Many readers will be familiar with the indefatigable Glenn Diesen of Norway, through his Facebook interviews with global academic, ex-governmental and military figures from across the political spectrum, his YouTube channel and Substack writings. His quietly spoken, modest and respectful manner and politically neutral stance have clearly earned him widespread trust, as seen by his ability to elicit amazing candour from the most unlikely interviewees. Despite this ‘neutrality’, Diesen’s encyclopaedic knowledge of European history and obvious dedication to historical accuracy lead him to the sorts of conclusions that most bourgeois liberals and many would-be socialists actively shy away from. In this sense his contribution to world peace is inestimable, and very real.

Professor Diesen is clear-sighted about Russia’s position following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the previous ‘security architecture’ operating in Europe, showing how the push to expand NATO started immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union. Like all powerful societies, the US sought to legitimise its dominance as a common good, which is why its interests and culture are depicted as ‘universal values’. Thus, “the destabilising of Ukraine was pursued under the mantra of ‘helping’ or ‘standing with’ Ukraine”.1 In a book by former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski about a unipolar world order, headed by the US, the significance of Ukraine could hardly be overstated. Brzezinski argued that “Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire” then raised the spectre of Russia as a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia. 2 This false narrative was used to promote the encirclement of Russia and to secure Ukraine for US interests. Diesen outlines the great pains taken by the US to try to make this happen, detailing the nefarious roles played by Victoria Nuland, Donald Tusk and US-funded NGOs in post-Soviet regime-change operations. Ukraine’s membership of NATO was pursued despite a good majority of Ukrainians being against it: “A 2008 Gallup poll … revealed that Ukrainians favoured ties with Russia rather than with the US. Forty-six percent of Ukrainians answered it was more important to have close relations with Russia, while only ten percent of Ukrainians supported close relations with the US over Russia”. 1 People clearly distrusted the insistence by the West - that it represented liberal democratic values and that it was a positive force - with good reason. Western interference in Ukrainian elections, the creation of east-west divisions within Ukraine, support for Ukrainian fascists and the central role played by the West in the 2014 Maidan coup are all described and evidenced.

But the heyday of triumphalist neoliberalism and social democracy is over. As Diesen notes in a recent Substack post: “As the West prepares itself for perpetual war with the promise of delivering perpetual peace, the old social democratic rules that legitimised it will be sacrificed. Freedom of speech, freedom of navigation, the rules of the international finance system, international trade, and other rules that ensured an open and connected world are being burned down. What were sacred principles are abandoned with the support of jihadist groups, fascist groups and by even by making genocide acceptable. Diplomacy is dismissed as appeasement and even the fear of nuclear war is casually dismissed as giving in to nuclear blackmail” 3.

Diesen’s conclusion is sombre: