 shifting geopolitics from Germany. And, of course, Germany is connected to so many things and places, including the U.S. Is Germany less interested in Ukraine and Israel these days? What has changed? What is happening? Where does it all go? With Dr. Rupani Kandekar, a geopolitical strategist who can help us understand. So help us understand the politics and geopolitics in Germany these days. Let's start with that, including signs that Germany may not follow through on its earlier assurances of support for either Ukraine or Israel. How much of this is a result of Putin's threats and propaganda and the failure of the UN and the U.S. to follow through on Israel? Oh my goodness, so many issues, so many things happening, so many troubling events. Welcome to the show, Rupani. Hello, Haji. Thank you for having me on your show. Always my pleasure. Let's talk about Germany. So many issues, really. It's a big, big program today. So, Germany's geopolitical space in today's contemporary times is very complicated, Haji. And we know what history Germany has and how it's coming through. So, when we say that Germany has relied on geoeconomic liberalism to sideline the geopolitical concerns in the modern of that, that is, we have to look back at Francis Fukuyama's end of war, when he said that your geoeconomics will transcend into your geopolitics. So geoeconomics, liberalism that he talks about. And Germany is trying to follow that. And Jay, we see the liberal economies, economics and all coming in. How do you tell you? The manifesto is, let me get this right, Wandel, Dursch means change through trade. They gave that a priority. And Russia was a big part of this because interdependence on Russian oil and gas became so evident that Germany was 100% on Russian oil. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Germany was at a crossroad. They had the 17 billion dollars. And they are the most dependent on Russia for their basic oil and gas. So how could they back the entire Europe is going for a geoecological transformation. So they are going for the green gas and all that. And Germany had already started opening their ports for their own oil and gas. And so they have kind of drifted towards their self-dependence and cut off Russian independence. So that's where they start. When you talk about the domestic concerns, this is what they stand where they stand. And Chancellor Schultz has been having a very, what do you say? This concept of a grand strategy in international politics state is about how your country performs on the world stage. And Germany has been lacking that category. It has been lacking a grand strategy. If you find this term, it's got a very lot of connotations behind it. And Germany has been lacking that in its implementation and its portrayals. Well, let me just offer this. Germany is the strongest economy in Europe in some ways. And it is the leader, the economic leader in Europe. And it's fallen behind on military production, although it has the industrial complex to manufacture weapons. It hasn't really manufactured all that many weapons and delivered all that many weapons to Ukraine. So what you have is a potential. What you have is Germany could be, some say should be, the leader of Europe, more than France, more than Italy, more than the UK. But that hasn't really come to pass. And I take what you're saying to mean that if you're going to have the potential this way, if you're going to have the strongest economy and the greatest potential to create and deliver weapons to Ukraine, then you have a kind of obligation to make a plan, a purpose, a reason to do that. And so they haven't developed a plan. And that's too bad because they could, they should develop a plan. So please continue. So Jay, that the concept of being able to force your international policies forcefully and being able to implement your aims and objectives coherently in the domestic stages, what Germany has been lacking. It's not been a world player because you see they have budget concerns. Domestic pressures are far and not, they're normally now in Germany with so much of recession, migration, migrant problems, and the budget problems, the funding that happens abroad, they have a dragging in their stature Jay. They have not been able to assert in one, you know, what is that? They've not been able to assert very emphatically what Germany stands for. Now, you can not say that Germany is on this side or this side, they have been either quiet mode, they have been changing the sides. Now, Ukraine and Russia, they have not, they have supported Ukraine in some, they're the largest military donor. Jay, you've always spoken about the kind of, you know, Leopold tanks that they have given the howitzer machine guns that they have given everything, the missile. So they have done all in full, but they have not been able to assert their position. That is what happens with Germany. And Chancellor Schlotz, he is just reasonable in his approach as a leader. He's got pressure from both sides. I mean, I think most German people want to defend Ukraine. But I think he's got pressure from, maybe it's the right that says, well, don't go all the way. For example, they have this Taurus missile, which is a high-tech missile, long-range missile that would be very useful for the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians have developed a strategy of attacking military infrastructure inside of Russia, you know, to degrade the Russian military effort. And the Taurus missile would be perfect for that. But Olaf Scholz is saying, no, no, no. If we do that, then somehow that's going to anger Mr. Putin. And he's going to use either tactical or worst nuclear weapons. And they take the nuclear threat seriously. So he's got that pressure going on. And as a result, he's quivering. He's also, like, wishy-washy. Yes, the Leopold tanks, and yes, some weapons. But remember that the German military complex, industrial complex, is weak. And although they allocated 100 billion euros to rebuild their army, which has been degraded, the fact is they haven't spent that money yet. So they're like on the way somewhere, but they don't know where they're going. And I suggest to you, and I would like your opinion about this, is that because the U.S. has conceded its leadership position in Europe, and the U.S. is, and Biden included, being wishy-washy about Ukraine, Olaf Scholz is looking for directions, looking for support, looking for somebody to join him in making a plan. But for the lack of a plan and action by the U.S., for the lack of funding and weapons from the U.S., he's reluctant to do that. I think he doesn't want to be by himself. He doesn't want to stand up as leader of Europe without having the United States as the leader of the free world. And I'm afraid the United States, are you ready? Are you sitting down? The United States is no longer the leader of the free world. Your thoughts? You always point out, and you're always right. Germany as a country, and its international approach started deteriorating during Merkel's time. And Jay, she looked like she was a certain Germany, but actually she was kind of disintegrating German policy in such a way, and that influenced European policy. So she got this confusion that is there in German politics, whether to have a closed economy or open economy, let the migrants come in, let the migrants not come in. You have a unified European Union, but you don't want too much dependence. This kind of confusion that was brought in during Merkel's time. Chancellor Schnurz is just a touch pair of Merkel's legacy. He's not been able to put his position, but Merkel was a very confused leader, I feel, in German politics. She misled Germany. Germany could have gone far ahead of France. You know, France is taking prime position in the European Union due to lack of leadership in Germany. Let's talk about Macron's statement only a week or so ago, where he said, I'm not taking the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine off the table. That is a possibility. This is a very threatening statement from a diplomatic point of view. And that suggests that Macron has greater leadership potential than Olaf Schulz. It suggests that, and France does have a formidable army that it could send. It wasn't clear whether he was talking about sending the French army or the NATO army or somebody else's army, but who's on the ground is what he was talking about. And I wonder if there's a contention or a competition for leadership between Schulz, between Schulz and Macron. What's the deal here? Trinity, yeah, the Trinity, the Britain and France, Germany, Trinity. And they're not that strong this time. That's why we have a very weak European Union response in the Russia-Ukraine war. We have a weak EU response in the Israel-Hamas terror struggle. So this kind of weak European Union, these three powers need to be very strong to have integrated European Union policy. They're not. They're really not because Schulz is falling short. Macron is dealing with domestic problems at a high. Sunak is assertive, but he's got a big Britain at his disposal. So these kind of things make European Union as a whole, not only Germany, a weak player in geopolitics. So with the dynamics that is happening, the space that we, we, you know, you and we discuss, every day there is a change in strategy today. U.S. is supporting tomorrow not happening. This is a dynamic change. And where do we see Germany or France, the names coming in? If you want to be an active player in international politics, you have to be in the midst of peace. And they're not. That is just the reality of it all. That they're not. They don't take sides. They don't support. They don't, they don't emphatically stamp their authority. And that makes you strategically weak. Yeah, well, you know, you wonder about the EU, right? You know, the EU has traditionally had problems in getting together and making collective decisions. And, you know, it's the way Europe is. There's a lot of countries there. They all have their own views of things. And historically, they don't necessarily agree on things. I am reminded, and I mentioned this on one of our other shows, of a movie that was made maybe a decade ago about a pan-European symphony. And I think it was home ported in Paris, but it included players from all over Europe. And they simply could not agree on things. Glenn Close was in that movie. They simply could not agree on things. And ultimately, they fell apart because they could not reach agreement. And it was a microcosmic statement of the way Europe is. And it was one of the reasons for Brexit, which is now being covered in the press. You know, there are people who'd like to reverse Brexit or modify Brexit. But the bottom line is I think a lot of Brits, even if they weren't concerned about the migrants, were concerned about the inability of the EU to make decisions. And one more point I would like to ask you about is this. If the EU cannot make meaningful collective decisions, that has got to affect NATO's ability to make collective decisions, particularly with the abandonment of the United States, essentially the abandonment of the United States. And so we should be, in my view, we should be worrying about what is it, section five of the NATO agreement, the mutual defence provision of the agreement, of whether they will be able to do something as and when the time comes. It's not clear to me that the countries of Europe can get together. It's not clear to me that the countries of NATO can get together and do something, even though they agreed to do it. Your thoughts? Yeah, Jay, you're so right about this because the notion of collective security that Europe enjoys, 41 nations, but they enjoy collective security only through NATO. And we have Mr. Trump coming in and calling, you discussed in your program, end of NATO coming across. So they are going to lack this collective security umbrella. Jay, without having to spend that much on, you know, military expenditure, they are having a NATO cup. That is so important. NATO headquarters is located at the cockpit of Europe Brussels. So it's right NATO is settled very well right in the heart of Europe. They should value NATO and not make it a toy, like situation where Ukraine wants to join, doesn't want to join, we don't want it now. You want Ukraine to join, make it join, start it, finish it. Yeah, this all works in Putin's favor. Putin loves to see the cacophony. He loves to see the chaos. He loves to see Europe not being able to get together. He loves to see internal dissension. He loved Brexit. Some people think he had something to do with Brexit. And you know, at the end of the day, all these things that demonstrate a lack of cohesion in Western Europe and a lack of commitment by the United States. And it's remarkable, but just a footnote to that remarkable that Trump is acting like the voice of America where Biden can't seem to remember what he promised, you know, is wishy-washy on Ukraine. You have Trump who says he's going to give it up. He's going to let the Russia do what they want to do with countries in NATO. Wow. He's giving it away to Putin. That has a huge effect on Putin's calculus here, even though Trump is no more the president than you and me. In fact, you and me would be better presidents, if you really want my opinions. Anyway, so what I'm saying is Trump is really out of school on this, you know, individual citizens who are not president or, you know, authorized members of the Secretary of the State Department do not be making statements about diplomatic relations. And yet Trump is doing that on a regular basis and is having an effect on Putin. So Putin is being encouraged in Ukraine because nobody's standing up against him. It's a real problem that this country is so divided that way. Who do you listen to? Anyway, I think Putin gains for all the problems that we have in getting together, all the problems that the EU has in coming to, you know, agreement and finding a plan. Your thoughts? Jay, rightly you say so, that the democratic process that we talk about, the voting, the non-voting, that helps Putin to a large extent, large extent. I mean, Ukraine has gone through and devastated its own existence just to join NATO. But has it been able to join NATO? Has the NATO been able to protect it? There is no overt protection at all. Who's enjoying, like you said, Putin. Now Jay, see for an example, the kind of country Russia is. Russia is authoritarian, presidential, president but authoritarian. They wanted mass deportation in the face of terror attacks. They have picked up entire populations and shown them at the airport and go out without looking back. You don't see one person fighting or anything. You had a same situation in the French airport where the migrants were fighting the authorities. If you tell me you want mass deportation in Europe, will we be able to do that? There will be right wing, left wing, you know, human rights, everything coming. In Russia there was a line out of the, no questions asked. This is the advantage that these countries enjoy over our democratic structures, Jay. We'll have to consider everybody. When they asked everybody to wake it, was there a who and cry, like when Israel in the face of October 7th terror attacks asked the Gazan civilian to evacuate, they requested them. But there was a who and cry that they're displacing the people and civilians and this and that. Has any article been written about how Russia is doing mass deportations of everybody, whoever has a non-Russian name has been thrown out? Is there, where are the human rights people? So, why the selective process of reporting and why the selective process of implementation that assertive, this is what I'm talking of, the decisiveness in decision making is evident in authoritarian countries rather than democratic structures. And the European Union lacks this decisiveness completely. They've gone for a toss. They have just messed it up. Yeah. I mean, Russia is chasing the Tajiks around all over Russia, arresting people, suppressing them, depriving them of civil rights. There are plenty of Tajiks in Russia, only because of the Crocus City Hall massacre. And he's blaming it on Ukraine, which is ridiculous. And what I get out of that is that he has and will continue to use his autocratic powers to suppress free speech, to suppress democracy and to suppress minority groups and to use them as scapegoats. Remember that? That special word scapegoats. So, you know, autocrats love scapegoats, Hitler loves scapegoats. And so, my line is, you know, he seems to be strong. And once in a while, a journalist makes the case that Putin is losing power, just as journalists make the case that Trump is losing power. But we got to see what happens on both of those. Now, let's talk about Israel. Israel doesn't have any friends at the United Nations, even as recently as a week or two ago, the United States abstained and about to condemn Israel. And I, you know, I don't know where we are. I don't know where the United States is. It seems to be changing position. Biden seems to be wishy-washy on that one, too. And he's getting into these public arguments with Netanyahu. And, you know, that detracts from Netanyahu's war effort. Sure, it detracts from Israel's opportunities to defend itself. It encourages people in this country who want to have anti-Israel, anti-scientist, anti-Semitic rallies and protests, especially on the college campuses. So what he's doing, what Joe Biden is doing, is playing into the hands of those who would attack Israel. And it goes from the United Nations to the college campuses to those billion Muslims around the world who love to hear it, but don't, you know, they love to hear it, but they still don't like the United States. Biden can get down to those knees and they still wouldn't like the United States. He's trying to get votes for November, but I'm not sure that's going to work either. So what he's doing is he's responding on a daily basis to some issues that come up. Sometimes it's completely meaningless. And in effect, may I say he doesn't have a plan to deal with these things either. Your thoughts? Jay, so much indecisiveness. We talk about Germany. What about the indecisiveness in the U.S. itself? It is happening at a faster pace over here than in Germany. And we are having an impact on the world more strongly than anywhere else. And Biden, Jay, there was this talk about lack of Christ on Easter holidays. Did you notice it? There was no celebration of Christianity. It's just Ramadan. So this, what is that? Assession of one religion and the muting of one other religion, which is not aggressive or not that vocal enough. If you suppress them, they will still stay quiet and pleasing. This appeasement politics that has taken place globally, Jay, is not going to help the population. The Jews, they will fight their way back. They will stay together. But when the Christians will get agitated, Jay, it will be an all out to say. That is for sure. How much you can suppress one side and keep one side, appease one side, is going to go out of balance, Jay. Just for votes, just for electoral politics, you're trying to please one section. And like you said, they can't be pleased. They have a very high standard of getting pleased. They don't get pleased and they're dissatisfied as easily as they were pleased. So we can't count on their votes. We can't do anything. So it's better that you stay indifferent. Don't hurt, don't harm, but stay indifferent. But when you're giving them the chance to dominate, like we spoke about in a couple of programs, Jay, the end is no other religion as a political roadmap, no other except for Islam. They talk about this, just division of the population into believers and non-believers. Where do any religion has, you know, nobody says, everybody says God is equal or respect other religions. This is the only one which talks about believers and non-believers and just protect your own believers. So the political roadmap that they have to spread it all across, when you have indecisiveness like this, non-protection of your own religion, this is going to just give them more space to dominate. No, they will suppress the result of the suppression. There is an impending terror attack on the democratic land today because we have unfiltered migration. You remember when we go to the airport, we are asked questions at the immigration counter. Why are you here? When are you leaving? When is your ticket at the visa section? There is a kind of a methodology to this. Where is the methodology when people are jumping across fences, when they are walking across forests, when they are walking inside. So we have a very high security risk right now, everywhere in Europe and America, everywhere. Of course. So let me ask you a very, very, very, very, very difficult question. Here we are and it's only a few months left of the election. Donald Trump is trying to undo Biden in every way possible. Donald Trump is trying to undo the country. So even if Biden beats him, Trump will try to undo the country and democracy in terms of a succession. But if you were Biden today as the president, what would you do to address this problem? The problem of the country is in divided mode on so many issues that affect foreign policy. The country asks him, the divided groups ask him to take different positions with regard to foreign policy with regard, for example, to Ukraine and Israel. And he's stuck on the fence being pulled in at least two directions. How do you deal with that? Jay, he is at a point of multifaceted blunders. He's just committing blunders point to point when he, because blunder was when he reduced support from Israel, when he's talking of come to Jesus meeting with Netanyahu. That is wrong, Jay. If you're an ally, you support. And in the wake of a terror attack, after you've experienced terror attacks, you support. He is what you say, pick and nick the games he's playing. He's trying to support the LGBT community by declaring Easter Sunday as a day of this. That is not right. You keep religion out of this. He's mixing everything, Jay. And that is the problem. The same thing he's doing to international geopolitics is mixing up things. He's trying to please Hamas. I don't know human rights. He's trying to change the image of America as what I don't know. If you're supporting Israel, they have one goal to eliminate Hamas. They're very clear. If you're supporting Israel, you have to support that goal. You can't have a selective support for any country which is fighting terror because we know terror strikes from anywhere. So this decisiveness in international politics, Jay, is so important. And Biden is losing his way every day. And that is giving electoral hunting ground to Trump. Trump is just romping home. And every rally he goes, he's got enough material. When you see Trump declaring universal support for Israel, you feel good about it. When you see him talking about the conservative side of religion, but he's not that. Trump is giving up a showmanship facade because Biden is giving him enough of a script to do it. What about the media? I feel that what they do, the two of them, is telescoped by the media. And so the media has to make choices, too, as to what to focus on. And I'll give you an example. The seven food workers who were killed a few days ago, that has become a huge big story. And nobody in his right mind is going to say the Israelis intended to do that. Nobody would say that the Israelis intend to do genocide. That's ridiculous. And the Jews know better than anyone in the world what genocide is. They're not going to repeat it against someone else. They are merely trying to eliminate Hamas for their own protection. It's that simple. But the press will take the hospital issue. The press will take those seven workers, food workers, and just telescope that out to cover the news sphere. And so everybody talking about that. So my question is, is the press doing a good job at enabling Biden to get his message out and enabling Biden to deal with this ongoing attack by Trump? Jay, if I can really say to you that the press has been very biased, and it has not been very neutral in reporting events. It has always given a color to what they have reported. And it has always been towards the side of how do you say that? Now they're presenting Trump in a better way than Biden. Biden's blunders, his fumbling is highlighted, but his policies would not be from the beginning of his presidency. They have been doing that. Correct? And Israel and Palestine, which happened, they never ever supported Israel from day one. They never ever have given a straight out reporting. You have always had a bias report. You have always spoken about genocide. But you've not spoken about what Israel is going through. Will it exist tomorrow? They never give these kind of articles which speak about the reality. They will give you, they are the pseudo-liberals that the press has become Jay. Sudo, actually false, means they don't have a standing and they are sold. Media is being sold. You pay them, you write your articles. You pay them, they will babble for you. They are not reporting like they used to. There is no unbiased reporting. There is no balanced reporting. There is one kind of reporting where you talk about both the sides. They brought meat, the raw meat stories. I mean, Trump, for example, was famous for doing that when he was in the real estate business. He would create news. He would phone up the media and he would fill their pages. And I think that's the way propaganda works. You fill up the other guy's pages and they, they're not akamai enough to see what you're doing. So they print it all, including the raw meat stories, which would suck the oxygen out of everything else. So you lose your way. That's my view of it. But I want to go back to Olaf Schultz though. Now I'm going to make you Olaf Schultz for a moment. He should only look like you. So Olaf Schultz now, what would you do if you were him in order to have a plan to deal as a leader of Europe to respond to Putin and to really help Ukraine? Jay, first and foremost, would undo the migration policy that Merkel has unleashed on Europe. Again, tighten borders. Again, try to have a vetting of the population. You know, you have terraces which are operating and they're going to come on big time to Europe itself very badly. And what we talk about today will happen tomorrow. It is just a matter of few days because Jay Europe has Europe is a democracy and it has been radicalized at such a fast pace. It's now unrecognizable. We used to enjoy the European culture. That is for sure. And for Vladimir Putin, Jay Schultz is very, very indecisive. He stays indecisive because he's and Germany's entire concept was to create existence with the cooperation of Russia. Now in the Ukraine-Russia war to eliminate Russia from their entire policy is hurting them because the entire existence was to have both the Russian cooperation and to flourish on the European states. But now Germany stands very alone in this kind of a battle and Ukraine support, it has been doing what it can. It has to rather increase or make it more like you said, give the decisive weapons which Ukraine needs rather than the bulk of the ammunition or whatever. They have to give weapons which work and that would be more effective. And Jay, in the European Union, France is taking a higher place over Germany just because of Macron's leadership. There is no difference in German and French capabilities. But Macron's experience and his leadership is taking France a notch above Germany. Okay, we're out of time. I have really enjoyed this conversation but it's certainly a moving target. Everything we've said could change next week and we will address that next week, won't we? Dr. Rukwati Kandekar, global strategist, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me, Jay. Aloha. We want to announce that ThinkTech Hawaii is moving into a new phase and will not be producing regular talk shows after April 30th. We will retain our website and YouTube channel and will accept new content on an ad hoc basis. We are also developing a legacy archive program to provide continuing public access to our content. If you can help us cover the costs of the transition and the development of our legacy archive program, please make a donation on ThinkTechAway.com. Thanks so much. Aloha.