Russia–Ukraine Explained: The War, China, Globalism, and America

Victor Davis Hanson York Du/The Epoch Times

“Most people, unfortunately, human nature being what it is,” Victor Davis Hanson said, “are more apt to be impressed with displays of power than they are with humanity, and that’s where we are.”

In two recent episodes of “American Thought Leaders,” host Jan Jekielek sat down with classicist, historian, and commentator Victor Davis Hanson to discuss Vladimir Putin’s possible goals in Ukraine, the resistance by Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians, the position of China in this war, and U.S. leadership.

Hanson is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of the best-seller, “The Dying Citizen.”

Mr. Jekielek: Let’s talk about the Russia–Ukraine war. There’s a lot of information flying around.

Mr. Hanson: We don’t really have an adequate picture, but the time factor suggests that Putin has underestimated the level of resistance; the level of supply from NATO countries, particularly the United States and the border countries in Ukraine’s neighborhood, as well as the will of the West; and the efficacy of its weapons.

Put all that together, and Putin may find himself unable to set up a puppet government and make Ukraine subject to Russian influence. So what’s his fallback position?

I think it’s to divide the country from Kyiv to the east and destroy it, to raze the cities. This provides a buffer zone between Western Ukraine and Russia, and it sends a signal to former Soviet Republics. If you want to break away, flirt with NATO, or join the EU, you can, but we’ll destroy you. You’re going to end up like Kyiv.

And then Putin tells the Russian people this was the plan.

He can’t win according to his original initiative, but he can win according to his fallback position.

Mr. Jekielek: People might not understand why destroying the country could be an objective.

Mr. Hanson: Westerners look at the U.N. vote, and we say 70 percent of the countries in the world condemn Russia. But look at it by population. There’s China’s 1.4 billion, India’s 1.3 billion, there’s Vietnam, North Korea, and Iran.

Do a lot of these countries condemn Russian? No. Probably half the population or maybe even 55 or 60 percent of the 8 billion people on earth either want the invasion to succeed or they’re indifferent. So they won’t condemn Putin or Russia.

Putin is gambling that people may hate him now and abhor his tactics, but that, at the end, he destroyed Ukraine right under the nose of NATO. He taught the world a lesson and was willing to go to the nuclear brink to do it. That’s what he’s counting on.

Most people, unfortunately, human nature being what it is, are more apt to be impressed with displays of power than they are with humanity, and that’s where we are.

Mr. Jekielek: So let’s tackle the Vladimir Putin is a madman narrative.

Mr. Hanson: Vladimir Putin isn’t a mad man. He’s an irredentist, a fancy Italian word for taking back territory that has similar attributes to the motherland.

And he’s got two things going for him: He’s got a hell of a lot of oil, and he’s got 7,000 nukes, and although he’s punching above his weight, he may get what he wants because people want oil, and they’re afraid of nuclear weapons.

Mr. Jekielek: What’s China going to do? Are they just going to play it out?

Mr. Hanson: They’ll sit tight. They’re going to buy a lot of Russian oil. They’re going to buy a lot of Russian wheat and natural resources and sell Russia a lot of stuff. China’s going to sit there and see who wins.

Mr. Jekielek: What about Volodymyr Zelensky?

Mr. Hanson: In some ways, he’s been absolutely brilliant. Once the war started, he put on that olive fatigue T-shirt, and he speaks very good English, and he’s very casual. And so you had these two contrasting images. You had this pale steroid-inflated Vladimir Putin hidden out in some Führerbunker with toadies. Then you had Zelensky going all over Kyiv. You could hear bombs or the sound of fire in the background.  That was very appealing to Western audiences.

And so he won enormous Western support for Ukraine. The West has some of the most expensive, sophisticated weapons in the world, and it’s pouring in along with humanitarian aid, and that’s all due to Zelenskyy’s public relations genius.

But Zelensky’s got to be careful about badgering the West to do more, like a no-fly zone. There has never been a no-fly zone where one nuclear power told another nuclear power you can’t fly here.

Zelenskyy doesn’t understand that empathy and support for Ukraine is not 100 percent synonymous with America’s national interest.

Mr. Jekielek: There’s something that strikes me as we’re talking today. President Biden said, “The world order is being challenged.”

Mr. Hanson: Whoever gave him that phrase should have his head examined, because New World Order brings back the Bushes going into the first Gulf War. It brings back globalism. It’s the Davos reset.

Specifically, it’s a very transparent attempt to leverage an existential crisis into a political agenda, just in the way COVID was. Remember that Klaus Schwab at Davos said, “This is a chance to have a Great Reset.”

So when Biden said ‘New World Order,’ right in the middle of a Ukrainian crisis, I thought, “Well, what is your New World Order?” After World War II, we did create a New World Order. We said to the world, “The shipping lanes will be open. Communications will be open, and we will deter the Soviet Union from taking over Europe and Asia.”  But that was a different United States, wasn’t it?

It had men such as FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, and JFK at the helm. It had, by far, the world’s largest economy. It was energy self-sufficient. It was confident and robust.

But when I look at this generation, I see Barack Obama. I see Joe Biden. I see giving up energy independence. I see woke narratives. I see 128 days of rioting. I see hysteria over a laptop. It’s not the same United States.

And Joe Biden is no Harry Truman. I’m very pessimistic.

Mr. Jekielek:  This actually points toward some of what I was going to talk about, that the U.S.-led world order appears to be coming apart.

Mr. Hanson: Yes, it’s falling apart. It’s falling apart because of this global veneer of popular culture, the internet, TikTok, Facebook, common music, and everybody all over the world watching a Super Bowl halftime.

It has created this veneer that we’re all on the same page, that we’re all in a global community. But that’s not true. It’s just a veneer. Nationalism is still there. Ethnic, racial, and religious divides are still there.

For example, we can’t get Australia, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea on the same page to check Chinese aggression. China, in that void, is the new power, and it’s going to control all the major choke points of the world.

The irony is that, by all the historical barometers of national strength, the United States is superior.

We have 330 million people. China has 1.4 billion. They have almost five times our population, but their gross domestic product is smaller. In crude terms, that means one American citizen is producing five times the goods and services of a Chinese citizen.

In areas such as engineering, mathematics, and physics, American schools still rank at the top. California alone, for instance, has more universities in the top 25 than any nation in the world except the United States.

We were the largest producer of gas and oil in the world until two years ago. And in food production, we’re the most efficient. China may produce a little more, but we’re the most efficient food producer in the world. And we still have the strongest military in the world.

By every barometer of national strength, we should be stronger than we’ve ever been, but we’re not. That’s because of this woke postmodern anti-American fringe. That’s what the left has done to us.

Mr. Jekielek: I agree. As you’ve just said, it seems the United States has stopped believing in itself to some extent. Is it even possible at this stage to rediscover that belief?

Mr. Hanson: Yes, it’s possible. There’s a glimmer of hope in that there’s still such a thing as the West. When this war in Ukraine happened, Germany, France, and the UK were on the same page as us.

We should tell China right now that they can’t split us. We’re going to have a uniform policy of sanctions against them if they try anything in Taiwan. We’re going to be tough on their trade. Our military is going to be 10 times stronger than theirs.

We actually have a larger population—Europe, the United States, North America, and all of Europe together—than China does, or at least the equivalent.

So the West still has that potential.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.