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At the end of June, the Russian authorities banned this American political scientist and philosopher from entering Russia. DW spoke with him days after he joined the advisory board of the International Anti-Corruption Foundation, newly created by jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.
DW: You are now on the list of people banned from entering Russia, how do you feel about this list?
Francis Fukuyama: I consider it an honor to be on this list. All the major foreign critics of Russia and the Russian occupation of Ukraine were listed, and I actually wondered why it took so long to reach me.
Why did you become part of the board of directors of the Anti-Corruption Foundation?
I am a big admirer of Alexei Navalny, I met him in Warsaw in 2019. Corruption is a very big problem in Russia and in the world and I am very happy to support his foundation in any way possible.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said: “We have only just begun,” referring to the war in Ukraine. Is he bluffing?
I think he lies, as he does with many things. Western military analysts who have examined the posture of Russian forces have noted that Russia is currently experiencing a severe manpower shortage. It has also lost perhaps a third of all the forces it originally mustered to defeat Ukraine. Estimates of Russian casualties are uncertain, but there were probably 20,000 killed and perhaps 60,000 wounded. With the prisoners in charge of this. And for a country the size of Russia, this is truly a military disaster.
So I think actually, given that the Russians have only made very marginal gains in the two months since they started focusing on Donbas, I don’t think they have much in store, and I think Putin is bluffing when he says they haven’t even started.
In your opinion, what could be an effective strategy for Ukraine?
The most realistic strategy at this stage is to focus on the south, reopening Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea by retaking Kherson and other ports on the Sea of Azov. This is more important than Donbass. I think that the recovery of Donbas will be quite difficult to achieve in the coming months. But by the end of summer, you can see real progress in the south. It is indeed very important that Ukraine regains this access so that it can resume exports of all its basic agricultural products from its Black Sea ports and break the Russian blockade of Odesa.
How can the situation change if Donald Trump is re-elected President of the United States?
If Donald Trump comes back in 2024, that solves all of Russia’s problems, because he’s apparently committed to pulling the United States out of NATO. Russia will have achieved its main objectives simply by this change in American policy. And that’s why I think it’s really important that Ukraine makes some progress and regains some military momentum over the summer, because the unity of the West really depends on people believing that there is a military solution to the problem in the short term.
If they think we’re just facing a protracted stalemate that will go on forever, then I think unity will start to break down and there will be more calls for Ukraine to cede territory in order to stop the war.
How do you see Russia in a broader global perspective? What kind of political regime is that?
More than anything, it actually looks like Nazi Germany at this point. Its only ideology is a kind of extreme nationalism, but even less developed than that of the Nazis. It is also a not very institutionalized regime. It really revolves around one man, Vladimir Putin, who really controls all the major levers of power.
If you compare it to China, they are very, very different. China has a big communist party with 90 million members, it has a lot of internal discipline. In the case of Russia, you don’t have that kind of institutionalization.
So I don’t think it’s a sustainable regime. I don’t think he has a clear ideology that he can project from the outside. I think the people who align with him are just people who don’t like the West for various reasons.
After 30 years, do you have an update on your concept of the end of the story?
We are in a different situation than 30 years ago, when democracy has suffered setbacks in all areas, including in the United States, India and other major democracies in recent years. But the progress of history has never been linear. We had major setbacks in the 1930s, which we survived. We had another set of setbacks in the 1970s, with the oil crisis and inflation in many parts of the world. So the idea of historical progress is not dead.
Sometimes there are setbacks, but the institutions and the ideas behind them are strong and have survived for a very long time, and I expect them to continue to survive.
Does the war in Ukraine and other simmering political crises eclipse the more global and dangerous climate crisis?
It is clear that short-term energy needs have led to a revival of fossil fuels and slowed progress towards reducing carbon emissions. But this is a temporary obstacle. And I think that both of these issues should be addressed, it is not a matter of choosing one or the other. Both should really be taken seriously.
But the climate crisis is a slowly unfolding crisis that will continue to haunt us for generations to come. So I think the fact that we’re taking steps back now is not necessarily the final position we’re going to be in.
Francis Fukuyama is a political scientist at Stanford University in California.
The interview was conducted by Mikhail Bushuev, and summarized and edited for clarity by Sonya Diehn.
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