Beyond the military confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, the anthropologist insists on the ideological and cultural dimension of this war and on the opposition between the liberal West and the rest of the world, which has adopted a conservative and authoritarian vision. The most isolated are not, according to him, those who are believed.
Outrageous thinker for some, visionary intellectual for others, "rebel destroy" according to his own words, Emmanuel Todd does not leave anyone indifferent. The author of of The Final Fall, who predicted as early as 1976 the collapse of the Soviet Union, had remained discreet in France on the question of the war in Ukraine. The anthropologist reserved until now most of his interventions on the subject to the Japanese public, even publishing an essay in the Archipelago with the provocative title: the third world war has already begun.
For Le Figaro, he details his iconoclastic thesis. In it, he reminds us that if Ukraine resists militarily, Russia has not been crushed economically. A double surprise that makes, according to him, uncertain the outcome of the conflict.
LE FIGARO. - Why publish a book on the war in Ukraine in Japan and not
in France?
Emmanuel TODD. - The Japanese are just as anti-Russian as the Europeans. But they are geographically distant from the conflict, so there is no real sense of urgency, they don't have our emotional relationship with Ukraine. And over there, I don't have the same status. Here, I have the absurd reputation of being a "rebel destroyer", while in Japan I am a respected anthropologist, historian and geopolitician, who in all the major newspapers and magazines, and whose books are all published.
I can express myself there in a serene atmosphere, which I did first in magazines, then by publishing this book, which is a collection of interviews. This called The Third World War has already begun, with 100,000 copies sold today.
It is obvious that the conflict, by passing from a limited territorial war to an economic confrontation, is not only a global economic confrontation, between the whole of the West on the one hand and Russia, backed by China on the other, has become a world war.
FIGARO - Why this title?
TODD - Because this is the reality, the Third World War has begun. It is true that that it started "small" and with two surprises. We went into this war with the idea that Russia's army was very powerful and that its economy was very weak. It was thought that Ukraine would be crushed militarily and that Russia would be crushed economically by the West. But the opposite happened.
Ukraine was not crushed militarily even if it lost 16% of its territory at that time. Russia has not been crushed economically. As I speak, the ruble has has risen 8% against the dollar and 18% against the euro since the day before the war began.
So there has been a kind of quid pro quo. But it is obvious that the conflict, by going from a limited territorial war to a global economic confrontation, between the whole of the West on the one hand and Russia backed by China on the other, has become a world war. Even if the military violence is low compared to previous world wars.
FIGARO - Are you not exaggerating? The West is not directly involved militarily...
TODD - We provide weapons anyway. We kill Russians, even if we do not expose ourselves. But it remains true that we, Europeans, are economically committed. We can feel our real entry into the war coming through inflation and shortages.
Putin made a big mistake at the beginning, which is of immense social and historical interest. Those who worked on Ukraine on the eve of the war considered this country, not as a a nascent democracy, but as a decaying society and a failed state in the making. They wondered whether Ukraine had lost 10 million or 15 million people since its independence. It is not possible to because Ukraine has not taken a census since 2001, a classic sign of a society that is afraid of reality. I think that the Kremlin's calculation was that this decaying society would collapse at the first shock, or even say "welcome mother" to holy Russia. But what we discovered, on the other hand, is that the opposite, is that a decaying society, if fed by external financial and military resources, can find in war a new type of balance, and even a horizon, a hope. The Russians could not foresee this. Nobody could.
FIGARO - But didn't the Russians underestimate, in spite of the state of decomposition of the society, the strength of the Ukrainian national feeling, or even the strength of European sentiment in support of Ukraine? And don't you underestimate it yourself?
TODD - I don't know. I'm working on it, but as a researcher, that is, admitting that there are things we don't know. And for me, strangely enough, one of the fields on which I have too little information to make a decision, is Ukraine. I could tell you, on the basis of old data, that the family system of little Russia was nuclear, more individualistic than the Great Russian system, which was more communitarian, collectivist. I can tell you that, but what has become of Ukraine, with massive population movements, a self-selection of certain social types by staying in the country or by emigration before and during the war. I can't tell you about it, we don't know at the moment.
One of the paradoxes that I face is that Russia does not pose a problem of understanding. That's where I'm most out of step with my Western environment. I understand everyone's emotions, it is difficult for me to speak as a historian. It is difficult for me to speak as a cold historian. But when you think of Julius Caesar locking up Vercingetorix in Alesia, then taking him to Rome to celebrate his triumph, one wonders whether the Romans were wicked, or deficient in values.
Today, in the emotion, in phase with my own country, I see well the entry of Russian army into Ukrainian territory, the bombings and the deaths, the destruction of the energy infrastructure, Ukrainians freezing to death all winter long. But for me, Putin's and the Russians' behavior can be read differently, and I will tell you how.
To begin with, I must admit that I was taken aback by the beginning of the war, I didn't believe in it. Today I share the analysis of the American "realist" geopolitician John Mearsheimer. He made the following observation: He told us that Ukraine, whose army had been taken over by Nato soldiers (American, British and Polish) since at least 2014, was therefore a de facto member of NATO, and that the Russians had announced that they would never tolerate a Ukraine member of Nato. These Russians are therefore (as Putin told us the day before the attack) a war from their point of view defensive and preventive.
Mearsheimer added that we would have no reason to rejoice at any difficulties the Russians might have because, as it is an existential question for them, the harder it is, the harder they would hit. The analysis seems to be true. I would add a complement and a critique to Mearsheimer's analysis. This war has thus become existential for the United States. No more than Russia, they cannot withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go. That's why we are now in an endless war, in a confrontation the outcome of which must be the collapse of one or the other.
For the sake of completeness: when he says that Ukraine was a de facto member of NATO, he does not go far enough. Germany and France had become minor partners in NATO and were not
partners in NATO and were not aware of what was going on in Ukraine on the military level. The French and German naivety was criticized because our governments did not believe in the possibility of a Russian invasion. Certainly, but because they did not know that the Americans, the British and the Poles could allow the Ukraine to be in a position to wage an expanded war. The fundamental axis is Washington-London-Warsaw-Kiev.
Now the criticism: Mearsheimer, as a good American, overestimates his country. He considers that, if for the Russians the war in Ukraine is existential, for the Americans it is basically just another power "game". After Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, one more or less debacle.... What matter? The basic axiom of American geopolitics is: "We can do anything we want because we are safe, far away, between two oceans, nothing will ever happen to us.". Nothing would be existential for America. Insufficiency of analysis which today leads Biden to a headlong rush. America is fragile. The resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system towards the precipice. No one had foreseen that the Russian economy would hold up against the "economic power" of NATO. I believe that the Russians themselves did not anticipate it.
If the Russian economy resisted the sanctions indefinitely and managed to exhaust the European economy, while it would itself remain, backed by China, and financial controls of the world would collapse, and with them the possibility for the United States to finance its enormous trade deficit for nothing.
This war has thus become existential for the United States. Neither the US nor Russia can withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go. That's why we are now in a war without end, in a confrontation whose outcome must be the collapse of one or the other. The Chinese, Indians and Saudis, among others, are gloating.
FIGARO - But the Russian army seems to be in a very bad position. Some go so far as to predict the collapse of the regime, you don't believe it?
TODD - No, at the beginning there seems to have been, in Russia, a hesitation, the feeling of having been
abused, of not having been warned. But now, the Russians are settled in the war, and Putin benefits from something we have no idea about, which is that the years 2000, the Putin years, were for the Russians the years of return to balance, of a return to normal life. I think that Macron will represent the opposite for the French unpredictable and dangerous world, a return to fear. The 1990s were a period of unprecedented suffering for Russia. The 2000s were a return to normalcy, and not only in terms of living standards: we saw the suicide and homicide rates plummet, and above all, my favourite indicator, the infant mortality rate, plummeted and even fell below the American rate.
In the minds of Russians, Putin embodies (in the strong, christic sense), this stability. And,
fundamentally, ordinary Russians believe, like their president, that they are fighting a defensive war. They are aware that they made mistakes at the beginning, but their good economic preparation has increased their confidence, not in the face of Ukraine (the resistance of the Ukrainians is interpretable for them, they are brave like Russians, never would Westerners fight so well!), but against what they call "the collective West", or "the United States and its vassals". The priority of the Russian regime is not the military victory on the ground, but not to lose the social stability acquired in the last 20 years.
Therefore, they are waging this war "for the sake of economy", especially an economy of men. Because
Russia still has a demographic problem, with a fertility rate of 1.5 children per woman. In five years, they will have empty age groups. In my opinion, they must win the war in 5 years, or lose it. A normal duration for a world war. So they're fighting this war on the economy, rebuilding a partial war economy, but wanting to preserve the men. This is the meaning of the withdrawal from Kherson, after those from Kharkiv and Kiev regions. We count the square kilometers taken over by the Ukrainians, but the Russians are waiting for the fall of the European economies. We are their main front. Of course, I could be wrong, but I live with the notion that the Russians' behavior is readable because they are rational and tough. The unknowns are elsewhere.
FIGARO - You explain that the Russians perceive this conflict as "a defensive war", but no one has tried to invade Russia, and today, because of the war, NATO has never had so much influence in the East with the Baltic countries who want to join it.
TODD - To answer your question, I propose a psycho-geographical exercise, which can be done by which can be done by zooming out. If we look at the map of Ukraine, we see the entry of Russian troops from the North, the East, the South... And there, indeed, we have the vision of a Russian invasion, there is no other word. But if we zoom out back, towards a perception of the world, let's say up to Washington, we see that the NATO's guns and missiles are converging on the battlefield from far away, a movement of weapons that had begun before the war. Bakhmout is 8400 kilometers from Washington but 130 kilometers from the Russian border. A simple reading of the world map allows, I think, to consider the hypothesis that "Yes, from the Russian point of view, this must be a defensive war."
When we look at the UN votes, we see that 75% of the world does not follow the West, which then seems very small. We can then see that this conflict, described by our media as a conflict of political values, is not a war, is at a deeper level a conflict of a deeper level, a conflict of anthropological values.
FIGARO - According to you, the Russians' entry into the war can also be explained by the relative decline
of the United States...
TODD - In After the Empire, published in 2002, I spoke of the long-term decline of the United States and the return of Russian power. Since 2002, America has been failures and retreats. The United States invaded Iraq, but left, leaving Iran a major player in the Middle East. It has fled Afghanistan. The satellisation of Ukraine by Europe and the United States did not represent an increase in Western dynamism but the exhaustion of a wave launched around 1990, relayed by the anti-Russian resentment of the Poles and the Balts. It is in this context of that the Russians took the decision to bring Ukraine to heel, because they felt that they finally had the technical means to do so.
I have just finished reading a book by S. Jaishankar, India's Minister of Foreign Affairs of India (The India Way), published just before the war, who sees the American weakness who knows that the confrontation between China and the United States will not produce a winner but will give space to a country like India, and to many others. I add: but not to the Europeans. Everywhere we see the weakening of the United States, but not in Europe and Japan, because one of the effects of the shrinking of the imperial system is that the United States is strengthening its hold on its original protectorates.
If one reads Brzeziński (The Grand Chessboard), one sees that the American empire was the end of the Second World War by the conquest of Germany and Japan, which are still protectorates today. As the American system system shrinks, it weighs more and more heavily on the local elites of the protectorates (and I include the whole of Europe here). The first to lose all national autonomy, will be (or already are) the English and the Australians. The Internet has produced in the Anglosphere a human interaction with the United States of such intensity that their academic, media and artistic elites are, so to speak, annexed. On the European continent we are somewhat protected by our national languages, but the fall of our autonomy is considerable, and rapid. Let us remember the Iraq war, when Chirac, Schröder and Putin held joint press conferences against the war
FIGARO - Many observers point out that Russia has the GDP of Spain. Don't you overestimate its economic power and its capacity to resist?
TODD - War becomes a test of political economy, it is the great revealer. The GDP of Russia and Belarus is 3.3% of the Western GDP (USA,Anglosphere, Europe, Japan, South Korea), practically nothing. One may wonder how this insignificant GDP can cope and continue to produce missiles. The reason is that GDP is a fictitious measure of production. If we half of its overpriced health care spending is removed from the US GDP, then the "wealth produced" by the activity of its lawyers, by the world's best-filled prisons, and then by a whole economy of ill-defined services including the "production" of its 15 to 20,000 economists at an average salary of $120,000, we realize that an important part of this GDP is water vapor. The war brings us back to the real economy, it allows us to understand what is the real wealth of nations, the capacity of production, and thus the capacity of war.
If we go back to material variables, we see the Russian economy. In 2014, we put in place the first major sanctions against Russia, but it then increases its wheat production from 40 to 90 million tons in 2020. While, thanks to neoliberalism, US wheat production between 1980 and 2020, has fallen from 80 to 40 million tons. Russia has also become the largest exporter of nuclear power plants. In 2007, the Americans explained that their strategic adversary was in such a state of nuclear decay that
soon the United States would have a first-strike capability over a Russia that could not respond. Today, the Russians have nuclear superiority with their hypersonic missiles.
So Russia has a real capacity to adapt. When we want to make fun of centralized economies, we emphasize their rigidity, and when we praise capitalism, we praise its flexibility. This is true. For an economy to be flexible, you need market, financial and monetary mechanisms.
But first of all, you need a working population that knows how to do things. The United States is now more than twice as populated as Russia (2.2 times in the student age groups). The fact remains that with comparable cohort proportions of of young people in higher education, in the United States, 7% are studying engineering, while in Russia it is 25%. This means that with 2.2 times less people studying people studying, the Russians are producing 30% more engineers. The United States fills the gap with foreign students, but they are mainly Indian and even more Chinese. This substitute resource is not safe and is already diminishing. This is the fundamental dilemma of the American economy: it can only compete with China by importing Chinese skilled labor. I propose the concept of economic equilibrium. The Russian economy, on the other hand, has accepted the rules of the market (it is even Putin's obsession to preserve them), but with a very large role for the state. its flexibility from the training of engineers who allow industrial and military adaptations.
Many observers think, on the contrary, that Vladimir Putin has benefited from the rent of raw materials without having known how to develop its economy... If this were the case, this war would not have taken place. One of the most important things in this conflict, and which makes it so uncertain, is that it poses (like any modern war), the question of the balance between advanced technologies and mass production. There is no doubt that the United States has some of the most advanced military technologies, which have sometimes been decisive for Ukrainian military success.
But when you get into the long term, into a war of attrition, not only on the human resources side but also material resources, the ability to continue depends on the on the production of less high-end weapons. And we find, the question of globalization and the fundamental problem of the Westerners: we have delocalized such a large proportion of our industrial activities that we do not know if our war production can keep up. The problem is admitted. CNN, the New York Times and the Pentagon are wondering if America will be able to restart production lines for this or that type of missile. But it is not clear whether the Russians can keep up with the pace of such a conflict. The outcome and the solution of the war will depend on the ability of both systems to produce
weapons.
FIGARO - According to you, this war is not only military and economic, but also
ideological and cultural...
TODD - I am speaking here mainly as an anthropologist. In Russia, there were denser, communal family structures, community structures, some of whose values have survived. There is a patriotic feeling that is something we have no idea of here, nourished by the subconscious of a a family nation. Russia had a patrilineal family organization, that is, in which men are central, and it cannot to all the Western neo-feminist, LGBT, transgender innovations...
When we see the Russian Duma vote an even more repressive legislation on "LGBT propaganda", we feel superior. I can feel this as an ordinary Westerner. But from a geopolitical point of view, if we think in terms of soft power, it is a mistake. On 75% of the planet, the organization was patrilineal and one can feel a strong understanding of Russian attitudes. For the collective non-West, Russia asserts a moral conservatism that is reassuring. Latin America, however, is on the Western side here.
When one does geopolitics, one is interested in multiple domains: energy, military power relations, arms production (which refers to industrial power relations). But there is also the ideological and cultural balance of power, what the Americans call the power, communism, which influenced a part of Italy, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Serbs, the French workers... But communism was basically antethetical to the whole Muslim world with its atheism and inspired nothing in particular in India, except for West Bengal and Kerala. Now, however, the Russia as it has repositioned itself as the archetypal great power, not only anti-colonialist, but also patrilineal and conservative of traditional mores, can appeal much further afield. Americans feel betrayed by Saudi Arabia, which refuses to increase its oil production, despite the energy crisis caused by the war, and is in fact siding with the Russians: partly, of course, out of oil interests.
But it is obvious that Putin's Russia morally conservative, has become sympathetic to the Saudis, of whom I am sure are having a bit of trouble with the American debates on transgender women (defined as male at conception) to the ladies' room.
The Western newspapers are tragically amusing, they keep saying: "Russia is isolated, Russia is
Russia is isolated, Russia is isolated". But when you look at the UN votes, you see that 75% of the world does not follow the West, which then seems very small. If you are an anthropologist, you can explain the map of countries classified as having a good level of democracy by The Economist (namely
the Anglosphere, Europe...) on the other hand, authoritarian countries, which stretch from Africa
to China, through the Arab world and Russia. For an anthropologist, this is a banal map. On the "Western" periphery are countries with a nuclear family structure with bilateral kinship systems, i.e. where male and female relatives are equivalent in defining the social status of the child. And in the center, with the bulk of the Afro-Eurasian mass, we find the community and patrilineal family organizations. We see then that conflict, described by our media as a conflict of political values, is at a deeper level a conflict of anthropological values. It is this unawareness and this depth that makes the confrontation dangerous.
