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Speaker 1: On this episode of newts World. On Tuesday, President Joe

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Speaker 1: Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin will speak over a

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Speaker 1: video call. The primary topic of their call will be

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Speaker 1: the build up of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border.

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Speaker 1: Many of them are viewing this as a sign of

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Speaker 1: Russia's potential invasion. The last known call between the two

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Speaker 1: presidents was in July, when Russian based criminal hacking groups

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Speaker 1: launched ransomware attacks against the United States. The Colonial Pipeline

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Speaker 1: hack past May, the resulted in days of gas shortages

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Speaker 1: in parts of the United States, was attributed to the Russians.

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Speaker 1: There are many signs from Putin that they have a

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Speaker 1: plan to defeat America. My guest today is an expert

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Speaker 1: in understanding Putin and how he operates, and I'm really

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Speaker 1: pleased to welcome my guest, Rebecca Koffler. She is a

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Speaker 1: Russian born US intelligence expert who is worked with the

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Speaker 1: Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service.

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Speaker 1: She is the author of Putin's playbook, Russia's Secret Plan

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Speaker 1: to Defeat America. Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us.

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Speaker 1: Pleasure to be here is to speaker Frankly I think

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Speaker 1: in the long run, China is a bigger threat than Russia.

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Speaker 1: But I do think that the immediate threat the aggressiveness

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Speaker 1: of Putin, the fact that they do still have a

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Speaker 1: remarkably big military for the size of their economy, and

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Speaker 1: they have a long tradition of being in competition with us.

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Speaker 1: As Putin once said, the greatest tragedy of the twentieth

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Speaker 1: century was the collapse of the Soviet Union, and as

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Speaker 1: a former KGB officer, I have a hunch he would

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Speaker 1: love to do everything he could to re establish that.

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Speaker 1: One brief war story, I was on a congressional delegation

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Speaker 1: in nine ninety three during the initial collapse with Yeltsin

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Speaker 1: in charge, and I met with the then vice president

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Speaker 1: of what had become Russia. And the room we met

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Speaker 1: in was huge. It had like a forty or fifty

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Speaker 1: foot long wall. On one side there was a map

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Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union. And I said to him, being

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Speaker 1: semi clever, gosh, here we are in Russia, but that's

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Speaker 1: a map of the Soviet Union. And his answer to

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Speaker 1: me was, yes, it will be like that again someday.

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Speaker 1: So I took that to be an example that while

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Speaker 1: their system had collapsed. Their ambitions had not, as you know.

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Speaker 1: The reporting that came out last Friday and over the

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Speaker 1: weekend shows the Russian military build up on the Ukrainian border,

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Speaker 1: both the New York Times reporting what's driving Putin's Ukrainian

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Speaker 1: brinksmanship and the Washington Post reporting Russian planning massive military

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Speaker 1: offensive against Ukraine involving one hundred and seventy five thousand troops.

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Speaker 1: US intelligence warns now that led the White House to

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Speaker 1: an So the weekend, the President Biden and President Putin

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Speaker 1: will have a video conference call on Tuesday, And I'm curious,

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Speaker 1: what's your general take on what the US reaction should

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Speaker 1: be at this point. Well, I think there's a difference

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Speaker 1: between what the reaction should be and unfortunately what it

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Speaker 1: will be. But in my view, we shouldn't have been

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Speaker 1: placed in that position to begin with. When we are

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Speaker 1: constantly reacting. Putin is always two steps ahead of our

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Speaker 1: national security apparatus and certainly Biden's administration, where we constantly

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Speaker 1: have to think, how do we respond to the cyber attacks,

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Speaker 1: how to respond to mildred build up. The reactions should

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Speaker 1: be strong, nude, but unfortunately there's no political will and

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Speaker 1: there's no playbook, so to speak, on our side to

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Speaker 1: deter Putin from what he's doing, because we haven't reacted

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Speaker 1: in the past, whether it's the invasion of Georgia, whether

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Speaker 1: it's the annexation of Crimea, or Putin's cyber warfare that

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Speaker 1: he has waged on the United States for the past

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Speaker 1: twenty years. So at this point Putin has gotten the

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Speaker 1: idea that we are not going to be doing anything

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Speaker 1: significant in response, and in fact, it's his window of

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Speaker 1: opportunity to achieve his ambition, because the assessment is Diviiden

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Speaker 1: presidency is weak when it comes to foreign policy, and

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Speaker 1: it is completely mired in all sorts of domestic issues,

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Speaker 1: and that's why Putin is acting up. Somebody suggested that

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Speaker 1: one possible strategy would be for Putin to create a

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Speaker 1: crisis on the Ukrainian border, then solve the crisis, and

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Speaker 1: during the period of relief, absorb Bila Russia, whose dictator

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Speaker 1: is very pro Moscow. Does that Trichy is plausible or

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Speaker 1: do you think he's basically ignoring belor Russia and the

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Speaker 1: real game for him right now is Ukraine. I believe

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Speaker 1: the real game is the Ukraine. In all honesty, Putin

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Speaker 1: does not have to invade Belarussia. Belarus is already part

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Speaker 1: of the so called union. Right as you pointed out

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Speaker 1: in your opening statement, Vladimir Putin would love to reconstitute

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Speaker 1: the former Soviet Union in some shape or form. It

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Speaker 1: may not be called the former Union, but it's certainly

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Speaker 1: called right now already the Eurasian Union, and they colloquially

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Speaker 1: refer to it as the Union. So Belarus, you know,

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Speaker 1: is already there. It's part of the Union. So Ukraine

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Speaker 1: is really the prize that Putin is after, and he

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Speaker 1: views Ukraine and the Russians, you know, in general, Putu's

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Speaker 1: national security or honest view Ukraine as part of a

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Speaker 1: strategic security perimed on which they relied for centuries for

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Speaker 1: their security, to protect them from the so called foreign invasions.

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Speaker 1: And so that is why the plan is to integrate again,

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Speaker 1: you know, whether it's by an invasion or whether it's

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Speaker 1: by installing a pro Putin government in Ukraine by orchestrating

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Speaker 1: some sort of coup, that remains to be seen. But

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Speaker 1: Putin's tactic is also intimidation and strategic ambiguity as far

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Speaker 1: as what he's going to do by pronouncing red lines,

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Speaker 1: and then he has the flexibility to do whatever the

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Speaker 1: opportunity presents to him, because the fourth pasture allows him

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Speaker 1: all of the above right now, from staging a coup

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Speaker 1: all the way to multifront offensive operation on Kiev. Ukraine

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Speaker 1: are pretty big country. Is it your sense that the

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Speaker 1: size of the force that at least is being leaked

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Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy five thousand would be capable of

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Speaker 1: actually getting all the way to Kiev or would he

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Speaker 1: just take a large bite. Yes, the fours posture is capable,

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Speaker 1: whether he will do it or not. I don't believe

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Speaker 1: he is going to swallow the entire Ukraine. It just

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Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense at this point. I think the

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Speaker 1: force posture right now is between ninety four thousand to

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Speaker 1: one hundred and fourteen thousand, but it also includes heavy

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Speaker 1: weaponry including tanks, artillery. It includes a GIU and SVII

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Speaker 1: intelligence operatives. It's very similar to the FOS posture that

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Speaker 1: these Russian military voices had during the invasion of Crimea.

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Speaker 1: You know, when the so called little Green Man, this

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Speaker 1: is how Western analysts describe the so called hybrid warfare

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Speaker 1: that Putin has been waging. But it will as you said,

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Speaker 1: the plan is to escalate even further and beef up

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Speaker 1: that force posture to one hundred and seventy five man strong,

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Speaker 1: including one hundred btgs the battalion tactical groups. But as

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Speaker 1: I said, I did not believe that a full scale

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Speaker 1: invasion of the entire country of Crimea is in the cards.

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Speaker 1: He doesn't have to do that because to prevent Ukraine's

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Speaker 1: admission into NATO, all he needs to do is continued

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Speaker 1: destabilizing operations and maintain lack of territorial integrity in that

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Speaker 1: country and maintain a frozen conflict, just like he's doing

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Speaker 1: in Georgia and Transistria. I was in Ukraine a couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago and met with a return American four

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Speaker 1: star general who is advising and looking at what's happening

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Speaker 1: with Ukrainian He said at the time that the Russians

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Speaker 1: were routinely practicing with their artillery. There was sort of

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Speaker 1: the graduation exercise of the artillery school was to go

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Speaker 1: and fire rounds into Ukraine, and that it was a

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Speaker 1: real problem because Ukraine has no capacity to cope with

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Speaker 1: Russian long range artillery. And I just thought it was

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Speaker 1: interesting that there was this constant grinding process under way.

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Speaker 1: Do you sense that same pattern that Prutain is actually

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Speaker 1: pretty comfortable getting a little bit every day because we

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Speaker 1: get a little bit every day, sooner or later you

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Speaker 1: have the whole cake, right right exactly, And mister speaker said,

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Speaker 1: what you have just described as very consistent with Russian

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Speaker 1: doctrine and strategy. This type of approach achieves three objectives. First,

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Speaker 1: is exactly what you say, build up until you have

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Speaker 1: sufficient force to do whatever it is that you need. Second,

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Speaker 1: by ring the fourth posture, dialing up, dialing down, because

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Speaker 1: remember we had a similar situation back in major in

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Speaker 1: July timeframe when President Biden and Vladimir Putin had the summit.

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Speaker 1: By bearing this fourth posture, the Russians are trying to

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Speaker 1: desensitize US and Western intelligence services from obtaining proper indications

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Speaker 1: and warnings to achieve strategic surprise. Whenever he is ready

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Speaker 1: to do whatever it is that he wants to do,

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Speaker 1: he wants it to be a surprise for us so

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Speaker 1: that we're not ready, so he keeps us guessing. And

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Speaker 1: then the third objective is to psychologically dislodge the adversary.

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Speaker 1: The Russians are stute students of sounds right, And I

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Speaker 1: believe that it's very important to destabilize the adversary psychologically

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Speaker 1: before you take it over and defeat militarily. So that's

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Speaker 1: why he's laying this groundwork where he wants to be

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Speaker 1: able to have flexibility to do whatever the opportunity presents

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Speaker 1: him to do. From your perspective, having studied Putin, having

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Speaker 1: written Putin's playbook, would he basically be relatively happy with

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Speaker 1: an agreement because I noticed he said in the last

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Speaker 1: couple of days he like a legally binding agreement that

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Speaker 1: Ukraine would not be allowed into NATO. In your mind,

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Speaker 1: would that be a major goal for him? I don't

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Speaker 1: believe so, sir. I think it's a red herring. I

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Speaker 1: think Putin already knows that A, the United States is

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Speaker 1: not going to give any kind of legal guarantees, any

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Speaker 1: kind of promises. Has been requesting the same thing with

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Speaker 1: the regard to missile defense, right. The Russians have always

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Speaker 1: wanted that we promise to them that a missile defense

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Speaker 1: is not going to be targeting Russia, right. So I

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Speaker 1: think he already knows a that We're not going to

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Speaker 1: do that, and B he's going to do whatever he's

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Speaker 1: going to do, because even in a hypothetical scenario, let's

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Speaker 1: say the Biden presidency is so weak and so out

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Speaker 1: of touch with reality, then they just go ahead and

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Speaker 1: give them the legal agreement. Right, Putin is not going

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Speaker 1: to trust it because the one thing that the Russians

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Speaker 1: always whine about is that under democracy, our presidents change

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Speaker 1: potentially every four years, and people in charge, you know, Congress,

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Speaker 1: we have continuous changes, and the new person will come

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Speaker 1: in somebody like let's say former President Trump, whom the

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Speaker 1: media portrayed does a soft done Russia, but he was

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Speaker 1: quite the opposite. Right, So Putin is not going to

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Speaker 1: trust He already set his plan, that is my professional assessment,

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Speaker 1: and he plays Biden sort of. He gave him a checkmate.

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Speaker 1: If you're will your damn, if you do your damn

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Speaker 1: if you don't, he's gonna do whatever he's gonna do. Now,

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Speaker 1: let me just take a minute, if you don't mind,

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Speaker 1: and talk about you, and then we'll get back to

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Speaker 1: talking about Putin. And you're a fascinating background. As I

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Speaker 1: understand that you were born in Kazakhstan, right, which part

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Speaker 1: of Kazakhstan? So I was born and raised in a

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Speaker 1: small town called us Nagorsk, which is relatively close to

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Speaker 1: China's and Kazakhstan close to China. I was in Norse

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Speaker 1: Sultan a couple of years ago. It was at the

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Speaker 1: time called Astana, and then it changed its name. Would

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Speaker 1: that be north of where you were born? Yes? North.

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Speaker 1: Isn't it funny how they change every notice sold down?

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, gracious, which is named for the last

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Speaker 1: dictator of course, yes, yes, And these are the type

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Speaker 1: of characters that we are trying to quote unquote democratize. Right,

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Speaker 1: it was a little bit like Stalingrad, which went back

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Speaker 1: to being Volga Grad, right, right, Probably not put too long,

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Speaker 1: mister speaker, right, given that the attitudes of the Russians,

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Speaker 1: you know, the positive attitude towards Stalin is growing, right,

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Speaker 1: So I wouldn't rule out the possibility they're gonna get

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Speaker 1: back to Stalingrad again, or it could become Putingrad. It's inappropriate,

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Speaker 1: no kidding. I think you're right, You're spot on. What

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Speaker 1: was it like growing up in Kazakhstan. I'll tell you this,

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Speaker 1: it was very different than what I'm watching right now.

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Speaker 1: My American children. Growing up. I continuously remind them how

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Speaker 1: blessed and how lucky they are to live in the

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Speaker 1: best country in the world, you know, where we have

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Speaker 1: everything to eat, we have heating in winter, and in

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Speaker 1: summer we have hot and cold water. So basically, I

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Speaker 1: mean from the family standpoint, it was wonderful. You know.

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Speaker 1: My parents were against the Soviet communist system. They disagreed

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Speaker 1: with it, and they raised us, me and my sister

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Speaker 1: to learn English so that eventually we would go to America.

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Speaker 1: Who knows how my mother knew about America, but we did.

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Speaker 1: We listened to Voice of America and Radio Few Europe

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Speaker 1: so surreptitiously. Of course it was illegal. So family was great,

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Speaker 1: But in terms of living under socialist system, it's pure hell.

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Speaker 1: Mister speaker. I've written two opinion pieces that were published

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Speaker 1: on Fox News where I describe things like my teeth

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Speaker 1: being drilled at the dentist office without novocating, which is

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Speaker 1: pure torture. This is to demonstrate that when everything is free,

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Speaker 1: nothing is available. So it worries me so deeply. This

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Speaker 1: monumental shift of my adopted homeland left ward, where people

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Speaker 1: don't understand what socialism really is. It's not what the

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Speaker 1: leftist believe it is, it's a dictatorship, it's lack of freedom,

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Speaker 1: and it's equal poverty for all, except if you're part

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Speaker 1: of the ruling class. So that's what it was like

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Speaker 1: growing up. How did you make the migration from Kazakhstan

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Speaker 1: to the United States. So first I went just as

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Speaker 1: my mother wanted. You know, I was very diligent at

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Speaker 1: learning English since third grade and even before that. And

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Speaker 1: then I went to one of the best universities in Moscow,

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Speaker 1: studying English and French and Russian as a foreign language.

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Speaker 1: And during that time I had an opportunity to go

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Speaker 1: to Great Britain on an exchange program. And also I

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Speaker 1: worked as a tour guide as an interpret at taking

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Speaker 1: Americans and the Brits around the former Soviet Union, and

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Speaker 1: I established friends and then eventually my friends told me, well,

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Speaker 1: you have to come to America, and I did, and

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Speaker 1: first I visited and then I initiated and finalized the

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Speaker 1: immigration process, and that's how I ended up here. And

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Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty nine and every year, Sir, I celebrate

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Speaker 1: the day that I landed in America, the land of

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Speaker 1: freedom and opportunity and justice. So the parents, Stroika and

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Speaker 1: Glasnost make it easier for you to leave. I mean

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Speaker 1: the Stalinist bread you couldn't have left, correct, Yes, Sir

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Speaker 1: Gorbachev loosened the border, so until him, it was very

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Speaker 1: difficult to leave. You had to have not only an

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Speaker 1: entry visa to whatever country you want to visit, but

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Speaker 1: you have to have an exit visa. Back during the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union, we had a joke one rouble to get in,

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Speaker 1: ten roubles to get out. So the Soviets would not

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Speaker 1: let their own citizens travel, especially to the Western world.

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Speaker 1: Why because A they didn't want them to defect, and

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Speaker 1: b they didn't want them to see what capitalism is

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Speaker 1: really about, the prosperous lifestyle. Right. So the first time

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Speaker 1: when I came to America, my friends took me to

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Speaker 1: the giant grocery store here in Washington, DC area, and

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Speaker 1: I saw red delicious apples. I literally broke down crying

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Speaker 1: because first I didn't think they were real because they

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Speaker 1: were too clean and Russian stuff is all money. And

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Speaker 1: then once I understood that they were edible and real,

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Speaker 1: I just cried. Because the Soviets lie to its people

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Speaker 1: for so long, and that's why they wouldn't allow people

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Speaker 1: to travel, so that they think that the Soviet system

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Speaker 1: is superior, and all it was well as a chunkin village.

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Speaker 1: You may remember that when Khrushchoff first visited the United States,

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Speaker 1: Eisenhower encouraged him to travel around, and when his plane

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Speaker 1: came into land of New York, he looked out and

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Speaker 1: saw all the cars and said to his staff, the

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Speaker 1: Americans are extraordinarily clever. They've brought all the cars in

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Speaker 1: the country to New York to impress me with how

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Speaker 1: many cars they have. And it making a little while

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Speaker 1: to realize this was just normal. And there's a book

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Speaker 1: Fleeing Moscow by the highest ranked Soviet to defect. He'd

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Speaker 1: been the number two guy at the United Nations, and

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Speaker 1: the opening of the book, he says he gets off

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Speaker 1: the plane in New York and gets in a car

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Speaker 1: to go down to the Soviet residence. And as they're

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Speaker 1: driving down the street, he sees all these little stores

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Speaker 1: and they have fruit and vegetables sitting outside with no guards,

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Speaker 1: and he said he suddenly realized that everything he'd been

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Speaker 1: told about it was a lie. Because if the Americans

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Speaker 1: were so rich that nobody was going to steal the

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Speaker 1: fruit and vegetables, it had no relationship. This guy was

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Speaker 1: a very senior person, and he said, from that moment

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Speaker 1: on he began thinking about how to defect because everything

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Speaker 1: he'd been told was a lie. That is exactly my experience, sir.

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Speaker 1: I remember also when I landed at JFK in New

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Speaker 1: York September thirteenth, nineteen eighty nine. It was already afternoon,

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Speaker 1: and I saw all those lights, and I thought that

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Speaker 1: there was an emerge of some sort, that there were

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Speaker 1: so many cars, what was happening? And you know, only

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Speaker 1: to realize I was quite normal. And my father, who

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Speaker 1: eventually also emigrated, we brought him man, my sister and I.

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Speaker 1: It's ingrained in him that people steal things, and he

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Speaker 1: would try to protect things, and we always tell him, Dad,

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Speaker 1: nobody cares. Everybody has everything here, but the Russians would

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Speaker 1: always try to secure their stuff because not many people

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Speaker 1: would have even as simple things as like a refrigerator.

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Speaker 1: You had to wait for ten years to buy a

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Speaker 1: vehicle a car, for ten years to install a landline phone. Okay,

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Speaker 1: this is the socialist system. You may remember the old

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Speaker 1: joke about the man who went to buy a car

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Speaker 1: and they said it would be years, but we could

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Speaker 1: mark you down for Wednesday morning three years from now,

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Speaker 1: and he said, oh, no, no, it's got to be

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Speaker 1: in the afternoon. Is the plumbers coming in the morning. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it was to speak, I remembered very well. Unfortunately for me, sir,

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Speaker 1: for us, it was not a joke, it was reality.

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Speaker 1: It was alive. Sadly, with the current logistics screw up,

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Speaker 1: we have a little taste of the Soviet system because

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Speaker 1: a lot of things we take for granted on real

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Speaker 1: time delivery are certainly taking months rather than being immediate.

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Speaker 1: We'll solve it, but it is a little taste. As

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Speaker 1: you've said earlier, that you get enough socialism, you get

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Speaker 1: nothing else. And it's amazing. So let me ask you.

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Speaker 1: You've immersed yourself, you've served the intelligence community, you have

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Speaker 1: a remarkable background, and you've written this terrific new book,

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Speaker 1: Plutin's Playbook, Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America. Can you

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Speaker 1: take us inside Putin's head as you understand it and

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Speaker 1: describe his worldview? Sure, there are several events and factors

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Speaker 1: that shape Puden's worldview. First and foremost, it's the fact

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Speaker 1: that he is a former former being. In quotes KGB

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Speaker 1: officer KGB was an intelligence agency that combined both foreign

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Speaker 1: and domestic intelligence functions. One of the things that many

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Speaker 1: people don't understand about the Russian intelligence services, and specifically

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Speaker 1: the KGB, is that for the Soviets, it was as

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Speaker 1: important to protect themselves from internal threats such as dissent,

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Speaker 1: as much as from external threats, because they understood that

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Speaker 1: the system is oppressive and people sooner later would volved,

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Speaker 1: and they would continuously monitor everybody with various surveillance means

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Speaker 1: to prevent the so called regime change. So that shapes

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Speaker 1: Putin's world view. How does it translate into his personality.

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Speaker 1: He's very suspicious of everything. He cannot be dealt with

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Speaker 1: at face value when you negotiate with him from the

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Speaker 1: Russian perspective, so Putin would say, what's mine is mine,

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Speaker 1: what's yours is negotiable. That's kind of how it goes.

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Speaker 1: So when President Biden tried to reach out to Putin,

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Speaker 1: handing him a roster of sixteen sectors of critical infrastructure,

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Speaker 1: appealing to the former KGB officer not to target it

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Speaker 1: with cyberstrikes, Putin's interpretation of this is that, oh, this

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Speaker 1: person is weak, he is begging me not target this.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to do that anyway. And oh, by the way,

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Speaker 1: you know, everything else is on the table in terms

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Speaker 1: of cyber warfare. Right, So this is the type of mentality.

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Speaker 1: The second very important event is, as you pointed out earlier,

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Speaker 1: is that Putent views, as many Russians by the way,

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Speaker 1: that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a very

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Speaker 1: sad event for the Russians and it must be reversed.

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Speaker 1: And that's why we see effectively Putent's playbook unfolding right

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Speaker 1: in front of our eyes when he uses all sorts

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Speaker 1: of non kinetic options and I described all of those

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Speaker 1: five options in my book, cyber and space being just

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Speaker 1: a couple of them, and then military component all the

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Speaker 1: way to nuclear. This is why we've seen this anti

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Speaker 1: satellite missile test, hypersonic missile test, and all of these things.

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Speaker 1: A way, he is laying the groundwork to fulfill his

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Speaker 1: strategic ambitions and reverse the collapse of the Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: that the Russians, by the way, blame the Unite That

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Speaker 1: States for they believe that we defeated the Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: and now they want to prevent the defeat of Russia.

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Speaker 1: And therefore Putin is waging an offensive operation under the

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Speaker 1: pretext of defensive strategy. When you describe him, and I

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Speaker 1: agree with you entirely that he is best understood as

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Speaker 1: a KGB officer, given the training and the fact that

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Speaker 1: he ultimately was assigned to East Germany, where he clearly

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Speaker 1: was spending as much shimer more watching the East Germans

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Speaker 1: as he was watching the West. When George W. Bush

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Speaker 1: met with him, and Bush had some comment about I

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Speaker 1: looked into his eyes and I saw his soul. My

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Speaker 1: reaction was, it was impossible to see the soul of

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Speaker 1: a KGB officer. By definition, you wouldn't be in the

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Speaker 1: KGB if they could see your soul. Am I missing something?

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Speaker 1: Your spot on, mister speaker. In fact, when I heard that,

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Speaker 1: I even thought that clearly the Russians studied and profiled

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Speaker 1: former President Bush, just like they did with every president,

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Speaker 1: and they knew that he's a religious man, and so

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Speaker 1: Putin was effectively running and influenced operation being an intelligence

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Speaker 1: officer on our former president, exploiting what Putin would perceive

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Speaker 1: as a vulnerability the man of faith right because he

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Speaker 1: was also talking about the cross that his grandmother gave

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Speaker 1: Putin and I thought to myself, you wouldn't be in

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Speaker 1: KGB if you were religious. Soviet Union was an atheist country.

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Speaker 1: Religion was outlawed, it was illegal. In fact, my family,

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Speaker 1: or so my family story goes that my grandmother secretly

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Speaker 1: baptized me and my sister because it was illegal. But

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Speaker 1: my parents were non religious, and just to demonstrate to you,

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Speaker 1: people feared the ruling class, the Communist Party, and so

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Speaker 1: certainly if you're a KGB officer, you would not be

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Speaker 1: admitted if you somehow had links to religious people, a

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Speaker 1: religious family. You may remember on Red Square there's a

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Speaker 1: building that's just beyond the old gum store that was

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Speaker 1: a church that was actually turned into a men's urinal

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Speaker 1: by Stalin. Oh my gosh, sir, you're telling me something

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Speaker 1: I don't know. So I visited it and had been

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Speaker 1: turned back into a church. And one of the interesting

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Speaker 1: complexities of Putin is he's actually very close to the

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Speaker 1: Russian Orthodox hierarchy, and much like the Tsars did, he's

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Speaker 1: using them to strengthen his own position and in return

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Speaker 1: giving them some privileges that they had not had since

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen. But I think it's a political act, not

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Speaker 1: a religious act. I completely agree with you. The Russian

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Speaker 1: Orthodox Church has always been penetrated by Russian intelligence services

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Speaker 1: right now, what I try to warn some of the

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Speaker 1: American conservatives religious people about Putin using religion as a weapon, effectively,

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Speaker 1: I'm getting a pushback, and a lot of Americans feel

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Speaker 1: that religion is under attack here from the left, and

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Speaker 1: therefore they feel like they can get close to the Russians.

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Speaker 1: And obviously not every religious Russian is using religion as

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Speaker 1: a weapon. They're truly right now people of faith in Russia,

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Speaker 1: but the government, under the guise of being religious, is

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Speaker 1: using the church to achieve their own hostile ambitions and

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Speaker 1: also for propaganda in disinformation reasons. You know, when I

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Speaker 1: mentioned Stalingrad, you mentioned that he's coming back into vogue.

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Speaker 1: Claire Christensen and I wrote a book on Trump versus

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Speaker 1: China a couple of years ago, and I was very

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Speaker 1: surprised when we're doing the research, and I've been looking

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Speaker 1: at China for a long time, but I had not

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Speaker 1: realized how deeply Stalinist their core values were and how

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Speaker 1: much they were offended by Khrushchoff's secret speech where he

429
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: denounced Stalinin they regarded as an act of heresy. So

430
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: in a sense, I suspect jejan Ping and Putin can

431
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: have conversations where they see each other as part of

432
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 1: the same dialectical side against the democratic West. How concerned

433
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: are you at Ultimately there will be a Russian Chinese

434
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: alliance against us, and that our planning has to assume

435
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: that we may have to deal with both of them,

436
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: not just one of them. So it's a complicated question, sir.

437
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: I know that the US intelligence right now is assessing

438
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: that the Chinese Russian alliance is getting stronger. I don't

439
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: agree with that assessment. I think it's a fake strategic alliance.

440
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 1: This is why I believe this. Russia perceives China as

441
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: threat number two. The US and NATO has been codified

442
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 1: by the Russians in their military doctrine as threat number one,

443
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 1: but China is a long term threat number two for them,

444
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 1: because the Russian General staff has been assessing the Chinese

445
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: development and military more organization and economic advancements and advancements

446
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 1: in technology, and they're very worried, and especially given the

447
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: long border with China. The Russian military is also preparing

448
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: plans to be able to defend themselves. So to speak

449
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 1: from China. They believe that it's possible that China could

450
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: try to integrate the Far East without using military means,

451
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: using economic means. So from that standpoint, there will never

452
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: be a real strategic partner. Now here's the nuance. Obviously,

453
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: the United States is perceived by both Putin and she

454
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: as a threat and that something needs to be neutralized.

455
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 1: Could they somehow synchronize their operations at purely superficial level,

456
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: you know, let's say they takeover of Taiwan and they

457
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: takeover of Ukraine, or simply synchronize the operations to make

458
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:23,479
Speaker 1: us believe that they would do that. Yes, but in

459
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: terms of real integration, that is not possible because Russia

460
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 1: would never integrate with an enemy, and in fact, Russia

461
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: does not have any true allies. They either have subordinates

462
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: or countries that they perceive as their vassels so to speak,

463
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: or they have adversaries. There's nothing in between. So all

464
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 1: that talk about strategic partnership is again disinformation by Russia.

465
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 1: In China, they want us to believe that they will

466
00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:59,959
Speaker 1: do something like that. Let me ask you one last thing.

467
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: When we hear about Russian cyber criminals and Russian sophisticated hacking.

468
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 1: I'm dubious that those can exist without some kind of

469
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:15,320
Speaker 1: tacit approval from the Kremlin. Just the nature of the

470
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 1: Russian system, those things are trackable. There's a your working

471
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 1: assumption that if we get hit by a major cyber

472
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:26,520
Speaker 1: crime with a Russian link, that it's almost certainly tacitly

473
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: approved by the dictatorship. It's highly likely and even almost certainly,

474
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: as we would say in the community. And here's why.

475
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 1: It's a standard Russian intelligence tradecraft to use third parties

476
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:53,920
Speaker 1: to conduct cyber operations against such competent adversary in their

477
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: view as the United States, because you need nation state

478
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:06,839
Speaker 1: level probability to mount operations on something like colonial pipeline,

479
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:10,799
Speaker 1: because they understand that there would be a blowback, so

480
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: they need the backing of the Russian state. And this

481
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: tradecraft is known to US intelligence community, and it's known

482
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 1: to US law enforcement community. So, for the life of me,

483
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 1: I don't understand why President Biden did not have the

484
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: guts to hold potent responsible. He said, oh, this is

485
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: Russia based Hagers. Well, former President Trump had no problem

486
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: to have his Department of Justice in die thirty GIU

487
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 1: officers who also worked through third parties. It's a very

488
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,799
Speaker 1: standard technique. All of a sudden, now we can't name

489
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:56,759
Speaker 1: Russian State as the one responsible entity. That is absurd. Well,

490
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 1: it could be that the Senate is not as tough

491
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: a training ground as the KGB. Well, I'm want to

492
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 1: thank you also for writing Putin's playbook, Russia's Secret Plan

493
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 1: to Defeat America even one a major contribution to the

494
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 1: survival of the United States, and I really appreciate your

495
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:19,399
Speaker 1: knowledge and your willingness to take the time to help

496
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: us better understand what is going on. So thank you

497
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,239
Speaker 1: very very much. Thank you, miss to speaker. It's such

498
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 1: an honor to speak with you and tell Americans to

499
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: provide the warning because I felt like there's no coverage.

500
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 1: All these dispaired incidents reporting, but nobody is really pulling

501
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: it together and telling Americans what it really means and

502
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:46,279
Speaker 1: why the Russians are acting out the way that they're

503
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 1: acting out. So I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you to

504
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,319
Speaker 1: my guest Rebecca Coffler. You can get a link to

505
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: buy her book, Putin's Playbook, Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat

506
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 1: America on our showpage at Newtsworld dot com. Newtworld is

507
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: produced by Gingwish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer

508
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 1: is Debbie Myers, our producer is Guardsi Sloan, and our

509
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 1: researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was

510
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 1: created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at

511
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:24,439
Speaker 1: Gingwish three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope

512
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:27,319
Speaker 1: you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with

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Speaker 1: five stars and give us a review so others can

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Speaker 1: learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld

515
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 1: can sign up from my three free weekly columns at

516
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Speaker 1: Gingwish three sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich.

517
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:44,759
Speaker 1: This is Newtsworld