How the West Fell for its OWN PROPAGANDA | Amb. Chas Freeman

## Intro The conversation with Ambassador Chas Freeman reframes the familiar headlines of Europe’s latest war by insisting we first change the questions we ask. The story commonly told — of an unprovoked invasion, moral clarity, and a West united in righteous resistance — is, in his account, a partial narrative shaped by decades of strategic choices, misread signals and an information ecosystem that turns nuance into noise. What emerges from the exchange is less a defense of any actor than a call to recover the tools of statecraft: candid history, persistent diplomacy, and the disciplined use of empathy as an instrument of persuasion rather than sentiment. If Western publics are now startled by sudden diplomatic moves, it is because they have been living for years inside a self-reinforcing information bubble that made the incomprehensible seem axiomatic. ## Was the Russian invasion unprovoked? Ambassador Freeman rejects the tidy slogan that the invasion was wholly unprovoked. His account traces an arc stretching back to the 1990s, when Russian leaders publicly warned about NATO expansion. He reminds us that conflicts in the post-Soviet space often had deep internal roots: the 2014 upheavals in Ukraine were followed by laws and policies that alienated significant Russian-speaking minorities, especially in Crimea and the Donbass. Those communities pushed for protections — language rights, local governance — that were negotiated in the Minsk agreements and then largely abandoned in practice. Freeman emphasizes that what began as internal strife hardened into an international confrontation because diplomatic pathways were allowed to atrophy. This is not to moralize away the seriousness of an invasion, nor to deny violations of sovereignty. Rather, the point is structural: when grievances are left to ferment, when internationally brokered compromises are ignored, and when security guarantees are perceived as one-sided, the risk that a regional dispute will escalate into a larger war increases. Freeman’s reading insists we see the Russian calculus as rooted in perceived strategic imperatives — NATO on the doorstep, the failure to implement agreements that promised minority protections, and a broader absence of a viable European security architecture that could accommodate competing interests. ## Was America and Western Europe part of the provocation? The conversation moves forcefully to the West’s responsibility. Freeman places a portion of the blame on Western refusal to engage seriously with Russian demands for negotiation on three concrete points: limits on NATO expansion or force posture near Russia’s borders, full implementation of the Minsk arrangements guaranteeing minority rights, and a neutral status for Ukraine within a broader European security framework. He argues that Western leaders repeatedly rebuffed discussions beyond narrow limitations on specific weapon deployments, preferring a strategy of isolation and weakening rather than accommodation. Freeman describes how that posture morphed into a policy preference for military pressure without parallel diplomatic outreach: a “fight-only” approach that assumed battlefield attrition and prolonged sanctioning would yield strategic success. The effect, he suggests, was predictable. If you deny an adversary the option of negotiation, you create incentives for them to pursue coercive alternatives. The broader point is institutional: alliances and governments can mistake pressure for leverage when they are actually foreclosing the very channels that might stabilize a crisis. That mistake, Freeman contends, is not an accidental failing but a practice cultivated in the information age. ## Was the lack of diplomacy astonishing to someone like you? Yes — and the astonishment is professional and practical. For a diplomat, the basic rule is to keep lines of communication open even in the worst of times. Freeman invokes historical precedent — Chinese embassies remaining open during conflicts with India and Vietnam — to underline that diplomatic contact is often most needed during violence. The deliberate closure or gutting of embassies and the avoidance of ministerial-level exchanges are, in his view, strategic self-harm. Freeman frames the recent tentative moves toward reconstituting full embassy functions and foreign-minister talks as overdue but positive. He notes, however, that the process has been politically explosive precisely because it contradicts the dominant wartime narrative that had long foreclosed accommodation. The political fallout — rage, accusations of betrayal, and public confusion — is in part the predictable reaction to a sudden return of realism to policy. Diplomacy, he insists, was not merely an optional add-on; it was a necessary instrument that was sidelined when it should have been central. ## Does the West not see the value of diplomacy? Freeman identifies three interlocking social and political dynamics that explain the failure to value diplomacy: the demonization of enemies in democratic politics, the centralization of public discourse by media platforms that amplify and police narratives, and a culture of political correctness that punishes dissenting framings. Combined, these forces produce a public sphere in which complex reasoning is replaced by caricatured morality. Diplomacy — which depends on understanding an adversary’s perspective and bargaining over mutual interests — becomes culturally toxic because it is interpreted as moral equivocation or sympathy for the wrong side. The ambassador warns about the epistemic consequences of living in such an environment: repeated falsehoods harden into axioms, and plausible but unverified claims proliferate until nothing is trusted. The information ecosystem does not merely distort facts; it reshapes the political incentives of leaders who depend on popular sentiment and media narratives. The result is policy choices that are designed to signal virtue rather than to manage risk or produce durable settlements. ## What is the role of "Empathy" vs. "Sympathy" in diplomacy? Here Freeman offers a disciplined corrective to an often-misused language. Empathy in diplomacy is an instrumental skill: the capacity to understand how another government perceives its interests, fears, and constraints so you can craft persuasive offers that meet them halfway. It does not require moral agreement or endorsement. Sympathy, by contrast, implies concurrence and can be politically unpalatable or even impossible in moments of acute conflict. In practice, empathy equips negotiators to translate competing narratives into bargaining chips. Freeman uses the example of early 2022 when a draft agreement — mediated by Turkey and Israel and initially accepted by parties — briefly opened a path to settlement. That window closed after external actors signaled that peace was not the desired outcome; the strategic aim, as articulated by some Western officials then, was to weaken and isolate Russia. If one side’s policy objective is systemic weakening rather than durable resolution, then empathy is marginalized and the utility of diplomacy declines. The cautionary lesson: empathy does not mean capitulation; it is the necessary condition for credible, lasting agreements. ## So, where are we headed? The discussion ends in realism rather than prophecy. Freeman does not offer a tidy roadmap; he offers a diagnosis and a modest prescription. The reestablishment of diplomatic channels between major powers is a hopeful sign precisely because it restores the possibility of bargaining. Yet bargaining will be constrained by battlefield realities: what one side has seized, the other may find it difficult to recover at the table. That hard truth means any realistic peace will involve trade-offs, guarantees and mechanisms that manage, rather than erase, the consequences of war. Longer term, Freeman’s argument implies that Western publics and leaders must reclaim

How the West Fell for its OWN PROPAGANDA | Amb. Chas Freeman Today I would like to share another brilliant talk of Ambassador Chas Freeman with you. This one was recorded as part of a Zoom event on February 20th, 2025 by Mr. Eddie O'Brien of the Thinking Center, an Irish civil society organization. The video is a Q&A type of roundtable with Ambassador Freeman and all of his insights are, as always, very much worth listening to. Among other positions, Ambassador Freeman served as US Assistant Secretary of Defense, as US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and he was Richard Nixon's principal interpreter during his 1972 visit to China, which led to the normalization of US-China relations. Chapters 00:00 Intro 02:02 Was the Russian invasion unprovoked? 07:18 Was America and Western Europe part of the provocation? 13:38 Was the lack of diplomacy astonishing to someone like you? 15:38 Does the west not see the value of diplomacy? 20:00 What is the role of "Empathy" vs. "Sympathy" in diplomacy? 28:12 How does Israel have so much lobbying power over the US government? 34:52 Is there a genocide taking place in Palestine? 37:13 So, where are we headed? #M1 We've all been living in the midst of the most intensive information warfare the world has ever seen. You have people who thought that it was a good idea—this is the Biden administration—not to discuss anything with the adversary on the battlefield. How that was supposed to accomplish anything is unclear. But there was no diplomacy at all. There was only fighting. The fighting steadily escalated amidst claims that Ukraine was winning, which was palpably false, amid claims that the Russian casualties vastly outnumbered those of Ukraine, which is also false, and amid repeated claims that the introduction of some new weapon would cure everything on the battlefield in favor of Ukraine. None of those things are true. And so people who believe those things, which is the majority in both Europe and America, but not the majority in the rest of the world, where there was great skepticism, now confront reality. The reality is completely at odds with what they've been told for the last three years. #M2 Hello, everybody. Today, I would like to share another brilliant video of Ambassador Chas Freeman with you. This one was recorded as part of a Zoom event on February 20th, 2025, by Mr. Eddie O'Brien of the Thinking Centre, an Irish civil society organization. The video is a Q&A type of roundtable with Ambassador Freeman, and I assure you all of his insights are, as always, very much worth listening to. Among other positions, as you might know, Ambassador Freeman served as US Assistant Secretary of Defense, as US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and he was Richard Nixon's -- 1 of 12 -- principal interpreter during his 1972 visit to China, which led to the normalization of US-China relations. With this out of the way, here you go. #M2 Was the Russian invasion unprovoked? #M1 No, it was not unprovoked. We began to hear as early as 1994 from Boris Yeltsin, before Vladimir Putin came to power, that the expansion of NATO and the presence of hostile forces on Russia's borders was unacceptable and would draw a military reaction. That reaction was actually further signaled during the brief war between Georgia and Russia. And there should have been no surprise. The war began actually as a civil war between Ukrainian Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers in 2014 after the coup d'état in Kyiv, when the new ultra-nationalist government in Kyiv outlawed the use of Russian, Hungarian, Romanian, and other minority languages at the local level. So the Russian speakers, who were predominant in eastern Ukraine—in some cases, well, 75% in Crimea, but sometimes as much as 90% in the eastern oblasts—rebelled, and Russia naturally supported them. So they wanted the right to use Russian to educate their children and to communicate with the local administrations. This actually resulted in a negotiation, two agreements at Minsk, sponsored by France and Germany, which were agreed to by the Russians, confirming that the Donbass region, Luhansk, and Donetsk would remain part of Ukraine, but on a basis similar to that of Quebec in Canada. That is, they would be allowed to have their own language as an official language and educate the children in that language. That agreement was first vigorously endorsed by Zelensky when he ran for president. And then when he came into office, it was repudiated, at which point Zelensky, Angela Merkel of Germany, and François Hollande of France both said, well, we didn't really mean that agreement. It was just a means of gaining time for us to arm and train the Ukrainian armed forces against Russia. So the provocation began with attacks by ultra-nationalist Ukrainians on fellow Ukrainians who happened to be Russian-speaking in the East. It escalated to a Russian intervention against those ultra-nationalist Ukrainians. That went on for eight years. Fifteen thousand people died from barrages of artillery into the Russian-speaking areas. And eventually, in December 2021, Vladimir Putin demanded negotiations on three topics. One was a halt to any talk of bringing Ukraine into NATO or the implication that American and other anti-Russian forces would be stationed on Russia's borders. The second was to reaffirm the Minsk Accords and the autonomy of Russian speakers in the East, and by implication, Hungarians and Romanians as well. There are other minorities in Ukraine. And finally, of course, a broad discussion of European security architecture with Ukraine as a neutral -- 2 of 12 -- party to that, rather on the model of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955, which was reached at the height of the Cold War. This treaty guaranteed Austria's independence and democracy and required Austria to treat its minorities—the Italians in the Tyrol, Slovenes, and Hungarians—in the manner that the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe requires. So those were the three items for negotiation. They remain the three items for negotiation. There's one major difference, which is that Russia, now having had to go to war against Ukraine and occupying all or part of the four Russian-speaking oblasts in the East, now demands to keep them because it does not trust guarantees from Ukraine that, in fact, anything like the Minsk Accords is now possible to be implemented. So I'll end here. And I think that's a very brief history of the thing. There are many, many twists and turns in this, of course. #M2 Were America and Western Europe part of the provocation? #M1 Yes. Essentially, Putin and his government demanded a negotiation. They were answered by both the United States and Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO, with a flat refusal to discuss any of these topics. The only issue that we were prepared to discuss was limitations on stationing missiles and other armaments in Ukraine. So basically, in statecraft, if you cannot obtain satisfaction for your national interests by peaceful means, the alternative is to use force, and that's what Russia then did. So the provocation was the refusal to discuss things. And now that has, for three years, been the case. We've just seen in Riyadh an end to that period with a meeting between Americans and Russians at the foreign minister level, which has agreed on four points. First, the American embassy in Moscow and the Russian embassy in Washington will be restored to full functionality through a process of tit-for-tat expulsions. They had essentially been gutted and become very ineffectual. So the embassies will be restored to enable a normal diplomatic relationship. Second, there will be continued dialogue at the foreign minister level, accompanied by the appointment of negotiating teams by the two sides to try to hammer out the parameters of peace for Ukraine, normalized U.S.-Russian relations, and some sort of approach to a broader peace in Europe. Not really clear what all that will mean. But basically, it's positive, even though it initially excludes both Ukraine and the Europeans, because this dialogue had to start, and there has to be some basic agreement on the principles that will guide further discussion. And then the final point is that the Ukrainians and the EU will be brought into this discussion once parameters have been agreed upon. There is a great deal of discord and anger at this development, which is unilateral. It is sudden. There was no prior consultation of any consequence with the EU or within NATO or with Ukraine. -- 3 of 12 -- On the other hand, Mr. Trump has been on record from the very beginning saying that this is what he intended to do. He won the election. The question is, on the American side, why is it that the Ukrainians and the European members of NATO did not initiate a consultation about what this meant? And the answer seems to be because they don't know what to do. We've just seen a rump meeting of a small group of EU states in Paris, with Britain joining the meeting, even though it's no longer a member of the European Union. And they labored for three and a half hours and, like the mountains, produced a ridiculous mouse, if anything. #M2 Sorry, they produced what did you say? #M1 Ridiculous mouse in Latin, a ridiculous mouse. That is Horace. Anyway, so we now have the most unseemly and, I think, utterly counterproductive exchange of diatribes, insults, and accusations between our mercurial president and Mr. Zelensky, who, in my view, was led down the garden path to disaster and doesn't like where he is. So there we are at present. What happens next is the meeting between the negotiating teams, and we will begin to see what happens. But I'll make a final observation, and that is that the shock within the EU and NATO, and especially in the UK, is the result of the fact that we've all been living in the midst of the most intensive information warfare the world has ever seen. You have people who think, who thought that it was a good idea—this is the Biden administration—not to discuss anything with the adversary on the battlefield. How that was supposed to accomplish anything is unclear. But there was no diplomacy at all. There was only fighting. The fighting steadily escalated amidst claims that Ukraine was winning, which was palpably false, amid claims that the Russian casualties vastly outnumbered those of Ukraine, which is also false, and amid repeated claims that the introduction of some new weapon would cure everything on the battlefield in favor of Ukraine. None of those things are true. And so people who believe those things, which is the majority in both Europe and America, but not the majority in the rest of the world, where there was great skepticism, now confront reality. The reality is completely at odds with what they've been told for the last three years. So naturally, this is a shock. #M2 Was the lack of diplomacy astonishing to someone like you? #M1 It was an astonishing mistake. There is a military adage that one should never lose contact with the enemy because if you do, you're liable to be flanked or surprised somehow. The same is true in international relations. You should never lose contact with an adversary. The model here actually is -- 4 of 12 -- Chinese. People don't remember, but in 1962, when the Sino-Indian border war broke out, China kept its embassy in Delhi open and did not withdraw it, which is the European custom. Similarly, in 1979, when there was fighting along the Sino-Vietnamese border, the Chinese embassy in Hanoi did not close. Why? Because it's precisely during a war that you most need diplomatic contact. #M2 Lincoln was in office for four years. #M1 He never once visited Moscow. Sergei Lavrov, a very, very able foreign minister of Russia, capable of being charming and, if necessary, obnoxious—two sides of the same coin, perhaps—never visited Washington for five years. Blinken and Lavrov ran into each other, or I should say ricocheted off each