 This is really a special show. This is, history is here to help and how Putin's war affects European politics. And how does it play in European, Europe's rising populism? I thought that was an American phenomenon, but I guess it could be anywhere. And of course we have my co-host and contributor, Peter Hoffenberg. Raise your hand if you're Peter Hoffenberg. Excellent. I'll have to go get him. I think he's outside. He's down the hall. And Manfred Hennigson. Did I raise my hand? There it is, raise your hand if you're Manfred. And Manfred is trying to look like a Vermeer painting, but he's missing the pearl earring. I'm sorry about that. That's right. I missed that. Okay, anyway, we're talking about a very important thing that is evolving, emerging, and the outlines of it becoming more and more clear every day. So Peter, as you all want to do, can you first, can you tell us more about Manfred? I mean, the serious kind of discussion about Manfred and about the scope of our talk today? My pleasure. It's good to see you, Manfred. Manfred is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at UH Manoa, where he has taught countless undergraduate and graduate students. His graduate students are spread far and wide. Manfred is a man of many interests and talents. I have very selfishly invited him today to talk as Jay suggested about the impact of the war and also more broadly about his studies of what we would consider the European right and populism in Europe. So I would like, and I hope Jay agrees with me to not just discuss the war with Manfred, but how he sees it in light of a longer arc of European populism and the European right. Manfred's experiences are not just with travel, but a tremendous amount of scholarship on what for want of a better term would be modern European political thought, regimes of tyranny, fear, the significance of memory as we rethink particularly World War II. So Manfred, good to see you. Love the shirt, very stylish as always. The way we work is I turn it over to my boss, Jay. He asks some questions and then we have a pleasant half hour or so of back and forth. So Jay, let me turn it over to you and Manfred, good to see you. Thank you. It's hard to say this conversation can be pleasant. We'll try to do what we can, but we have Europe is in a state, isn't it? Europe has been jostled. This war is affecting the stability of Europe before we even get to the politics. It must be on the minds of most people on the street and they must have a certain amount of anxiety and that goes further, doesn't it? That goes to this phenomenon of political populism. Talk to me about the way this works. How does the war insinuate itself into the thinking of these various countries in Western Europe and for that matter, Eastern Europe? Well, you see, the interesting thing about them and Peter asked me whether I would like to talk about European right-wing populism that was long before the war started. Populism was in decline with the exception of France but in most other parts, it was not really moving up especially not in Germany and in Scandinavia. I mean, what this invasion has done to Europe is in a way to beef up the EU identity. Now, you have to understand the motivation for the war was to stop the incursion of Western liberalism into the Soviet and into Russia. The Ukraine was a threat. The Ukraine was in a way the model, how Russia could become transformed. And there's one very important figure who is Silesi Lenski, like the president of the Ukraine and that's Navalny. And he is the most prominent opponent of Putin. He's in prison now, but CNN showed this incredible movie, Canadian movie about Navalny and when you watch it, you understand why Putin is afraid that the Ukraine becomes the model for transformation of Russia. Now, I do not think one should exaggerate that possibility because you have a lot of Russians who do not want to become liberalized in the European or American sense. They are quite happy with this Eurasian vision that Putin has. He wants to disconnect Russia not only from all global economic connections, he wants in a way to restore this identity that in the late 19th century was promoted as the third Rome and it includes the Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church and they are behind Putin. Putin is not only a Machiavellian power politician, he is spiritually deeply connected with the Orthodox Church and so it's a package deal of the Tsarist, Stalinist, great Russia connected with the Church. And that has nothing, when you look at it and for him, the Ukraine was part of this package deal, but now he just realized that the Ukrainians did not want to become part of this reinvention of this system. Great Russian Empire and when you look at what is happening, there are five million refugees have proven to Putin that they don't want to be part of his empire. They have left for Poland, for Hungary. There's one thing that I must admit which really annoys me or doesn't annoy me, but it makes me a little bit nervous because what these refugees that are in Poland now in Hungary especially have done is to beef up the positive identity of these two countries which attacked in a different way, the European Union by not abiding by all kinds of provisions by undermining the legal system, the court system, by doing all by being ideologically calling themselves in the defender of a Christian, white Europe. So the critique that began to become very, very formidable in Western Europe against Poland and Hungary has now become somehow silenced, but that is something that has simply happened. And I do not know how the European Union will come to terms with that. They still have to deal with all kinds of money transfers that are connected with the EU treaty to Hungary and to Poland, whether they will stop that term, I don't know. But in any case, what you have at this point, you could say something that Putin, I don't think anticipated that his invasion really somehow revitalized the identity, the European identity, the political identity of the European Union. And it also may possibly lead to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. I mean, the two prime ministers were yesterday in Berlin talking with Chancellor Scholz. And so in that sense, you have there something that really was not intended by Putin, but it has, I think we'll have major consequences now. What the American part will be, once we have the primary, the midterm elections and then the 2024 election, God knows, if Trump will come back into power and revives his friendship with Putin, then Europe is left on its own. I don't know what will happen. None of us can predict how the midterms will go out. But I mean, the populism in the United States is worse than it is in Europe, maybe with the exception of France, where you had 41% of Marine Le Pen getting and then I mean, half of, or more than half of the Republicans are anti-Biden populist believing in the lie that Trump is still president. So overall, I don't know how the shape of the Western response to this challenge by Putin will emerge over the next year or so. But you will agree that it is in a state of transformation. Yes. That when you put these vectors together, you know the threat of it and the refugees of it and the populism surfacing yet again, when you put that all together, you have changes going on, changes some of which are visible and some of which are under the hood. Right, but you see one thing that's very interesting, this populism is declining, especially in Germany. So when you compare France and Germany, in France you have now 41% for Marine Le Pen in Germany, the FD is down to 10% and they are in the process of self-destruction, they kill each other. In a constant civil war involved. So, and then you have, remember, you know, you have this very small transition from the Merkel government to Schultz and the Greens. And what you have now in Germany is the fascinating phenomenon that the Greens who were the leaders of the pacifist movement in the 70s are ahead of the social democrats in terms of, you know, of providing the Bundeswehr, the military with funds, you know, they have completely transformed themselves. Isn't that because they want to be humanitarian? Isn't that because they are sympathetic? Well, that's, but there's a realism suddenly, a political realism taking over in the Greens that was not there in the 70s. I mean, when you think of Petra Kelly, who was the icon, you know, of the Greens, she came to Hawaii a few times, she was almost becoming a visiting professor in our department at one point, you know, Glenn Page really was promoting that. And she was a charismatic figure, but she was an anti-war person. Today, you have Annalena Behrbach, who is the German Foreign Minister, she is a Green, and Jürgen Habermas, who just published a really extraordinary essay about Schultz in the German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, in which he praises his reticence, you know, his careful balancing of politics, of German politics, and he called her the icon, you know, of German politics. Now the energy minister, who has to manage, you know, the disconnection of Germany, the gas. The Nord Stream pipeline, yeah. Well, not only that, I mean, look, we have two. People didn't know they were two, the one that is still running now is Nord Stream One. Nord Stream Two did not become activated, but this guy, Habek, who's the co-chair of the Greens, together with Behrbach, is as formidable, you know, in his insistence of the transformation of the Green Party. And you see, the social democrats have still this lingering sympathy for the Russia that the Russia of Gorbachev that allowed the German unification to take place. They think of Willy Brandt's, you know, post-politique in the 1970s. So you have a lot of emotional baggage, emotional political baggage. From a historical point of view, Peter, is there anything new here? You have emotional baggage, you have, you know, lots of political parties going on, lots of historical threads. Isn't that Europe for the past hundreds of years? Well, as the case always, yes, yes and no. So I'd like to take advantage of Manfred being here, completely exploited his brilliance and experienced by asking him to tease out at least three of the very interesting points you made among all of them for our audience in particular. One important point you made was that however we think about Putin, the two major consequences of the invasion seem not to have been on his radar. One is the surprisingly stiff and effective military resistance, which may in part be due to poorly trained Russian military. And secondly, what at least seems to be the resurrection of NATO in the European Union. So the first question would be for our audience. What does this tell us about Putin as a political leader? Did he misjudge things? Was he blinded by his own particular hubris? How do you think we can explain this? I think both. I think he was blinded by his grandiose vision of this resurrected Russian empire and he was misinformed. I think, I mean, what is so extraordinary is that you could say the Western intelligence, especially American intelligence, were better informed about the status of the Russian military than Putin was. I mean, the Americans knew almost anything before Putin got a hint. So it was, it's absolutely extraordinary, this superiority of the American intelligence in this particular, in this event. When you compare it with a mess of the Iraq war, how the US got into the Iraq war in 72. This is completely different and absolutely stunning. How not only about primarily American but other Western intelligence services also succeeded in anticipating almost every move that the Russians were making or trying to make. And then you have this incredible mess that they created for themselves, the Russians. And whether Putin will be able of replenishing the military personnel in the Ukraine is questionable. I mean, I realized for the first time in my life how big the Ukraine is in 2016 when I went from Lviv to Kiev to Odessa by train. Absolutely stunning. I mean, I had no idea Ukraine is as big as Russia. I mean, and with this rundown military army that he has, conventionally, I do not think he could occupy the Ukraine. But for that reason, you know, the fear that he will use chemical weapons, biological weapons and maybe even nuclear weapons is always there. You know, if he has no other way of holding on to it, you know, and next week he wants to celebrate the victory. You know, on the 9th of May, you have always these victory parades in Moscow being the victor of World War II. Mario Paul, I mean, the total destruction of Mario Paul will be the symbol that he will use. It seems to be compelling them to demolish the city as soon as possible. I think that may light on his schedule and I would expect the steel factory to be destroyed entirely by May 8th. Secondly, because I mean, we would like to have, no, no, but the day before, I expect the steel factory and God only knows what's gonna happen to the wounded soldiers. We only have a few minutes left so I really want to exploit you for our audience. And second, I think very interesting point you made which doesn't get a lot of coverage here is the tension between, let's say, the more orthodox EU, Germany, France, the more orthodox and these two strategically significant countries, Poland and Hungary. So could you help our audience just in a few sentences tell us, for example, about the legal battle, how the EU does require a European-wide legal system which the Poles and Hungarians seem to be pushing back against. Right, and I mean, this is part, you know, also you could say of the ideological discourse that especially Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, it promotes but law and justice, you know, Party Kaczynski's party in Poland does the same thing, you know, they are in one respect, you could say, in line with Putin by being against the liberal West, you know, Viktor Orban's always talking about the virtues of illiberal democracy. And well, that's what they have been practicing, you know, that he became re-elected with a great majority recently, is sad, but then on the other hand, you have this lovely defeat of the Orban clone in Slovenia, you know, he was defeated in elections, but then you have this scary scenario of France. I mean, a country that is almost divided a long line up with a Macron is capable of containing his arrogance and, you know, open himself up to all of the problems that he was unwilling to deal with in the first five years of his, in the first presidency. I don't know. You see. You know, Manfred, one thing is that I think Putin is counting on the ultimate deterioration of the coalition. How long can it stay in place? Which coalition? The Western European coalition. Oh, I think it has become, it has become so formidable, especially in the European Union, even Hungary and Poland, I think, being overwhelmed by these refugees, you know, will recognize that. So if there's one positive thing that has come out of it, it's the strengthening of the European Union. No, let's stay strong if the Republicans win in November and win in 2024 and Trump, you know, ascends them up power, or will that undermine it and cause it to fragment? I do not think it will cause it to fragment. I think it will cause it to finally do what Macron had suggested for a long time, namely to get a military dimension to the European Union. So I think people have realized, you know, the threat in Finland, especially, you know, Finland is member of NATO and the EU. Sweden is only member of the EU. It's not member of NATO. And these fractured Scandinavian countries, you know, especially monarchies, the three monarchies, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, they will be, I think becoming more European and get rid of their error and crowns, not of the kings and queens, but I mean, it's a little bit pathetic, you know, when you go to Denmark and you cannot use the euro, you know, you have to use the crowns and error and sometimes they don't even accept the euro, everywhere else they do. But this pathetic nationalism, this nostalgia, you know, that you have and, you know, and Applebaum in her twilight of democracy makes that as a, develops that as a major argument. This nostalgic attempt, you know, to return to a past that is not... You saw that in Brexit, I mean, that was part of Brexit as well. Brexit, look, and in both cases, in the French and in the British case, you know, you have this historical nostalgia, the Brexit, you know, return Britannia and in the French case, La Grande Nation and it happened, you know, you could say one of the results of the German defeat by Western powers and the Soviet Union in 1945 is that this vision does not exist in Germany. So you have there of the three major European countries, one that does not suffer from nostalgia and I think that is something that people do not really recognize enough. How important that is that you have the most economically, most powerful and the largest country in the center of Europe, not being deluded by a vision of nostalgic vision of returning to a past. What about anti-Semitism, Manfred? That's one of the elements in our discussion today. There's a, you know, I guess it's an emergence of anti-re-emergence of anti-Semitism. How does that play with all of this? How does it play with the coalition? I think anti-Semitism is not the center, it's part of the package of the ideological package of the populism. But you see, I mean, anti-Semitism is, you could say almost worse in this country, you have over 2,700 cases in 2021. And I think the American anti-Semitism is more of the traditional type, whereas in the European case, you have the presence of Muslims. You know, you have close to 10 million Muslims in France. You have 4 million Turks in Germany, half of them are German citizens. The other half didn't want to become German citizens because they would lose their property rights in Turkey. But then you have, since 2015, one million Syrians and others. But you see, the interesting thing about this, how European societies have responded to this migration influx is that, and that is not recognized enough either, the integration of the Syrians into Germany is in the labor market, 10,000 of the young Syrians are studying now at German universities. What you have there is not this ideological overhang of the replacement argument that you have also in the United States, that non-whites are beginning to replace the core of the European white, the European white core of Western societies. That played a role in the French election, not only Le Pen, but the other guy, the more radical guy from Algeria, made this an argument. But you had that also in Britain. The Brexit 2016 was, well, interestingly enough, not caused by what Merkel did in Germany, that she let the one million Middle Eastern people come in. No, it had to do with the in-migration of people from Romania, from Bulgaria, from Poland. Over a million, close to two million people were working in Britain who were not non-Europeans. They were Europeans and they had the permission to travel because that's part of the EU constitutional framework. And you also have hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians before the invasion, moving around in working in EU countries because the EU granted them in 2019 visa-free entry into the European Union. So for me, the interesting thing is, when I was in Berlin this December, in restaurants, you don't find any German waiters. And when you drive at night through the city, you see all these huge Turkish vegetable markets. It's absolutely stunning. It's a credit to Germany, isn't it? Yes. They've adapted this kind of diversity. But let me switch for one last point of discussion, Manfred, and you mentioned before that a lot of people in Russia are okay with this war. And that may be because of the propaganda, Russia TV and all that. I know, absolutely, yes. So we have definite points of transition of change in Western Europe in terms of migration, in terms of the political implications of what's happening country by country. But in Russia, is there a similar process going on? Are these people, a lot of people we read are leaving Russia, they're opposing the war, protesting the war by leaving. There are a lot of people who are afraid to speak out on it because they'll go to jail. But under the hood, from a political science point of view, is Russia also involved in change because of Putin's war? That is not clear. It seems in the polls that his approval ratings have become better after the invasion and that the exodus of the people from Russia are the exodus of scientists, of professionals who will have no problems finding jobs in the US or in any of the major Western European countries. I mean, this exodus will bleed Russia in the future. I mean, this is like the exodus of Jews from Germany, you know, from 1933 to 1938. I mean, look at the statistics of Nobel Prize winners, you know, American Nobel Prize winners and their origin, you know, where many of them came from. And the same thing, you know, will happen to Russia. So Putin, the stupidity of Putin, you could say becomes manifest, you know, in the unwillingness to recognize what he is doing to his own society. Now, I do not know whether Navalny, I mean, I don't know whether you have seen the Navalny film. If you have not, show it, watch it, it's really stunning. And he, at the end, you know, he's asked, what do you think we should do if they kill you? Now they will not kill him because if they kill him, that would be the signal for, you know, protests in Russia. But he may die, you know. And he said, when he was asked, what should we do, his friends? He said, do not give in. Meaning, if I die, that should be the signal for you to continue the work that I have been trying to do. And I mean, when you watch this documentary, it's a stunning work of political analysis and you have there, you know, the Russian Solinsky. And do you remember, Solinsky, you know, was an actor and then, and is one of the last shows, you know, he played the president and then he became that president. Now, Navalny is not an actor, but I mean, why he returned to Russia, from Berlin, when he, you know, when they discovered that he had been poisoned, is, well, that is the same kind of the quality of courage that Solinsky shot. But in that movie, you know, there is a sub-movie, there's a plot where Navalny and his wife, Julia, and friends, they are trying to find out who was responsible for the poison. And in the end, they discover this guy, you know, he reveals everything on the phone call. And when you watch that, it's absolutely hilarious on the one side. On the other hand, it also shows the stupidity, you know, of the regime that they really thought they could get away with it to kill Navalny, the most prominent opponent of Putin in Siberia by, you know, poisoning his underwear and description of that. I mean, you have simply to laugh when you listen to that phone conversation because he wants to know what part of my underwear and then they talk, you know, about the part. And if he would not have been, if the plane would not have landed in Tom's, you know, and they got the permission transfer him to Berlin, we would never have found out. But the stupidity nevertheless is obvious. Peter, we're almost out of time. I wonder if you could close, ask Manfred, you know, the overarching question that may be in your mind and in any event summarize and ultimately to thank him for this great discussion. But there's one thing that I wanted to tell you when you asked me about Putin in Russia, you know, I have here the newest issue of foreign affairs. There's an article in which the most recent ratings are mentioned. And it says Putin's ratings plunged after the controversial 2018 reform raising the retirement age from 60 to 65 for men from 58 to 63. And it plunged into the thirties from 59%. You know, but that was before the invasion. Well, okay. I mean, there may be something happening under the hood. We should be watching to see, you know, indications of that going forward. No, absolutely. Peter? Well, thank you very much. Manfred, I appreciate your insights as always. And I think our audience can go away with a few takeaways. Jay always likes me to give a couple and then to end with a question. So I think among the important takeaways that you've suggested to us is the way in which this war has interacted with a larger sense of Europe and how the war in fact unbeknownst or, you know, maybe Putin realized it has reinforced a sense of NATO and reinforced a sense of the European Union which could include adding countries as you suggested. But you've raised the important question of once the war is over, what will be left? And I think if I'm hearing you the strengths will continue. Perhaps the unanimity will not but Europe itself is stronger and will endure in that way. You reminded us that Europe for better or worse is in somewhat of a relationship with the U.S. So part of the answer for the future of post-war Europe will be the role of the United States. I don't think any of us envision a second Marshall plan but it does seem that there is enough consistency in Congress to continue. I'd like to have you back to talk more explicitly about populism and the right you've hinted at it. And I think there's probably a lot more there. I would only add that I think much of the future depends upon Europe's commitment to breaking away from this petrol state. I mean, it's all the discussion of Russia and its revenue and Putin's power does require a significant exporting of oil and natural gas. And I think a measure of Europe's fortitude will be whether it will in fact move away from that kind of dependence which will though put the Green Party in an interesting situation because moving away from natural gas and oil is going to mean as we've already seen the resurrection of nuclear power, domestic nuclear power. So from a political economy point of view I think Europe's energy future is not just significant for the climate and for Europe itself, but really whether or not the Putin state can continue it requires the revenue from that. So let me invite you back at some point. We do not know how the war will end. I don't think anybody notes how it will end other than it's devastation to Ukraine that that can't be denied. And so thank you very much and we will see you maybe after your next visit you can come back and give us an update about the way things are. So, Manfred Henningson, Peter Huffenberg this has been a great discussion. Thank you so much Manfred, Peter, I appreciate it. Yes, and we will circle back. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.