The Big Picture
The conversations collected here approach the war between Russia and Ukraine from two directions: long history and present-day argument. Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy, on the Lex Fridman Podcast, explains the Russo-Ukrainian war as the latest chapter in the collapse of the Russian Empire, in a conversation that moves chronologically from empire to independence to war [1]. It reaches back to Kyivan Rus', the Vikings' trade route, the rise of Moscow under the Mongols and the contested inheritance of Kyiv, and forward through the Orange Revolution, the Revolution of Dignity, Crimea, the Donbas, Putin's 2021 essay and NATO [1]. Historian Stephen Kotkin, recorded about three months into Russia's full-scale invasion, offers a framework he calls Russia's "perpetual geopolitics" and walks through why Putin invaded and why Ukraine's resistance surprised everyone [2].
Against those accounts stand guests who put the weight elsewhere. Filmmaker Oliver Stone describes the 2014 events in Ukraine as a coup and focuses on what he calls a "wall of propaganda" in the West [3]. On The Joe Rogan Experience, Dave Smith questions what Western support has achieved if Russia still wins [5], while former CIA officer Mike Baker argues that American help is the reason Ukraine still stands [4].
Where the Experts Agree
- Stone, too, called the invasion wrong. Fridman reads from Stone's March 3 Facebook post, which said that "Russia was wrong to invade" [3].
- Ukraine's resistance was stronger than expected. Kotkin discusses why Ukraine's resistance surprised everyone [2]; Stone's post listed underestimating Ukrainian resistance among Russia's mistakes [3]; and Dave Smith says Ukraine has fought better than anyone would have predicted [5].
- Western support has mattered on the battlefield. Smith credits Ukraine's performance to NATO training the Ukrainian military since 2014 and to the enormous flow of Western resources [5]. Baker, speaking operationally, says, "If the US wasn't helping Ukraine, Putin would own Ukraine by now" [4].
- 2014 comes up in several accounts. Plokhy's road to war runs through the Revolution of Dignity, Crimea and the Donbas [1]; Stone points to deaths in Donbass between 2014 and 2022 [3]; Smith dates NATO's training of Ukraine's military from 2014 [5].
- Two Rogan guests expect Russia to come out holding ground. Baker expects any settlement to look frustratingly like the prewar lines, with Russia keeping Crimea and parts of the east [4]. Smith believes Russia will win without direct US intervention [5].
Where They Differ
NATO's role. Kotkin directly rebuts the argument, voiced on the show earlier by Oliver Stone, that NATO expansion forced Putin's hand [2]. Stone, for his part, was surprised at how quickly European countries, including Finland and Sweden, fell in line with NATO, which he frames as a loss of sovereignty [3].
What happened before the invasion. Stone's account is that neutral observers recorded escalating Ukrainian artillery fire into Donbass on the day before the invasion and that Ukraine had massed troops to retake the region, a buildup he says Western coverage omitted [3]. He blames Ukrainian nationalist battalions for deaths in Donbass and says Zelensky was elected on a peace platform and then abandoned it [3]. Plokhy's telling instead places the war in a long imperial collapse, including Ukraine's December 1991 referendum and why Russia saw no point in a union without Ukraine [1].
Nationalism and the neo-Nazi narrative. Plokhy treats Stepan Bandera as both a man and a myth, covering collaboration, imprisonment, assassination by the KGB and the neo-Nazi narrative, and traces Ukrainian nationalism to the anonymous History of the Rus' [1]. Stone describes Ukraine since 2014 in very harsh terms [3].
Whether aid helps Ukrainians. Smith asks what the effort has achieved beyond more deaths if Russia wins anyway: "if you really cared about them, why would your move be to prolong the conflict and let more of them die?" [5] Baker believes Putin would not stop at Ukraine, though he understands why people question the spending [4]. Rogan says what scares him most is what happens if Ukraine runs out of soldiers [5].
How to reach a settlement. Baker reads Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region as an effort to strengthen its hand in negotiations, because "The only way you get Putin to the table and get something meaningful for Ukraine is if he's feeling pain" [4]. He dismisses Trump's claim he could end the war in a day as hyperbole [4].
Practical Takeaways
- Separate the strands of 1991: Plokhy distinguishes the fall of communism, the end of the Cold War and the breakup of an empire [1].
- Start the story before 2022. The road to war in Plokhy's account includes the Orange Revolution, the Revolution of Dignity, Crimea and the Donbas [1].
- Hear the NATO argument from both sides: Stone's version [3] and Kotkin's rebuttal of it [2].
- Be wary of confident press narratives. Smith notes the corporate press rushed to declare Putin finished during the Prigozhin mutiny, narratives he says were proven wrong [5].
- Treat nuclear risk as part of the picture: Kotkin weighs the risk of nuclear escalation [2], and Plokhy draws lessons from Chernobyl and from keeping a new Cold War cold [1].
- Expect a hard compromise. Baker anticipates a settlement close to the prewar lines [4].
- Take responsibility for what you believe: in Baker's view, that is the final line of defence against faked audio and video and foreign influence [6].
Sources
- Serhii Plokhy on the History of Ukraine, Russia, Soviet Union, KGB, Nazis, War · Lex Fridman Podcast
- Stephen Kotkin on Putin, Zelenskyy and the War in Ukraine · Lex Fridman Podcast
- Oliver Stone on Vladimir Putin, the War in Ukraine and Nuclear Energy · Lex Fridman Podcast
- Mike Baker on the Trump Assassination Attempt, the 2024 Race, Iran, Ukraine and Distrust in Institutions · The Joe Rogan Experience
- Dave Smith on Ukraine, Russiagate, COVID and the Case Against Concentrated Power · The Joe Rogan Experience
- Mike Baker on Deepfakes, Campus Protests, Gaza, Ukraine and CIA Disguises · The Joe Rogan Experience
