Joe Rogan Interviews Peter Zeihan (Part 1: Russo-Ukrainian War)
“Joe Rogan interviews Peter Zeihan” is obviously irresistible catnip for me, as any regular readers recognize. It’s like Rogan is reading my blog! (Joe, you should totally interview me! I’m a great speaker, I’m local, I can bring my dogs over to play with Marshall, and I can tell you what doing standup comedy was like in Houston in the 80s…)
I don’t have the entire interview, because Spotify, but there are some big, interesting chunks I found on YouTube. Many cover ground familiar to BattleSwarm readers.
First up: Zeihan explains his theory on why the Russo-Ukrainian War was inevitable because they had to get across Ukraine to plug defensive gaps, and that Russia had to do it in advance of a demographic death spiral.
Caveat: I’m not sure the “plugging the gaps” theory explains the invasion any better than old fashioned Russian chauvinism; how dare those lowly Ukrainians resist being incorporated into glorious Russia?
Next up: Will Russia use nukes? Zeihan thinks it unlikely.
“We’re not just providing the Ukrainians with the weaponry and the ammo, we’re providing them with the intelligence and most of the steps of the kill chain. Without that, the weapons are of limited usefulness, especially at long range, and the Ukrainians have no desire to rupture that relationship.”
“The Russians are relatively casualty immune. They fight in an area where they fight with numbers. They’ve never been technologically advanced versus their peers, they’ve always just thrown bodies at it. So there has never been a conflict in Russian history where they have backed out without first losing a half a million men. We’re at about a hundred thousand now. We have a long way to go before the Russian military breaks.” (I think he’s forgetting the Russo-Japanese War, where they got their asses kicked but lost a whole lot less than half a million men. Maybe he implied European war, and ignored a lot of minor ones following the Russian revolution, and ignored anything before the Russian Empire…)
We don’t how many Ukrainian civilians the Russians have slaughtered; maybe 250,000. “If you think of things like Bucha and Izyum, German radio intercepts told us as far back as May that there were at least 70 places behind Russian lines that had suffered massacres [like] Bucha, and when we’ve had additional liberations since then, it corroborates that general assessment.”
“The Russians are fighting so badly, they’re doing much worse than the Iraqis did in 1992.”
“Russia has always been poorly managed and authoritarian, but under Putin it’s taken a much darker turn because of the nature of the end of the Cold War.” Yeah, no. Putin is not a “darker” authoritarian than Stalin.
On Putin’s paranoia, isolation, and possible illness. Plus a bit about gay demons.
“We’re now in an environment that between the terminal demographic structureof the Soviet/Russian system, and Putin’s personal paranoia. So he’s gone through and purged what was left of the KGB, FSB, of anyone who has personal ambitions to succeed him. We’re left with an entire political elite of only about 130 people, and Putin has removed anyone who has leadership ambitions.”
“Any sort of leadership talent has left, or been killed.”
“When it came to the Kherson offensive, and it became clear that there was more going on than just NATO weapons, the Ukrainians actually knew what they were doing, they changed the the line from that these are all Nazis to these are actually gay demons.” (Rogan: “What???”)
“This is the official line right now that ‘We have homosexual demons fighting us in Ukraine.'” (I’m going to guess that it’s not the line, but just the latest in a firehose stream of ever-more-risible excuses for failure that no one pays any serious attention to, just like whatever Baghdad Bob spit out in 2003.
“The guy who’s in charge of the Orthodox Church is a Putin crony.”
“We’ve got a Jewish Nazi gay demon.”
On Putin having cancer and/or Parkinson’s: “He’s clearly on steroids, but that could mean a whole lot of things…He looks very, not just flushed, but puffy, and that’s that’s kind of a classic too many steroids in your system issue.”
“There was this great piece that came out that I saw last week, where it was all the propaganda shots that he’s taken with, like, the soldiers mothers, and on the front, and with the tech people, and in the, intelligence and it was like the same twelve people were in every single shot, just in different outfits and even with those people he’s wearing his ballistic vest.”
“He’s clearly unhealthy.”
“He’s got the shakes, that’s one of the reasons [for the] Parkinson’s analysis.”
“The Ukrainian propaganda guy has been saying that there’s a coup underway since March…I wouldn’t put too much into that.”
Rogan: “What a fucked-up situation.” Zeihan: “For the Europeans who have been dealing with the Russians for three centuries, this is kind of par for the course.”
I’ve got at least four more videos to go, so let’s break this post into two parts.
Neither Zeihan or Rogan are worth watching for anything other than initial entry points into an issue. Zeihan is full of himself, as is Rogan. This fact alone makes anything they say suspect.
That said, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
It’s tiresome how nearly all the hyperventilating about this situation is all based on news cycles and present-tense culture. A shame that no one ever even bothers to delve into the deep history, let alone understand it.
The simplest way to understand the deep history is to look at five critical years in Ukrainian history – 800, 988, 1240, 1648, 1709.
800 – Viking traders plying the trade route to the Black Sea and Constantinople set up an outpost on the one terrain feature along the Dnipro River – a big rock on the western bank. They name it “Kyiv” after their leader. The locals call them “Rus” or “Ros” – which means “rowers” since that’s how the Vikings (Varangians) plied the rivers. Interestingly, this name lives on in the Finnish and Estonian name for Sweden – “Ruotsi,” which means “land of the rowers.”
988 – Volodymyr decides that to make his kingdom into a state comparable to the other states, it needs to replace the old Norse/Slavic paganism with a modern religion. He sends out delegations to study the various religions – and the one that visited Constantinople returns so awed by Hagia Sophia that Volodymyr chooses eastern Orthodox Christianity. The main boulevard in Kyiv is still named “Christening Boulevard” – since Volodymyr had the entire population of Kyiv herded along this streetway, down to the Dnipro for a mass baptism.
1240 – Kyiv grows into the second largest city in Europe (second only to Paris); it eventually declines in importance as other cities further north grow stronger and richer – but on December 6th, the Mongols breach the walls, destroy the city, and basically reduce its population to zero. Ukraine eventually is absorbed by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (in one form or another), and (this is crucial) develops a westward orientation.
1648 – Bohdan Khmelnitsky leads a great uprising against Polish rule. The rebellion succeeds, but Khmelnitsky knows that Ukraine is too weak to fend off the inevitable Polish reconquest. Fatefully, he goes to the Russian tsar for an alliance – but the tsar tells him that he (Khmelnitsky) doesn’t have enough of a state to be an ally, and that he can only become a vassal. Khmelnitsky storms out in anger, but after a few days realizes that it’s either that or have the Polish take it all back – so he agrees, and Ukraine becomes a vassal state of tsarist Muscovy.
1709 – After Russia gets thrashed by Sweden in the early years of what will become known as the Great Northern War, tsar Petr I (later to be known as Peter the Great) develops an aggressive plan while Sweden is off fighting against Russia’s other allies (such as Poland and Saxony). He relocates his capitol from Moscow to where the Neva River flows into the Baltic and names it St. Petersburg. In addition, since “Muscovy” is no longer appropriate due to the geographic change, he decides on a rebranding – and (again, fatefully) chooses to rebrand Muscovy as “Russia” – even though that old name was never a state (just a region) and that region never really involved Moscow. (This also becomes convenient for future Russian propaganda, to the present day – as it provides a phony excuse that “Russia” is just trying to retake “Russia.”) Peter also rebuilds the army into a modern, professional one – being both large (old Russian method) and actually good. Sweden invades Ukraine (to join up with a cossack rebellion), but the Swedes are decisively beaten by the Russians at Poltava in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s fate as an eastward-focused vassal state of Russia is sealed for the next nearly 400 years.
The whole problem in recent years (going back to the late-19th and early-20th centuries) is that Ukraine is trying to turn itself westward again, while the Russians are trying to maintain the 400 years of Ukraine being a vassal state.
The whole episode is on spotify, albeit you’ll need to login. https://open.spotify.com/episode/406fOiiKMU0ot5AS1AIwve
Neither Zeihan or Rogan are worth watching for anything other than initial entry points into an issue. Zeihan is full of himself, as is Rogan. This fact alone makes anything they say suspect.
That said, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Full interview:
#1921 – Peter Zeihan – Joe Rogan Experience
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8h0g0m
I have up on Zeihan months ago. Almost nothing he predicted over the last year has come true.
It’s tiresome how nearly all the hyperventilating about this situation is all based on news cycles and present-tense culture. A shame that no one ever even bothers to delve into the deep history, let alone understand it.
The simplest way to understand the deep history is to look at five critical years in Ukrainian history – 800, 988, 1240, 1648, 1709.
800 – Viking traders plying the trade route to the Black Sea and Constantinople set up an outpost on the one terrain feature along the Dnipro River – a big rock on the western bank. They name it “Kyiv” after their leader. The locals call them “Rus” or “Ros” – which means “rowers” since that’s how the Vikings (Varangians) plied the rivers. Interestingly, this name lives on in the Finnish and Estonian name for Sweden – “Ruotsi,” which means “land of the rowers.”
988 – Volodymyr decides that to make his kingdom into a state comparable to the other states, it needs to replace the old Norse/Slavic paganism with a modern religion. He sends out delegations to study the various religions – and the one that visited Constantinople returns so awed by Hagia Sophia that Volodymyr chooses eastern Orthodox Christianity. The main boulevard in Kyiv is still named “Christening Boulevard” – since Volodymyr had the entire population of Kyiv herded along this streetway, down to the Dnipro for a mass baptism.
1240 – Kyiv grows into the second largest city in Europe (second only to Paris); it eventually declines in importance as other cities further north grow stronger and richer – but on December 6th, the Mongols breach the walls, destroy the city, and basically reduce its population to zero. Ukraine eventually is absorbed by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (in one form or another), and (this is crucial) develops a westward orientation.
1648 – Bohdan Khmelnitsky leads a great uprising against Polish rule. The rebellion succeeds, but Khmelnitsky knows that Ukraine is too weak to fend off the inevitable Polish reconquest. Fatefully, he goes to the Russian tsar for an alliance – but the tsar tells him that he (Khmelnitsky) doesn’t have enough of a state to be an ally, and that he can only become a vassal. Khmelnitsky storms out in anger, but after a few days realizes that it’s either that or have the Polish take it all back – so he agrees, and Ukraine becomes a vassal state of tsarist Muscovy.
1709 – After Russia gets thrashed by Sweden in the early years of what will become known as the Great Northern War, tsar Petr I (later to be known as Peter the Great) develops an aggressive plan while Sweden is off fighting against Russia’s other allies (such as Poland and Saxony). He relocates his capitol from Moscow to where the Neva River flows into the Baltic and names it St. Petersburg. In addition, since “Muscovy” is no longer appropriate due to the geographic change, he decides on a rebranding – and (again, fatefully) chooses to rebrand Muscovy as “Russia” – even though that old name was never a state (just a region) and that region never really involved Moscow. (This also becomes convenient for future Russian propaganda, to the present day – as it provides a phony excuse that “Russia” is just trying to retake “Russia.”) Peter also rebuilds the army into a modern, professional one – being both large (old Russian method) and actually good. Sweden invades Ukraine (to join up with a cossack rebellion), but the Swedes are decisively beaten by the Russians at Poltava in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s fate as an eastward-focused vassal state of Russia is sealed for the next nearly 400 years.
The whole problem in recent years (going back to the late-19th and early-20th centuries) is that Ukraine is trying to turn itself westward again, while the Russians are trying to maintain the 400 years of Ukraine being a vassal state.
The expand theory was promoted by some russian thinkers pre-war: https://www.eurasiareview.com/12012022-surkov-says-russia-must-expand-or-die-the-most-dangerous-of-all-possible-prescriptions-oped/
Also, there are some spotify mirroring sites that host JRE without a login. Just make sure to use an adblocker :)
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