Patrick Buchanan: NATO expansion, Russia’s place in Europe, and the coming clash of civilizations

AN AMERICAN POPULIST: PRAVDA.RU INTERVIEWS PATRICK BUCHANAN 

NATO expansion, Russia’s place in Europe, and the coming clash of civilizations: Patrick Buchanan gives an exclusive interview to PRAVDA.Ru

  

  Q. You are known as being a critic of the NATO action against Yugoslavia during 1999. As you know, the majority of the Russian population was against the  war. Many Russians feel as if the Serbs are their "little brothers." In addition, many people here believe that the stories of large-scale "ethnic cleansing" were simply designed to convince the American public to support the actions. Why, exactly,  were you opposed to this war?  

  A. I am well aware of the historic feelings of the Russian people for the Serbs, who are fellow Slavs and Orthodox Christians. Indeed, it was the unwillingness of Russia to permit the Austro-Hungarian empire to crush Serbia, after the assassination of the Archduke in June of 1914, that led to World War I. I opposed the Yugoslav war because I thought it was an unjust war against a small nation that had done nothing to  us. Serbia had not threatened us, had not attacked us, and had been our friend and ally in two world wars. Serbs had rescued hundreds of downed American pilots when we were fighting the Nazis. And Serbia had not attacked any NATO nation. Why then did NATO attack Serbia? The U.S. launched a 78-day air war against a nation of ten million, because that nation refused to permit NATO troops to march with impunity across its sovereign territory. As for the allegations of mass atrocities by Serbs, -- that 100,000 Kosovar Albanians had been massacred -- that turned out to have been  almost 100% propaganda.  

  Before our air strikes began, in one year of Serbia’s civil war there had been only 2,000 casualties, and 95,000 Kosovar Albanians had gone into exile. Yet, in just one day in our own Civil War, at Antietam, there were 10,000 dead in one day of fighting. Nobody  accused us of genocide. Almost all of the ethnic expulsions in the Yugoslav civil war occurred after the U.S. bombing began. Moreover, at the war’s end, there were atrocities against Serbs, and 250,000 Serbs were pushed out of their province, and many of their beautiful old churches and cathedrals were smashed.  Who has been made to answer for those crimes? No one. Milosevic was a thug, but he did not want war with the United States and it was not our responsibility to remove him. As Lord Byron said, "Who would be free/Themselves must strike the blow."  

  Q. Do you think that the American press accurately covered the events that took place?  

  A. I was campaigning for President at the time, but my recollection is that the coverage was biased against the Serbs, that Americans had been made to believe the Serbs were some kind of wild beasts. What the U.S.press did not explain was how these wild beasts could vote Milosevic out, then be hailed as the newest members of the Great Western Democratic Club.  

  Q. What do you think the long-term solution to the ethnic problems in Yugoslavia could be?  

  A. Given the memories of atrocities on all sides, it is foolish to try to force these peoples to live together, as in Bosnia. In the end, I think an eventual partition of Bosnia is inevitable. As for Kosovo, we should have stayed out militarily, and tried to broker a deal whereby the Kosovar Albanians could have more autonomy, without breaking up  Yugoslavia. Unlike Slovenia and Croatia, which were given to Belgrade in 1919 -- after being taken from the Austro-Hungarian Empire -- Serb roots in Kosovo go back centuries to a time even before Columbus discovered America. Kosovo is the cradle of Serbia. If the NATO allies let Kosovo be severed from Serbia, I believe we will be creating the conditions of future war. There is already a movement afoot to create a  Greater Albania by tearing off Kosovo and parts of Montenegro and Macedonia and attaching them to Albania. Should this happen, we will face endless Balkan wars. But this is Europe’s problem, not America’s.  

  Q. It is well known that NATO and the USSR had an agreement that when Russian troops withdrew from countries such as East Germany and Poland, that NATO  said it would not expand eastward. In your opinion, should Russia be concerned about the continued expansion of NATO?  

  A. Clearly, from the record, the U.S. led the Soviet  Union to believe that If it abolished the Warsaw Pact  and if the Russian Army went home from Central and  Eastern Europe, we would not move NATO one inch  further east. So, the U.S. did not keep its word,  given verbally by our diplomats, including, I believe,  Secretary of State James Baker. Even though I used to  write "Captive Nations" resolutions when I worked for  Presidents Nixon and Reagan, and welcomed the  liberation of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states  from Communist rule and Soviet rule, I opposed NATO  expansion. Why?  

  First, NATO was created to prevent the Red Army from  overrunning all of Germany and Western Europe. It was  to be a purely defensive alliance. Second, for the  U.S. to commit itself to fight forever in Eastern  Europe is abridge too far. We have no vital interest  there. We have never fought there. When we had four  million soldiers in Europe in 1945, Eisenhower stopped  the U.S. Army at the Elbe. In 1961, Eisenhower told  President Kennedy to pull all U.S. troops out of  Europe, that it was time to let Europeans pay the cost  and provide the troops for their own defense. We are a  republic, not an empire, and America should let  Europeans, who are as prosperous and populous as we  are, defend their own continent. We are not the Roman  Empire which stayed in Germany 400 years. Third, the  Soviet Army was not defeated by NATO. It got up and  went home voluntarily. To move NATO into Russia’s  front yard was an act of bad faith, a provocation.  George Kennan called it the greatest mistake of the  post-Cold War era. To move NATO into the Baltic  republics, into the suburbs of St.Petersburg, would be  a terrible blunder. But does NATO threaten Russia? My  answer is no. President Bush truly and rightly  believes friendship with Russia is in the best  interests of both nations. We are both huge and great  countries. We have never fought each other in a hot  war; we have no great quarrel with each other --  ideological, territorial or historical -- now that the  Cold War is over. (As long as Mr. Zhirinovsky does not  try to take Alaska back.) Mr. Bush is right. We should  be partner-nations.  

  Q. There is even talk of Russia someday joining NATO,  but it seems that, for some reason, there are people  on both sides who do not want this to happen. Some  feel that this talk of Russia joining NATO is just  Putin forcing NATO to admit that their expansion does  have a long-term goal directed against Russia. How do  you see possible NATO-Russian cooperation in the  future?  

  A. There is no question but that NATO expansion was  designed to say to Moscow: If you move into Poland  again, you will have to face the United States. Let’s  not kid ourselves. But I do not believe NATO expansion  is directed, in an aggressive way, against Russia. I  think it is more of a bureaucratic imperative that  Senator Lugar touched on in his famous phrase: "NATO  must either go out of area, or go out of business."     One of the primary reasons NATO was not dissolved  after the Cold War is that too many rice bowls would  be broken. Brussels is wonderful duty for the U.S. and  British Army. One of NATO’s functions is to serve as a  jobs program for American generals. Why did the  British Colonial Office and British Army want to keep  India? They loved life in the Raj. All those servants  and gin and tonics in the afternoon. My belief is, as  I wrote in 1990 in an article titled "America First,  Second and Third!", if the Russian Army goes home, the  American army should come home. If Russia abolishes  the Warsaw Pact, we should abolish NATO, or turn it  over to the Europeans. With the Cold War over, we  should have returned to the policy of America’s  Founding Fathers, who approved of temporary alliances,  but not permanent alliances.     World War I taught us what happens to great nations  that get ensnared in permanent alliances. Because  America was not part of the Triple Entente, we lost  fewer men in that war than any other great nation. The  historian A. J.P. Taylor wrote that the purpose of  becoming a great power is to be able to fight a great  war, but the only way to stay a great power is not to  fight a great war. We Americans have been fortunate  that we have had courageous men who fought to keep us  out of the great wars of the last century, until the  worst of the blood-letting was over. We came in at the  end, like Fortunado coming in at the end of Hamlet,  when everyone else is lying wounded or dead on the  floor. I am opposed, however, to bringing Russia into  NATO, while we are in it, because I am afraid Russia  is going to have to fight to keep control of its Far  East and Siberia, where Russians are out-numbered many  times over by Chinese, and the Russian people are  dying out. In a Sino-Russian war, it is not in  America’s interest to be militarily involved, though  we surely prefer Russian neighbors across the Bering  Strait. However, while I don’t support Russia’s  admission to NATO, I do support the kind of entente,  short of an alliance, Britain developed with Russia in  1907. But it would be a mistake for us to commit  ourselves to any new alliances. Alliances are the  transmission belts of war. I was opposed to expanding  NATO under Clinton and I am against further expansion  of NATO. But we are in a box, because we have made  some commitments. A way out may be for Russia to give  solemn assurances of the independence of the Baltic  states and Ukraine, in return for which the U.S.  postpones NATO expansion indefinitely. Ultimately, the  U.S. should get its forces out of Europe and let  Europeans defend their own continent. Europeans used  to put million-man armies in the field. Now, they  squabble for years over how to put together a "rapid  reaction force" of 60,000. Can this be the Europe that  gave us the armies of Wellington, Napoleon and Von  Moltke?  

  Q. You are coming out with a new book, The Death of  the West. It appears this book is about the decline of  civilizations. Have you read Oswald Spengler’s Decline  of the West? If so, did Spengler’s work influence your  latest work? In your opinion, why is the West dying,  and is there anything that it can do to stay alive?  

  A. No, I did not read Spengler, though I am familiar  with his thesis. If there were two writers who reflect  my views, they are the poet T. S. Eliot and the former  Trotskyite who became a great Cold Warrior and Man of  the Right, James Burnham, who wrote Suicide of the  West. But a friend who read my book tells me it makes  Spengler sound like an optimist.  

  Why is the West dying? First, for a simple reason, its  people are dying. There is not one European country,  except Moslem Albania, where the population is not  stagnant or falling. In not one European nation are  women having enough children to keep the nation alive.  In some twenty European nations, there are already  more burials than births, more caskets than cradles.  Russia is one of them. Second, the dying peoples of  European descent are being quickly replaced by  immigrants from non-Western nations. Chinese and  Islamic peoples will be moving into Siberia, Central  Asia and the Caucasus. Arab, African and Islamic  peoples are moving into Europe in the hundreds of  thousands every year. America is being swamped. We  have 35 million Hispanics, and 1.5 million immigrants  coming in every year, a third of them illegal aliens,  and 90% of them from the Third World. There are 45  million people in our country who do not speak English  at home. We face the same Balkanization that pulled  the Soviet Union apart.  

  By 2050, a majority of Americans will trace their  ancestry to Asia, Africa and Latin America, not  Europe. America will be, predominantly, a Third World  country. While these are hard-working good people,  they will not preserve the Western heritage, history,  heroes, literature, faith or culture. All the subject  peoples from the Western colonial empires, from China  to Southeast Asia, from India and Pakistan, to Arabia  and Africa, are sending their peoples north to invade  the Mother Countries of the West. Invading armies go  home, immigrant armies do not. The West is being  invaded, peacefully, and occupied. Mexicans and even  Mexican-Americans talk of a "Reconquista," the  recapture of the lands they lost to America in The  Mexican War.  

  Third, the great Catholic writer Hillaire Belloc said:  "The Faith is Europe, Europe is the Faith." In Europe  and Russia, the Christian faith is dying. In America,  Christianity is under assault. Secularism and  hedonism, the values of the 1960s, are dominant in our  media, culture and education. On issues like abortion,  homosexuality, euthanasia, pornography, a pagan world  view predominates. Our rivers and lakes are being  cleaned up, but American culture is being poisoned and  polluted. In Europe, the churches -- Catholic,  Protestant, Orthodox -- are emptying out, while the  mosques are filling up.  

  Fourth, as President Ronald Reagan warned us: We have  forgotten who we are and where we came from. To  America’s cultural elite, the Crusaders are villains,  the great explorers and conquerors of the New World  were genocidal racists, our Founding Fathers were evil  slaver-owners, the old cowboys and soldiers who won  the West are accused of cultural genocide and  atrocities against the Indians. The battle flags and  the statues of Civil War heroes from the South are  being torn down. America’s young learn no history at  all. Many are ignorant of their past. Our civilization  will not survive if we do not know who we are or where  we came from, or if we hate those who went before us  and gave us all that we have.  

  Finally, Western countries are surrendering their  national sovereignty to transnational institutions.  There are powerful ethnic forces pulling apart  Britain, Spain, France, Canada. Yugoslavia,  Czechoslovakia, the USSR have already broken up. There  are secessionist movements even inside Russia. In  Western Europe, all the ancient nation-states are  selling out their sovereignty and independence to  disappear inside a bureaucratic superstate called the  EU. This is the great fight that succeeds the Cold  War. I would hope Russia will struggle to retain its  national identity, independence, sovereignty, culture  and faith.  

  Q. In Russian history there has always been the  question of whether or not Russia was a part of  Europe, part of Asia, or something completely  different. Do you think Russia can ever be a part of  Europe?  

  A. Russia is part of Europe, all the way to the Urals.  And I have always believed Russia belonged to the  West. By the West, I mean those nations whose culture  and civilization were formed by the Christian faith.  Was not Moscow once "The Third Rome," after Rome fell  and Constantinople was overrun in 1453? In my view,  Russia was captured by a Christian heresy, Communism,  that was imposed through terror upon her people. As  Solzhenitzyn reminded Americans: Russia was the first  Captive Nation. Russia’s great poets and novelists  have always been considered among the greatest of the  West. Since Peter the Great, Russia has been a force  in Europe.  

  I was in the old Soviet Union in 1971 and spent three  weeks there. In the old cathedrals you could see that  this was part of us. You are as much a part of the  West as America is. If a great final clash of  civilizations is coming, Russia will hold the eastern  and southeast flank of the West, just as the Polish  King John Sobieski defended Vienna. Russia is part of  the West, and America should bring Russia in from the  cold.  

  Q. You gave an interview with Salon magazine in which  you commented on the population crisis in Russia. It  is true that the population of Russia is declining,  especially the population of ethnic Russians. The  government has taken some steps to try to encourage  ethnic Russians living in former Soviet republics to  return to their Motherland. You predicted that because  of the shrinking Russian population and the growing  numbers of Chinese inhabitants of certain areas of  eastern Russia, eventually Russia will lose these  areas. In your opinion, is there anything that Russia  can do to prevent this?  

  A. With the Russian empire having gone the way of all  the other Western empires, Russians should come home  to preserve and protect Mother Russia. For Russia, my  figures are that the present population of about 145  million will fall to 114 million by 2050. I had the UN  project the trend out to the end of the century. The  UN experts say that Russia’s population, at present  birth rates, will fall to 80 million by 2100, or as  many people as America had in 1905. Russia cannot hold  on to an area twice the size of the United States with  that small a population, especially with a hungry  neighbor like China, which will outnumber Russia 15-1  in 2050. In east Asia, there will be perhaps a hundred  Chinese to every Russian. Incidentally, Mr. Putin, who  is quoted in The Death of the West, is more  pessimistic in his population numbers than I. He says  it could go as low as 123 million -- a loss of one  seventh of the nation -- by 2015. That is more  Russians lost in 15 years than perished in Hitler’s  War. I think the Chinese will take the Russian far  east, especially the pieces the czar took between  1858-1860, around Manchuria, the way the Americans  took Texas. We just moved in until we out-numbered the  local Mexican population ten-to-one. Unless Russia can  turn its birth rate around, which is only half of what  is needed to replace existing population, I don’t know  how you do it.  

  Bringing Russians home from the old Soviet republics  is a necessary step, but let us concede the truth: It  is also another demonstration of the historic retreat  of the West back into the base camp from which the  West broke out in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries to  rule the world. From my studies, there is a direct  co-relation between faith and birth rates. For  example, Japan, which had to abandon its old faith and  emperor worship at the end of World War II, is now the  oldest nation on earth, with a median age of 41. This  is why it has lost its dynamism. By 2050, the median  age of Italy and Spain will be 54 and 55 years old. A  third of Europe will be over 60. The German population  will have fallen by 23 million, to 57 million. These  dying Europeans will need millions of Arab and African  immigrants just to take care of them. Between now and  2050, Asia, Africa and Latin America will add 3  billion more people -- or 30 new Mexicos! -- while  Europe loses the equivalent of the entire population  of Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and  Germany. Europe’s native-born population will fall by  125 million by mid-century. But it is impossible to  find a single Islamic nation where the population is  not soaring.  

  Do I know how to turn this around? Yes, but it would  require a great religious awakening or mass conversion  of European and Russian women to the idea of having  big families again. I don’t see that happening. This  is beyond politics; it is about faith and belief.  Solzhenitzyn was right when he told the astonished  dons of Harvard that the problem with America and the  West was that "Men have forgotten God." Vaclav Havel  says we are trying to construct the "first atheistic  civilization" in history. Indeed we are; and that  civilization is dying, through it is going out in  style.  

  Q. Is a war between Russia and China inevitable?     A. I believe China intends to consolidate its position  in Tibet and its west by moving Han Chinese in by the  millions. It will then occupy the disputed islands of  the South China Sea, the Paracels and Spratlys. Then,  it will take the Senkakus from Japan and move to bring  Taiwan "back into the embrace of the Motherland." All  the while, Chinese traders and workers will move into  far eastern Russia, especially into the territories  north of Manchuria, along the Ussuri and Amur rivers,  where there were pitched battles when I was in the  Nixon White House in early 1969. The Chinese are  patient, and they believe, not without reason, that  they were robbed of territory and humiliated by the  Western imperial powers, including Russia, and Japan,  when they were weak. I think they expect that the  territory Muraviev, Putiatin and Ignatiev acquired for  Alexander II, Siberia’s Maritime Province, will fall  into their lap by default. Even the Russian people out  there think that this land will eventually go to  China. Will there be war? If the Chinese are wise,  there will not be. With the Russian population dying  and China’s soaring toward 1.5 billion by 2025,  demography is destiny. But Moscow is making a mistake  by joining in a quasi-alliance with China against U.S.  "hegemony." Unlike China, we Americans do not covet  huge swatches of Russian land. The question Russia  must face is how you hold on to a vast territory, full  of the world’s most desirable resources, when the  population is dying out.  

  Q. You are one of the few voices in the American press  who has spoken out against the sanctions on Iraq. It  is known that Russia and Iraq are developing closer  economic ties, and Russia would like to see these  sanctions lifted. A war launched against Iraq would  throw cold water on the recent improvement in  relations between our two countries. Do you feel that  the Bush Administration is willing to launch such a  ground war? Or is it mainly the neo-cons and the  Israeli Lobby pushing for such a war?  

  A. Clearly, the neo-cons, our war hawks, are wild for  war on Iraq. And our Israeli Lobby desperately wants  to make Israel’s war America’s war, so the U.S. will  fight Israel’s battles and smash Israel’s enemies. The  Brits used to do that, quite successfully. But we must  not let it happen. While America will stand by  Israel’s right to exist in security, we must have a  policy of our own, independent of Israel, as our  interests are not identical, despite what the Lobby  claims. This is a long-time problem for America that  Washington, our first and greatest President, warned  us against in his Farewell Address: Do not let  "passionate attachments" to foreign countries divert  you from your own country’s best interests.  

  Will the President launch a Desert Storm II, a second  invasion of Iraq? The final decision has probably not  been made. My guess is that the final decision will be  "No" -- unless Saddam does something rash or stupid.  The President is aware that such a move would shatter  his anti-terrorist coalition, alienate Russia and our  NATO and Arab allies, and require hundreds of  thousands of U.S. troops, because there is no  "northern alliance" to do the fighting in Iraq, as  there was in Afghanistan. I think a final decision on  Iraq is further down the road. On Iraq, I oppose the  sanctions because they seem to be killing the old, the  women, and the children, without dethroning Saddam  Hussein. Second, they are hurting us with Arab  peoples, who wonder why we are so tough on Iraqis, but  so tolerant of Israelis when they ignore UN  resolutions. Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator, but  his armed forces were smashed in Desert Storm. He has  no navy and no air force, none of his armor and  artillery have been updated in ten years, and he knows  if he uses a weapon of mass destruction on Americans,  it will be the end for him. He and his generals have  to understand this. Our entire nation would demand his  total destruction. That would be insane for him. And I  think he knows it. Even during Desert Storm he did not  use chemical weapons.  

  So, I agree with General Powell. Saddam is in a box.  He is contained. There is no pressing need to invade  and overthrow him, especially if it means a war that  could cause the Middle East to explode. But if Saddam  Hussein’s hand is found to have been in the September  11 massacres, he should probably get ready to meet his  Maker.  

  Q. Speaking of the Middle East, we have seen an  increase in violence between Israel and the  Palestinians. The United States is perceived in many  countries as being unfairly siding with Israel. Russia  is supposed to be a cosponsor to the peace process. In  your opinion, is there anything that Russia can do to  promote peace in the region?  

  A. As the situation is deteriorating and no one seems  to have a solution, perhaps there is: Why not step out  and lay down what Russia believes the terms of a just  peace are, and get the Western Europeans to sign on,  and propose it? At least then the warring parties  would have something on the table. Other than that, I  cannot think of what Russia could do dramatically to  affect the situation, and I confess I am pessimistic.  Prime Minister Rabin was a great man. I first met him  in 1967 in Israel, with Mr. Nixon, right after the  Six-Day War. And General Rabin and Ehud Barak were on  the right track, and Arafat should have at least  hailed the Camp David proposals as enormous progress,  even if he could not sign on the dotted line. But then  Sharon went stomping around the Temple Mount with a  thousand bodyguards and the second intifada exploded.  Our difficulty here is that most Americans who are  most passionate about the Middle East think Rabin and  Barak were foolish to make the offers they did. They  want Sharon to unleash the Israeli army. They believe  the way to end violence is to thrash the Palestinians,  once and for all, so they will sit down at the table  and behave like good little boys. As of now, the U.S.  seems to have given Sharon a virtual free hand, so  long as he does not physically eliminate Arafat.  America’s second difficulty is that we are trying to  be both Israel’s most loyal ally -- not criticizing  anything they do in self-defense -- at the same time  we are supposed to be an "honest broker" who brings  together both sides in a compromise. To the Arabs, the  U.S. umpire, who is supposed to be neutral, is  spending most of his time in the other team’s locker  room, plotting strategy, and cheering them on. In the  correlation of forces today, the Israelis have the  power and the land, but the population numbers are  against them. By 2025, the 4.2 million Palestinians  now under Israeli rule -- in Israel, East Jerusalem,  on the West Bank, and Gaza – will number 9 million. By  2050, they will number 15 million, and there will be  10 million more in Jordan. If demography is destiny,  Israel is in an existential crisis. I don’t think this  is something that Israel can resolve with F-16s and  helicopter gunships.  

  If I were President -- an idea the American people  enthusiastically rejected -- I would lay out what I  think are the terms of a just, honorable peace for  both sides. Perhaps that would break the cycle of  violence that is swirling ever more rapidly, and which  may draw a lot more of us in -- Israelis and  Palestinians, Arabs and Americans -- before it is  done. An independent Palestinian State on the West  Bank and in Gaza, with its capital in East Jerusalem,  with Islamic control of Islamic holy places, is a  necessary condition of peace. But, with the recent  deposits of bitterness and hatred on all sides, I  wonder if it is any longer a sufficient condition for  peace. This may be a terminal struggle, like Vietnam,  where the side with the greater willingness to  sacrifice, suffer and die, eventually wins all and  dictates terms to the loser. Because Western peoples  believe in compromise and contracts, we tend to think  other peoples believe in them, too. But other people  usually believe in them only as long as we have the  power to enforce them. When they acquire the power,  they tear them up and impose their own solutions. The  Israelis think this is what the Palestinians and their  Arab allies will do, if Israel gives up strategic  terrain. And they may be right. This is why I would  not impose an American solution. But, in the long run,  this is not our problem, it is Israel’s problem. If  the Israelis cannot find a way to make peace with  their neighbors, their future is going to be very  unhappy.  

  As for the United States, if we cannot be a truly  honest broker, we ought to disengage militarily and  let these nations work out their own destinies. Again,  President Washington had it right. If you wish peace,  be prepared for war, but if you wish peace, stay out  of other nation’s wars. Americans have always be ready  to fight for their freedom, but we are not like the  British, we are poor imperialists. Most of us have no  interest in ruling other nations. We have everything  we want or need right here in God’s country, the  U.S.A.  

  Q. Do you have any comments about Russia’s recent role  in Afghanistan? It seems that some people were  surprised when Russian troops set up a hospital in  Kabul. Why do you think people were surprised by this  action? How do you see future events in Afghanistan  playing out?  

  A. The reason people were surprised is that they did  not expect it. It was like that midnight run to  Pristina airport that caught General Clark by  surprise. As I understand it, he was not amused. In my  view, Russia has been a good ally in this Afghan war  from the start. President Putin was right to urge the  Central Asian states to help us. He has won great good  will for Russia in the United States. If Russia wants  to help out in Afghanistan with humanitarian aid, more  power to them, though it is probably best to  coordinate. Your interests in the region are longer  lasting and greater than ours. We just want to stop  the country from being used by terrorists who come  over here to murder our people. Who rules Afghanistan  is something they should decide. As to the future, I  am not very hopeful. The Afghans are a proud and brave  people. But some of our Afghani allies have terrible  track records on treating people they rule. Some  appear to have records as bad as that of Milosevic,  and we are prosecuting him for war crimes. We should  help as much as we can, but then move out and let the  peace-keeping force be made up of other nations  troops, preferably Islamic. Our objective is a limited  one: We don’t want Afghanistan used as a boot camp for  terrorists whose ambition is to die as some  suicide-martyr in the United States.  

  Q. Do you have any opinion of Mr. Putin? What would  you say to him if you were ever to meet him?  

  A. I have never met Mr. Putin, but my impression is he  is a patriot and a nationalist who puts Russia first,  and who is a resolute guardian of Russian national  interests. He seems to be what we would call a "tough  customer." What I would do, if President, would be to  sit down with President Putin during a long summit and  lay out the areas of concern to us Americans – the  independence of the Baltic states and Ukraine, ending  further nuclear cooperation with Iran, then lay out  where I think we can work together, on terrorism, on  developing Russia’s enormous resources, on tying  Russia closer to the West and the United States. I  would tell him that a Russian-Chinese alliance against  America is unwise. Americans can be boorish at times,  but we do not threaten any vital Russian interest, we  only wish the Russian people well, and, frankly, we  prefer you across the Bering Strait as neighbors to  the alternative.  

  On the oil pipelines, I don’t think the U.S. should  try to cut Russia out, we should cut everyone in,  including Iran, and create a multiplicity of ways to  bring that oil out. Just as Russians have to put the  Cold War behind them, so do we. America’s quarrel was  never with the Russian people, it was with the  Bolsheviks who terrorized Russia and said to Americans  when I was young, "We will bury you!" Then I would  tell Mr. Putin I would like to hear him lay out at  length how he views the world and Russia’s destiny  over the next fifty years. My view is that, as Islamic  fundamentalism rises and crests and Chinese  nationalism is backed up by greater and greater  military power, Russia and America are Going to have a  great deal to talk urgently about.  

  Q. What is your opinion of the proposed NMD system  that the Bush administration wants to build. It seems  that it would be much easier for a terrorist  organization to launch a chemical or nuclear attack  using means other than an ICBM.  

  A. You are right on the second point. As I wrote in A  Republic, Not an Empire, if an atomic weapon explodes  on American soil, it will not come in by ballistic  missile, but by merchant ship or Ryder Truck, the way  the bomb did that Timothy McVeigh used to blow up the  Murrah building in Oklahoma City. But, on missile  defense, I am a Reaganite. No nation, not Russia, and  not America, that has the ability to defend its people  from these awesome and awful weapons, should forever  forfeit the right to do so. Suppose North Korea fired  a ballistic missile at Anchorage or U.S. troops in  Korea, and we had had the ability to shoot it down,  but had not deployed defensive missiles, because of a  treaty signed by Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev,  thirty years ago. How could our leaders look our  people in the face, if they had had the ability to  defend America, but refused to do so.  

  Even Russia, back in those days, had a missile defense  around Moscow, and you were building that giant phased  array radar out at Krasnoyarsk. That was outside the  ABM treaty. In the White House, we used to hear of  other giant radars, also forbidden by the treaty,  Russia was building along her borders. So, if Russia  feared a U.S. strike and wanted to protect her  homeland against it, should we not fear some rogue  state lashing out at us in hatred and frustration?  

  A BMD system threatens nothing but an incoming  missile. I realize some people believe that the U.S.  wants a missile defense so we can launch a first  strike with impunity. This is preposterous. There is  nothing in the world America lacks or needs worth  fighting a nuclear war over. I was with President  Reagan in Reykjavik where we almost had a deal to get  rid of all nuclear weapons, but President Reagan  walked out – because Gorbachev wanted him to give up  purely defensive weapons. Who was right? I think  Reagan was. He detested nuclear weapons, but loved  SDI, because it could not kill anybody or anything,  but a missile aimed at the country he loved.  

  Q. Some people say that because of globalization, the  "Right" and "Left" are moving closer together. Some  have said that your politics are a combination of  left-wing and right-wing ideas. Do you seen any  evidence to suggest that this combining of the Left  and Right is taking place in America?  

  A. At the end of the Cold War, the Nixon-Reagan  coalition, which was united on the Cold War, fell  apart. Today, Left and Right get together, but only on  a few issues. Foreign policy has been one. The Old  Right and some Leftists were against the Gulf War, and  many believe that, with the Cold War over, America  should bring our troops home, dissolve the Cold War  alliances, and follow the formula of the Founding  Fathers: Peace, commerce and friendship with all  nations, but "entangling alliances" with none. On  trade, the Old Right has found some common ground with  the Left. But even here there are differences. The  paleo-cons believe in economic patriotism, that trade  laws should be designed to make the homeland more  self-sufficient and to raise the standard of living of  its workers. A country is like a family. You take care  of your own, first.  

  To us, globalism comes close to economic treason.  "Global companies" put profit before country.  Jefferson had it right about the Davos crowd: "A  merchant has no country. The very ground he stands  upon does not constitute so strong an attachment as  that from which he draws his gain." But the Left is  internationalist. It would like to enlarge the World  Bank to transfer more of America’s wealth to the Third  World. We would abolish the World Bank and IMF, as  parasitical elites who hand out to their client  regimes billions of dollars none of them did anything  to earn. Left and Right in America opposed NAFTA and  GATT, but not for the same reason. So, a Left-Right  coalition on some issues is fine, but I don’t think it  can work on a permanent basis. On the moral, social  and cultural issues -- abortion, preferential hiring  of minorities, homosexual rights, euthanasia -- we  disagree. They believe in Big Government and we  believe much of the Federal Government could be shut  down, with the duties sent back to the states and  communities, and the tax revenues they consume sent  back to the people.  

  Q. Do you have any thoughts about the "Patriot Bill"?  Should Americans be concerned with losing their civil  liberties? Would most Americans be willing to trade  their civil liberties for greater security?  

  A. President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft are  not any threat to American freedoms. Military  tribunals were used in our Revolutionary War, the  Civil War, and World War II. Why, then, the great howl  when President Bush asks for the same power? More  American civilians died on U.S. soil on September 11  than in any foreign war. On wiretaps and Internet  intercepts, many people will raise a horrible stink if  the U.S. Government goes too far. I think we can  safely rely on the domestic political balance of power  to protect us here. The real threat to our freedom  comes from a mammoth government that never ceases to  grow and consume Americans’ wealth, and which has an  endless appetite for controlling our lives, and which,  unfortunately, has a penchant for empire. My fear is  that our people have grown comfortable with Big  Government, and do not know anymore what the old  America was like. But if there are repeated acts of  mass terror on U.S. soil, the American people would, I  think, accept restrictions on their freedoms, and  certainly on immigration, until the terrorists were  run to earth.  

  Q. Is there anything else you would like to add?  

  A. The Russian people and nation should ask themselves  this question: If a great "clash of civilizations" is  coming, on whose side do you wish to stand? I trust  that the answer will be: "We are with the West."  Second, a story. Forty years ago, when I started out  in journalism at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, I took  a Russian language course at night at the university,  as I wanted to be a foreign correspondent in Moscow.  To help me with the language, I subscribed to Pravda.  Soon, my neighbors told me, the FBI had come around to  ask if Buchanan, living in the ground floor apartment,  was associating with known Communists or suspicious  people speaking Russian. So, I would like to thank  Pravda for bringing me to the attention of the Federal  Bureau of Investigation.  

  Thank you very much for the interview Mr. Buchanan.