Alexander Motyl - The World After Russia (Ukraine Has Already Won)

01/20/23 • 52 min

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, the general consensus was that Ukraine was outgunned, disorganized, and unable to mount any type of meaningful resistance. The expectation was that Ukraine would fall quickly – maybe even within days of the assault. But, that didn’t happen. And, it’s not like Russia struggled – Ukraine took the fight directly to Russia, denying a quick win, holding territory that experts expected to fall effortlessly, and even reclaimed territory that Russia had taken. Ukraine’s allies in Europe, the United States, and Canada provided an unexpected level of support that has been maintained, and Russia has become a pariah on the global stage.

Nothing is certain at this point, and there are signs that Russia may be regrouping and preparing for another overwhelming assault on Ukraine in the next couple of months. But, the debate has shifted from one of when Ukraine falls and how the rest of the world will react, to one focused on the strong possibility that Russia might actually lose the war. And, if that happens, I wonder that looks like.

So, today I’m talking to Dr. Alexander Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers University and a widely regarded and respected expert on Soviet and post-Soviet politics. He has published extensively – academically, as well as fiction and non-fiction books. One of his recent works in Foreign Policy – an article titled It’s High Time to Prepare for Russia’s Collapse - is the catalyst for today’s discussion. We talk about the possibility that Ukraine wins this war, what that might look like for Russia, and how the rest of the world should be preparing for this outcome.

-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Bluesky
YouTube
Email: [email protected]
Music:
Majestic Earth - Joystock

-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Bluesky
YouTube
Email: [email protected]
Music:
Majestic Earth - Joystock

Previous Episode

Elise d'Epenoux - SeaCleaners: Cleaning Our Oceans One Bottle at a Time

Consider this. 40% of all plastics that are produced today are just thrown away within a month of acquisition. Only 10% of all plastic waste is recycled – which means 90% is not. And 32% of all plastic waste ends up in nature, including our oceans. 9-14 million tons of plastic waste is dumped into the oceans every year. That’s 17 tons per minute – a garbage truck’s worth of plastic waste dumped into the oceans each minute.

And, this problem is only growing. It is estimated that by 2040, between 23—37 million tons of plastic waste will make its way into our oceans each year. This has real and tangible impacts – all negative – on us, the world’s wildlife, particularly marine wildlife, and our atmosphere.

Today I’m talking to Elise d'Epenoux, head of internal communications for SeaCleaners – an organization whose sole mission is to work toward pollution-free oceans, and they do so by employing some really unique strategies. They educate, they innovate, and they coordinate. Elize explains this work of SeaCleaners, and some of the more interesting and entrepreneurial projects they’ve got underway, including the Manta innovation – a first of its kind processing ship that literally trolls the seas and collects, treats, and repurposes floating plastic debris, and the Mobula Against Plastic Pollution (or MAPP) program, which unites partner organizations, governments, communities, researchers, and technical experts to implement clean-up operations on inland waters and onland activities to combat plastic pollution. We also talk about the scale of the problem, why it matters, and what we all can be doing in our daily lives to mitigate some of the worst impacts of plastic pollution upstream before it becomes a catastrophe downstream.

-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Bluesky
YouTube
Email: [email protected]
Music:
Majestic Earth - Joystock

Next Episode

Fleeing My Homeland: Russia

According to the 2022 Freedom in the World report issued by Freedom House – 38% of the global population live in Not Free countries, and only 20% live in Free countries. In 2022 alone, 60 countries experienced declines in democratic freedom, while only 25 experienced increases. This picture is stark – democracies are in decline. Authoritarianism is on the rise.

Increasingly, especially on the Right, this trend is leveraged to suggest that authoritarian regimes are a legitimate alternative to democracy. That the rise of authoritarianism reflects the desire and need for something other than democracy – some counterbalance. But, this argument misses something fundamental. We need to consider something else in tandem with this trend – the rise of authoritarianism - to help us more fully draw conclusions and make assumptions. Perhaps it’s important to know how people living in these countries feel about increasing unfreedom.

So, here’s something to consider. The world is also awash in refugees and immigrants – almost universally fleeing authoritarian, theocratic, and totalitarian regimes; and they are landing in democracies. They are fleeing TO freedom. This undercuts the legitimacy of authoritarianism as a viable alternative to democracy. People don’t want to live in authoritarian states – They don’t want to live without voice, without freedom, without safety.

So, this is a different picture, a reality – that the number of democracies is declining while the number of authoritarian states is increasing – which has led to a massive influx of people fleeing these unfree states into increasingly shrinking available free states - this is a crisis. Not of democracy. It’s a crisis of authoritarianism.

So, the next two episodes – today and next week - take a closer look at people that are fleeing two of these authoritarian regimes. Next week I’m talking to someone who fled political persecution in Venezuela for a better life in the United States – only to arrive and be placed on a bus commissioned by the Texas governor with no knowledge of where he was going and what would happen when he got there. And, today, I’m talking to someone who has fled Russia – Sergey refused to be mobilized to fight in support of the Putin’s war in Ukraine. We talk about his life before the war, how and why he decided to leave his homeland, how it has disrupted his life, and what he hopes for his future, having lost everything he had planned for himself and his family.

Recommended:
Freedom House
Mentioned:
Wednesday (TV Series)

-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Bluesky
YouTube
Email: [email protected]
Music:
Majestic Earth - Joystock

Deep Dive with Shawn - Alexander Motyl - The World After Russia (Ukraine Has Already Won)

Transcript

Dr. Alexander Motyl - The World After Russia (Ukraine Has Already Won)

Alex: [00:00:00] Just recently, as a matter of fact, it was three, four days ago, the Atlantic Council published the results of a survey. They. They questioned 167 Russia experts, more or less evenly divided from the private sector business sector in acen, both Americans and Europeans. And of that number, 47% believe that Russia could collapse within the next 10 years, and 20% believe