- 5/20/2025
In this explosive interview, Colonel Jacques Baud delivers a critical assessment of the European Union’s current trajectory. He warns that EU policies on war, sanctions, and diplomacy may be pushing Europe toward economic collapse, political division, and strategic failure ⚠️. As global tensions rise, Baud asks the urgent question: Is the EU destroying itself from within?
#JacquesBaud #EUCollapse #EuropeOnTheBrink #EuropeanUnion #Geopolitics #DialogueWorks #EUPolitics #Sanctions #EuropeanCrisis #WarPolicy #NATO #RussiaUkraine #EconomicCrisis #PoliticalCrisis #EUFailure #GlobalTensions #EuropeNews #BreakingNews #InternationalRelations #FutureOfEurope
#JacquesBaud #EUCollapse #EuropeOnTheBrink #EuropeanUnion #Geopolitics #DialogueWorks #EUPolitics #Sanctions #EuropeanCrisis #WarPolicy #NATO #RussiaUkraine #EconomicCrisis #PoliticalCrisis #EUFailure #GlobalTensions #EuropeNews #BreakingNews #InternationalRelations #FutureOfEurope
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00:00Hi everybody, today is Monday, May 19th, 2025, and our friend, Colonel Jacques Bois is back
00:00:12with us.
00:00:13Welcome back, Colonel.
00:00:14Thank you very much for inviting me.
00:00:17Colonel, let's start with this new poll in Russia that came out and shows how the view
00:00:25of Russian citizens have changed during the years of the conflict between Russia and the
00:00:32West.
00:00:33Here is, you see France from 2014, and with 3% they feel that the hostility coming from
00:00:40France, 3% and comes to 48%.
00:00:44And the same case is for Great Britain, Germany, and the case of the United States is somehow
00:00:52interesting in 2014, 73%, in 2022, 76%.
00:00:59And under the Trump administration in 2025, it reduced to 27%.
00:01:04Your take on what's going on in the mind of Russians?
00:01:08Well, I think there are many things here.
00:01:11First of all, so that's the perception of Russians regarding the hostility of selected
00:01:19countries.
00:01:21And we have also to consider that in those European, I mean, Western countries, you have
00:01:29a rhetoric that influence the mood in the countries.
00:01:34And of course, you have the rhetoric of the leaders, of the leadership of these countries.
00:01:40Now, if you look, let's start with the US.
00:01:47Up to last year, you had a Democrat government, which were frankly hostile to Russia, who
00:01:57had a hostile stance.
00:02:01I mean, no negotiation, feeding weapons into the conflict, supporting blindly Ukraine for
00:02:10everything and having massive sanctions.
00:02:15So all that, looking from Russia, you can see, well, these countries were definitely
00:02:21hostile to Russia.
00:02:24With Trump, we have a definite change of tone.
00:02:29And the mere idea that you can talk to Russia, I think it's probably felt in Russia as something
00:02:37which is less hostile.
00:02:39And they probably understand that there will be kind of what we can call a residual hostility
00:02:46because the US has different reasons for that.
00:02:51I mean, there are probably historical reasons.
00:02:54A lot of people still call, I mean, recently I have seen some article when people were
00:02:58calling Russians like commies, I mean, like communists.
00:03:03And obviously, this is back in time of 30 years or so, because definitely the Russians
00:03:15are not communists at all.
00:03:17They have a very similar social and economic system as we do in the West.
00:03:22So no reason.
00:03:24But this image, this perception of Russia as Soviet Union is still there.
00:03:31And when you see, for instance, a lot of explanation of the conflict in Ukraine, especially
00:03:37when you look at Western media, they look at the conflict exactly as they would look
00:03:43at the Soviet Union 30 years ago.
00:03:46This is the same rhetoric, the same explanation, the same ideas.
00:03:51I mean, this idea that this expansion is Russia, this expansion is to reconstruct the Soviet
00:03:58Union, all that.
00:03:59So the Russians understand that all these perceptions are there and they will not get
00:04:09away so easily.
00:04:11But they also feel that the government, by the mere fact that the government wants to
00:04:19open a dialogue with Russia, it shows that there is some kind of rationality which is
00:04:26emerging in the US.
00:04:29And that even if you may not be best friends, but at least there is less hostility.
00:04:37When you start talking to people, that means that your hostility becomes measured, becomes
00:04:44rationalized somehow.
00:04:47So that can be explained.
00:04:50When you look at the figure about Ukraine, by and large, it's the same perception before
00:04:56than today.
00:05:00That's the perception of the Russians about Ukraine.
00:05:06They feel that Ukraine is hostile, although people understand quite well in Russia that
00:05:13it's only a part of Ukraine which is hostile.
00:05:18That's also important.
00:05:21If you compare the rhetoric or the narrative in Russia and in Ukraine, I'm talking about
00:05:32the official narrative.
00:05:33I'm not talking about the narrative in alternative media and things like this.
00:05:39But when you look at the official language, you will see that the Russian language is
00:05:44much more measured, much more reasonable than the Ukrainian one.
00:05:52In Ukraine, you go very quickly into a word that is extremely aggressive and offensive.
00:06:07In Russia, but remember that Russia has tried to maintain a diplomatic activity, not just
00:06:16towards Ukraine, but also towards the whole world, basically, and they kept a rhetoric
00:06:24which is measured.
00:06:25They are at war, so we cannot expect them to say that the Ukrainians are the best people
00:06:31of the world.
00:06:32But at the same time, they have a more measured language and less offensive than you may find
00:06:38in Ukraine.
00:06:39Remember that in Ukraine, they had to convince a part of the population that the Russians
00:06:45were bad people, because in essence, in Ukraine, you have two different cultures.
00:06:53You have this Western Ukrainian culture, which derives from the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
00:07:04which is very Germanic in essence, which is quite hostile to Russia, Soviet Union, and
00:07:14everything which is Slav, basically, and this remains in the Western part of the country.
00:07:21When you see the polls about different topics, especially when it comes to the relation between
00:07:28communities and you see the polls in Ukraine itself, you see a decisive difference between
00:07:36the Western part of the country and the Eastern part of the country.
00:07:39Today, the Eastern part of the country is clearly under Russia occupation, or let's
00:07:47say part of the Russian territory even.
00:07:50But all the South, remember that in 2014, this is the whole South of the country that
00:07:56rebelled against the new non-elected authorities in February 2014.
00:08:07So you have this cultural hostility, and today the government in Kiev has still to convince
00:08:17the Southern and Eastern part of the country, which is left under the control, to convince
00:08:24them that the Russians are bad guys.
00:08:26So you keep to have a very strong propaganda towards this.
00:08:32Now, when it comes to the three other countries, which are essentially the largest European
00:08:38countries, France, UK and Germany, you see a decisive change in perception from the Russian
00:08:47part in the last year.
00:08:49Incidentally, this is the year, I mean, 2025 is precisely the year in which Western countries
00:08:58have realized that their support to Ukraine has failed, that sanctions against Russia
00:09:04has failed. And you can see in the rhetoric of those leaders a more offensive, more, let's
00:09:15say, extreme language.
00:09:18And for instance, on the 5th of March this year, Emmanuel Macron made an address to the
00:09:27French people indicating very clearly that France was under the threat of a Russian
00:09:34invasion. And after this speech, you had an increase in the recruitment of soldiers, a
00:09:44lot of young French people enrolled in military programs and things like this.
00:09:52So meaning that the French people have taken this threat very seriously.
00:09:57But this came only in 2025.
00:10:02Before that, in 2022 or so, what was the rhetoric in Europe?
00:10:08That Russia was weak, it will not be able to win over Ukraine, that Ukraine was much
00:10:16stronger, Ukraine was defending the interests of the West and so Russia was not a threat.
00:10:24And therefore, you needed to have a normal anti-Russian rhetoric.
00:10:32But now they have to go a step further because Russia is winning in Ukraine.
00:10:40All the policies that were directed towards Russia have failed, sanctions, you name it.
00:10:49And all the aspects also that, because there is a lot of things, we talk always about
00:10:55sanctions, but you have to know that, for instance, in France, if you have a name that
00:11:03sounds like Russian, sounds like Russian, a bank will refrain to let you open a bank
00:11:11account just because of your name, even if you have a French passport, even if you don't
00:11:17have double citizenship with Russia or whatever.
00:11:21So you see, there is here in France, you have this kind of obsession against Russia, which
00:11:30is very odd because for decades, if not centuries, you had, I mean, after Napoleon, of
00:11:39course, but you had decades of friendship between Russia and Soviet Union and Russia and
00:11:53France. Remember that you had a French pilot in the Russian or Soviet Air Force during
00:12:02World War II. You had a lot of connection.
00:12:06And even after World War, I mean, after the revolution in 1917, a lot of Russians emigrated
00:12:14in France.
00:12:16And I know a lot of people who originate from that period.
00:12:22I mean, their grandparents or grand grandparents immigrated in 1917.
00:12:32Even the words we probably, you probably know this word in French, which is bistro, which
00:12:40is basically the equivalent of a pub, of a bar, bistro, that comes from the Russian
00:12:46bistro. So a lot of words in French come from the Russian because you had this long
00:12:55friendship. And if you look at the Russian language, you have a lot of words in Russian
00:13:05that comes from the French because during centuries, you had advisors, teachers, artists,
00:13:17and so on and so forth, who lived in Russia and influenced the culture.
00:13:21So the two cultures have a lot in commonalities, let's say.
00:13:28There are different cultures, but you have a lot of commonalities.
00:13:31And so this is, for a very long time, the Russians felt that the French were a friendly
00:13:40people. And today, especially after 2022, but especially after this in the last year,
00:13:50the French made every effort to show their hostility against Russia.
00:13:58And this has become extremely harsh.
00:14:01I mean, in France, you have, just to show an example, which could be part of the clown
00:14:09world, because there is a Canadian dish, which is called the poutine.
00:14:20I don't know exactly what it is.
00:14:21I think it's kind of a soup or things like that.
00:14:23But to be honest, I don't know.
00:14:25But it's called the poutine.
00:14:27And it's Canadian, purely Canadian, has nothing to do with Russia.
00:14:32And of course, you have some restaurants in France who are offering poutine, and those
00:14:38were stoned by people and even attacked with Molotov cocktails and things like this
00:14:46because the restaurant was offering poutine for lunch or dinner.
00:14:53So that shows that this hostility.
00:14:55But in French, things may become extremely quickly emotional.
00:15:02There is, as opposed to the US, when we talk in the specialized literature, when we
00:15:10talk, even if you read the New York Times, Washington Post or other mainstream media,
00:15:17which are strongly in favor of Ukraine, you may still have some sense of the reality
00:15:26sometimes. And in my different books, I quote very often those mainstream media, because
00:15:33even if they are in favor of Ukraine, they may have some facts that, in fact, they
00:15:41recognize that it can be something in favor of Russia.
00:15:45In France, don't even try to do that, because if you are against Russia, it's
00:15:51impossible to find in any mainstream media any sense of friendship towards Russia.
00:16:00Russia is the enemy and period.
00:16:03And that reminds me a little bit when you look at the propaganda that you had in
00:16:10France during World War One, for instance, and World War Two against the Germans, it's
00:16:15exactly the same thing.
00:16:17There is no nuances of the grays.
00:16:23It's black or white.
00:16:25There is nothing in between.
00:16:28And that probably is something that is resented in Russia as some kind of treason
00:16:37because the relationship between Russia and France, and I'm not talking about the
00:16:46official relationships, I'm talking about the normal perception, the literature, all
00:16:54this kind of thing, the two populations were very close.
00:16:59A lot of Russians speak French.
00:17:01For instance, if you go in Russia, a lot of people will speak French and speak an
00:17:05impeccable French, by the way.
00:17:09So there is a sense of very deep friendship.
00:17:13And what you see today, because all these actions, I mean, I described this restaurant
00:17:20where stoned because of Putin.
00:17:24It's not the government that decides this.
00:17:26This is the population.
00:17:28You see, meaning that we are changing the level here.
00:17:32When the government decides that we have this policy of sanction, this is the
00:17:39government. But does it show that the government is so effective in the way that
00:17:45they have forced or convinced the population by their rhetoric?
00:17:51They've been so successful in achieving that.
00:17:55Well, to some extent, yes, but the thing is that there is a very strong censorship.
00:18:02A very strong censorship.
00:18:04And that's the same in Germany, for instance.
00:18:08In Germany, just as an example, my books, some libraries have acquired my books, for
00:18:16instance, and now the intelligence service, the Bundesamt für
00:18:23Fassungsschutz. This is the, let's say, the modern Gestapo, literally.
00:18:32They impose in my books a notice saying that I'm pro-Russian or something like that.
00:18:43And this happens in German libraries today.
00:18:46This is exactly what the Germans did during World War Two or before World War Two, when
00:18:50they were burning literature that was not deemed as, let's say, in line with the
00:18:59government. Exactly the same thing.
00:19:02So we see that there are things that happen at the government level.
00:19:08In Germany, I'm not sure that what the government does has a very strong impact on
00:19:14the population. But in France, it has a very huge impact.
00:19:19Also because the whole mainstream media is extremely, extremely polarized.
00:19:28And that underlines, by the way, the importance of alternative media to have some
00:19:35information, I mean, objective information about the conflict, because what we are
00:19:39witnessing today is that the whole narrative that was supported by the French
00:19:45government and the mainstream media were completely wrong.
00:19:49Even false. I mean, that was disinformation, literally.
00:19:56And you had generals, French generals, who were paid by mainstream media to say
00:20:04things, just things that you wouldn't even dare as a researcher or as a journalist, I
00:20:13mean, an honest journalist, you wouldn't allow this.
00:20:17I mean, just as an example, I talked to the journalist of a very important newspaper in
00:20:28France. It's a daily paper and we had a private conversation on the phone and he
00:20:34told me literally that the editor was preventing journalists to say the truth because
00:20:51that would mean they support Vladimir Putin.
00:20:54They prevent them to say the truth, use that word, because that would indicate that you
00:21:01support Vladimir Putin.
00:21:05That means that this is when you hear that, that means that we are in a dynamics of
00:21:13disinformation, organized disinformation, and that's extremely strong in France.
00:21:21There are only very few media who dare to be in alternative.
00:21:28Otherwise, you may have issues with the tax administration and all kinds of pressures.
00:21:38This is extremely worrisome when you see that, because we are back to things that we
00:21:46didn't even have during World War II, during the Cold War, I mean, World War II, I'm a bit
00:21:52too young, but during the Cold War, the Communist Party existed in France during World War
00:22:02II. Sorry, again, the Cold War in France, it was not prohibited.
00:22:09It even had ties with the Soviet Communist Party, by the way.
00:22:18So the censorship was much less important during the Cold War than it is today.
00:22:27But I think the explanation lies in the quality of the leadership, because the reason why
00:22:36we didn't need censorship during the Cold War is that because we were convinced we had
00:22:42the best system.
00:22:45I mean, essentially, Cold War was a war between two systems, the Marxist-Communist, I mean,
00:22:52you can use the word you want for the Warsaw Pact and the Communist bloc.
00:22:58And you had the more, let's say, liberal economic free market type of society.
00:23:07And essentially, Cold War was a struggle between those two systems.
00:23:14And we were so convinced that our system was the best.
00:23:20Then we didn't need a censorship, because, in fact, the propaganda and even communist
00:23:29propaganda, and you had communist propaganda, by the way, because as I already said in your
00:23:35show some weeks ago, in Paris or in Geneva, you could buy the Pravda.
00:23:43I mean, it was not banned at all.
00:23:46You could buy those papers, Soviet papers in the news outlets.
00:23:56But we were so convinced that our system was the best one.
00:24:01But we didn't need to ban others.
00:24:03The problem is that today we are not so convinced that what you would say is the best
00:24:10thing to say. And that's exactly why you need a censorship.
00:24:16And that's very true, as we said before.
00:24:21I mean, the economic system in Russia is definitely similar to the West, probably not in
00:24:29the same degree of sophistication.
00:24:32Maybe I'm not even able to assess that in detail.
00:24:36But in essence, we have the same approach to the society, the same approach to the market,
00:24:45to the same approach to the industry and the relationships inside the society as you have
00:24:54in the West and in Russia.
00:24:59But, Karol, you mentioned a very critical point right now.
00:25:04I'm sorry for interrupting you, but you've mentioned the West went from being the
00:25:11dominant power going right now to somehow, even within itself, the rhetoric is in
00:25:23minority one and somehow is diminishing its position in the world.
00:25:28What has happened in the Western society that they went from such a strong position to
00:25:35the way that they are right now?
00:25:37What has happened within the society, within the leadership of the West, in your opinion?
00:25:43Well, first of all, there is a lot of mismanagement that occurred in the last 40 years,
00:25:49let's say, 40, even 50 years.
00:25:52This idea and probably Marxist people would call that some remnants of or variants of
00:26:03imperialism, but some others will call that mondialist or globalist approach of the world.
00:26:11But the fact is that in the West, and that's exactly, by the way, the problem Trump has,
00:26:18that the West has considered the rest of the world as their manufacturer area.
00:26:28So we decided that the cost of production has to be as low as possible.
00:26:35Therefore, we imported very cheap labor force.
00:26:42That's very true, for instance, in France, where essentially they have laid off the French
00:26:51workers and they have hired North African workforce because those you can pay with
00:27:03significantly less than the French ones.
00:27:06So you have, I don't know how many millions of jobless people in France.
00:27:13And today, of course, with years, North Africans have been jobless as well.
00:27:20But initially in the early 80s, those who were against immigration in France was not
00:27:28simply the right, it was also the left party.
00:27:31In fact, the Communist Party was against immigration because they said this is a way
00:27:37to lay off the French workers and to hire people that you pay with nothing.
00:27:45And sorry for interrupting you again.
00:27:50I think this is a crucial point again that you're making.
00:27:54Whenever we talk about globalists, they're talking about these are leftist, Marxist
00:27:59globalists, but we have the capitalist globalists.
00:28:04Yes, absolutely.
00:28:06This is this is exactly that's why for me those words don't mean much, because if you
00:28:12look at what happened, the capitalists and in the US, you have the same thing.
00:28:19I mean, it didn't I mean, basically, it also explains why you had so much immigration
00:28:27from South America, but also explain why you had to outsource production of industrial
00:28:35products to China, India and in Southeast Asia, for instance, because basically we
00:28:43couldn't afford to produce and to pay for our own products in the West.
00:28:52And therefore, we had to distort our relationship with the rest of the world.
00:28:59Basically, it was some kind of colonialist approach where we are the consumers and they
00:29:07are the producers.
00:29:10That's that's, in essence, what happened.
00:29:13The problem with that is that in the last 15 years or so, you had those powers who
00:29:23emerged, namely China, but not only just in the shadow of not the shadow, because it's
00:29:33probably not very nice to say it so, but let's say behind China, not far away, you have
00:29:41India and other countries who will follow, meaning that slowly the rest of the world
00:29:47has learned about how to produce and they also have learned how to innovate.
00:29:55They have learned how to develop a product.
00:30:00And today, when we see we talk about semiconductors, iPhones and whatever, where
00:30:10that design, where is that produced?
00:30:13For the iPhone, probably you can say, OK, it's still in Seattle, in the US, but.
00:30:20All the main components are designed and developed somewhere else, and namely in the
00:30:26rest of the world, meaning that today, those areas that we considered as merely
00:30:34production areas are today those who can afford to pay for their own product.
00:30:42They are richer than us, basically, and they can confront us and they say, well, if you
00:30:48consider us just as slaves, then we don't need to trade with you anymore.
00:30:58That's exactly what's happening between the US and China today.
00:31:02But in essence, the capacity of the West to have this position up to the end of the 20th
00:31:12century, the West was designing things, cars, watches, computers, cameras.
00:31:22I mean, you name it.
00:31:24Today, we are no longer the area where things are designed, are produced, or cameras are
00:31:34produced in Japan or in China, or cars are produced in China and somewhere else in the
00:31:40world, and so on and so forth.
00:31:44So this relationship that we had between those who decide and those who execute, this
00:31:53has changed. Those who used to be those who executed the orders today are those who give
00:32:01the orders. And that's exactly the problem in which we are.
00:32:06And the problem is that we haven't identified this in the last 30 years.
00:32:13We realized this today.
00:32:15And in fact, that's exactly what Trump has realized.
00:32:20I'm not sure he has the right solutions for that.
00:32:23I'm not sure he has the right strategies for that.
00:32:27That's another topic.
00:32:30But he has realized this.
00:32:32Europe has not realized that yet.
00:32:35But internally, this has led to a lot of problems because what we see in the UK, I
00:32:44mean, those three countries where you have this changing perception toward Russia, by
00:32:50the way, France, UK, Germany, they have a very strong immigration population.
00:32:56And the problem is that this population today has no work anymore.
00:33:03I mean, I'm not saying that they are all jobless.
00:33:06It's not exactly the situation, but all these countries have a kind of second class
00:33:14citizens that they are not able to provide with all the services that you used to be
00:33:21able to offer, let's say, 50 years ago.
00:33:25Meaning that you have societies that are less homogenous, I mean, with a vanishing
00:33:35middle class somehow in those countries.
00:33:38It's very true in the US, it's less true in the West, in Western Europe, but it's
00:33:45coming. So we have this imbalance that is created in our countries.
00:33:53And we haven't really identified the problem.
00:33:57The problem is that we continue to have to import, if you allow me that word, we
00:34:06continue to import cheap labor from Africa because, again, we don't need to pay them.
00:34:13So it's some kind of colonialism.
00:34:17I mean, in the sense that previously we exploited raw material, you name it, iron,
00:34:30coal and whatever outside for production in the country.
00:34:37Today, it's not that, it's not raw material, it's work, workforce.
00:34:43Instead of having developed those countries, provided these countries with a
00:34:48production capability so that they could be partners today.
00:34:54And that's exactly the reason why China has so good an audience in Africa, for
00:35:03instance, because China came into these countries by assessing the problem
00:35:10differently. They don't want to take the workforce to China to work.
00:35:17On the contrary, they developed the infrastructures and the production
00:35:21capabilities in Africa so that these countries can produce directly on the spot
00:35:30things that for their own conception, but also for export, meaning that in essence
00:35:38you have kind of a sustainable development that is promoted by China, things that the
00:35:44West has never done.
00:35:46We may have in some areas like Tunisia or Algeria, France had some factories for Renault
00:35:56cars or for jeans or textile, but it was not really kind of a capability development or
00:36:09capacity development.
00:36:11It was more like we just outsource the production and that's it.
00:36:16But it's not linked with a developmental policy.
00:36:21As a result, we didn't promote the development of these countries.
00:36:27And today, these countries, when they need them in the people of these countries, when
00:36:31they look for salary, they move to Europe instead of staying in their countries.
00:36:37The best things we could have done would be to help these countries to develop
00:36:41seriously, to develop, to have school, to have engineer schools in their country so
00:36:48that they can produce their own engineers, their own workers, their own production
00:36:55capabilities. And therefore, they could be today our partners.
00:37:01But this is not what we have done.
00:37:03China is doing that.
00:37:04And that's the reason why the West becomes more and more isolated.
00:37:08I lived in two countries, namely Sudan and Kenya, which used to be the main strong
00:37:21point of the China presence in Africa at the time.
00:37:27And we could see that the Chinese were not there to influence politics and things like
00:37:33this. You never saw a Chinese anywhere.
00:37:36They were just used for what they were supposed to do, build roads, build a dam on the
00:37:45Nile River or things like that.
00:37:47And then these guys moved back to China.
00:37:51But the Chinese government never tried to take influence in local politics, tried to
00:37:58bribe politicians and things like that.
00:38:00If you look at France, for instance, exactly the opposite.
00:38:03They tried to influence the elections.
00:38:06And that's the reason why, by the way, they were expelled from Mali, Niger and Burkina
00:38:10Faso, because the French were there not just with military presence, but they also tried
00:38:16to influence local politics and local economics, not for the sake of the development of
00:38:22these countries, but for the sake of the French industry.
00:38:27And I think that explains the reason why the West today is in a very fragile situation
00:38:36with a China that is very powerful.
00:38:41And probably if you look, I have this map that I found recently and I can show you, it's
00:38:49very interesting.
00:38:51You can see that.
00:38:54These are the trade partners in South America, and that was in the year 2000, and you had
00:39:05the main trade partners of all most South African-American countries were the US.
00:39:13In 2023, what's in red are the main trade partner is China, while those with the grey
00:39:25colour are those who have maintained the US as main trade partner.
00:39:30And that shows exactly the problem, that the West has not been able to be an attractive
00:39:38partner. China is an attractive partner.
00:39:42When it comes to trade, because people don't have the feeling that you try to exploit them,
00:39:49but that you are a partner.
00:39:51And in fact, if you want to have an anti-immigration policy, your best policy would be
00:40:01to develop these countries, not trying to exploit them.
00:40:05And that's exactly what the West has missed, especially in Europe, by the way, we could
00:40:11have made much more effort to develop and help Africa to develop, Africa and the Middle
00:40:17East, by the way, because what applies to Africa applies the same to the Middle East.
00:40:24We try to maintain also in the last 30 years or so after the collapse of the communist
00:40:34system and the end of the Cold War, we didn't even try to help these countries to develop.
00:40:41The case of Syria is a case in point, by the way, because after the collapse of the Soviet
00:40:47Union, Syria tried to develop a relationship with the European Union, for instance, because
00:40:56Syria was living out of the support of the Soviet Union.
00:41:01And obviously, Syria had a lot to offer to Europe.
00:41:07But the problem was that Israel didn't want to have a strong Syria.
00:41:12They preferred to have a split Syria, as we have today.
00:41:16And therefore, the West tried to destabilize Syria.
00:41:21And that's exactly the situation we have today.
00:41:24And today we have basically these countries who keep fighting internally each other.
00:41:30I mean, factions are fighting each other.
00:41:32You have the case in Iraq.
00:41:34You have the case in Syria.
00:41:35You have the case almost everywhere.
00:41:39We never managed to make with those countries great partners that can be self-reliable
00:41:49and which can be real partners with us.
00:41:53We never done that.
00:41:55And when you look at where comes immigration from, when you look at Europe, where does
00:42:01immigration come from?
00:42:02Afghanistan?
00:42:04Syria?
00:42:05I mean, all these countries that we have destabilized.
00:42:08Ukraine? All these countries that we have made every effort to destabilize today
00:42:16represent the bulk of the immigration in Europe.
00:42:21So there is something essentially wrong in our approach to the problem.
00:42:27And all that has been done in the last 50, 40 years.
00:42:33And nobody in the West has realized this.
00:42:37And today is probably too late to move.
00:42:40I mean, we can probably try.
00:42:42But the problem is that the trust is no longer here.
00:42:45And we see that definitely between Europe and Africa, for instance, the weaponization
00:42:53of Western currencies.
00:42:56I mean, the euro and mainly the dollar has been weaponized.
00:43:01Therefore, people don't trust us.
00:43:03They prefer now to disregard the West and look towards those who have respect and
00:43:10offer, let's say, an outlook in the future, which is brighter.
00:43:16And when you look at the policy that countries have, such as India, China and Russia,
00:43:26when it comes to the relationship with the so-called rest of the world, you will see
00:43:31that these countries have a much less, let's say, colonialist approach, if I can put it
00:43:38that way, than the West has.
00:43:41But again, with several centuries of colonialist culture, how can France change, make a
00:43:50kind of a U-turn in that?
00:43:52The same with the UK.
00:43:55This is very difficult.
00:43:56And probably that's the explanation.
00:44:01It's not the only explanation, but it's one of the explanations of the weakness of the
00:44:05West today.
00:44:07Colonel, you've mentioned China and India and even Russia.
00:44:11Let's go to a case that is much more extreme, in my opinion, which is the case of Iran.
00:44:17And we know that before the revolution, during the Shah, Iran had a nuclear program.
00:44:23But they said to Iran that we can provide you with the fuel.
00:44:28You don't need to produce it in Iran.
00:44:30You don't need to enrich uranium in Iran.
00:44:33And Iran said so, Iran agreed with that concept.
00:44:37And France was supposed to provide Iran with the fuel.
00:44:41Then in the aftermath of the revolution in Iran, they just refused to provide anything to
00:44:47Iran. And right now, one of the main problems that Donald Trump is facing in the foreign
00:44:52policy of the United States is the nuclear program of Iran.
00:44:55Because Iran was able to create it by itself, to make it by itself.
00:45:01And it's not just in that area.
00:45:04You see at the military's weapons, then everything that they have built during the last
00:45:1340 years, they have, Iran has been under tremendous sanctions together, I would argue,
00:45:19with Cuba and Venezuela.
00:45:21Well, before going to that, here is what Donald Trump said about the drones of Iran.
00:45:32I asked one of the companies, I said, I want a lot of drones.
00:45:36And, you know, in the case of Iran, they make a good drone and they make them for thirty
00:45:42five, forty thousand dollars.
00:45:43So I said to this company, I want to see they came in two weeks later with a drone that
00:45:48cost forty one million.
00:45:49I said, that's not what I'm talking about.
00:45:50Forty one million. I'm talking about something for thirty five, forty thousand dollars.
00:45:54We have sent thousands of them out.
00:45:56And that's a great way.
00:45:57And they're very good, too, and fast and deadly.
00:46:00Horrible. Actually, when you look at what's happening with Russia and Ukraine, the drone
00:46:06is killing tremendous numbers of people.
00:46:08You hide behind a tree and the drone comes down and it circles you with with fire.
00:46:13You don't have a chance. The tree comes down also.
00:46:16You force these nations to build their weapons, to build their economy, to build their way
00:46:24of living. And you're blaming, you're right now putting blame on them that why you're
00:46:30doing this.
00:46:31Well, the problem is, you know, you were addressing the nuclear issue in Iran.
00:46:37In the early 2000s, Iran considered the idea of having nuclear weapons and they had this
00:46:46so-called Project Ahmad, which was essentially to study the feasibility, I underlined this
00:46:55twice, the feasibility of having nuclear weapons.
00:46:59Why did they do so?
00:47:02Because the U.S. was threatening Iraq and Iran was thinking that after Iran, Iraq, that
00:47:11will be us.
00:47:14You know, so the whole thing, eventually the Project Ahmad was definitely cancelled in
00:47:212003.
00:47:23And by the way, that was mentioned in a national intelligence estimate from the CIA in
00:47:302007. And that was reiterated in the very recent threat, annual threat assessment of
00:47:38the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, just a few weeks ago, that since
00:47:452003, Iran has made no attempt whatsoever to have nuclear weapons.
00:47:51That's just to say.
00:47:54But the problem is that by creating a permanent threat of these countries, we also
00:48:02create the need for them to arm themselves, to focus on armament rather than focusing
00:48:08on development. By the way, that reflects on the U.S.
00:48:13as well. What Trump is saying with these drones, I have seen this
00:48:21sequence. It's very funny.
00:48:22But the thing is, if you look just a bit further, it means that the U.S.
00:48:30has spent a huge amount of money developing weapons that are not working or not
00:48:38adapted for the kind of war.
00:48:40For instance, in Ukraine, we see that the U.S.
00:48:43weapons are not adapted.
00:48:44They were probably made for Iraq or Afghanistan and probably performed well there, but
00:48:50they were not designed to perform in Ukraine and they are not performing well in
00:48:55Ukraine, meaning that the U.S.
00:48:58has spent billions of dollars for paying for wars that have been lost, that brought
00:49:06nothing but destruction, that didn't, in fact, create wealth in the world, that didn't
00:49:14help development of these countries.
00:49:17And on the contrary, these countries have focused, they have, since the beginning of
00:49:23these wars, after 1991, we can say, after the Gulf War, all these, in all the Middle
00:49:33East, you have all these factions, militias that have proliferated, in fact.
00:49:41And so the old resources that they have, that we have, have been focused on funding
00:49:50useless wars.
00:49:52Instead of developing harmonious societies, in addition to that, you create a lot of flow
00:50:00of refugees because a lot of people didn't want to wage war, so they migrated and
00:50:06emigrated where, they emigrated to countries that they had some hope to find some work,
00:50:12meaning Europe, United States and elsewhere.
00:50:15So that's a totally wrong strategic approach.
00:50:20And that was led by the U.S., followed by the Europeans, because the Europeans are not
00:50:28able to have their own, let's say, strategic approach to problems.
00:50:35The U.S. tried to have some.
00:50:40It was unfortunately misguided, especially after 2001, because they felt obliged to have
00:50:48this global war on terror, which meant nothing and brought nothing, essentially, that just
00:50:57created more terrorism, that just create incentive for more terrorism.
00:51:02And demonstrably, you can say that every single terrorist attack we had in the West was, in
00:51:12fact, created by the West itself.
00:51:15I'm not saying that people were planning this operation against ourselves.
00:51:19That's not what I mean.
00:51:21We didn't plan this operation against ourselves, but we created the condition for
00:51:26terrorism to emerge and to develop.
00:51:30And this is the total absence of consistent strategy to address the problems in the rest
00:51:42of the world that led to the emergence of terrorism.
00:51:48And so this is the absence of vision.
00:51:54And when you come to coming back to Iran, the whole thing was triggered by this idea.
00:52:01I mean, the whole thing is probably the fact that the U.S.
00:52:04has been humiliated by the occupation of the U.S.
00:52:08embassy in 1978, 79.
00:52:12That's it.
00:52:14And if you have people like Lindsey Graham and all that, it's for them, it's just a way
00:52:21to wage revenge.
00:52:25It's about this.
00:52:26And unfortunately, we are still guided by those politicians who are guided by a spirit of
00:52:35revenge instead of looking ahead, trying to find out solutions so that we have a harmonious
00:52:44relationship. Because essentially, and probably you are better placed than me to discuss that,
00:52:53but my knowledge, having friends who are of Iranian origin, Iran is probably one of the
00:53:04countries which is the most pro-West than the whole Middle East in reality.
00:53:12Our picture or image of Iran is exactly the opposite.
00:53:18But in reality, this is probably one of the most pro-Western countries in the Middle East,
00:53:26which has historically been in favor of the West, who has been historically in favor of having
00:53:35kind of the development.
00:53:36When we talk, coming back to the issue of drones, it's not just about the drones, it's about
00:53:44engineering. And when you see how the Iranians have been able, despite the sanctions, to have an
00:53:55extremely modern, extremely performing and effective armament and military system, you can
00:54:04see these guys are not just anybody.
00:54:09These are people who are able to have an education system, a culture that promotes ingenuity,
00:54:22development, and despite sanctions, is able to manage a social system that works.
00:54:30Whether it works like in Switzerland or not, I'm not here to discuss that.
00:54:37And even if we start in this discussion, I can say that even France is not able to have a system
00:54:44that works like Switzerland, even if we are neighboring countries.
00:54:48So, there is no...
00:54:50But in essence, the picture we have from Iran is exactly the opposite of what it is.
00:54:58Because we have cultivated, and a lot of people just, they have never made their own research on
00:55:04that. They just follow the official narrative that has been propagated by the US, imposed to
00:55:14the allies.
00:55:15And it's exactly what we have today, what the people, the average individual on the street
00:55:24thinks about Iran, or other countries, by the way.
00:55:28So, this idea of having perpetual wars, having perpetual enemies that we have defined once for
00:55:40all as enemies, that we cannot talk with, that we cannot dialogue with, that we cannot trade with,
00:55:49and all that, this is exactly what leads in the weakness of the West today.
00:55:56We have no partners anymore.
00:55:58And even if today you see that the investment in Europe is going away, people are afraid of
00:56:07Europe because they don't have identified consistent policies, they have seen what the
00:56:15Europeans have done with the Russian funds, the frozen funds and confiscated or whatever,
00:56:24they are stolen funds.
00:56:26So, how can you trust these people?
00:56:30How can you trust the Europeans?
00:56:32I mean, if I were an African investor, I would certainly not invest in Europe.
00:56:40I would, on the contrary, withdraw everything I have in Europe and invest somewhere else,
00:56:45probably in China or India, where you have people with much more mature policymakers
00:56:53who are able to look in the future, not look in the past.
00:56:59Macron is somebody who looks in the past.
00:57:03At the best, he looks in the five next minutes because he doesn't know what he wants to tweet.
00:57:09But you see that there is no depth in the strategic thinking with those guys.
00:57:16And these are exactly when we are back to the poll that you showed at the beginning of your show.
00:57:25The three countries, Germany, France and UK, are these three countries in the West, where
00:57:34when you listen to the leaders, you have the feeling they take more care about foreign policy
00:57:42than domestic policy.
00:57:44It's almost as if they take refuge in foreign policy because they are unable to solve domestic issues.
00:57:55And you see that in all three countries.
00:58:00So, that raises the question of, this is not the first time, by the way,
00:58:06it's about 20 years that I write a book about geopolitics and things like this,
00:58:13but I come always to the same conclusion, that the leadership that we have is not up to the task.
00:58:21And of course, we have complex tasks.
00:58:24Everything we discussed today about, for instance, development policy and how do we
00:58:31assist other countries to develop and all that, that is a very complex issue.
00:58:36Complex foreign policies, complex foreign development policies, complex trade policies.
00:58:48But, and that requires leaders who have the intellectual capabilities to do that.
00:58:57The problem is that the more we go with time, the younger we have, I mean, the younger our leaders
00:59:05and the less experienced they are, the less mature they are,
00:59:10the less experience they have in normal life.
00:59:15I mean, Emmanuel Macron has almost never worked,
00:59:20has been a couple of years in an investment bank, but that's it.
00:59:25You know, all these guys, they have been politicians, but they haven't really a life experience.
00:59:34And we see that in their way of thinking, their way to approach issues, the way to
00:59:42understand the world, what the Germans call the Weltanschauung, so the perception of the world.
00:59:50They have none, because these guys, their perception of the world lies in their smartphone,
00:59:58essentially. That's their horizon.
01:00:02So, you cannot have leaders that have, that can provide, let's say, a hopeful future
01:00:13with people who are not able even to understand the world,
01:00:18to understand their relationship with the rest of the world.
01:00:22And I think that's a problem. We have an associative problem in the West
01:00:31that we don't have leaders who have this understanding of the world.
01:00:39Look at who you have when you have elections.
01:00:44I mean, probably you're not familiar with domestic
01:00:51politics in Germany, France, even Switzerland, by the way.
01:00:56But when we look at the candidates we have to choose from, they are equally poor.
01:01:06If you look at France, which is probably the best known example,
01:01:09you had in the last two presidential elections, you had to choose between Marine Le Pen and
01:01:15Emmanuel Macron. This is the same intellectual poverty on both cases.
01:01:26We have different approaches, but essentially these are people, they are able to make their way
01:01:36in the local politics, and they can probably maneuver in order to be better in an election
01:01:43or things like that. But they don't have their understanding of the world, they don't have this
01:01:49experience that is required to lead a country such as France, with its past, with its size,
01:01:57with its importance, with its influence. And for that reason, France is losing
01:02:04its influence, it's losing its presence, it's losing respect, it's losing everything.
01:02:10So we are there, and when you look at the future, future presidential elections,
01:02:16but that's exactly the same we have in the UK, exactly the same you have in Germany.
01:02:23There is no real leaders that emerge. Or you may have people who emerge out of nowhere,
01:02:31like you have in Romania or something like that, that suddenly you have someone that emerged from
01:02:38out of the blue, and could be better. I don't know. But in essence, if you look at the current
01:02:46political landscape, France, Germany or UK, you barely find someone who could be the future leader
01:02:57with a capital L of the country. And that's exactly what we are missing.
01:03:10Thank you so much, Carl, for being with us today. Great pleasure as always.
01:03:15That was my pleasure. Thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you.