Putin and China Issuing Devastating Warning to the US | Ray McGovern

Putin and China Issuing Devastating Warning to the US | Ray McGovern

let’s start with this new article in financial times in which it says Hungary has joined China’s circle of friends to fight the US after she’s visit to Europe and it seems that this visit of she to Europe was so much important in terms of this pulling and pushing in Europe that is going on between the United States on one side and Russia and China on the other side how do you see this chees visit to Europe well I find it highly interesting and I’m glad glad you started out with that Nema you know he visited Paris and I’m sure he uh I’m sure I imagine very strongly that he told M uh look um please I believe my Russian allies my Russian cikes when they say if you put French troops into Ukraine they will come back in wood wooden boxes so no fooling around okay knock that off well there was some spurious reports that they were already French Foreign legionnaires in in uh Ukraine but in any case the French Foreign Ministry quickly said oh no we’re not going to do anything okay now the next stop was Serbia now she is a a very talented and very practiced Diplomat why did he pick that particular day to visit Serbia well it became very clear and what he gave an interview about to the Serbian newspaper he said look this is the 25th anniversary of when the US bombed the hell no didn’t say when the US bombed our Embassy in Belgrade okay 25 years um we cannot put up with this kind of thing and I’m here to recall that we don’t forget things like that wow that’s not very diplomatic that’s very pointed okay the next thing you know he’s in Hungary now Hungary has always been sort of the out liar in NATO and has refused to join in many of the NATO escapades specifically having to do with Ukraine so Orban uh the head of Hungary was already predisposed to entertain uh uh China and she personally and to trade on the bilateral ties that they have been developing over recent years in other words Hungary has shown the rest of the EU hey we could still do with China and more concretely uh China has agreed to build at least two uh factories for for electric vehicles electric cars okay wow now that’s big all right meanwhile just as an aside the US is considering sanctioning uh electric vehicles from China not letting any of in so this just puts the US even farther behind not not only commercially but in terms of the the benefits of electronic Vehicles when it comes to the environment for God’s sake you know so there’s this strange reaction in in the US to anything good that the Chinese are doing especially if they’re overproducing they’re overproducing things and hurting our economy so suffice it to say that Hungary is a bellweather here of what should be happening in the rest of Europe she is very patient Russians slightly less patient but also patient and as the Europeans realized they’ve been had by the United States and contributing to this debacle in Ukraine as they realize that U after November of this year things things are going to change one way or another after the election in the United States are they’re going to finally come to their census and say are we really going to let our economies plummet just because the US says we can’t deal with Russia and what about that one uh nordstream pipeline that still works hey why don’t we turn it on for God’s sake you know why do we pay liquefied natural gas premiums on this stuff now will they wake up well they haven’t so far I confess to being surprised at that they are adults now it’s been almost 80 years since the end of the war when they were children and Adolescence okay uh but um I may be impatient because I’m not going to be around for too many more decades the Chinese have been around for Millennia right you know like like more than centuries Millennia and the Russians have been patient too so they they’ll be happy to sit back and saywell Europe are you ready now are you ready to deal with us and a lot has to do with the election of course I have to reflect on uh the brilliant mind of uh of Jacob Sullivan who after all is the principal advisor with blankin the secretary of state to president um President Biden um as you know uh just before uh the events in Gaza just before uh Hamas attacked uh Israel uh Jake suin wrote an article in foreign affairs saying we take great pride in the fact that the the the Middle East Southwest Asia has never been so peaceful and actually we saw very important problems including of course the situation in Gaza that was published three days if memory serves before the attack on Gaza what’s he saying now about Ukraine well last week a week ago today there was a big uh it was a big confab with the U Financial Times was sponsoring it and I I took some notes Here on what what Jake Sullivan said about Ukraine and and it’s worth the worth my not Paris paraphrasing it but here it goes we hope hope that Ukraine will have the capacity to pull the line end quote over the course of this year and be able to amount a counter offensive in 2025 that’s next year they’re going to re they’re going to recapture territory Russians have taken from them now the financial times is usually an acostic commentator but they made it quite explicit if we whole line for the end of this year Well November the election is the end of this year right so here’s his financial times his Sullivan’s comments about a potential counter offensive by Ukraine represents the White House’s clearest clarification of how it views a conflict uh if president Biden wins reelection in November as things now stand says the financial times that’s a big if so the game plan well uh we could talk about Ukraine or or whatever else you’d like to talk about but with respect to she coming back to his visit to Western Europe uh this was big he didn’t have to do this it was planned well in advance and he had a group of admirers in Belgrade in Serbia I should say and in Hungary and there are economic advantages to all this as I pointed out the electric vehicles now um what happens next well that’s the big deal now uh President Putin of Russia is going to visit Beijing uh he he announced a couple weeks ago that that would be in May okay well what is it now the 11th of May so uh next couple of weeks he’ll be in Beijing if things fold out the way he predicted what does that mean that means a whole lot let’s say uh the last crucial time when the two were together was February AR 4th uh 2022 okay uh they have seen each other at least twice since xiin ping came to Moscow in March of last year and uh poin visited Beijing for um the U belon Road initiative celebration in Beijing in October of last year but these were these were not really important meetings this one is why well because things are coming to a head in Ukraine they’re coming to aead in Southwest Asia and in all these things the US is diametrically opposed to this new alliance and I use that term explicitly it’s not ostensibly a military Alliance but it is okay now what am I saying I’m saying that uh here’s a here’s a good way to put it I’ve been watching Soviet leaders for a half century that was my job with the CIA I tried to put myself in the shoes of Russian Soviet leaders uh before February 2022 uh I didn’t think that Putin would invade Ukraine there were things I didn’t know okay things like Biden had promised Putin not to put offensive strike missiles in Ukraine he did that in a personal telephone call on December 30 2021 as three weeks later foreign minister La met with blankin and blink said what we never made any undertaking like that but we we reserve the right to put offensive strike missiles in Ukraine they may be already in Poland and uh and in Romania so we re let’s talk about maybe limiting maybe only have three or four and so lav just recently revealed that so on the 30th December promised not to put offensive missiles in Ukraine 21st of February no 21st of January U the next month uh lvov says forget about that we’re not going to do that and of course the invasion came uh a month after that on the 24th of February now those were things I didn’t I didn’t uh really appreciate the significance of and also uh the fact that shelling in the donbas the Ukrainian forces fortified uh given weapons to trained by NATO forces for eight years started shelling uh danet and lugans in a way that was GE geometrically higher than ever before and that started in the middle of February 2022 two weeks before the Russians would end now that was available but I didn’t dig I didn’t dig assiduously enough it was available an oecd docu not OBD the um uh the office of uh security and cooperation in Europe the organization osce uh they monitored they had people there they my God this thing’s gone up from uh 500 500 shellings a day to 13,000 okay that was available I didn’t find it but the real reason I was wrong the real reason I was wrong has to do with a question about China and Russia now most people including all the the real Savvy Chinese analysts American analysts or British analysts of China told me look Ray uh China’s Bedrock principle is non-int deference in the Affairs of other countries that’s failure that’s failure okay no invasions of other countries so if you’re asking me Ray whether China would ever bless Putin going into Ukraine forget about it would never happen made sense to me and so my conclusion was based largely on the fact that puin did this he do it alone okay and that didn’t seem to be my idea of Putin who I think is cautious sometimes maybe overly cautious in the way he proceeds so besides the fact that I was wrong the thing is we learn from our mistakes what did that mean that mean that CH that meant from the outset that China when when she me met with puin in Beijing on the 4th of February this same month okay 4th of February 2022 uh pin broached this to him he said look we’ve been deceived we’ve been diddled and with the shelling has gone up and you a bunch of Nazis neo-nazis and we’re going to have to we’re going to have to clean them out okay and my idea is that she said said well if you wait till the end of the Olympics okay the Olympics ended in on 20 February 2022 4 days later uh the Russians invaded from the outset the Chinese defended Russia their their rhetoric about the sacent nature of the ran Accords 1648 for God’s sake you know when they learned not to invade each other okay that sacran nature sort of disappeared even in the rhetoric and the rhetoric said you know we Chinese we evaluate things from the perspective of national core interests and the national core interests like we have in Taiwan and like Russia has in Ukraine well uh in those cases we we ex we examine each case on its own merits oh on its own merits so was failure well we car about an exception for po was the most amazing thing and it took a long time for many of my colleagues who appreciate hey this is a new ball game now we have xiin ping and puin joined at the HP it wasn’t two years later it was then okay and we could see it happen Okay so was that mean that means that uh in February 4th exactly 2022 this meeting produced the confidence in pooing to go ahead and do what he’s done uh what he’s done to the most part successfully remind people Everyone uh that the twin missions of this offensive were to demilitarize and densify Ukraine demilitarization has all but succeeded uh the extra help from the US is not going to help in my view it’s not going to be able to even see the Ukrainian armed forces such as they are through to November of this year the election in the US so so that’s demilitarization densification well you know um this fellow zinski the comedian who’s not really very funny okay uh he is illegal on the 20th or 21st of this month you there supposed to be elections in democracies it’s supposed to be democracy right okay so there was supposed to be an election uh Z that not going to be any election okay so literally speaking in a judical sense and you know the Russians and and Chinese are pretty sticklers for for judical principles I mean they like to adhere to the International System of law set up by the UN and not to some alternative what we call it rules based uh International order and so this meant something so what am I saying well things have come to a head in Ukraine it’s universally recognized by everyone but Jacob Sullivan and Tony blinkin apparently that the Russians have won they’re not going to be deterred from consolidating their winds and that the only way to prevent unconditional surrender whenever possibly before November election is to talk to them the the facet that has been notably absent in dealings between Russia and the US in my day even over Cuba and especially over Cuba there are ways to communicate Often by telephone but sometimes with these fancy teletype machines we had in those days okay uh but there were ways to communicate now there has been to my knowledge no communication between lavro who is was told by Blink and look forget about those offensive strike missiles that we said we wouldn’t put in Ukraine that’s our privilege we can do that how about talking about just two or three of them okay so the Russians uh felt themelves not able to trust the United States and so longwinded way of saying saying here Here Comes Putin maybe two weeks from now into Beijing he’s greeted warmly by comrade she and uh what does he say to she well I think I have pretty much right what he said back in March I’m sorry February 4th of 2022 what’s he going to say this time I think he’s going to say comment she thanks thanks thanks for your political support and thanks for those thanks for buying so much of our oil as you know the sanctions didn’t work as you know we have the highest G growth rate uh in in all of Europe everybody else is negative growth over 3% you know thanks very much now we still have this problem we have the November election coming up in the United States God knows what these guys are capable of doing and so my op s are you know do I do I send my forces forward all the way to the dppa river and say okay now are you ready to negotiate or do I do I talk with the with Washington in extra channels out of the normal and try to persuade him look um you know uh we we don’t like your policies uh Biden Administration people but we dislike Trump’s policies even more because he doesn’t have any policies he’s so erratic he’s so unprincipled he so unpredictable that President Putin has said that he favors Joe Biden my God surprised of course I was surprised his speaking unnecessarily about the US election what’s he saying how could it be after all Biden has done that Putin would would prefer predictability my God that’s really was he putting us on is he just playing us well two weeks later um Biden in one of his campaign stops uh said that uh that pin was what did you call him oh yeah he’s a want to say it here a son of a be okay in Russian Su sin it sounds even worse and that’s all that was all over the Russian media so puin was asked the next day you said you prefer Joe Biden because he’s predictable what about what he said yesterday he called you Ain and puin smiled say see that’s what I mean he’s predictable we prefer him well I don’t know but I think if you take that as a premise uh that this a big premise and that pin would rather deal with Biden and his people if he were able to talk some sense into them the chances are he cannot do that and so what he’ll be saying to xiin Ping is look I have these for options okay I can go ahead and do the thing now finish this off and create a clear debacle clear defeat for NATO and the United States and Biden will lose you know he can’t can’t survive something like that or I could proceed more gradually and make it make overtures to see if this thing can be watered down or at least pacified until the election or what do you think comrade she I have these options now my forces are so much in the ascendant that they can they can plow through any of those points in the Russ in the Ukrainian Alliance that they need to and uh you know we don’t want to well we don’t want to conquer and occupy the rest of Ukraine we don’t even I don’t even want to occupy the part of Ukraine that remains to the east of the dppa river we’re satisfied with what we have we could have a cordon you know belt that would give us security from long range ballistic missiles uh but let’s uh you know uh let’s see what what’s going to happen so what’s she going to do well she’s going to say well look uh last time this work beautifully we let you came with your decision and I blessed it so you decide and uh you’re you and your people are pretty pretty perspicacious uh and probably if you do prefer Biden you’ll know what to do in terms of uh uh making it clear to these young people like uh Sullivan and blinkin what the price they’ll have to pay if you relent and don’t take the rest of Ukraine up to the Neer so think about it and I applaud you for proceeding cautiously and not only that you have my support but I think the United States is beginning to appreciate that we are not going to put up with a lot of foolishness on the part of the US 7th Fleet in the South China Sea um we have already just yesterday driven off when one of these very fancy US destroyers um that was sailing close to the so-called disputed Islands but which are under n international law ours and uh and so in in short Mr Putin comrade Vladimir if you get involved in the dustop uh in Ukraine or in the Baltic or somewhere like that uh the us is going to have to count on our proceeding to defend our rights in a much more aggressive way in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan Straits now we’re not going to invade Taiwan we don’t want to invade Taiwan we just don’t want Taiwan to think it’s independent or be bristling with us missry and other arms so so uh this is what we’re we’re prepared to do if you get into a real dust stop uh in Ukraine if one of those uh fancy new missiles from the United States or from Great Britain or from France or some other place hit something really vital and you want to retaliate we’re with you just as we were before and uh uh that uh that that will that will be what the discussions that ensue in Beijing later this month between she and uh puin that’s they’ll the way they’ll take shape and we have the president of two year two years plus ago uh February 4th 2022 again just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine I had one other thing oh yeah I want just want to mention this this is not necessarily what Putin will be telling she but a professor at the University in New Mexico has done a really thorough research job on what international law says about who owns those islands those disputed islands in the South China Sea now guess who owns them under international law China how do we know that well this professor has gone into all treaties and all going back back couple centuries okay all all kinds of data in writing the French approving uh the Viet the French approving what Vietnam uh had in other words there’s a principle in international law that if a colonial power uh breaks free it’s International boundaries will be the same as they were under the colonial power and under that principle all these things belong to China Philippines forget about that comes later now here’s the flaw in the ointment the Philippines and the United States have a mutual defense treaty the Philippines under this young Marcos fellow have been giving the US many more military bases in in the Philippines and has been sending that what what es for their Coast Guard uh ships onto some of these islands or real near them and the Chinese have blown them off with with water cannon for God’s sake so uh to the degree the Philippines is feeling its oats and this young Marcos say well what do we get to lose we’ve got the us behind us uh the Philippines is quite quite capable of putting the United States in a very very embarrassing question as to whether it wants to fulfill its treaty obligations to defend the Philippine Coast Guard for God’s sake on these islands so you now when I first saw that professor’s tretis I read half of it it’s very pretty long I was very convinced but I’m not a Chinese expert so I asked the Ambassador chess Freeman and luckily he just responded this morning and said yep yeah it was on its way to a peaceful resolution in accordance with this International AAL law and then the US decided to throw its weight around and create the kind of the kind of stress the kind of friction the kind of danger that now exists around these little islands that don’t really amount to much except that they do Li asri the uh major navigation channels and are very close to the Chinese Coast so so there’s that too so in in some uh Russia and China joined at the hip uh they described their Alliance as exceeding any normal Alliance has no upper end they said that on the 4th of February 2022 not the belabor point okay but you gota you got to sort of realize that this is this is what it is okay now what’s Biden being told my God I’ll finish with this sorry to be so long- winded but you know Biden met with puin Once 16 June 2021 his first year in office now he met with him because he got really upset about how many Russian troops were coming to the Border in Ukraine and uh and puin had issued a warning saying look uh don’t send any more ships into the Black Sea you don’t that’s gratuitous we don’t we don’t like that and indeed uh Biden said that hey you Navy ships go visit Greece is much more pleasant than going through the Black Sea and then uh Biden called um blinkin Biden called Putin and said look uh we should have a summit I’m really good at person to person relation always have a summit out of the blue on June 16th met now we don’t know much about that meeting but we do know what kind of brief Biden was given uh to realize how exceptional the US and how much in charge it was with China and Russia at each other’s throats hating each other got that okay how do I know that Biden himself after the meeting was over the only thing of any consequence that he said is you know I probably shouldn’t uh I probably shouldn’t say this because uh we don’t want to divulge private conversations but you know uh pu needed to know and I you know made reminded him that uh China is challenging the whole world including Russia that there’s a thousands of miles of border between the the two of them that they have traditionally been enemies that China is pretending not only to be a major economic power but a major military power so we we realize that puin is being squeezed by China nothing could have been farther from the truth okay and yet that was what he said I mean that’s what Biden said he said they’re trying to pull him on the plane he said once again I just want to remind you Russia’s being squeezed by China well the next year now that’s June 2021 the next year was spent by kijin ping and puin doing their damnest to dissuade the us if that was the case look and of course they act me with this new agreement strategic agreement on the fourth of February 2022 but they couldn’t get through the question is can they get through now and that all depends on whom they listen to and just to finish up for sure now uh they’re still listening to people like Michael McFall former ambassador to the to Russia under Obama what a are using any adjectives but here’s an example xiin ping made a very big visit to Moscow in March of last year okay after it was over two days later uh Putin said something that Michael Mcall Ambassador McFall thought that Beijing would would take a scance and he he wrote authoritatively as he always does Biden has great gratuitously humiliated kin ping right after their right after they met Mo this does not bod for for a good good relationship between the two that afternoon the Chinese defense Ministry announced that they had up the Mount of Naval and air and and and ground forces training and and M Mutual training and Joint training and so forth so you know this was crazy I forget exactly what uh what straw Michael McFall was grasping at I can look at my record but it was so outlandish see they look like they great friends but no no no no he’s been humiliated that pin gratuitously humiliated Chan ping well it’s far from the case but the reason I mentioned that is because Biden and his Entourage are still listening to people uh like McFall and like those other people who who used to run Russian analysis for the CIA for God’s sake or for the intelligence Community I’m talking about piona Hill and all those people and you know so the question is well how do we get them to watch you and me that’s the issue here so that they can learn learn what’s really going on in the world and learn that there are limits to uh there are limits to what the US can do and I just refer back to our earlier session a couple of weeks ago where or I I branded us exceptionalism and infantile disorder after the words of Lenin describing left-wing communism and infantile disorder Ray Russia recently in Russia they were talking about non-strategic nuclear weapons and even Navy getting prepared for any sort of escalation in Ukraine do you think what would be that red line for Russia to use these type of weapons in your opinion well Nema uh if I can make another confession I was surprised I was surprised that the that Russia made it very clear that that they were going to be exercising what they call nonstrategic weapons uh missiles and so forth uh tactical nuclear weapons uh that came out of the blue of course they made it clear that it was a direct reaction to mong’s uh idea that he would send soldiers he would send troops into Ukraine and Cameron the uh British foreign minister who used to be prime minister God help was saying that oh when we give our our missiles to Ukraine they’re free to hit the hit the heartlands in Russia they we we don’t control that they be you know they they could do that sure well uh there was that and then there was just a lot of stuff going on and xianping was in Western Europe at the time and I’m not sure but I think it’s probably the case that the Chinese and Ians had talked together in Moscow at the time not xiin ping but his lieutenants and said all right I guess we have to issue the kind of warning that we’ve not issued before and so they said we are exercising very soon um uh tactical nuclear weapons uh from our seab based forces and from our air-based forces okay now that’s big uh up till now the Russians have limited themselves to generic warnings saying for example don’t forget please don’t forget that we have nuclear weapons okay I mean comes to down to that and as I’ve done before I compare it to the last time when Russia and the United States were so close to nuclear war that of course was the Cuban Missile Crisis and 1962 and John Kennedy was responsible for me coming down to Washington and learning some of this stuff um John Kennedy gave a wonderful speech at American University June 10th 1963 so do the math October 1962 facing down the Russians and the Cuban Missile Crisis being resolved by by bilateral contacts okay teletype but it worked okay sparing the world well sparing the world of nuclear catastrophe okay so uh October 62 now June 63 uh both Hof and especially John Kennedy had learned a lot at how close they had come uh just you put yourself in their shoes my God you know being responsible for almost causing this kind of Calamity uh so Kenedy decided Well he’d extend an open hand to K and say okay you and I both know what it was like you and I both know that we want the best for our children and we need to be open to your interests and above all and this is the point here above all we must always avoid a situation where a nuclear power is faced with a choice between humiliating Retreat or using nuclear weapons 1963 all the way down to just well almost just this past year the two sides have adhered to that except now the US is involved with nato in a proxy war directly with Russia now does proxy make any difference well it does in a sense but if it comes down to a choice between humiliating defeat by whom by Russia no humiliating defeat of NATO and the United States well Russia would have to be afraid that blinkin Sullivan nand all those people around Biden faced with this Choice might just opt for the use of nuclear weapons rather than have a humiliating defeat right before the election there’s a personal stake in that which I’ve talked about before so here’s here’s the rub here uh if if uh the United States cannot be sure and I’m sorry if the if Russia cannot be sure as I cannot be sure that blinkin and Sullivan would not tap these military people who think that n little low yield nuclear weapons can be contained and you know we could show the well we should teach the Russians a lesson you know and that that would get us through to the election if puin and his Entourage cannot be sure that that would might be the case they’re going to be really uh really on full alert and would they use a nuclear weapon I don’t think they’d use it first but rapu Deputy foreign minister has actually said three days ago that we know what our Doctrine is we set it down in 2020 you all can read it that’s what it says but we’re thinking of maybe revising that now given the new circumstances so will we use nuclear weapons to defend our country of course we will will we use nuclear weapons to to protect all our our assets of course we will but there may be situations as in the US strategic Doctrine there may be situations short of that uh that acute need where we would consider using nuclear weapons they haven’t said that yet but riov really po Diplomat deputy secretary of state has said it just the last couple of weeks it you know raises my back of my the hair on the back of my neck real high because they’re playing for keeps and with respect to Ukraine this is a core issue and if the United States is not able to recognize that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO then this thing will go on forever here’s Sullivan as I said at the beginning of this thing saying it can go uh it can go to uh to next year and then then you know we’ll see what happens next year

Ray came to Washington from his native Bronx in the early Sixties as an Army infantry/intelligence officer and then served as a CIA analyst for 27 years, from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. Ray’s duties included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President’s Daily Brief, which he briefed one-on-one to President Ronald Reagan’s five most senior national security advisers from 1981 to 1985.
https://raymcgovern.com