The End of Russia Today – The New Republic

Ben: You know, obviously Russia Today is a ridiculous and sort of filthy channel. But the main priority, I felt, definitely for the U.K., was not to get BBC Russia blocked. And if that meant letting this sort of ridiculous thing stream away, I was happy to have it, as long as BBC Russia with its huge, million-strong audience was left there. I just dont think that enough people are thinking strategically about a lot of this right now. Like if youre dealing with a regime crossing into totalitarianism thats been half-blockaded from the world, half-closing itself off from the world, engaging in a war of conquest with, like, delirious mobilization campaigns, youve got to just think very carefully about all of these different things that are being done and what will the second-order consequences be for what could be a very long confrontation?

Alex: Yeah, thats true. It strikes me that what you described here is, and I think Americans in particularAmericans who dont pay attention to Russia, Americans who dont make an effort to learn about Russiacould get the sort of caricatured view that Putins Russia has been this authoritarian state the whole time. And while it was a managed democracy with a thug at the head of it, with fake elections, for a long time, as you described, he was allowing this liberal society to continue to exist, to continue to produce journalism; foreign reporters to continue having freedom of movement in Russia, for the most part. And that is what has been lost now. Its a huge change. I do think its important for Americans to understand that a Rubicon has been crossed, basically, especially in the sense of the accurate information we will be able to get about life on the ground in Russia.

Ben: I really agree with you that a Rubicons been passed in Russia in terms of oppression, and I think we have to change how we look at Russia and how we talk about Russia, especially when it comes to policymakers. So I have seen the former ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, tweeting feverishlyand by that I really mean feverishlythat Russians should be running into the streets and mass protesting and quitting their jobs and speaking up now. I want him to realize, and Ive told him, this is not the Russia of 2012 or 2011, when you could do that as a professor, as a public figure, as a journalist, and then go back to work the next day and not fear devastating consequences. We are in a situation now where you could be risking 15 years in prison. Are you sure that thats what you want to be asking for? And in terms of lurid speculation about palace coups and the coming collapse of Russia and people with firmer prognostication than Nostradamus about what the second-order consequences of this war are going to be, I really want them to stop, take a deep breath, possibly turn the app off for 48 hours, and go: The majority of the expert class in the United States did not see this war coming. And thats because Russias elite, Russian journalism, the remains of that, and Western journalism, were not able, even when they were in Russia, to predict that this was happening next. So I think we need to take a bit of intellectual humility here and recognize that Putins mind and how the Kremlin operates is a lot more of a black box than we realized, and not just swap one set of assumptions for another overnight.

Alex: Yeah, I mean, it does strike me that, and I say this as someone who, Im not a foreign policy expert, but just reading everything I read about this before the invasion, I was like, it seems like the war might not happen. And I turned out to be wrong. I didnt make that prediction publicly, but it does seem like intellectual humility is the correct answer for this.

Ben: Im actually really quite worried about the information environment Im seeing in U.S. political discussion and managing whats going to be a long confrontation with Russia, because Twitter is incentivizing pundits to shout the loudest, to get the most likes, to get the most clicks in order to be heard. I think that would have been really dangerous in the worst moments of the Cold War.

Alex: Imagine Cuban missile crisis Twitter, my God. Wed be dead.

Ben: Appalling. Exactly. And Twitters also bringing, like, a lot of conspiracy theories from Ukraine into the Washington mix, and [they] are being disseminated and talked about by people who should really know better. And its also giving us a false impression of the battlefield, quite frankly. Twitter is not a neutral environment. It is under absolute Ukrainian dominance in terms of the information war. Western governments are actively trying to promote an image of Ukraine standing firm and victorious. Look at the U.K. government or the French governments daily battle mapsIm sorry, those are not neutral battle maps being drawn up. And then all of these open-source intelligence guys from their bedrooms or their offices drawing up analysis of the videos that are posted there, when we know for a fact that the Russians have been very bad about the fact that Ukrainians are filming them. Ukraines been very good about not filming themselves. Were not seeing any videos of Ukrainian defeats or columns being blown up. And a lot of people are drawing analysis off this very, very partial world, thinking its impartial. I think that thats just quite a risky situation to be in. You can come to a lot of very false conclusions about whats going on.

Laura: Ben Judah, thank you so much for coming on.

Ben: Oh, thank you very much. That was great.

Alex: Ben Judahs article, The Russia We Have Lost, was published at Unherd. Hes the author of Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love With Vladimir Putin.

Alex: The Politics of Everything is co-produced by Talkhouse.

Laura: Emily Cooke is our executive producer.

Alex: Myron Kaplan is our audio editor.

Laura: If you enjoy the show and you want to help support it, one thing you can do is rate and review it wherever you get your podcasts. Every review helps.

Alex: Thanks for listening.

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The End of Russia Today - The New Republic