On 18 August 2025, Max Blumenthal, one of the main voices of The Greystone podcast, interviewed Prof. Glenn Diesen, a political scientist at the University of South-Eastern Norway, and a recognized expert on present day Russia. Prof. Diesen’s position is that the war in Ukraine is the result of mistaken policy decisions made by Western leaders resulting in NATO’s incursion into Eastern Europe. For what it is worth, this is the position I have held from the beginning of the war (see my blog “Russia Reacts to NATO and History,” 20 January 2022). Here are some of the statements Diesen made during the interview (I have edited them for clarity):
+ “The Russians invaded after they tried [by diplomacy] for years to stop NATO’s incursion into Ukraine. And they see this as an existential threat…. It doesn’t matter if the EU leaders or people in Washington don’t agree….They [the Russians] have demanded as the foundation of any peace Ukrainian neutrality, which means no more NATO expansion. They’re not going to move away from this.”
+ “And if this had been February of 2022, that [Ukrainian neutrality] would have been enough. But as we know, at the peace negotiations back in Istanbul three and a half years ago, the British and Americans sabotaged it…. And now there’s been territorial changes [in Russia’s favor] throughout the resulting war. So now the Russians are saying they want the neutrality of Ukraine plus territorial concessions. The demand for territorial concessions is also due to lack of trust…This is what happens when a great power says there is a threat to its national security.”
+ “The only reason why we have the meeting in Alaska [August 15, 2025] is because Russia is winning. The Russians have been making huge progress. You wouldn’t always know it from watching the media, because again, there’s a lot of narrative control. So from the Russian perspective, a ceasefire is not peace. And this is why Putin convinced Trump that a ceasefire doesn’t do it. The idea that Trump can now just pressure Russia to do anything, it’s ludicrous…. So now the alternative isn’t between this horrible deal and something good. It’s between this horrible deal and something even worse. The former advisor of Zelensky made the point. Either we give up four territories or we give up eight territories. So, you know, let’s go for the four. There’s no other good deal here.”
+ “This idea that it was just Russian imperialism, there’s no evidence for it. The Russians actually were willing to compromise [for security guarantees]…. Three months before the war I was saying, give the Russians security guarantees, otherwise, war will be unavoidable.”
“Narrative Control”
It’s at this part of the interview that Blumenthal announced that “I’m being told by many people in the chat that this stream on YouTube, at least, will not play in the EU. I’m having people from Germany, the UK, and Norway tell me that.” That was an obvious attempt at “narrative control.”
“Narrative control” is a form of censorship usually thought to be operating only in dictatorships—a necessary pillar of a political regime that seeks to practice a form of mind control over a population’s thinking. However, it has also been applied successfully in the democratic West. And, it is important to note that, over time, leaders are no less subject to “narrative control” then are their national populations. Signs of the success of “narrative control” are seen in repeated foreign policy failures, such as NATO policy decisions that led to the Russian/Ukraine war. Another major and ongoing area is Israel, Zionism and a definition of antisemitism that has tied us to the Zionist state. In this case we now live with the genocidal consequences of over a century of “narrative control” on the subject of Zionism and Israel. There are plenty of other cases of “narrative control.” For instance, how we see Cuba, Venezuela, Yemen, among others.
The vital question here is not whether any of these states are democratic, communist, or otherwise autocratic. The question asked by most Western policy makers is, does a regime follow the line dictated by the West’s dominant polity maker—the United States. Such policies are the product of over a century of “narrative control” that acts like a “Procrustean bed” on our view of the world. What is more, an effort is made to defame any challenging outspoken individual who can command an audience.
Consequences of Deviation
At this point of the program Max Blumenthal asks Prof. Diesen what are “the motivations of those who have attacked you?…Is it purely ideological, are they really just zealots or is there not a material basis for their opposition to you?” Diesen replies in terms of “narrative control.” Thus, “as long as people accept the stereotype, then the facts don’t really matter that much anymore.” This includes the leaders in the West, like NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte who said, “either we send weapons [to Ukraine] or we have to learn to speak Russian.”
Diesen described most of the attacks on him as “ad hominem.” “Their arguments are indefensible, but it seems to make no difference. My argument was that we should not boycott diplomacy. This was interpreted as a pro Russian and anti-Ukrainian stance….We never discuss the security concerns of our opponents. It’s just they are all really bad men. This is a really bad environment to debate anything.” And Diesen becomes one of the really bad men. Thus, “derogatory letters are written to my university. Negative articles are written about me all the time. Pictures of my house have been posted on the Internet. When I am invited to give talks people try to have them canceled. It’s a very ugly environment here {in Norway]. And only a few days ago, There was this strange campaign in the media in which they said that they had evidence that I was part of a Russian influence operation. And the reason why, well, they got an invitation list to a conference I attended in Kaliningrad in April of last year. And they said, oh, look, he’s on the list of foreign people who have been invited…. And they presented this as if it would be a list of agents of Russia. But it was a conference devoted to Immanuel Kant. It was his 300th birthday. I mean, it is so stupid. And now all the media just referred to me as being exposed as part of an influence operation. And when all of this is exposed as being a big hoax, nothing is done to correct it. They don’t mention that they’ve gotten something wrong. They don’t discuss the consequences of getting it wrong. They are still encouraging the university to fire me. Now I am apparently a traitor. It is very authoritarian and ugly.”
A significant part of Prof. Diesen’s experience is the “complete lack of argument from the other side.” What we have is a tactic that substitutes personal vilification for rational argument. For instance, there is no debate as such here in the United States about the supplying offensive weapons to a state that’s committing genocide. And vilification, to say nothing of the risk to one’s job or university enrollment, is what one suffers for supporting the Palestinians. This is the case on an increasing number of major American college campuses, where open debate is supposed to be protected free speech. So Prof. Diesen is not alone experiencing this sort of harassing response.
Conclusion
What is happening to Prof. Diesan can, and does, get much worse. Besides the harassment on college campuses described above, the Israelis have killed at least 200 journalists and press photographers and imprisoned 90 more. The role of Russia as an influencer is nothing compared to Israelis and Zionists.
The ability to tolerate a large variety of voices is the sign of a healthy community. Perhaps the only exception to this is the purposeful inciting of a riot or other violence. It is the sign of our times that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, is guilty of such speech and lacks the moral compass to recognize the nature of his actions. An ardent Zionist (like Joe Biden before him), Trump now blackmails the nation’s universities to reign in, rather than expand the range of allowable speech.
The Ukraine war and the Zionist war have come together to threaten important rights in many Western societies. Now throw in (most strongly in the U.S.) the attack on science, modern medicine, social welfare, racial equality and climate change, then mix in the rise of religious fundamentalism in the U.S., religious extremism in Israel, and fascism in both the U.S and Europe. What do you get? Western Civilization as we have known it, at least since 1945, is in decline.
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