Welcome to the making cents podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed. And we'll only be here in the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of The Making Sense podcast. You'll need to subscribe at Sam Harris dot-org there. You'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcast track along with other subscriber, only content.
Don't we don't run ads on the podcast and therefore, it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So, if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. Okay. Well today I'm speaking with you've all Noah Harare.
This was first recorded as a zoom call for podcast subscribers, and there will be more of those coming especially on topical subjects like the war in Ukraine. And that is the topic of today's conversation.
Yuval is a historian who probably needs, no introduction. He's been on the podcast several times before.
He is the author of the best-selling books, sapiens and Homo Deus among others.
And today we talked about the wider implications of Russia's war of Conquest in Ukraine, especially as they pertain to the maintenance of global order. We discussed various forms of War. We talk about the problem of misinformation International Norms of behavior. The role of China, the civilizational importance of trust, globalization and D, globalization existential.
Risk, the role of India Ukrainian leadership, The increased risk of nuclear war regime, change in Russia, and other topics. So always great to speak with you of all he is a wealth of information and wisdom. So now, without further delay, I bring you. You have all know a Harari.
You've all thank you for doing this. Great to see you.
Thank you for having me.
So wait you're in Israel now, right?
I'm right now. In Tel, Aviv, one of the most peaceful places on the in the world right now.
It's right here. Imagine the irony of that. Yeah. Wow. Well, I know our time is limited. So, you know, I'll just start running. People will get in here when they get in here. Obviously. This is mainly a podcast. People are joining us to listen while we get it made but
The was we titled this Zoom event defending Western Civilization or I titled at that and, you know, it's a back and forth between the two of us has led me to believe that you're, you don't think that's quite the right Framing and just a tee that up. I mean, you're someone who spends a lot of time thinking about the power of narratives to shape human events and even even just titling, a conversation like this is to partake in the in the generation of narratives.
So what is the right framing here? Do you think for this, what we most need to talk about now, and how does that fit into a larger story of what's going on at this moment in
history? I think that the Russian invasion of Ukraine doesn't threaten Western Civilization. It threatens the global order and its repercussions, threaten the ability of humankind as a whole to deal with the main challenges of the 21st century, including climate change, including the rise of disruptive Technologies.
Jeez, so it's not at all about western civilization. And also, you know, if we title this defending Western Civilization, it kinds may give some people the impression that Russia is not part of western civilization. It's an alien force and it is a part of western civilization. I think it's, you know, you yet again, we need to defend Western Civilization from itself, not from an alien
force. Yeah,
but what's really at stake is not the West.
What's really at stake is the global order and it concerns people in Africa. It concerns people in India as much as it concerns people in the United States, for example,
right? So when you say the global order, we're to my ear that sounds like the liberal Global Order or liberal democracy versus autocracy. I guess at the my framing the Western got smuggled in there. Hmm. Because I've been thinking,
Perhaps inordinately about the role of China in all of this where the looming implications of. Oh, it happens in Ukraine for what happens with China and what seems to be a new cold war or a great power clash in the making? I don't know if we want to take the China piece early or save it for later. But how do you say it?
No, no, first of all, I mean, it's not again. It's not just democracy. It's not just liberalism. It's also, you know self-determination. It's also nationalism. It's the basic.
Idea that you can't just invade a neighboring country and Country and Conquer it and wiping it off the map. It goes far deeper than just a liberal democracy over the last few Generations. The maybe the most basic rule established in the international Arena, irrespective of the type of regimes. You're talking about, is that you no longer do these things, which are very common. I mean, throughout history. This is kind of you open.
On history book after the other. So you have the Assyrians of the Romans or the Mongols, or the Russians, invading neighboring countries and taking them over. This is how every Empire in history was established and over the last few Generations, may be the most basic rule of the new Global Order. And it is again, if it goes, far beyond Western liberal democracies is that you don't do that. You don't do that. Even if you are an Arab dictators,
Tate ership or a military Junta in South America. And I think this is part of the, of the shock that, you know, that the shock waves around the world that people realized that if Putin succeeds, if Putin is allowed to win, then this will become The New Normal all over the
world. Hmm. Well, let's cycle on that point one more time because I think many people look at this or certainly some people look at this and one.
Our why we're deciding to care so much about this particular Invasion, right? I mean, forget it. Obviously, it's a humanitarian crisis, but there have been many of those, some of which we're in part, or in whole culpable for, right? So we have invaded places. I think there's some obvious dis analogies there, but people look at this and say there's something about again, the story were telling ourselves or our inclined to tell ourselves at this moment. That is
Current from the story We seized upon when Russia invaded Crimea previously. Or when, you know, Syria fell apart and, you know, Obama's red line was crossed. And we just decided to move on in the news cycle and talk about other things. Why is this a kind of 9/11 moment that puts us once again, very close to the hinge of
History partly because it's no establishes a pattern when the Crimea.
And then people said, well, there that this is a very unique situation and there are all kinds of excuses and it won't happen again and it won't open and on a larger scale. And now you realize, no, this is the beginning of the pattern. If we don't stop it, here it will continue. It will also continue in other places around the world. Secondly with regard to all the comparison. Well, people didn't get so much excited or interested in what's happening in Yemen. What's happening in Syria? What's happening in Ethiopia?
Out of it is because again, it's a different kind of War part of the Global Order of the last few Generations For Better or Worse, was that Civil Wars are part of the game, but invading and conquering other countries and wiping them off. The map is not and this is now, what is at stake? And there is a huge difference, though. It's not a civil wars are okay. It's not a civil wars. Are people don't die in them or suffering them. It's, you know, we had
Throughout history, several kinds of Wars external invasions and conquests were always the most dangerous and the kind of backbone of military and diplomatic history, but there are always other kinds of Wars like Civil Wars. And what happened in the last few Generations. Is that first of all, the big Wars between superpowers and, secondly, the external invasions and conquests
They kind of get out of the picture out of the, you don't do that anymore. Whereas Civil Wars, they continue to be part of the system.
And now, we are seeing the return of something that we thought, when we already got over that. Yes, we still have a way to go. We also need a Venturi to reach a situation when there are no Civil Wars, but now we are feeling that we are falling back. We are falling back to the most dangerous and most destructive kinds of Wars are we're basically going back to the Jungle to the situation when at any moment.
The neighbors might invade and Conquer us which was the situation for most of history, but not in the last few
decades. Hmm. I guess another part of the picture here is that this recent Adventure or misadventure as it seems to be turning out for Putin? Seems to have been an occasion by his perception of American and European weakness, right? And he's done a fair amount on his side to engineer that
Weakness. I mean, if there are probably a thousand points of salience here, we could seize on. But it may one is just so, you know, we have built the social media tools. That allow Bad actors like, you know, Putin's regime to use our own hyper partisanship and divisiveness against us, right. So we have the kind of thing a rampant hacking of our society. I'm not making the claim that any election has been quote hacked with respect to voting machines, but there's no question that there's been an inflaming of public opinion.
Ian from the outside and we have built the tools to run that particular psychological experiment or psyops campaign ourselves. We've also collaborated in an increasing dependence on regimes that we can't actually trust. And this is some of this has been done with good intentions. I mean, there's this notion that trade and engagement would modify the political visions and aspirations of autocracies, right? So we thought China would come around.
Then Russia would come around and join the well-behaved democracies of the world. As long as we traded enough and became aligned enough in our economic incentives, but that seems not to be happening. You know, we have Germany in retrospect, quite insanely deciding to become energy, dependent upon Russia, and decommission, its nuclear plants. And in the current moment that looks, you know, as masochistic as can be, we have, you know, the UK happily laundering.
In the money of oligarchs endlessly, even as Putin poisons people with nerve agents on their soil, you know, to Russian dissidents. It's just a certain point, you know, all of this was, it should have been obvious. This was leading in a dangerous Direction it, but now it finally seems. And this goes to the point of Putin's miscalculation and finally seems that enough was enough. The spell has broken for all of us are most of us simultaneously. Yeah, and we're now thinking of re-engineering a world where
Our ability to trust in the you know, the political vision of our allies is Paramount and I'm wondering what you what you think of that and how much of this this sea change, in our sense of globalization and Global priorities is going to be durable and and wait and what should we be re-engineering here and rethinking here. How do you see that part in the picture?
Well, I think it really was a very big shock because people not only in the west but people all over.
All over the world. Had the feeling that we are living in a more peaceful era that we have managed to somehow crawl out of the Jungle put at least some distant. When I talk about a jungle, I talk about the situation. When at any moment, the neighboring country Empire tribe, city-state might invade our territory and just occupy us conquerors. Take out loans.
Away, I'll people whatever which was the basic situation for all over the world for most of History. Whether it's ancient China, whether it's Medieval Europe, whether it's the 19th century. This was the basic situation of of human beings and peace in in. Those are in those days for most of History. Meant simply the temporary absence of War. Now there is peace, but at any moment a war might start and amazingly
the humanity managed to really get out of this jungle and create not a completely peaceful world, you know, I come from the Middle East, I know perfectly. Well, there still was in the world but more peaceful than any previous era, and it's not some kind of hippie fantasy. If you want to really see peace in action, don't look in poems, look in state budgets. You look at the budgets of the world in the last few years.
Really amazing because the average military budget out of total government, budget of countries all over the world on average is about 67 percent, something like that. In Europe. It was something like 3% compared to most of history. When the majority of the budget of every King and Emperor, and Sultan went to finance the Army, and the Navy and the fortresses.
It's not health care and education. The world that we know whether in the US or in Israel, but also in Brazil also in Indonesia, it's built on these foundations of the new piece and put in shorter, that reminding us that the jungle is still nearby. A few Decisions by a few individuals and we are back there and the danger again is the danger is not just to Ukraine or then to
Poland. You will see military budgets all over the world Skyrocket, which means Healthcare budgets and education. Budgets, decline. You see less possibility for international cooperation, on things like climate change on regulating AI. So this has repercussions everywhere. Now, the positive potential, it's still just I'm not sure but the positive potential is. It's been
Such a shock that you saw Europe and also to some external States uniting and reacting in a forceful way that would have sounded impossible just a month ago, you know, we Switzerland joining the EU sanctions with Finland, sending arms to Ukraine with Germany doubling its defense budget overnight. And I think the biggest be put in my two big miscalculations, one was about.
Ukraine. He thought that Ukraine is not really a nation that the ukrainians are actually Russians and they will welcome him. They will throw flowers on his tanks and they are throwing Molotov cocktails. He was completely wrong about Ukraine, but he also made a big miscalculation about the West about Europe and about United States. I think if he waited a few more years, just done nothing, just wait a few more years. There is a good chance that Europe and the United States would have self-destructed.
Destructed, due to their internal conflicts and culture war, and he is now giving it with his own hands. He has United them and he's giving them a chance to save themselves. I hope that the positive results of this war on on the big scale would be on the one hand that we will see a green Manhattan Project to stop. Depending
On oil and gas, which is what fueling that the Russian military machine, but also an end to the culture war in the west near our because suddenly, you realize, there are far bigger issues. There are far bigger dangers in the world than who gets to enter, which toilet. And if we can unite around the really big issue, then, you know, the Western democracies don't need to fear anybody. If you look again at the numbers they are.
Still the most powerful, you know, Russia has a smaller economy than Italy. The Russian economy is about the same as Belgium and the Netherlands put together as long and forgotten about the us as long as Europe stands together. It has nothing to fear from Russia.
Mmm. So, let's Linger on the culture War peace here because I do view that. As in large, measure what would seem to be provocative about our apparent weakness? You know, that at
I felt that we were so divided against ourselves that we would never cohere in the face of this kind of Challenge. And I think he rightly thinks that, you know, after all of our failed Wars, our appetite for conflict is somewhere near an all-time low. So the idea that we're actually going to get militarily involved in anything seemed remote. I'm sure the culture War, peace. I mean, it's hard to disentangle that from just that the misinformation piece and we have tens of millions of people in America. Now, I'm in this cohort.
Order disproportionally on the right who believe that the world is being run by a cult of child raping cannibal, right me. Like there's no limit to the craziness that passes for political engagement on the right at this moment. And if you know, not quite that far toward the Fringe but still pretty far toward it. We have people with Platforms in the millions who are obviously parroting Russian propaganda in the middle of this war. And this piece needs to be disentangled.
From the the quite odious claim that any criticism of any possible policy here like a enforcing a no-fly zone is treasonous or doing poot, you know, carrying water for Putin. No, I mean, there are things that we need to debate with, respect to how we react to this, but there are still obvious untruths being confidently, spread by people who have, you know, bigger platforms and either of us do. And I'm hopeful as you sound like you.
Might be that this challenge could get our head straight and cut through the culture War. But an information ecosystem, where it's becoming harder and harder to agree about facts. One thing. I thought just the other day is what would this current situation? Be like if deep fake technology was five years better than it is? Now. We're really, we were struggling to figure out whether any of the video we were watching of zielinski or whether any of it was real, right? Like, if that was
We were stuck. So anyway, just talk to me about the misinformation piece, as you see it,
you know, policy. We can't get everybody on board. You can never get everybody on board. You just need enough. You just need enough of the still sensible, people on the right and also, non on the extreme left to, to have their aha moment that. Okay. We, we need to face this challenge. It's bigger than all the other things. We've been discussing, and especially if you talk
About the American, right? They have this cold war inheritance of, you know, all the, all the Rambo movies and all the Rocky movies, with the bed Russians and here, you have it in real life and it's almost irresistible. And I was kind of, you know, flipping between Fox News and CNN, and for the first time in a long time, they're actually showing the same thing. They are showing the same reality with a different take on it. So in Fox News were really excited about all these people getting guns and look it's so important to have.
Gone in your home, because when the Russians come, you can shoot at them and you didn't see so much of that on CNN, but still, they are on the same page roughly. There is the same on the same reality and you'll never get everybody there, but you don't need everybody. It's never the case in history that you have everybody and I'm less, you know, also, I'm less familiar with this specific situation in the US, but you see also what's happening in Europe, that the kind of closing of of the of the ranks very quickly.
Lee and and quite surprisingly. And you know even figures like Viktor Orban saying that he will not oppose. He will not prevent sanctions against Russia and accepting waves of refugees. After all, he's talked against refugees against the European Union against Brussels. He suddenly behaving in a different way, maybe because there is elections coming in hungry. I'm not sure but you see something changing.
I don't I can't predict the future whether it will. Last this is this could be a very long war and people need, you know, it's not just the first two or three weeks. We need to see what happens in a month in two months. And even after the war is over, at some stage, a big question will be how to win the peace. No matter how the war ends. It's crucial again, especially for Europe to some extent. Also to the US but Europe, is the main player player here to win.
In the piece Europe, has the economic resources to turn Ukraine. Whatever. The P Street is Europe, has the power to turn Ukraine into a prosperous democracy by making enough Investments and sending enough helping various forms, you know, not just rebuild, roads, and bridges, and hospitals, and schools. Building research, Center's moving factories.
And if they make this investment and turn Ukraine into a prosperous country, this will offer. Obviously not just benefit Ukraine, enormously. It will be the biggest defense for Europe. And also the biggest challenge for the Putin regime to explain to the, you know, that the poor citizens of Russia. How come the ukrainians can do it and you don't see the same thing in Russia, you know, Russia is a much much
Wealthier country. Then you get one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of Natural Resources, but the citizens are poor. They receive very low level government services Healthcare education. Welfare, and that you know, what may be the biggest question that Russian citizens should ask their government. Why don't we get the same level of Health Care as they get?
In Finland, or as they get in Canada and the answer of course is because the money went for tanks and what we mentioned earlier that the Russian economy is smaller than the Italian economy. So how come Rouge Putin has this military machine? Because the military budget of Russia in percentage out of government, budget is not 3%, like in the EU, it's not six percent like the the world average. Nobody knows exactly how much
It is because it's secret the estimates. The lowest estimates are around 11 percent, the highest estimates, the rate, 20, 30, 35 %. Truth is probably somewhere in between. And again, that's the key question for Russia. But also the key question for European citizens and for people all over the world, which kind of country. Do you want to live in? Do you want to live in a country like Russia? Which spends ten, twenty percent of its government budget on the military?
Oh not and I think that even people on the right know, the answer to this question. No, we don't want to live in this kind of
country, but it seems to me that if we're going to seize the right lesson from this moment and unite, the liberal world order against all of the remaining autocracies. And that's one lesson we might see, is from it. And one at one of those being China, right?
Then we're talking about acknowledging that we're losing this, peace dividend and we're thinking it's a good thing that Germany now is willing to spend more on its own defense. Yeah, right. So at me, what is the normative that is desirable move? Now in light of what is happening with respect to things like military
budgets. Don't unite. The world against autocracy is unite the world against aggression. We need some autocracies on the right side.
It would be difficult. I mean, if you divide the world into autocracy, isn't democracies, you making it much much more difficult. There are many autocracies that are not necessarily in favor of the kind of aggression that. And again, this is why what we talked about earlier. Why is this so different from other Wars? And why does this create this kind of of reaction? Because it's not about the internal regime of a
Three. It's about the behavior, the Norms of behavior in the international Arena. When you look at the past few decades, you see that also many, if not, most of the autocracies in the world. And again, that the many terrible things to say about them, of course, but at least most of them also kept this key Norm of the International Community that you just don't invade a neighboring Country and
And you know, you look at China since 1979 and the Chinese incursion Invasion into Vietnam. China has not engaged in any external Invasion and we shouldn't kind of rush to to to to to I know push the Chinese into together with the Russians into one. Can if the Chinese shoes at this critical moment to join the Russians and support them that terrible news and if it happens, the world will have to deal with it.
But it still didn't happen. And ideally we should isolate the Putin regime, not push countries to join it. Now. I have no kind of China is not going to actively take actions against Russia, but it's also very careful so far about supporting it. The best we can hope from the Chinese is to stay on the fence to stay neutral and we shouldn't do anything to push them.
Towards the Russians.
The same is true of other countries like Iran like Venezuela if the u.s. Can diplomatically work with these countries so they don't join a block with Russia. That's that's a plus right?
What's your view of the degree to which we the the US and the EU or the NATO countries should be engaged on the ground in or in the Skies over Ukraine. It's what's what's your position on enforcing?
No fly zone. For instance.
Let that that's above my pay grade. I know, I'm not in the military expert. I don't understand the kind of military issues involved. I also don't understand that the complicated political issues involved with NATO and in Europe and so forth. I don't know. I don't have a strong opinion on
that. Do you thought about what this does to the logic of nuclear proliferation? And it seems to me one lesson many countries might draw From This Moment, is that if you have
Nukes. No one invades you and if you don't have nukes, you might be invaded at any moment.
That's thought that's part of the danger. Again, the the norm that you just you don't invade and Conquer countries was very important for a number of reasons. One of them is again military budgets, but the other is the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons because you had the kind of feeling that even if I don't have nuclear weapons, I'm still protected against the worst.
Not against all violence, but against the worst form of violence, which is to just being wiped off the map but by some crazy neighbor and if this Norm no longer is no longer valid, then we are very likely to see the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Not just in The Usual Suspects, you know, like Iran, but you know think about Germany. If I'm now a German and I'm looking around.
Then I say to myself. Okay, we need nukes to protect ourselves and also to protect Eastern Europe. Now. We're who controls these. Nukes in 803 countries, that control the nukes. It's the u.s. It's France and it's Britain. Now, let's imagine a scenario that in 2024 Trump is again US president. Let's say that it's a bit extreme. But let's say that Le Pain still possible, wins the coming elections in, France, and Britain.
It's brexit way. Can Germany really trust Trump Latin and the breakfast eaters to risk nuclear and halation for the sake of Germany or for the sake of Poland? Maybe not. If so, the logical conclusion, could be Germany needs its own nukes and the same kind of thinking can be happening in Japan. Can be happening in South, Korea can be happening, more and more.
Places, which is extremely dangerous. Because the more fingers you have on these red buttons, chances grow that somewhere. Some, some some time. Somebody would press the button with terrible consequences for the whole of humankind. So again, nuclear weapons play, you know, a very double role here in this war. On the one hand. They prevent interval for better or worse. I'm not sure.
They prevent the entry of NATO into this conflict. I mean, if Russia had no nuclear weapons. I think it was a very high chance that either NATO or at least some members of NATO, like, Poland would have intervened on the other hand, if Putin is allowed to win, then the lesson for many countries around the world including in Europe as we just discussed, would be, we need our own nukes. Right, right.
Well, what do you see about the forces of globalization?
Ation and D globalization. Now, with respect to, I mean this was not only a story of what Russia invading Ukraine did to our minds. But this is obviously what covid did as well. When we noticed that our supply chain was not no longer reliable when everyone was faced with the same emergency. Again, this is part of a peace dividend unraveling for us because, obviously, it's more expensive if you need to vertically integrate much of what you care about economically. Where do you see that going?
And is that something we should be resisting? It gives, it seems like the normative lesson, you would want to draw here. Is that, while some of this may be necessary? I mean, why it may be necessary for Germany to think about doubling its or tripling, its military budget now, and that seems appropriate and is to see also appropriate for them. Not to be dependent upon Russia for natural gas. Several moves ahead. All of this begins to look like a more divided World, a less.
A world with just this predicated far more fundamentally even explicitly on a loss of trust. Yeah, right. And trust is a good thing. Trust is something we want. We want to maximize. And yet it's unraveling here, geopolitical e. And again, this is this also links it back to the, the internal divisions of the culture War, you were discussing, because perhaps the most Salient variable, right? And left politically here has been a total breakdown in Trust.
The institutions, see I thought that you get the far left and the far right agree about one thing that you can't trust the mainstream media. You can't trust mainstream science. You can't trust corporations certainly and there's this epidemic of contrarian is mm. Yeah, that is being leveraged which is being sold psychologically to people as a kind of skepticism, you know, it's kind of in like a do your own research right where? But it's actually not skepticism. It's skepticism about the mainstream narrative, always and everywhere.
You have people who will derive the New York Times as fake news and you'll and they assume that a corporation like Pfizer will always lie to them about their data. And yet they will trust, something they get on a sub stack newsletter about alternative medicine without blinking. So it's not skepticism proper. It's quite asymmetrical, but I got to think that Civilization only the larger project here is for us to find some pathway back to trust, you know, both within and outside of our
Back to
countries without trust both on a national level. And on the international level civilization collapses trust is the glue that holds everything together and Trust in institutions. I mean, not trust in the hand with people, you know, personally, you can't build a nation of 300 million people or a world of almost eight billion people. If you only trust the hundred people, you know,
Ali. How do you trust people? You don't know. Personally. This is where institutions coming to the picture and again without institutions do with the
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