Timothy Snyder: Canada Still Wants America as a Friend — Transcript

The Ukrainians and the Russians are creating the only two modern armed forces in the world. And this is a problem for everybody else, which I don't think everybody else is necessarily recognizing. The Ukrainians innovate, the Russians copy, and pretty much everything Ukrainians do, the Russians can do a few months later, but at scale. And that's a problem for NATO and a problem for the US, who is still practicing a pretty archaic form of warfare. And it's not a problem which I think people are recognizing. So, by letting this war continue the way it is, we're basically training up the Russian army on Ukrainian methods, which is not a good thing to be doing.

>> Professor, where does this podcast find you? >> I'm in Toronto. I'm just back from a long trip to Ukraine. Um, but now I'm in Toronto. >> Oh, that's nice. I heard that Toronto has an a WNBA expansion team. Is that right? Well, I actually just saw um one of the last games of the season. Yeah, they got blown out by the New York Liberty. Uh but yeah, it was fun to watch. >> I was at an event this weekend and I met this I met a guy who's a you know a legendary basketball player and his daughter I her name is Kiki Smith is on the team. So >> she's a fan favorite. I can assure you of that.

>> Oh yeah. Didn't expect to talk to you about I'm sure you didn't expect to talk about this. Let's let's bust right into more your your domain. You were just in Carke in northeastern Ukraine, less than a minute from Russia uh by by missile anyways. And since you got home, you've been releasing 10 carke meditation videos you recorded there at night on cowardice courage freedom and fascism. Why why are you in Ukraine? And can you give us a sense for the atmosphere and the feel on the ground there?

>> Well, I'm I'm there because it's my job. I mean, I'm a historian of Ukraine. I'm running a big project that involves a couple hundred colleagues, roughly half of whom are Ukrainians. We have um big conferences every year in in Kiev, which works out very well, better than fine. And in general, if you're going to write about a place or talk about a place, you should go there. So I was in Harakiv staying um as a guest in a kind of writing retreat um which is the apartment of a of a Ukrainian philologist and doing doing my own work and then I was in Kov helping to run these big projects. The atmosphere is like you know there's one more thing you have to worry about which is that you'll get killed at the gas station trying to get gas. There's one more thing you have to worry about which is that you'll get killed by a missile strike you know going to the grocery store to an outdoor market. People live their lives trying to adapt to this. Um, and they they do it very well. They do it in a way which I personally find exemplary.

>> And give us a sense for what it's like? What is the general mood in terms of the war itself? Is it is it a feel of we we've made some progress, need to hang in there, renewed optimism, or is the fatigue setting in or is it a bit of both? I mean, it's I think after, you know, after going on five years now, or, you know, if you're counting from the the first invasion in 2014, you're looking at 12 plus years. I don't think fatigue is a really relevant concept anymore. I mean, people are people are living their lives and they're doing what they can.

And your question, it depends on where you're sitting. If you're at the front, and I was also visiting the front when I was in, but if you're at the front, then things look pretty good. It's pretty it's it seems pretty unlikely that the Russians will achieve any kind of breakthrough at the front whether they mobilize or not. And the fact that the Russia probably has to mobilize now is a bad sign I would say for for Russia. However, if you're in the interior of the country, Russia is systematically destroying the Ukrainian economy. Um it's making people's lives very hard.

It's destroying their livelihoods. And I should add that this is our fault if we're Americans because it's American policy to deny Ukraine the missile defense that it needs. So we've kind of artificially created the situation where Russia can destroy the Ukrainian economy. And people do feel that. >> So essentially my understanding is Americans stopped funding. They still sell weapons. They just aren't providing any economic support. Is that accurate? >> Well, there's there's zero economic support and there's zero direct weapon support. We do allow Europeans to buy our systems and then pass them on to Ukraine. And we do allow I mean we've just allowed um other other countries to license the construction of Patriots which is the anti-missile system. So indirectly indirectly indirectly at some point in the future that might be able to help. Um, but we there's been a drastic change since the Biden administration, which probably didn't do enough, but which was doing, but which was actively helping in terms of

financial and military aid. >> My understanding is for all the criticism of the EU not having its act together and too much regulation that uh the EU has stepped up here. Is would you agree with that? >> Yeah, I mean that's a great point. I'm glad you noticed that. Um, the EU has done more has done more than any individual state, I would say. and and the EU has consistently recognized the threat that Russia poses. It's a good point because like when you talk about bureaucrates the EU with bureaucracy and that's a kind of sort of American propaganda point which we can't get our minds around or through. But when it comes to helping Ukraine, they've been very unbureaucratic and it's been us the the Americans who have been either bureaucratic or we've just shown kind of ill will.

I feel as if I get two streams of news around the actual situation at the front, who's winning, who's losing or you know this kind of grinding standoff at some you know at some periods it feels like and the traditional media I think has a I don't want to say a bias for Ukraine but I feel when I watch traditional media I think okay Ukraine just asymmetry drones technically advanced Russia is now no longer able to mobilize it It's in deficit in terms of the number of soldiers taken off the field through death or injury and is unable to now raise as many conscripts as they're losing. you see Moscow on fire and then I go online and I go on Tik Tok or threads and I feel I see what doesn't feel more balanced but some news that's a little bit more Russia is is increasing attacks having more impact and uh it would be you could argue Ukraine is obviously has some tremendous victories but winning might be a little

bit strong. Can you can you attempt to give us a sense of how over the last 12 months the balance of victory or defeat on the battlefield has shifted? >> Yeah, I'm going to answer that. And your question leads me on to another point I want to make as well. Over the last 12 months, we've seen um a a shift in the in late last year and then spring of this year where it really did seem like the Ukrainians could win. Um because all the things you said were true. So the Ukrainians gained more territory than they lost. They're inflicting, you know, a multiple more casualties than they're receiving. Um and until, you know, spring of this year, they were also able to defend themselves pretty well. Uh the change has been the the shortage in missile defense because the shortage in missile defense which I see as an artificial result of the Iran war and US policy but that means that the Russians are able to make the kinds of gains you're talking about when it comes to destroying the Ukrainian economy. That's

where they're succeeding now. They're destroying factories. They're destroying mines. They're destroying steel works. That's that's the edge that the Russians have now which they didn't have six months ago. So both things are, so to speak, true. The Ukrainians are mechanizing the front. It's pretty hard to imagine Russia making gains on the front, but at the same time, Russia's able to hurt the Ukrainian economy and therefore Ukrainian society. The point I want to make though is that as as we as we see this ratcheting back and forth of drone and drone defense, the Ukrainians and the Russians are creating the only two modern armed forces in the world.

And this is a problem for everybody else, which I don't think everybody else is necessarily recognizing. The Ukrainians innovate, the Russians copy, and pretty much everything the Ukrainians do, the Russians can do a few months later, but at scale. And that's a problem for NATO and a problem for the US, um, who is still practicing a pretty archaic form of warfare. And it's not a problem which I think people are recognizing. So, by letting this war continue the way it is, we're basically training up the Russian army on Ukrainian methods, which is not a good thing to be doing. Professor Snider, you obviously you I always like to kind of pause the podcast and when I when I hear something I haven't heard that I think is really striking and insightful and I just hadn't contemplated that this war is, you know, we talk about what it's how Ukraine could be this new center of innovation and has just this unbelievable army that's teaching the world about the power of the word asymmetry and is punching so far above its weight class. We've never seen

anything like that. But little attention is given to the fact that we're also via this war upskilling Russia, making it a more lethal fighting force. Hadn't hadn't thought of that. So Lincoln said you can't win a war without public support and you can't lose a war with one. And it feels from an outsider standpoint that the Ukrainian army has the support and Zilinski has the support of the Ukrainian people. What's less clear is whether Putin and the fighting force there has the support of the Russian people. Can you speak to that?

>> So I I think the way the Russians have been trying to run the war is as a consumer war, which is a kind of a concept I think which should be pretty familiar to Americans. It's not we're supposed to win. It's not supposed to touch us. We're supposed to enjoy like the daily media coverage of the victories, but it's not supposed to affect our daily lives. And that was largely true for Russia for the first four four and a half years. It's much less true now as you've noticed because Ukraine is able to hit now with long range drones targets which do affect Russians daily life. That's one thing which has changed. Another thing which has changed is that as and again you've already mentioned this. Russia probably now has to mobilize as opposed to just using contract soldiers. And that probably it's hard to predict but that probably will have some kind of negative social effect for Putin because the people who are going to the front up until now they have signed a contract like they're getting paid by Russian standards a lot of money whereas once you start drafting people then you're in a different dynamic I think a different

political dynamic as well. So I think Russia is keen to end this war by spring partly for that reason that I don't think they believe they can count politically on the mobilized soldiers and the families of mobilized soldiers in the same way. >> So if I were to I want to put forward a thesis and I'm pretty sure you'll agree at least with part of it or maybe not. But if I look at the biggest hotspots or the biggest risks to the world to world peace to something you turning into what feels like World War II, it's I'll put AI on that list. I don't believe that's true, but according to some very smart people who spent four months at Anthropic, there's a 10% extinction event, which sounds like expected death of 800 million, which I think is worth at least investigating.

Two, is this war. You know, Europe is being invaded again. And then, uh, I would argue probably the biggest risk is that China invades Taiwan and the West literally doesn't know what to do, does something and it escalates. and that Ukraine or the probability that China decides to take the risk of a hot war goes down or is it is inversely correlated to success Ukraine's success on the battlefield. You just got to think that the CCP is looking at this war and thinking if this small technically sophisticated army, which the Taiwanese defense forces would be in spades, that maybe we should recalculate recalculate the likelihood of victory here and rethink and not attempt an invasion of Taiwan. So my thesis is that every any any small victory by Ukraine against Russia decreases the likelihood of a CCP attempting a hot war and

invasion of of Taiwan. Your thoughts? >> Yeah, I agree 100% and that's an argument I've been trying to make from the beginning of the full-scale invasion that anybody who's serious and the Trump people claim to be serious about this, although I don't believe them. Anybody who's serious about preventing a war with China would see Ukraine as the, so to speak, the relatively easy way to do so because funding the Ukrainians, helping the Ukrainians to defend themselves is a lot easier than actually trying to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. And so you've been basically handed by history, if you're the US, you've been handed by history a way to deter such an attack by showing, as you say, exactly, by showing how difficult it is to actually carry out offensive operations in the 21st century against a technologically savvy adversary. We've been given that chance.

And I'm afraid that what we've been doing is throwing that chance away in the last year and a half under the Trump people and thereby unduly encouraging the Chinese um and making the scenario that you're talking about more likely. I would add to your point and I'll see if you agree, but I would add to your point that in general helping Ukraine to defend itself against a war of aggression also has the positive global scale effect of protecting the legal order and discouraging invasions in general. But I would also make the point about nuclear weapons that Russia is a nuclear state invading a non-uclear state and it's using nuclear blackmail pretty much every, you know, few hours.

If you allow a nuclear state to win a war against a non-uclear state um and you give in to nuclear blackmail and you keep saying as the Trump people do say, "Oh no, we're afraid of escalation, etc." Then you're encouraging that scenario and encouraging that scenario, you're encouraging middle powers around the world to build nuclear weapons to defend themselves against the Russas and the China. And if you if that happens, then you have a much more dangerous world. And you know the somewhat old school threat of nuclear war then comes back onto your list.

>> Well, you're the historian, but if I remember correctly, Ukraine had nuclear weapons and agreed to give them up, which we all the entire international community sees as a good thing. Fewer nuclear nations, less likelihood of an errant misin interpretation of something that ends up in nuclear war. They gave up their nuclear weapons in exchange for safety guarantees from Russia. And the reality is right now they screwed up and that any you know we've created a zeitgeist globally where every nation should have pursued nuclear weapons. I mean this has to me this has just created a series of incentive that are going to make it exceptionally diff difficult for more control of the spread of nuclear arms. Your thoughts? No, that's completely right. And what you say, of course, is in line with what the Ukrainians themselves now think. Um the the Budapest memorandum of 1994 um obliged the United States and Great Britain as well as the Russian Federation to defend Ukraine against

external threats. And then Russia invaded twice and the United States and Great Britain did something but a minimal a minimal amount to to support Ukraine in that situation. So it's it's the there's and there's a good book about this by the way by my colleague Sah Plloi at at Harvard. So yeah, I mean if Ukraine it's very hard if you're in Ukraine not to draw the conclusion that if you'd kept nuclear weapons and developed your own delivery systems which they didn't have. But if you'd done that this invasion would not have happened. That's I mean I'm afraid that's that's in a nutshell the conclusion that other c I mean my point is other countries looking at the situation also as you say are going to draw the same conclusion and if we want to head that off we have to do what we can to make sure that the outcome of this doesn't look like a Russian victory.

>> I feel as if I'm fairly politically a war aware of of the situation politically in the US and geopolitics. are more aware than your average bear, so to speak. And it still shocks me when you say we're not supporting Ukraine because it was I think the general populace in the US likely believes we still are. And it seems to me that yet another consequence of the war in Iran, you know, yet another negative consequence is that it to a certain extent the American public has taken its eye off the ball and it's become indifferent and has given Trump an opening just to stop.

Why why do you think the Trump administration is so dismissive of Ukraine and the war in Ukraine? So I I want to first give some props to the American public because the public opinion including among Republicans is generally pro- Ukrainian and so you can be for I think people can be forgiven for thinking that their own preferences are in some way being translated into American policy which is unfortunately it's not the case. There are some things that we do, we still do that do help the Ukrainians for sure, but on balance, cutting off the financial aid, cutting off the military aid, um, and putting our diplomacy in the hands of a couple of people who are not professional diplomats who and who are not really, I think, acting the interests of any of the states involved except possibly Russia. And then finally, as you say, starting this war with Iran. All of those things have drastically hurt the Ukrainians over the last year and a half. in the Iran war. I mean, in the Iran war, in the first 10 or 12 days, we

spent munitions, I'm sad to say it, but utterly pointlessly, which would have won the war for Ukraine. And the UK, and that's not something that Americans see or would like to see, but it's something that Ukrainians definitely see. We just like we shoot, you know, munitions all over the place essentially to kind of make ourselves feel good with no measurable strategic outcome, at least not anyone, which is positive. whereas if we just allowed the Ukrainians to use that stuff, they probably could have won the war. So the Iran has been tremendously negative for Ukraine. And meanwhile, this is also worth noting, you've got like coal miners from the Donbas in Ukraine who've learned to be drone operators who are out there in the world helping to defend Americans and others in the near east from Iranian drones, which is something that no one thinks about or talks about, but which is part of this kind of mismatch of how how we think about things that we, the Americans, are this big power. We win wars. We help other people. We've been beaten by an a middle power, Iran. And meanwhile, the Ukrainians are holding

back a much bigger power, Russia. And you got to think those things through to their logical conclusion to to see just how wrong our approach has been in the last year and a half. Support for the show comes from Better Help. You've heard me say before how useful talk therapy can be when working through a hard problem, and that Better Help has been a great option for a lot of people. But at the end of the day, the best way to know if Better Help is a good fit for you is to check it out yourself. More than 6 million people have used BetterHelp globally. The consistent feedback from real users makes it easy to see why many people continue to choose the platform.

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That's betterhp.com/propg. Support for the show comes from ODO. If your business runs on five different apps, 12 browser tabs, and one spreadsheet that everyone's afraid to touch, it's probably time for ODO. ODO is an all-in-one business management software that connects every part of your business into one powerful, easy to use platform. So instead of wasting time switching between disconnected systems, your entire business works together in real time. Your team moves faster, your data stays accurate, and you can actually focus on growing your business.

Let one unified system run your entire business. From the first opportunity to the final payment, everything works together in one place. Whether you're a small business or managing a large operation, ODU gives you one flexible platform built to grow with you. Try today for free at odo.com/propg. That's odo.com/propg. It's another interesting insight, professor, that and it makes sense in a capital society. Scarcity is just is a reality everywhere and even America with one and a half trillion dollars of military spend. You're saying at the end of the day, a manager is supposed to allocate resources to its greater return and the resources resources expended on Iran, specifically the munitions. You believe had those assets been diverted to Ukraine that the war might be over by now? Oh, I mean that's they we the discussion we had the first half of this podcast would be completely different if

just the patriots that we because we don't know how to use patriots like we we we use patriots to shoot down anything which is in the sky. We don't know how to use them. We we imagine that we have an infinite supply of stuff and of course the president says we do regularly but we don't and so we we use it just in in an incredibly proflegate way um as we did in the beginning of Iran and then we look around and say oh wait we don't have any more of these things and it takes a long time to produce them but there's a deeper problem here which is that we are relying on I mean it's problem a we use this stuff in the wrong way in the wrong time and we don't give it to the right people for the right reasons which would have been to give it to Ukraine. But there's a deeper problem here, which is that the the US military under Hegsath and Trump are still relying on products like this which take months and years to develop. And then when we shoot them out pointlessly into the sand in Iran, we then say, "Oh," we say to our enemies, "Oh, well, there's nothing we can do because our our big weapons companies will take months and years to reproduce

these." Which is a terrible message to China. Going back to your earlier point. But if you're an American confronting that, you should think, well, wait, what are the systems that are cheaper and faster to produce? And this goes back to your question, what earlier question, and why aren't we learning from Ukraine, right? And I think the reason we're not learning from Ukraine is that Hexath and Trump personally, Vance 2, have a hard time processing that there's a country out there where people are actually showing moral and physical courage. I think they just can't identify with that. And I think the notion of people actually risking and losing their lives for their country is is psychologically and morally very troubling for them. And so they want to push it as far away as possible as they from themselves as they can.

>> So I hear Wickoff and Kushner when they're over there trying to act as mediators and bring about peace. It strikes me that anyone who's going to bring about peace is got to have the trust of of all the parties, specifically the two waring parties. And everything I hear from them, I feel like they've essentially decided they're a proxy for Russia. It feels like their talking points were literally drafted by Sergey Lavough and Putin. And that I I can't imagine the Ukrainians have any trust for America and whatever efforts it may. It sounds to me like we've essentially rendered oursel neutered in terms of our ability to bring about a peace even when the atmospherics might be ready for it. Your thoughts?

>> Yeah, I mean just in fairness to Americans, there are a lot of Americans in civil society who are doing a good deal to help Ukraine and I think that you know and are doing so year after year after year. It's just not the US government. And I mean there's a deep problem with sending emissaries who haven't gone through any sort of civil service and don't um I mean I'm trying to put this in a neutral way but don't as an everyday matter identify themselves with the interest of the United States. Let's put it that way.

It's a that's problematic because in order to in order to understand the interests of Ukraine, you have to first work from a a model a paradigm in which you believe that countries have interests as opposed to a model in which only individuals have interests and everything is contractual or transactional. So I think it's not that Ukrainians don't trust Americans. They've had a lot of experience, good or bad, with Americans. It's that it's difficult for them when they're confronted by people who have don't visit their country except for you know a few hours very for the first time very recently who haven't experienced the war but and who also are unable to articulate Ukrainian interests right because if you're a diplomat you can say okay this is the interest of one side this is the interest of another side maybe we can find a way in between but the Woff and Kushner thus far although they're you know they're obviously talented people in their realms they're totally unable to articulate what the Ukrainian interest might be in preserving Ukrainian life, in preserving

Ukrainian livelihood, in preserving Ukrainian freedom and and preserving Ukrainian sovereignty. They just they can't talk in terms of those concepts. And so there's a there's a big mismatch between millions of people who are willing to take risks for something and a couple of guys who kind of turn up and as you say talk about how you know Putin has aspirations and these aspirations have to be fulfilled and the Russians have goals and these goals have to be fulfilled. That's it's it's a tough ask to imagine that they're going to take be able to work with that, right? And I think the the underlying problem here is that for a Witoffer, for a Kushner, Putin is a real person, not because he's a Russian or represents the Russian state, but because he's an oligarch. And that's that's the mentality that they're in. You know, that the world should be run by oligarchs. And anybody else who has some other idea, they're kind of hard to understand and maybe they don't deserve our attention. I want to move on now to the country we shared the largest undefended border in I think any honest analysis over the last couple centuries would say it's probably if not the

tightest alliance almost an alliance we take for granted because we feel so similar and so close and that's the relationship between the US and Canada and things have changed dramatically. your thoughts on the what feels like an economic war against Canada, which quite frankly reminds me of that Animal House movie where they borrow uh the Fraternity brothers get access to one of the guy's parents' car and they trash the car and the guy says to the son of his parents, you know, he says, "You effed up. You trusted us." It feels like Canada deciding to trust us the way it has. 70% of its exports. Canada is actually our largest customer. It seems just so it just seems so weird what's happening now between the US and Canada. You now live in Toronto.

Give us your thoughts on whether you think this rupture can be repaired at some point or if this is going to permanently alter the relationship with Canada. I think the underlying common thread here between the discussion of Ukraine and the discussion of Canada is that the people who make US policy now don't think in terms of the interests of the United States. They they think in terms of short-term gains by particular individuals. And I think that's really where one has to start when one considers our policy towards Canada because you know you you're you're right. Canada has been our ally in a couple of world wars. They've been our economic and cultural friend for a very very long time and they would still like to be. But the whole notion of alliance depends upon both sides seeing themselves as states with interests. And I don't think the Trump people see the United States as a state with interests.

They see it as a vehicle for the pursuit of the individual gain of a small number of people. And I think what they've done is they've they in their policy towards Canada, but also everywhere else, the European Union too, they export that same approach. So we don't really have a foreign policy anymore in the sense of a policy of a country. What we have is the exporting of a certain approach, which is to say, what are the short-term gains we could have, right? What are the gains we could have if if we broke Canada and we could impose our own rules about tech companies? What are the gains we could have if we broke Canada and American companies could do what they want with, you know, with uh, you know, with oil sands in Alberta? That's, I think, how we think about Canada now. No, it's not as a state to a state. It's like a few people thinking in terms of their own interests. And in this light, like living in Canada, the Carney government, but not just the Carne government, I mean the atmosphere in general, it's strangely normal and conservative in the sense that people assume they're living

in a country and that their country has interests and that the government's job is to protect those interests. And I think that's the big mismatch that like Carney is really thinking in terms of the interests of Canada and he h and and he he's has to react to this odd thing which is coming out of the United States which is inconsistent with this alliance and inconsistent with the interests of Canada and the existence of Canada but also in this weird way as you say it's totally also in opposition to the interests of the US. >> It feels as if every crisis birds some unexpected leaders. It strikes me right now that the most respected leader in the G20 is Mark Carney and that oddly he's kind of become the de facto leader of Europe of all things.

What can what can governments and politicians and people running for elected office learn from Carney's kind of meteoric ascent? I mean, I'm sure I'm sure many people here would be glad to hear that description because up here, I mean, it does feel like, and understandably so, that Canada is embattled and that Canada is doing the basic minimum it has to do to defend itself. And Canadians are very far from, I mean, as a cultural matter, I think this is fair. They're very far from saying we're the leaders of anything or you know our guy is the leader of of of Europe or some kind of new alliance. I think your characterization is fair. I'm just pointing out that from here it feels much more like there this is a kind of basic defense that we have to play. Um, but I I think that the I think that what the Carne government is doing is what they have to do and the imaginative part

of it is connecting with the European Union and also connecting with Ukraine because if you are I mean not talking about American politicians now but if you're a democratic politician in the wider world you now have to think of not only China and Russia as dangers but you have to think about the United States at least under the Trump administration as a danger. And the only way to handle that is to is for these democracies from Canada, through the United Kingdom, through Europe, through Ukraine to trade with one another and to tighten their political relationships. And that that seems to be Canadian policy. And I I think I mean I wish it weren't true, but I think that's the only sound way of dealing with this kind of triple Chinese, Russian, American problem is to have an entity which is a bigger economy than any of them.

>> You're a historian. And I'm curious if you have ever or if there's any analogy for a superpower such as the US in history that makes this sort of shift in their view of the world and the way they participate with allies and a reshuffleling of who is an enemy and who is an ally. If you can point to another point or another superpower in history that has made this type of pretty dramatic I don't want to call it a U-turn, let's call it a left turn in terms of the way it acques and domestically. Is there an analogy? And if so, what can we learn from it?

>> I've really struggled with this one, Scott. I that a few months ago I was asked to come down to the Council on Foreign Relations and and have you know a talk um about the about you know the place of US in the world and I realized the only I I couldn't sort of do it within the normal constraints and forms. I I had to think of some other term and the term that I came up with was superpower suicide. >> Yeah, I love it. I use it all the time by the way. I think that perfectly marks the age. Sorry to interrupt you. >> No, no, thanks. That's very kind. Um, but because I think that we need a concept, right? Like we need something that captures the novelty and the strangeness and the rapidity of all of this and also the way in which it's not just about the present, but about the future. It's not as though these guys are making a few bad policies. They're also undermining education. They're undermining scientific research. They're undermining the things which would make us a power in the future. Right? Like I I this is not an analogy which I would push too far, but like I I tend to think that in the 20s in the 20s of the last century, Germany had a chance to own the

century to come, right? Germany had a chance to own the 20th century and they blew it in various ways. They they destroyed their democracy. Um they they sent all their best scientists abroad, you know, and then they carried out these these terrible atrocities and started this world war. But before that, there was the crash of democracy and there was the oppression of the best scientists. And I mean there's a that's a little bit of a comparison, right? Like it's the 20s of of this next century and we are crushing our own science and we are we are weakening our own democracy for no particular reason.

But and then another partial analogy and I think it's one which is actually relevant to Trump personally and people around him is the end of the Soviet Union because I think they see that as a positive example. Like I think they see the end of the Soviet Union as a moment where the oligarchs like the aspiring oligarchs, people like Trump who you know Trump never actually had any money. Um he's an aspiring oligarch, right? He needs state power to get rich. But the they see that the end of the Soviet Union as a moment where a few guys were able to come crashing in and steal all the resources, which is a reasonable description of what actually happened.

But I think they see that as a positive example for what you should do to the United States. And so that I think it's not a completely it's not a full analogy and there are no full analogies but I think that's a helpful example to understand how they see the world that when you come to power the idea is to break up the things that exist and then to kind of steal what you can support for the show comes from LinkedIn ads. There's no worse feeling than making a major investment in something only to realize it didn't exactly live up to the hype, such as buying a nice piece of tech that ends up in storage collecting dust, or taking a business workshop where your main takeaway was little more than a few motivational words. If you work in marketing, this can happen with ads. You optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach, and reactions. But when they don't show revenue, well, that can turn into an unfun conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that, bull spend. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads and invest in what looks good to your CFO. According to the 2026

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You've written recently about 9/11, the 25th anniversary. Draw a line and make connections between 9/11 and what's going on today. I looked back, I mean, I was looking at the media coverage of this, you know, before and I just couldn't handle the general tone of like some which something bad happened to us and that's all we're going to say. Yeah. Something terrible happened to us, you know? I mean, something I was I was in New York the day before and I was in New York as soon as I could get back and it was and you know, people I knew know were affected.

something terrible happened to us, but we then blew it afterwards, right? Like, we didn't do the right thing. We shouldn't have invaded Iraq. We should have invested in fusion and other high technologies, true high technologies, not the fake high technology of social media that would have gotten us out of the energy crisis, out of dependency on the Middle East, out of global warming. And we didn't do those things. We could have done those things and we didn't, you know, we didn't we didn't do those things. We did the opposite. We doubled down on all the bad stuff. And that's that's on us. We we made those mistakes.

And I think like when you think about a terrorist attack or any historical turning point, it's not the thing that happens. It's how you react to it. Like that shows your freedom and your and your character. And I I just think we have to recognize that we blew it and that the next time that there's a crisis, we have to react better than that. And we have to not make those same mistakes all over again. But more relevantly, I mean, the thing which is on my mind is is the is the way that 9/11 imprinted on us as the the way you react to a crisis, a terrorist attack, is you give the government more latitude to do things right. And we gave the government latitude to form this what became the Department of Homeland Security, which I believe was a mistake from the beginning. and we gave the government more latitude to invade a random country, Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 at all. And that's a lesson which I'm worried that Trump and the people around him have learned. And so as we gear up for these midterms, I

just, you know, without being alarmist about it, I just want people to think that one possible political move that a somebody like Trump who's whose party is way behind in the b polls might resort to is to try to drum up that kind of 9/11 effect again. Um and and another reason why I think about this is that Victor Orban, who of course is their political hero, um the former prime minister of Hungary, he did exactly that. He tried a fake terrorist attack in order to win elections. It didn't work. Also, Putin, who Trump admires, came to power by way of a fake terrorist attack um way back 27 years ago. So, I just that the the the legacy of 9/11 that like if we're afraid, we should trust the government. That's something which I think we might really have to resist at this particular point in our history. If there is a terrorist attack, fake real unclear whatever between now and early November, that's on Trump.

I mean, that's his problem. That's something he brought about. It's not a reason why we should support him. >> Well, let's talk about the midterms. We're five weeks away from the midterm election you've called probably the most consequential election since the 18th century. It feels as if credible people such as yourself, to be honest, say that about every election. Why why should we believe that this time it is is actually the most consequential election of for a while? >> Yeah. I mean, first of all, just to defend logic, it can be true that each election is the most consequential because, you know, 26 could be more consequential than anything before it.

Um, you know, in 24 could have been more consequential before that, right? Like if if if 24 had turned out differently, then 26 probably wouldn't be so consequential. But now that we are where we are, I mean, going back to your list of threats, right? Um, and and just bracketing, you know, for the moment which are real and which aren't, but you're the number one one you mentioned, um, and I understand you may not agree, but AI, if if if we have Republican majorities in the House and Senate and Trump is president, you can kind of toss away any notion that we're going to have an AI policy. It's just going to be unregulated, right? um uh it's there's there's there's there's not going to be any attempt on the part of the United States to get control of that and then um the the American so the state the statethood of the United States I mean that's the thing which I worry about the most um as as a patriot but also just as a sensible individual. I'm not sure how much more battering our institutions can

take because at the moment all of them are being used to protect and further the interests of a small number of people. You can't keep a republic going that long on those principles. Eventually something's going to break. So for me that's like that's the main reason the opposition party it's not that I think the Democrats are supermen and that like they're going to fix everything. It's more that in a situation like this, you want the opposition party to win because you want to make sure that the institutions of a republic can still work in in in in a normal way. And then the third, I mean, going back to like a, you know, a conservative theme if you want is is the shrinking power of the United States around the world. Um, we are like we've basically we there's still a parachute on our backs, but we have jumped off a cliff. And the question is, do we continue enjoy falling precipitously towards the bottom of the cliff um in terms of our power in the world or do we prefer to pull the parachute and slow things down and look around a little bit?

>> You're releasing your University of Toronto course Hitler and Stalin today to the public. It begins not with Hitler or Stalin, but with the empires that preceded them, a world where Europeans applied one set of rules to themselves and another to everyone else. Why did you begin there? And what are the most important parallels that period has for the world we're living in now? >> I love that question because I think that is really the the ultimate issue in 21st century politics is can you get past empire into something which is better and of course I mean if if you're in the western civilization tradition you know you know that this goes all the way back to the Greeks. Can you do democracy or you know the Romans can you have a republic or ultimately does it have to collapse into oligarchy or empire? And you know we Americans imagine that we have a democracy or that we have a republic. It's been flawed all

the way down the line. But the question is for us, can we get over the habits that came from expanding across the continent, often violently? Can we get over those habits into something where we respect one another? We believe that everyone should have rights, um, that none of us should be rounded up off the streets, that we shouldn't have concentration camps, that we shouldn't have mass incarceration, um, that we should all have healthcare. Can we recognize one another as citizens? Everybody should have the right to vote. and so on or is the habit of having an in-group and an out groupoup is that too deeply ingrained in us for us to get over this hump from you know being a big imperial power to being a democracy the Europeans were empires and they they don't think about this part of their history enough but they have jumped over their own shadow at least to the extent of forming a European Union which is a postimperial entity right which is one of the reasons why the both the Russians and the Trump people hate it so much because The way

the Trump people and the Russians look at the world is it's all power. It's all about individuals. You should just kind of grab what you can. The European Union is beyond that. I'm not saying it's perfect or it's, you know, based on ideals or anything like that, but it's beyond that. It's about recognizing states as being equal and cooperating economically and then and and and then politically. So that's why I start the class with that. You know, that the 500 years that preceded the 20th century were basically an age of European empire. And the big question for the late empires which were the US and the Soviet Union is can you get over that right? Are you able to move into something better or are you stuck where you are?

>> So I know you have a heart out. Uh so this will be the last question. Just end on an optimistic note which is not easy these days when you're covering the news. Something you said earlier in the podcast really struck me and I want to double click on it and that is you said when winter arrives which is just around the corner you believe Putin is going to be motivated to end this war. Say more about that. >> I think the Russians look the Russians depend on us to keep the war going. Um, and if if our policy changes, even if the Democrats win and it's just declaratory and we start passing laws, even if Trump vetos them, that's going to feel harder for Putin, um, the winner is tough for the Russians because they are going to have to rely on mobilized troops, and they really aren't making advances. It's going to be hard on the Ukrainians, too. Um, but I think the Russians are desperate to win by spring.

That's how I see it. And if that can be held off, I think then we can get to something better in Ukraine. But I mean, I can be more optimistic in general or more hopeful in general. Uh these problems that we have, all the ones we've talked about, they're lar they're not like historically faded problems. These are largely problems that we've chosen to have ourselves and we've chosen to have them with great intensity in the last year and a half. A lot of the technological stuff, a lot of the things having to do with tech and wealth are a matter of thoughtful redistribution which could be carried out with a better American government. I mean, we could be in a much much better America than we're in right now. Um, and I I continue to believe in that. Timothy Snder is a leading historian of authoritarianism, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe. He's the author of various books including on freedom, on tyranny, the road to unfreedom, and budlands. Tim is also a professor at the University of Toronto's Monk School of Global Affairs.

Uh, professor, we have a lot of young people who listen to this podcast and one of my first pieces pieces of advice is you you have to have role models such that you can think what would this person do and uh you uh an Apple and Heather Cox Richardson in this moment have been role models for me because you apply your domain expertise and just how not only articulate you are but just how unafraid you are. I get the sense that you guys don't really care much about what's in the comments. I really think it's a nice moment for historians such as yourself to have such an incredible impact on our country and I I think of you as real patriots and and living up to the moment. Um just so so grateful for you, professor. I appreciate your time today.

>> Thank you. That's very kind. I also appreciate the kind words about Ann and and and Heather and uh and you know the implication that his historians can make a difference. We're we're trying. Thank you.