On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Prof. Charles Kupchan, National Security Council Director for European Affairs under US President Obama and President Clinton, and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In a heated exchange, Afshin Rattansi challenges him on the current massacres in Syria carried out by Ahmed Al-Sharaa/Al Jolani’s allies, the US’ role in supporting Al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria, the Maidan coup and his belief that it was a grassroots revolution, Tulsi Gabbard’s characterization of the proxy war as a campaign to destroy Russia and depose Vladimir Putin at the risk of World War III, his assertion that the West went out of its way to prevent the Ukraine proxy war from widening, the neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s military and the bombardment of the Donbass since 2014, his view that China, Iran, and North Korea being on Russia’s side is “not an impressive coalition,” the rise of BRICS and the shift of power to the East and Global South, whether the think tanks can understand the rise of a multipolar world, and much more.
