Mr. Fukuyama, you are now on the entry ban list in Russia.
People on Twitter in Russia made jokes like that's the end of history.
Obviously hinting on your concept of end of history.
How do you feel about this this joke and and more broadly about being on this list now?
Well, first of all, being on the list I regard as a as an honour.
I think that all of the important foreign critics of Russia and Russia's invasion of
Ukraine have been put on the list.
And I was actually wondering why it took them so long to get to me.
But now that I'm on, that's fine.
You know, it affects people who are scholars of Russia, other academics who study Russia
and actually need to go there.
I was going to go there a little more than a year ago, actually, to be on a panel with
Alexei Navalny.
But obviously that didn't happen first because of COVID and then because of the deepening
of the, you know, the tyranny of Putin's government.
So I don't anticipate any need to go to Russia any time in the in the foreseeable future.
So it's it's fine with me..
As for the jokes about the end of history.
You know, I, I get, you know, two or three of these every single day and I have for the
last 30 years.
So I find them rather old at this point.
Some more than 130 days into the conflict.
Putin recently said, Oh, we haven't even properly began in the Ukraine, meaning the war.
Have you heard this quote and what do you think?
Is he bluffing for his internal audience?
Does he something in reserve?
What do you think of that one?
Well, I think he's lying as he is about many things.
I think that the Western military analysts that have looked at the Russian force posture
have noted that right now Russia is experiencing a very severe manpower shortage.
They've also lost, you know, perhaps a third of all of the forces that they originally
massed to defeat Ukraine.
The estimates of Russian casualties are uncertain, but, you know, it's possibly 20,000 dead and
maybe 60,000 wounded.
On top of that, prisoners and so forth.
And, you know, for a country the size of Russia, that's not a small operation.
That's really pretty much a military disaster.
So I think that actually, given that the Russians have only made very marginal gains in the
two months since they started focusing on Donbass, I don't think they've got a lot in
reserve and I think that Putin is bluffing when he says that they haven't even started.
Still, even if it's a disaster, Russia could inflict much pain to its neighbor, Ukraine.
I would like to ask you something about the strategy of Ukraine in the situation.
We see that Russia's goal is obviously to ruin as much as it can.
And but whatever is Kremlin's final level of damage might be the Ukraine seems to survive
this this this attack.
It doesn't look that that well, it looks like it will survive.
So what kind of strategy could be?
Given the from the caves perspective to the war and the post-war time, what do you think
the strategy, the successful strategy, might be?
Well, I think the most realistic strategy at this point is to focus on the south, to
reopen Ukraine's access to the Black Sea by retaking Kherson and other ports on the Sea
of Azov.
That's more important than the Donbas.
I think retaking the Donbas is going to be quite difficult to accomplish, you know, in
the next few months.
But by the end of the summer you could see some real progress in the South.
It's really, really important for Ukraine to recover access so that it can resume exports
of all of its agricultural commodities out of its Black Sea ports and to break the Russian
blockade of Odessa.
So I think that, you know, I imagine that that's actually what they're going to focus
on.
They've started an offensive around Kherson.
They've made some some progress there.
And I would think that if, let's say by September or October, they've actually liberated that
area, that would be the opportunity to actually start a serious negotiation about a cease
fire.
But I don't think they can do that before they've opened up their access to the, you
know, to the outside world.
One of Russian calculus was that many in Russian leadership believe the West is in a decline
and the West wouldn't be united to help Ukraine survive and the unity of the West as we see
it.
Could it change with Trump being re-elected?
I saw you.
You also made some Twitter remarks on how the West should be, in fact.
Let me find the words.
Alert it on on this possibility.
Maybe you can elaborate on that.
Well, I think that there's two big dangers.
The first one is in terms of European support for Ukraine over the winter.
The Russians have already cut off supplies of natural gas.
And I think that Europe is going to have a real problem substituting for Russian gas
as the weather gets colder.
And so that's one issue.
And then the second issue is the one you mentioned that Republican support for Ukraine has been
slowly deteriorating.
Trump is on the other side.
He's pro-Russian, he's not pro-Ukrainian.
And obviously, if he makes a comeback in 2024, that solves all of Russia's problems for it
because he's apparently committed to pulling out the U.S. out of NAITO.
And so they will have achieved their major objectives simply by this change in American
politics.
And that's why I think it's really important that Ukraine make some progress and regain
the military momentum over the summer, because unity in the West really depends on people
believing that there is a military solution in the near term to the problem.
If they think that we're simply facing an extended stalemate that's going to go on forever,
then I think the unity will start breaking and there'll be more calls for Ukraine to
give up territory in order to stop the war.
Mr. Fukuyama, another question on Russia.
You have been looking at the regime there and what do you think?
Is this kind of regime we have now is something that is going to stay?
Should the world adapt to a new kind of political structure in Russia?
Is it something, you know, a big international spoiler?
Everybody has to adapt to.
How do you see Russia in in in a broader global perspective?
What kind of political regime is it?
Well, you know, it actually, more than anything else, resembles Nazi Germany at this point.
I mean, it's its only ideology is a kind of extreme nationalism, but it's, you know, even
less developed than that of the Nazis.
And it's also a very poorly institutionalized regime.
It really revolves around one man, Vladimir Putin, who really controls all of the big
levers of power.
So if you compare it to China, they're very, very different.
China has a big Communist Party that has 90 million members.
It has a lot of internal discipline.
There's a lot of rules regarding who gets promoted and, you know, how the system is
run.
In Russia's case, you don't have that kind of institutionalization.
It really does revolve around Putin and his particular choices.
And so once he goes, it's not clear what's going to happen.
I imagine there would be a big power struggle among all the, you know, the power ministries
and the internal forces that are the basis of his power.
So I don't think it's a stable regime.
I don't think it has a clear ideology that it can project outwards.
I think that the people that align with it are simply people that don't like the West
for different reasons.
They can be on the left, as in the case of, let's say, Venezuela, or they can be on the
right is in the case of Hungary.
But, you know, there's really no consistent ideology underpinning the current Russian
regime.
Russia has many conflicts with its neighbors, and one of them is Kazakhstan.
You've been following the Tokayev policies recently.
I've seen it on Twitter.
Do you think Turkey's rule is stable enough to oppose Russian leadership in something
that resembles a trade or beginning trade war between Russia and Kazakhstan?
Well, look, I can't answer that question.
I just don't know enough about the internal politics of Kazakhstan.
But I do think that it's very interesting that Tokayev has taken the measures that he
did the recent Central Asian Summit.
You know, it was actually quite humiliating because, you know, there was no one to actually
greet Putin when he got off his airplane.
There are clearly it's not just Kazakhstan.
I think many of the countries in that region are really unhappy to be satellites of Russia,
and they're seeking to be able to build some space.
Whether they can succeed in that, you know, I hope they can, but I just don't know enough
to give you an answer.
Now probably my last question is and it's more serious one now on your concept of the
end of history.
Now do you have an update on it?
After 30 years?
What I mean, looking at the global situation now with this war in Ukraine started by Russia,
looking at the rise of China and looking at the many crises of the Western community.
How do you see your concept now?
Well, look, we're in a different situation than we were 30 years ago, where there's been
setbacks to democracy across the board, including in the United States and India and other big
democratic countries over the last few years.
But the progress of history has never been linear.
We had huge setbacks in the 1930s that we survived.
We had another set of setbacks in the 1970s with the oil crisis and inflation in many
parts of the world.
So I don't think that, you know, the idea of historical progress is a dead idea.
I think that nobody should expect that it's always going to be upwards and onwards, that
sometimes you do have setbacks, but the underlying institutions and ideas are strong and they've
survived over a very long period of time, and I expect them to continue to survive today.
What do you think is the war in Ukraine and let's say other burning political crisis,
crisis is are basically shadowing and neglecting people's focus on on the more global and more
dangerous climate crisis.
Well, I don't think it's a choice, you know, between one or the other.
Obviously, the short term energy needs have led to a revival of fossil fuels and slowed
down the, you know, the progress towards reducing carbon emissions.
But it is a temporary setback.
And I think both of these issues have to be dealt with.
You can't it's not a choice of one or the other.
You're really going to have to take both of them seriously.
But the climate crisis is a slowly unfolding one that, you know, will continue to be with
us for the next couple of generations.
And so I don't think the fact that we're going backwards right now is necessarily the you
know, the final position will end up in.
Mr. Fukuyama, thank you very much for this interview.
Okay.
Thank you very.
Much.
All right.
Thank you very.