Jeffrey Sachs comments on how closely 21st-century U.S. policy towards the Russian Federation mirrors how the 19th-century British Empire approached the Russian Empire. “We make up stories about why we oppose big powers, but the basic reason we oppose big powers is that they are big,” he said. “They are an affront to our desire for what political scientists-in a fancy word-call primacy, or hegemony, or full-spectrum dominance.” “What’s absolutely fascinating is: if you go back 180 years-to 1840-our precursor as world hegemon, the British Empire, hated Russia too. And why? For no reason.” “A historian named Gleeson in 1950 tried to answer the question: How did Britain come to hate Russia?” Sachs said. “He went through all the archives, all the speeches in the House of Commons, all the articles in intellectual magazines from 1850 onward, and posed the question: ‘We were allies of Russia in 1815 in defeating Napoleon-we were allies. Then, just 25 years later, we’re enemies. What happened?’ His conclusion: nothing happened. There was no reason, except Russia was big and therefore an affront to the British Empire.” “And of course, the British concocted an idea which was a completely bizarre idea, and that was that the Tsar was going to invade British India through the Khyber Pass. This became known as the Great Game afterwards. This was a crazy idea. The thought never even crossed the minds of the czars-the idea to march across Afghanistan into India to fight the British Empire was loony tunes.” “And then by 1853, Lord Palmerston totally concocted a pretext to go to war with Russia-the Crimean War,” Sachs said. “All of this is fascinating because, first, the Russophobia was concocted hatred. Second, the war between Britain and France and Russia in 1853 was concocted. But third, we’re replaying that script today with almost exactly the same plot line-which is so weird but true.” Here’s the full conversation:

JEFFREY SACHS; This has been a project of the American deep state of the military-industrial complex dating back decades, and the target has nothing to do with Ukraine at all. It’s destroying Ukraine. The target is to weaken Russia. This is the point. TUCKER CARLSON: But why would you want to weaken Russia? I mean, no one wants to weaken India. SACHS: Someday, when India succeeds, we will want to weaken India. So that’s probably sooner rather than later. It’s actually quite interesting. Maybe you’ll make me digress, but right at the start: in the early years of this century-in 2000, 2001, 2002-the U.S. relationship with China was just kind of normal, even-keeled. We had good business with China. And one of my dear friends, with whom I somewhat disagree on some things and agree vociferously on other things, John Mearsheimer, the great political scientist, wrote a famous book called The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. This is his magnum opus, and in it he says, at the beginning of the book in around 2000, Relations with China are quiet now, but when China gains power, we will go into conflict with China. And so this is to answer your question: why would John Mearsheimer say that? Not because of anything China would have done, but because a big power will generate a reaction from the United States. That’s his theory-that we’re on an almost-inevitable collision course, the great powers. I’m not so pessimistic, although I’d say Mearsheimer is more right in a way-he somewhat accurately describes things-but he also labeled his book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, and I don’t want tragedy all the time. I’d like a little comedy, actually-a little normal relations. So, to answer your question, what do we have against Russia? The fact of the matter is Russia is big. Russia is powerful. And for that reason alone-or sufficiently-the U.S. would oppose Russia, just like the U.S. opposes China. Now, of course, maybe people listening to this will say that’s crazy: we oppose China because of all the terrible things they do, or we oppose Russia because of all the terrible things they do. I would take a different view of this, which is: we make up stories about why we oppose big powers, but the basic reason we oppose big powers is that they are big. They are an affront to our desire for what political scientists-in a fancy word-call primacy, or hegemony, or full-spectrum dominance. In other words, Russia is an affront to our ability to dictate circumstances. China certainly is an affront to the U.S. ability to dictate circumstances in Asia. For that reason alone. I understand there are many powers in the world; that’s how the world is-but for the powers that be in Washington, that’s completely antithetical to the American strategic purpose, which explicitly for many, many years has been full-spectrum dominance or primacy. In other words, our purpose-as stated by the establishment, by the military-industrial complex-is: we must be the unrivaled number one. So if you ask why we hate Russia, because Russia stands in the way of us being the unrivaled number one. You could say, Well, it’s because of all the terrible things that they do. But it’s a little more complicated than that. During the Cold War from 1945 to 1991, we hated Russia because it was communist. OK, I happen to be quite deeply involved at the end of that period as an economic advisor when they were trying to get out of that horrible system. And I advised President Gorbachev in 1990, ’91, and I advised President Yeltsin in 1992 and 1993. Yeltsin said, We don’t want any of this communism anymore. We want to be a normal country. So the United States came up with other reasons to hate Russia. I watched with my own eyes that the reason that had been given was not the real reason-it was maybe the believed reason, but it was the narrative reason. We hate Russia because it is a godless communist country. Now it is a Russian-Orthodox non-communist country, and we still hate Russia. Same deal. And by the way, what’s absolutely fascinating is: if you go back 180 years-to 1840-our precursor as world hegemon, the British Empire, hated Russia too. And why? For no reason. It was before the Bolshevik Revolution, it was before any ostensible reason, but the British elite hated Russia. A historian named Gleeson in 1950 tried to answer the question: How did Britain come to hate Russia? Why is it that by 1840, the British hated the Russians so much that 13 years later, in 1853, the British went to war against Russia-a war of choice in the Crimean War? He went through all the archives, all the speeches in the House of Commons, all the articles in intellectual magazines from 1850 onward, and posed the question: We were allies of Russia in 1815 in defeating Napoleon-we were allies. Then, just 25 years later, we’re enemies. What happened? His conclusion: nothing happened. There was no reason except Russia was big and therefore an affront to the British Empire. And of course, the British concocted an idea which was a completely bizarre idea, and that was that the Tsar was going to invade British India through the Khyber Pass. This became known as the Great Game afterwards. This was a crazy idea. The thought never even crossed the minds of the czars-the idea to march across Afghanistan into India to fight the British Empire was loony tunes. But the British elite came to view Russia as the great threat to the British Empire, the threat to India, the crown jewel of the empire. So much so that by 1840, Britain was rapidly Russophobic. And then by 1853, Lord Palmerston totally concocted a pretext to go to war with Russia-the Crimean War. Charge of the Light Brigade and the Crimean War was a concocted showdown between the British Empire and the Russian Empire, concocted because the Russians had challenged the Ottoman Turks and put troops in Wallachia at the mouth of the Danube over privileges France had been granted. Then the British and the French threatened the Russians, the Russians retreated, and when the Russians retreated, the British said, We now fight on. In other words, the pretext was gone, but they wanted that war. Why did they want the war? They wanted to banish Russia from the Black Sea region. Remember, the Black Sea is Russia’s warm-water port-as created by Catherine the Great in 1783-and Crimea, Sevastopol, was besieged by the British and the French. The Russians eventually surrendered, and in the Treaty of Paris in 1856 they agreed to scrap their Black Sea fleet. It remained scrapped for about twenty years. Then, history shows, the French ran back to the Russians as Germany rose. The enemy became the friend to fight the new enemy. Crazy European politics. But the idea of Lord Palmerston was to banish Russia from the Black Sea and reduce Russia to a third-rate power. Now, all of this is fascinating because, first, the Russophobia was concocted hatred. Second, the war between Britain and France and Russia in 1853 was concocted. But third, we’re replaying that script today with almost exactly the same plot line-which is so weird but true. And why I say that is: the United States-or the inside deep state, the CIA and its apparatus and the rest of the military-industrial complex-hated the Soviet Union since 1945, even though they were our ally in defeating Hitler. It turned to preparing for war against our ally within a few months of World War II’s end. This is by itself a very important point. Then from 1945 to 1991, we had the Cold War ostensibly against communism and international communism. Then in December 1991, the Soviet Union ended. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before-I was in the Kremlin that day, literally that hour, sitting in front of Boris Yeltsin, when he said to my colleagues and me, Gentlemen, I want to tell you the Soviet Union is over. I heard it, probably first in the world, directly from President Yeltsin in December 1991. I thought this was the most historic moment imaginable. I was pinching myself: can you believe you’re in the Kremlin hearing from the president of Russia that the Soviet Union has ended? It was unbelievable. I was wrong, because as soon as the Soviet Union ended, what did the deep state say? Well, that’s great. Now we need to dismember Russia too, just like the Soviet Union broke apart. Maybe it’ll be three parts-Europe, Siberia, the Far East. That arrogance and hubris is unbelievable. But the idea was, Cold War over-now we go on to surround Russia, now we chip apart Russia. One favorite phrase in Washington was decolonize Russia-break away Chechnya or other regions. Why? It’s a big power, and we want to be the only big power. Incidentally, in 1992, no one had China on Washington’s radar. China was rice-growing villages, maybe a counterpoint to weaken Russia. So the focus was on Russia, and remained on Russia. The U.S. deep state-the CIA, the intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, Congress’s Armed Services Committees, the military contractors-by 1992 already had the idea of unchallenged U.S. primacy. This became neoconservatism, early on. Cheney was Defense Secretary in 1992 and Wolfowitz his deputy, along with familiar figures we came to know in the Iraq War and after. This was the end of the Bush Senior era, and they had concocted U.S. unipolarity, primacy, full spectrum dominance, hegemony-whatever term one uses.
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