're talking about at particularly conservative party fundraisers where
people like Boris Johnson literally Hawk themselves out to go and play tennis with these yes that was a famous example
is
that a form of corruption I mean corruption is a you know corruption is
defined differently in different countries but it's it's certainly a
form
of the Russians seeking to buy influence not all of it is illegal I mean there's also another form of influence which is
there are parts of the business Community here and famously again in Germany you know or in the US who do so
much business with Russia that they also become def in in fact lobbyists for the
regime and that mean in Germany there's you know famously the German gas industry is very keen on having a good
relationship with or was keen on it uh and was keen on having a relationship with Russia and that was because it was
in their interest to do so so in the r in the way the Russians bought their way into the German establishment that way
there's a version of that here I mean here it's a little bit you know because the city is so big and the financial
volumes are so huge you know I'm not suggesting that the Russians corrupted all of it but but you know you can you
can you can make friends for yourself I mean there's a there's a third thing that the Russians do which may have
happened here which is they create business opportunities for
politicians they want to encourage or their friends and so in Italy for example the salvini's political party
there was a businessman who was close to salvini who was offered some business deals in Russia it looks like bar lone
was at one point offered some business deals in Russia you know it's not illegal there's no there's no it's not
like someone's passing a bribe in a brown envelope to one of those politicians but it's a way of
influencing them curring favor and of course there's clearly there are a couple of figures close to farage who
are who who who were in that position help us understand the differences between uh these donations from
different countries so I guess somebody listening might say well there are also political donations and business
opportunities being provided by people who have very strong views on Israel or there are political opportunities and
donations being provided by people who are close to China close to Saudi is there some way of understanding the
difference between pro- Russian pro-israeli pro- Saudi pro-chinese money in this context all of them could have a
you know you could imagine negative effects in in in any of those circumstances um I mean the I think you
know you want to look at what's the ultimate goal you know is the goal for
example to perpetuate an autocratic regime that's then going to cause us trouble in other ways and so looking
back on the long relationship with Russia we may one day say this about China by the way um um looking back on the long
relationship with Russia I mean you know were we creating the monster that then
invaded Ukraine um created hu Havoc caused a security crisis for all of
Europe and possibly eventually for the UK as well you know did we feed into something that eventually came back to
haunt us so again it's not only about internal corruption or you know it's also about what was the long-term impact
of that of that relationship I mean you know I guess guess the United States probably has there are plenty of wealthy
Americans in London who have the ear of various politicians too but it doesn't seem very likely at least at this exact
second that we are by cultivating a relationship with the United States that Britain is creating a security threat
that will haunt it later on so there's there's that aspect of it as well but but that that could I presume be true
for Israel could be truth of Saudi Arabia could be true of China yeah yeah I mean I'm not I'm not I'm not picking
on Russia in my in fact my book is about the relationship between these autocracies the networks networks there
have been some amazing books written about this remember Oliver buo Butler the world the one that you talked about
Tom Burgess Tom burges Tom Burgess kopia kpopia and this is we've kind of all turned a blind Blind Eye really because
I mean I remember first reading Oliver bu's book and thinking oh my God this is like this is all here and yet it didn't
really make that much of an impact on the political debate I don't think it's one of my favorite subjects I mean
why this hasn't why doesn't it I mean because there there are other kinds of impacts so why can't anybody afford to
live in London you know why is so much of Central London bought up by people who were using London property as a form
of wealth storage or money laundering or even just or insurance policy or insurance policy why why wasn't there a
a Citywide Revolt led by people in their late 20s who can't afford property I don't know I mean I have a number of
theories I don't have a I don't have a full explanation and uh one reason is because it's so complicated I mean it's
funny kpopia it's a book the book by former ft journalist which I reviewed is
an excellent book it's brilliantly reported it's also very hard to follow at times because well it's complicated
it's
very complicated you know we're talking about money that goes around
the world you know in nine seconds and before it that's the first piece
of it
and so it's hard to understand it's hard to understand how it relates to you and your inability to afford a flat and made
a veil you know but part of the job of politics right this is a political podcast part of the job of politics is
to ensure that people do understand those links do understand the impact that's having on people's life but it it
sort of feels like because it's so complicated and probably because we did kind of enable as we went that it's just
too complicated to explain so you sort of turn a blind eye let me just say a couple of specifics should Abramovic
have been allowed to buy Chelsea Football Club that's one should Lebeda have been allowed to become quite
a ser is significant player in the British media landscape so I probably don't have as strong feelings about
football as you do you know or as deep a knowledge of what other I don't really know who else owns football clubs and
whether they're nice upstanding people or not um probably you could say before
aramov was allowed to do anything we should have known where his money came from and so in the way that you would
ask if somebody was buying any big company you know what is what's the origin of their money but it's pretty
obvious why a Russian oligarch might want a Premier League Football Club of course know he wants he wants to launder
himself into respectability you know he wants to make all that money look you know he's now he became a benign figure
I was the in fact I think the only Premier League football match I've ever
been to was a Chelsea match and Abramovic was there and people cheered him when he walked into the stadium so
this
something I so for listeners who don't know this as well as you do how
did these people make their money how did a RIT make money how Le make
who are
they why why should we be worried it depends I mean Abramovich actually I don't know the full story um but very
often they they made money through their proximity to power so that what an
oligarch is in Russia it's somebody who you know they haven't earned their money by inventing some new thing and climbing
their way up the ladder and you know borrowing money from the bank and creating I mean they were given access
to money in some cases they were given roles in state companies I mean it's I I'm now I'm now oversimplifying I mean
they're they're all different am I right in saying some of the cases in London that they've taken against each other
make
it pretty clear that they were connected some of them to organized
crime because some of these cases they're literally saying this person
was
my
godfather and this is a traditional Mafia relationship and this is how
much I should have given him and not given him and this was the
protection I
required yes I mean so so much of the money in Russia was MAF I mean Mafia is also a weird word because when the mafia
is the state you know do you talk talk about it as the mafia or do you call it something else again we're we're still
quite reluctant to look at Putin and call it a mafia state in the way that
say Kasparov Gary Kasparov does and I'm very happy to call it him Mafia I know you are but but it's like it's like we
still I think what this is where I think we need to get into this sort of battle between democracies and and dictatorship
autocracies because I still think that we sometimes want to apply the judgments
about democracies to the way that these these guys operate even now even with
Ukraine you will still say that you know Sergey lavro says something and it's
like he's well he's the foreign minister of Russia as opposed to he's part of this kind of what you would Define as a
mafia State I mean this but this is back to your question about hypocrisy and diplomacy I mean you know there's some
at some level maybe somebody has to deal with Sergey lavro at a meeting and so they don't want to say to the person
they
have to have a meeting with you know we think you're a criminal but
it's nevertheless useful to remember that they're criminals
here's interesting you talked about your your role as the the wife of a a current
foreign minister uh radislav Sakowski in Poland do you do your views do you feel
you ever have to tailor your views because he is now in this very sensitive diplomatic position well fortunately um
there is no role in the Polish Constitution for the foreign Minister's Wife correct so I don't actually really
have to do anything I mean in terms of you know participating the other fortunate thing was the one issue where
he is you know he's now very centrally involved and plays a large role uh
happens to be an issue that I've been writing about for a decade which is Ukraine yeah in fact in my discussion of
my
relationship with Eastern Europe I the I didn't mention Putin I also
didn't say Ukraine which I've been I went to for the first time in 1990
and have been
going ever since and fortunately we agree with each other and the arguments that he is now making are ones I've been
making for a long time so I don't really feel that I have to tailor okay what I say to you know to him but I think you
get
attacked more because of so for example I think you're on one of the
lists of people who I think you're you're officially defined as a
russophobe by the I think I've been banned from going to Russia which it's weird when that happened I became it
made me sort of sad I used to spend a lot of time in Russia I'm also banned you're also ban oh well you Cann go
together we Cann not go not spend holidays in Siberia together but I did spend a lot of time there at one point
so so it's sad I probably attract more anger and you know hatred and trolling
because of that yeah and people attack me for it and so on but it feels to me that I because I had carved out my
position on these matters you know for the last decade it doesn't bother you it doesn't that doesn't it doesn't bother
him I mean I'm trying to think if there may be other unrelated issues where I wouldn't say anything because but I off
the
top of my head I'm not thinking of it your latest work has been on
autocracy but before that you did a lot of work on populism and I'm I
wonder
whether you could help us understand roughly speaking what is democracy what's popularism what's
autocracy
and what's the relationship between this thing we call populism and
this thing we call autocracy that's a great question the word populism
is one
I
don't like I mean sometimes you have to use it because there's there
aren't really other words but it has had a lot of different meanings I
mean the US
there's
a populist movement in the 19th century which is completely different
from the populist movement that we're talking about now but think about
your
work
on Poland and Hungary for example no no I understand I but I was going
to say that so it's a word that we've come to use what we really mean um
is
movements that are anti-democratic in some way so autoc I use the Expression
autocratic populism because I can't think of a of of a better of a better phrase they can be so-called far right
or they can be so-called far left so you had an autocratic populist movement in Venezuela led by Hugo Chavez and that
also the purpose of that movement was eventually to dismantle the state so these are political movements that are
in
they are part of the democratic system they seek to win elections
democratically I mean Victor orbon won his election no question
democratically
the law and Justice party in Poland in 2015 won democratically but when they took power they began to change the
system to ensure that they would never lose again um and and often there are
Clues as they're running for election you know any party that talks about itself is the only true party we the
true poles or we're the real hungarians or we're the real British people as opposed to the elites and the foreigners
and the agents and the Traders that's an indication that they don't see themselves as having legitimate
competitors and if you don't have legitimate competitors then why should you why should you leave the electoral
system in place so that you know your the the Traders and the foreigners can defeat you four years from now um and so
the so so up on taking power they begin to dismantle um the system and that's what that to me is what autocratic
populism is and that's different by the way from just being anti-immigration or having right-wing views and then you've
moved on from those very powerful writing about Poland and Hungary which are Democratic states going in a
populist authoritarian direction towards now discussing States like Russia and China which I guess are in those are
autocracies I mean those are those are not illiberal democracies and so those are political systems where in a way the
the the the the dismantling of the state has been completed or you know and the and the the ruling party or the ruling
Elite or the ruling president or dictator has no opposition he has no
legitimate political opposition uh he has no checks and balances but they they used these sort of pseudo Democratic
sure
they could they will have I mean in Russia there are endless fake
political parties or there's you know there are sort of Elections fake
elections in fact
and in practice they don't have checks and balances and when they do they dismantle them so they they have
captured the courts they control as much as they can of the media or of the information system um and they and and
and as I said before they're untransparent so they don't have there's no there's no way to understand what
they're
doing or to have understand where their money comes from very often
they're billionaires that's an you know that's big difference from the
20th
century and they seek to rule in that way and of course this is why they find
our language so the language of checks and balances and the language of not just democracy but rule of Law and
transparency this is why they find that to be such a big problem it's very often the language of their political
opponents
you know that's how you know the naldi movement in Russia was an
anti-corruption movement so it was a successful version of the thing
that you
say we didn't have here you know which was motivating people around corruption you know or the women's movement in Iran
was a Rights Movement um or the Hong Kong democracy movement I mean the they
and they use that kind of language and this is why autocracies don't like it they don't like it at home and they is
increasingly
don't like it around the world and try to undermine it and and I me
just say one final thing which is that um the other development of the
last decade or so has been the interest that autocratic States meaning Russia
China Iran I don't know Venezuela belus North Korea have begun to have in
promoting autocratic populism inside the Democratic world so they see the decline
of democracy and the rise of Il liberalism as advantageous to them and
they began to and and this was started out being largely a Russian thing you know there was the Russians Who had who
who began this I think about 15 years ago um but there are now others joining in we often talk about Victor Orban on
this podcast and I and I made a failed attempt to get him to come and do an interview with us when I two failed
attempts two failed attempts when I met him in Germany recently um but how has it happened that this leader of a
relatively small Eastern European country has become such a huge figure
for example within American politics and the American debate and the kind of folk
hero to the hard right pretty much around the world how do you think that's happened so he's set out to do that so
and he hid in plain sight he hid in plain sight he didn't no but his foreign policy and I've been I first met him in
the 90s you know his foreign policy has been focused on recruiting by the way
especially the British right he was always very interested in British conservatives um he was he was at Roger
scrutin Funeral For example the only politician I think who was there um and he he made himself a figure on the
British far right and he looked for contacts and the American right a little bit less so in in the Netherlands and
Germany but there also because his foreign policy you know he understood very early on that for him to remain
he's not I mean dictator is the wrong word for him but for him to remain the you know essentially an undemocratic
leader of a European State he was going to need allies and so he's worked on creating allies
and persuading others that you know that his that his methods are acceptable you know we were just talking about money I
mean he puts a lot of money into think tanks into events there's a think tank
that's based in Budapest that invites people you know give you know you can you can have a very nice trip to
Budapest and you can meet lots of friendly hungarians and lots of even nice it's run by Jon O Sullivan who was
a former speech writer for Mrs Thatcher he's very jovial friend guy you can have
you know then they and they they create this welcoming atmosphere for foreign conservatives um and it's been I mean
you know you you forget how in the world of ideas and the world of politics a little bit of money and a little bit of
effort can go along way you know you just have to try are there any other European leaders who try to you know who
are who are using their think tanks and their intellectuals as a way of roping in making friends in the UK I mean I
don't think so not not in that way what's orban's uh worldview his dream for the
future what does he think a Leen Orban Putin erdogan SI jingping Universe looks
like in 15 20 years he thinks it means he can stay in power and and once again he can keep his money and his son-in-law
can keep his money and his and his Cod of business people around him can can keep their money I mean it's a I mean
it's let's presume but publicly what's his geopolitical vision what's what would he say that his vision of the
world is well he would say his vision of the world is that we we break up these International institutions we allow
everybody to run their countries the way they want we stop using the language of human rights in in you know in and
international law um we we accept the idea that um you know that that European
States can be run as dictatorships and we you know we get used to that but he'd never call them a dictatorship would he
no he would not ever use that word he would see himself as being a Democratic leader of a of a modestly sized European
power where he's able to wield far more influence I don't know that he would describe himself anymore as a Democrat
but he but he would pretend to be a Democrat yeah yeah and do you think he's going to be right I mean looking forward
15 20 years what what's your view on the balance between democracy populism autocracy who's
winning um so I don't think there's going to be a winner and I don't think there's going to be a moment in the next
decade when we say right few you know that battles over and now we can move on and worry about something else I mean I
think this is the contest for the next decade or two um maybe more the context
over what kind of political systems we will have and you know how many others
will adopt them I should say one other thing about Orban that's been very successful um in his I mean and you're
right it's a not only is it a small country it's a small and rather getting poor country um it's very corrupt
obviously but he also identified something um and latched onto it which
was the which was a kind of anxiety about modernity um and an anxiety about
social change as well as demographic change one of the sources of his influence is he saw it before others did
and and used it as a political tool um and that's something that has then been
copied and imitated by others and so it's firstly his his ability to take
over
the state in Hungary which by the way is admired by people around
Donald Trump who would like to do the same thing and um but secondly
that he saw
how to use that anxiety as a as a as a kind of political weapon um and so part
of the an answer to the question of who's going to win is who figures
out what's the better way to talk to people who are anxious about modernity
right but the kind of traditional governments in the center and Center left don't appear to be finding that
language very successfully around the world well see I mean so the election in Poland in October was I mean that was
the that around that was centered around that that was around finding a way of
countering the the rhetoric of autocratic populism yeah you are about to watch I mean we're now at the in the
final run of a US election which is also going to be about that yeah so what Harris is trying to do and actually
they're this is this is my own parochial interest I mean some of it is quite similar to what was done in Poland what
she's also trying to do is make a case that uh we can offer you stability and
Security in you know um inside a democratic structure um and we and she
and the language that she's using is about that um and that was also what happened in Poland so I guess the other
thing that's happening in the world right now that will be very important in the question of who wins who loses and I
accept it's not as simple as that but is what's going on in Ukraine y so what how does that have to end well first of all
how does it end uh and secondly how does it have to end in order that what you would Define
as the the right side comes out on top so the war in Ukraine is very very important um in this in this contest um
it's kind of War of ideas actually which is what it is um the war in Ukraine because Russia one of the reasons why
Putin launched the war was to show us that he doesn't care about our rules he
doesn't care about the sovereignty of you know the sanctity of borders in Europe he doesn't care about the Geneva
conventions you know he doesn't care about this kind of never again slogan post-war slogan in Europe you he set up
concentration camps and occupied Ukraine know he kidnaps children and takes them to Russia so he's defying everything and
the autocracies around the world are watching him carefully and a number of them have come to his Aid so the
Iranians are sending drones um the North Koreans are sending ammunition um the Chinese are probably helping
they're exporting components that are useful for the Russian defense industry the India is helping the economy oil
India
is helping the economy with oil I mean it's the oil thing is more
complicated because the Russians are losing a lot of money on oil and
gas
because they used to make more money than they do now so that's not entirely a win um but it's but it's true that the
that you know the the world's autocrats have been supporting Russia in this effort to destroy Ukraine um you know
and at the same time the world's Democrats have been have been helping Ukraine the only way the war ends really
ends meaning it's over and it doesn't start again you know next year is if the
Russians decide that it's not worth fighting anymore in other words if the Russians make the same decision about
Ukraine
that the French made about Algeria you know or I don't know the British
made about Ireland you know that it's not our country it's not worth it
it's
too much time it's too much money it's too much you know too many
people are dead we don't want to fight it and they will come to that I
mean that's the
conclusion they came to in Afghanistan but that's the end of Putin I mean I don't care about
Putin maybe not but that that that is such a I don't know he can he can he can rewrite the story any way he wants you
know
he can say we did what we wanted to do I don't know I'm I'm not going
to give him his his explanation maybe it's the end of Putin but when
they and they
can get to that conclusion in different ways they can lose the war militarily
they can suffer economically there can be political reasons why they come to that conclusion but
they they have to and once they get there and we will know when that happens then we can have a conversation about
borders final one for me um you talked about how the world seemed to change 2012 2013 2014 and I wonder whether you
could tell me a little bit about why you think the world began to change in that way and whether that's related to
something else that we haven't talked about which is the the views of the kind of global South on this Ukraine war the
way in which the US and Europe didn't get the overwhelming support they were hoping to
get in relation to Russia to be fair they got some support I mean there there are 50 countries that are part of the of
the def you know defense group who work with Ukraine so that's well beyond beyond Europe but that's a different you
know those are two different questions I mean the change in 2012 2013 was entirely to do with the CH you know the
change in political conversation that came from the change in change in social media I mean the you know all
conversations have rules this conversation we're having now has a set of rules right I mean we respect each
other
we will wait till the end of the sentences you know so on conversations
in a parliament are conducted according to a set of rules accepted
accepted
conversational Norms whatever um social media also has a set of rules but the
rules are not designed to create civilized debate or better conversation
U the rules are designed to make money for the social media companies and their goal is to keep you online as as much as
possible and the way they do that um is by feeding you anger and emotion and Division and and so on um and so once
that
became the dominant form of conversation and the dominant way in which
people were getting their political information then people's the
way
that people talked about politics began to change and of course it's
more complicated than that and actually the main so-called mainstream
media also its
business model disappeared and so it also began to decline for other reasons so there are other other other factors
but once you once the point and purpose of political debate and participation in the Public
Square whatever you want to say it in a more pompous way once the purpose wasn't to hash out a problem and find a
solution but instead the purpose was to demonstrate your outrage or to perform your anger or you know then then you be
then politics became quite different and this was something that you know we saw happen my final question is is really to
ask you whether there's much room for for optimism um there's you you talk a
lot in your latest book about that you go through the various autocracies and how they operate how they Interlink and
so forth and you've got this line International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move them popular
opposition movements such as have existed in Venezuela Hong Kong Moscow don't stand a chance that's pretty
pessimistic view of the ability of people to challenge something that deep in their hearts probably most people in
Venezuela do think is wrong and has to be challenged deep in their house it's probably a lot of Russians do and yet
you're essentially saying we're losing this battle I I didn't actually know what the context of that was because I
don't think it's true that they don't stand a chance I you know I think the the cards are stacked against them in
ways that they weren't a decade ago thanks to technology and thanks to this cooperation between the autocrats they
they
help one another they do stand a chance Poland I guess is a good a good
example of where they stood a chance Poland is a good example of how in
a
country that was still a democracy you can change the system you know Venezuela is not a democracy and so the Venezuelan
opposition has just won um clearly they won and they have evidence that they won um and yet the ruling party doesn't want
to doesn't want to the ruling leader actually it's it doesn't want to doesn't want to hand over power um you know I
spent a lot of time with very optimistic idealistic people whether it's
Venezuelans or Russians or ukrainians or Iranians and all of them even in some of
the most hopeless countries still think it's worth it to be engaged and are
still working to change their countries and they still think there's some idea of justice and actually they still think
that a lot of the things that we take for granted you know again the rule of law um the relative freedom of speech
you know the relative freedom of movement um you know they still think those things are worth fighting for and
they're not doing it because you know of some a democracy promotion program that we created they're doing it because they
see see that those things would make their societies Better People Like Us I don't think are ever in a position to
say nothing can happen and nothing you know you know if if if Iranians are still working for change um then it's
incumbent upon us to remain op optimistic thank you thank you very much thank
you so Alisa thank you for that we we don't often uh interview journalists in
fact we have a golden rule yeah so we've decided she's not a journalist she's a historian exact well just I'm sometimes
rather unfortunately for this podcast a bit reluctant to interview uh politicians you as a former journalist
sometimes reluctant to interview journalist maybe we see too much of the flaws of our own kind but the um I
thought very very interesting one thing that I thought was interesting is that
sometimes you think if you're not going to interview a politician they're going to be much more risk-taking and much
more outspoken she didn't give me the sort of facts and figures and
examples on the corruption and the way that I was hoping so I I thought you know she's really going to say
Abramovich
you know is an organized criminal and this is how he made his money and
this is who he paid and this is where the corruption
went quite a lot of it was at a sort of structural well we don't quite know where the money's going there are these
packs or are things did you think that or not yeah I no I think she's she's I think she's very
political um so I think she was assuming that we take as red a lot of the stuff
that she was that she was talking about and and interesting how she mentioned the books that we both read the Oliver
Bo book and Tom B Burgess copia because I think she's I think she is she is in a
very political space and maybe that comes from being married to a politician
and and I thought she was interesting she she didn't really want to go down that road of whether his position
affects the way that she is perceived the way that she speaks the way that she works and so forth because they did go
through a very very rough time I think there was a time when the party that's just lost power was really going after
people like like him and people like her and you know could have ended up very very badly for them and now he's he's
back as foreign minister but I think she's somebody that has always been very very thoughtful very
articulate um but I think what I've seen her much much more than when I first knew her sort of several decades ago is
somebody who has understood that it is possible to be player and spectator at the same time h
she is a spectator she's a journalist she's a writer she's a historian but she's developed a kind of a political
theme that she's pushing very very hard there's some very interesting elements to her backstory too CU her her husband
was I think a close friend of Boris Johnson and so she she knew that whole world very very well and then became
more and more skeptical of populism and could see more and more the flaws of that and and that must be interesting
too to how you relate to the fact that your husband's bullying and mates turn out to be yeah it's quite nice though
isn't it's quite nice not having to talk much about Boris Johnson people great relief one one other thing that struck
me um her analysis of why populism developed 2012 to
2014 she talked almost exclusively about social media but other people would say
2008 financial crisis the economy yeah inequality the general sense that
democracies were not delivering financially for people on Lower middle income and I think also this um
I thought she was quite benign I thought she'd be much harsher about the way that we treated with Putin in the early days
remember trying to you know very determinedly bring him into the G8 signal that our acceptance that Russia
was trying to change and modernize and go in the right direction when basically she's saying the whole time he was he
was always a Mafia Boss yeah you know so we she said I don't want to say it was naive but there was a bit of that what's
it surprising I thought that she didn't major more on the Middle East and China
that if we're talking about autocracies if we're talking about misrepresentation we're talking about political influence
we're talking about Ukraine you would have thought she would be talking more about Israel GSA the gulf and talking
much
more about China no Russia is the big thing in our head you can see
that and and and she obviously got very very passionate about about
Ukraine I thought
quite optimistic in her assessment as to how the how the how the war ends yes
well I mean I think there too I don't I can't see well she had this very moving thing at the end where she sort of says
so long as there are brave people in these countries on the right side we have a duty to remain optimistic and I
think that must be the tension for her she must see how much the cards are stacked
against people in Iran you know how often for more than 40 years people predicted the demise regime that hasn't
gone she must be able to see just how many more troops and Human
Resources Russia has in Ukraine at the moment and the advances they're making but that's an interesting thing this way
you talk about her being both a Observer and an actor she has a view on where she
wants
the world to go which I think we would agree with a very strong moral
View and where she wants it to go I thought the one thing that I wanted
to
ask and it just kind of slipped my mind and we ran out of time was this point about why and how we've seen it in
Germany with the afd we've seen it with we see it with Le Pen how these parties
are being co-opted by by Russia in a way that I think back in the back in the
sort of Reagan Thatcher days you'd have you'd have said was impossible to imagine yeah but it has happened
fascinating on Orban very very good yeah we've got to get him on the podcast we've got to get him on come on Victor I
know you listen I know you listen you listen and there a great great chance to access you know the main thinkers in the
west the people she said that he's always been obsessed with trying to reach the right in in the conservative
party
and the conservative bread well they they listen don't they we know
from how many of them keep trying to get on the podcast we know know
that anyway
there we are that was uh that was an apple b I hope the listeners enjoyed it thank you very much
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