Jeffrey Sachs discusses the significan ce of the Trump-Putin call: Did the US just end the 30-year long Cold War 2.0 of encircling Russia? https://t.co/Hv5xNeIClw
Video Transcript AI Summary
In 1994, the U.S. initiated a project to expand NATO eastward indefinitely, despite assurances given to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO wouldn't move "one inch eastward." This expansion continued under multiple presidents, with seven more countries added in 2004. In 2007, Putin urged a halt, reminding the U.S. of the broken promise.
Further destabilizing actions included the U.S. unilaterally withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and considering NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia. A turning point occurred with a recent call between Presidents Trump and Putin, signaling respect for Russia's concerns, coupled with the U.S. Defense Secretary acknowledging that Ukraine will not join NATO. This shift offers a basis for peace, marking a potential reversal of a long-standing provocative strategy.
Speaker 0: A very bad idea of The United States taken in 1994. It's a project. The project, was a project to expand NATO forever anywhere. Just keep moving east. Keep moving not only to the first wave, which was the prime minister's country, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, but then move eastward closer to the former Soviet Union, into the former Soviet Union, surround Russia in the Black Sea region, go all the way to a little country in the South Caucasus, Georgia.
It was mind boggling. Clinton signed on to that in 1994. It became what we call the deep state project, meaning it didn't really matter who the president was. Each president would come and basically would be informed. NATO's moving eastward.
You're part of that process. So Clinton started it in 1994. And as prime minister Orban said, he mentioned briefly, in 1990, on 02/09/1990, in unequivocal, clear as can be terms, The United States had said to president Mikhail Gorbachev, NATO will not move one inch eastward. And if you have any doubt about it, all the documents are now online, available. You can scrutinize everything.
Hans Dietrich Genscher, the US the German foreign minister said the same thing same day. He's on tape actually explaining, no. No. I don't just mean within Eastern Germany. I mean anywhere to the East.
Clinton, being Clinton, and The US Deep State being The US Deep State started this project in 1994. They already had the idea, by the way, in in 1991, '90 '2, as soon as the Soviet Union ended. Now we move. Now we move eastward. Now we control everything.
Now we are the sole superpower. So this has gone on for thirty years, and each president got into it under George Bush junior. Seven more countries were added, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania, Nine in 02/2004. Then in 02/2007, president Putin said at the summit that's taking place right now, the Munich Security Summit, said stop. You told us no expansion, not an eastward expansion, even an inch you said.
You've now done 10 countries. Stop. Perfectly reasonable. Stop. I don't think our president Donald Trump would much like to see China and Russia building their military bases up from Central America.
You know, this was how the Russians saw this. Why are you coming to our border when you told us you weren't gonna move? And there was one other thing that was very important in this, which is probably the most decisive thing and almost not even recognized. In 02/2002, the US did something really, really, really destabilizing, and that is it unilaterally left the anti ballistic missile treaty. That was a core strategy to stop a nuclear war between the two superpowers because what ABM had done for thirty years was to say, we each have deterrence.
You if you strike us, we can strike back. We'll limit our anti ballistic missiles so that both sides maintain deterrence. In 02/2002, the United States unilaterally, unprovoked, walked out of the ABM, said, no. No. We're not gonna do it anymore.
We're going to put anti ballistic missile systems into Russia's bordering territories. The Russians said, aren't you kidding? The US said, what's your problem? We do what we want. So in 02/2007, Putin said, stop already.
In 02/2008, George Bush junior doubled down as Americans typically do and said, okay. Now we're moving to Ukraine and to Georgia. That was, why this war occurred. But Ukraine had one more sliver of, of life, and that was that they elected a president in 02/2010 that didn't want to be part of NATO, and the public didn't wanna be part of NATO. Why?
Because they knew this is very dangerous. Why get into this provocative situation? His name was Viktor Yanukovych. Americans don't like neutrality, but Yanukovych was trying to be neutral between the two sides, and The US played a rather unfortunate role on 02/22/2014 in a violent overthrow of this person. And, that's when the war started.
And it's been now ten years, and no president has, told the truth until yesterday, by the way. Yesterday is a historic day because the a call took place between president Putin and president Trump. It was the first call. We don't know if there had been a short call beforehand between the two of them, but there was no call by Biden and Putin. With war going on for three years, no call.
And now there was a call, and the readout from the American side was excellent. What president Trump said in the call was we respect Russia. We hear Russia's concerns. We fought on the same side in World War two. Nice point, by the way.
True. Russia lost Soviet Union lost 27,000,000 people in World War two and was an ally of The United States. The fact that wasn't mentioned for years and years and years by president Biden. And then the defense secretary had said the new defense secretary said yesterday the truth for the first time that Ukraine is not going to join NATO. This is the basis for peace.
This is absolutely the basis for peace, and they couldn't tell the truth for three decades. They could not admit what any of us knew because I've been around this region for thirty six years in detail. I sat with Boris Yeltsin. I sat with Mikhail Gorbachev. But the Americans would not tell the truth publicly until yesterday that this was so provocative.
It was a game. They thought they'd win the game. I don't know how many people here play or played in their childhood the game of risk. The game of risk was a big game for me. You wanted your piece on every part of the world map.
That was the game when you took over the whole world, world hegemony we now call it. You won. They're playing that game until this administration. So the two most important three important things have happened in my view in this administration so far. First, our new secretary of state Marco Rubio told the fundamental truth.
We are in a multipolar world. First time the sentence was uttered, he told the truth. What does it mean? The American mindset for thirty years was we run the show. Marco Rubio said, well, we don't run the show.
We live with other powerful countries. Great start. Second and third were the two events yesterday. So I'm feeling about peace that this is really something that happened yesterday. If if they follow through, we know what Washington is like.
There is every crazy idea swarming still. A project of thirty years doesn't go down necessarily in one phone call or one statement by, the secretary of defense, but it's pretty important that it was said so publicly and so visibly. And, of course, Europe is in a tizzy because Europe signed on to The US project. All these politicians in Europe are there where they are because they were part of The US project. And now The US is reversing its project, and you didn't tell us, and you didn't what are we supposed to do?
We're way out there. And so they're completely befuddled. And I have to say, I told them personally, many of these leaders, and I mean personally one by one for years, you are gonna get trapped this
