Latest / Gunther Fehlinger Podcast / Dr. K (Dr. Kari Odermann) on Algorithms, War, and Who Controls the Narrative |X - Starlink - Ukraine

Transcript

Dr. K (Dr. Kari Odermann) on Algorithms, War, and Who Controls the Narrative |X - Starlink - Ukraine · Gunther Fehlinger Podcast

• 0:02
  Good evening everybody. This is Gunta Filinga speaking
• 0:05
  here from the Gunta Filinga podcast.
• 0:07
  Again, in this exciting times when the strike against Iran has
• 0:10
  started and Ayatollah Khomeini has been killed, we are
• 0:14
  discussing global politics here at the Gunta Filinga show.
• 0:17
  The show, thanks to you all is doing very well because we are
• 0:20
  developing here with 147,000 K on X and also with new soon
• 0:26
  hopefully 17,000 on YouTube and 30 2000 on Instagram.
• 0:32
  But today I have a even more famous guest here and I'm very
• 0:35
  honored, Dr. Carrie Oderman, expert on political affairs and
• 0:40
  one of the big explainers about global politics and the
• 0:44
  political science on Instagram and TikTok.
• 0:48
  And she is referred to as Doctor Ki, call her Carrie.
• 0:53
  But maybe Doctor K is the best typeline.
• 0:55
  I heard on your Instagram that you refer to yourself as like
• 0:59
  this. And I would like to welcome you
• 1:01
  very much and please introduce yourself, Doctor K.
• 1:04
  And we are looking forward for our debate this evening.
• 1:07
  Welcome. Thanks a lot, Gunter, it's good
• 1:10
  to be on your show. I appreciate the invitation and
• 1:12
  Gunter, we've known each other for a while.
• 1:14
  You can stick to Kerry. I'm absolutely fine.
• 1:18
  Doctor K well, doctor K is the brand I've developed on social
• 1:22
  media because back when I began making TikTok so gosh 2020, I
• 1:29
  realized that there was anyone taking up the space to give
• 1:32
  people fact based information on these platforms that are made
• 1:36
  for entertainment. So I put my elbows out and I
• 1:40
  started making content, and that's what I do.
• 1:43
  I am a political scientist, though, and much like you, I've
• 1:48
  spent a lot of time in Ukraine. So that's a topic that's near
• 1:51
  and dear to my heart. And right now, I'm spending a
• 1:54
  lot of my time as a consultant helping NGOs, ministries,
• 1:59
  Internet. Now governments try to figure
• 2:01
  out how they can use social media to build trust and
• 2:06
  legitimacy and also to keep people safe, right?
• 2:09
  Because in Europe, we need to talk about things like civil
• 2:13
  preparedness. And every country and every
• 2:15
  culture has a different way of picking up on, like, the nuances
• 2:19
  of information. And this is where social media
• 2:22
  is going to be really important too.
• 2:25
  Absolutely. I understand this is one part of
• 2:27
  your expertise, the social media and also the whole issues about
• 2:30
  content, safety and freedom of speech and our relation with
• 2:35
  Elon Musk. Oh yeah, and we're on Twitter
• 2:38
  right now, right? We're live on Twitter.
• 2:41
  Yes, I just posted live on Twitter.
• 2:43
  That's what I do here. And then everybody who is on my
• 2:45
  Twitter feed can see it live. Hello everybody.
• 2:48
  Guys, we are here with Doctor K Estar from Instagram.
• 2:53
  You know, and I am also on Twitter going to but nowhere as
• 2:57
  large as you are and the. Yeah, and I will take you later
• 3:02
  because I actually have the same motivation in 2020.
• 3:05
  It's very interesting because I saw my children a lot of content
• 3:09
  which was pro Serbian, pro Russian and a lot of crazy
• 3:14
  things, conspiracy stuff. And it motivated me to be then
• 3:18
  active on YouTube and Twitter and somehow tell the the facts
• 3:23
  as an economist and as a lifelong political activist, how
• 3:27
  I see the world. And that's why I developed my
• 3:29
  accounts. And I wanna give the positive
• 3:32
  but correct message about our Western institutions and what we
• 3:37
  do. And this is my motivation as
• 3:39
  well. Yeah, You see, go to.
• 3:40
  We've got a lot in common. It's really not easy, especially
• 3:44
  and you, you and I both have kids that are in that age where
• 3:49
  they spent a lot of time online. And when you look over their
• 3:52
  shoulder at their devices and see what they're looking at,
• 3:56
  it's shocking. But, you know, you're an
• 3:58
  economist, I'm a political scientist.
• 4:00
  You and I also have a double problem.
• 4:02
  And since it's just the two of us, maybe I can talk to you
• 4:05
  about this. There's one thing of putting
• 4:08
  things out there on social media and there's another thing about
• 4:10
  having a professional in depth conversation.
• 4:14
  And, and, and it's, it's two different types of messaging.
• 4:18
  And I, I personally struggle a little bit with some of the ways
• 4:22
  I have to explain things, not because complexity makes someone
• 4:26
  somehow better or smarter. I believe just the opposite.
• 4:30
  It's just that sometimes you have to look at the lowest
• 4:33
  common denominator when you communicate.
• 4:35
  And that's hard for a lot of academics.
• 4:38
  And it's also hard as an academic to maybe, you know,
• 4:42
  turn down the volume to maybe an eighth grade level of English
• 4:45
  for people. But I have found that I am much
• 4:49
  more effective in communicating ideas where I can pick up people
• 4:53
  where they are then having research trapped in APDF
• 4:57
  somewhere, right? Look, when you write some report
• 5:00
  and it's nowhere to be read and only a little bit of a niche
• 5:04
  audience is discussing, and on the other hand you have Elon
• 5:07
  Musk with an account of 220 million followers who share some
• 5:12
  extreme right wing or absolutely hate against Europe on his
• 5:16
  account. And then we have to fight back.
• 5:19
  I think we have to tell the truth and even when our accounts
• 5:22
  have just 100,000 and not many millions, it's the only way to
• 5:26
  really defend our values and our systems.
• 5:30
  I think that being on the app, you know, before we went live,
• 5:33
  you were talking about how you're kind of working across
• 5:36
  different platforms, and I think that's so important.
• 5:40
  Just recently I was in a discussion with the That's the
• 5:44
  song I'm name dropping here, Svetlana Tikhonovskaya I was
• 5:47
  lucky enough to be in a panel with.
• 5:49
  Her of Belarus, the opposition leader who is now in exile, and
• 5:54
  she's fighting against the tyrant of Lukashenko, who, by
• 5:57
  the way, should fall next, hopefully, because we are now in
• 6:01
  a year where the dictators will fall and it would be wonderful
• 6:04
  to have democracy in Belarus. I think the people of Don Bruce
• 6:09
  would really, really like that too.
• 6:11
  And, you know, they've been using the Internet to try to
• 6:15
  organize things. And, you know, we, we talk about
• 6:17
  how Tikhonovskaya is a dissident leader, but you know, they use
• 6:21
  social media to do exit polls to validate the fact that she
• 6:24
  actually won the election, right?
• 6:27
  The problem is YouTube and and Meta and and Google because they
• 6:34
  are obligated to follow the laws of the land in Belarus.
• 6:39
  A lot of Tikanoskaya's content is is not visible at all.
• 6:45
  And this was a conversation that we had had in general about how
• 6:52
  people in control of platforms can control so much.
• 6:56
  And, you know, we know how the EUI don't know what it was.
• 6:59
  Was it in December when Elon Musk was fined by the EU for not
• 7:04
  being transparent about how his platform and algorithms work and
• 7:10
  going to adjust? At the last couple 10 days,
• 7:14
  there's been a major peer reviewed article or piece of
• 7:18
  research that came out that actually proves that Twitter's
• 7:21
  art algorithm did in 2023 cause some people to embrace more
• 7:28
  conservative views. And I mean, it's research from
• 7:31
  2023, but it was so heavily scrutinized and peer reviewed
• 7:36
  because the researchers thought it was so important.
• 7:38
  It just came out from nature and now I'm I'm looking towards
• 7:45
  Hungary, I'm looking towards that upcoming election.
• 7:48
  What is it now on April 26th where Viktor Orban is running
• 7:55
  again? And it looks like a close race,
• 7:59
  but if platforms can just push people a couple percentages one
• 8:03
  way or another. Now, yeah, it's a very tight
• 8:08
  race, but I think Peter Mackay is now significantly ahead in
• 8:11
  the opinion polls. But you can be sure that Orban,
• 8:15
  with his help of American tech pros and Elon Musk, will do
• 8:19
  everything to manipulate the situation.
• 8:22
  And we have not won yet. You're familiar with C PAC,
• 8:26
  right? The conservative Republican,
• 8:29
  they're having AC PAC in a couple weeks in Hungary, too,
• 8:32
  for the fifth year in a row. So, gosh, I think back to what
• 8:37
  JD Vance said at the Munich Security Conference in 2025
• 8:40
  about freedom of speech and not influencing people's elections.
• 8:44
  And then you have the United States holding C PACs in
• 8:48
  Hungary. You have these Trump standing in
• 8:52
  100% behind Viktor Orban. It kind of it is disappointing
• 8:57
  when people don't hold themselves the same standard
• 9:00
  they hold others. You were also at the Munich
• 9:03
  Security Conference this year. Yeah, this year, this year was a
• 9:06
  lot quieter than last year. It seemed on the, on the first
• 9:10
  day of the conference, everyone was kind of like waiting for the
• 9:12
  other shoe to drop like it had in 2025.
• 9:16
  And that that wasn't the case really, You know, with, with my
• 9:23
  close connection to Ukraine, it, it's hard for me not to lose my
• 9:26
  patience a little bit with the European Union.
• 9:28
  And what do we know on our 20th round of sanctions.
• 9:32
  And I, I felt like things could be going a lot faster for a
• 9:38
  very, very long time. And, you know, hindsight's
• 9:42
  always 20/20, though. We're finding new things out
• 9:45
  every day. It was just in the news that
• 9:49
  what was it an employee from the German far right party, the Afd
• 9:56
  apparently had a German Russian passport and he was responsible
• 10:00
  for slowing down the delivery of of the the Leo tanks.
• 10:04
  And you know, and I have to say I read that on Twitter, right.
• 10:07
  So I, I have not confirmed, you know, Fact Check that and Munich
• 10:15
  this year. I don't want to say it was
• 10:17
  anticlimactic. I want to say that there's a
• 10:19
  going to be a real, I don't want to say there's going to be a
• 10:22
  real reframing because it sounds like it's going to take a long
• 10:24
  time. The reframing's already started
• 10:27
  happening. But where people are going to
• 10:29
  have to start putting priorities is going to be more at looking
• 10:32
  for common denominators. I'm really looking at things
• 10:36
  like EU's relationship with Turkey because, you know, there
• 10:40
  were, there were, there was also kind of always dangling EU
• 10:44
  membership in front of Turkey and then trying to use that as
• 10:48
  leverage to change some of their activities based on human rights
• 10:53
  and things like that. And, you know, Turkey is going
• 10:55
  to have immense new meaning now because of where it sits,
• 11:01
  because of its military strength, ability to produce
• 11:05
  things like that, 155mm shells and things like that.
• 11:09
  The fact that it's in NATO, the fact that it's going to be a
• 11:12
  major point where pipelines are going to have to start running
• 11:15
  through. I mean, do we need another
• 11:17
  situation now that the Strait of Hormuz is going to maybe be a
• 11:20
  choke point again? If we now that Syria's calm
• 11:23
  down, we could have, you know, pipelines running through Syria,
• 11:27
  then through Turkey, bringing not Russian gas to the EU,
• 11:33
  right? So Doctor K, let me ask you, are
• 11:37
  you in favor of Turkey joining the European Union in the new
• 11:40
  light of circumstances in the fifth year of the Russian war
• 11:43
  against Ukraine? Turkey not having joined the
• 11:46
  sanctions, not closed the airspace and having been somehow
• 11:50
  helpful in for Ukraine with the Bayakta drones in the beginning,
• 11:54
  but somehow not so helpful for Ukraine in other aspects.
• 11:58
  So it's a little bit of a mixed picture.
• 12:01
  Should we reward Turkey now after this performance or should
• 12:05
  we wait for a time after Adagon? I don't think it's a question of
• 12:11
  rewarding or necessity. I think really using an old
• 12:18
  framework for a new time isn't going to work.
• 12:20
  I think we need to find the common denominators, I think.
• 12:26
  I think it is always been a real luxury to be able to hold people
• 12:32
  to a a high standard. But times have changed and we
• 12:38
  have to look at everything from a security aspect.
• 12:40
  And when you look at things from the security aspect, you have to
• 12:45
  look at immigration differently. You have to look at a lot of
• 12:50
  things differently. And it's hard.
• 12:53
  It's hard. There's cognitive dissonance to
• 12:56
  to readjust. And I'm not saying looking at
• 12:59
  those things with liberal, liberal, Liberal Democratic
• 13:04
  framing was bad. I'm just saying that we have to
• 13:07
  be realistic now and. Doctor K, the shift is now the
• 13:13
  security and the strategic must be first for the consideration
• 13:17
  of European Union. And therefore, it's much more
• 13:20
  important to integrate Turkey closer and faster because we
• 13:25
  need it as a strategic ally in Southeast Asia and.
• 13:30
  I see a trend of more regional cooperation, right?
• 13:37
  The question is do should Turkey join the EU?
• 13:40
  Does Turkey, does Turkey need to join the EU anymore?
• 13:44
  And is Turkey even going to pursue that?
• 13:48
  Turkey, everyone has said. Yes, he wants it.
• 13:52
  He has pushed last week very hard for it.
• 13:55
  OK, So I, I don't, I don't, I haven't followed those
• 13:57
  developments very much. So this is just kind of me
• 13:59
  talking out of my back pocket. I'm, I'm looking at more things
• 14:05
  in terms of like regional cooperation.
• 14:08
  I I was recently sitting around a table with a bunch of people
• 14:10
  from the Black Sea and they, they were talking about turning
• 14:14
  that into something more of like a lake NATO and to do that.
• 14:18
  Good Doctor K, this is what I say is in 10 years and Putin
• 14:23
  hates it. Putin always said he will not
• 14:26
  allow NATO to turn the Black Sea into a NATO lake.
• 14:29
  And here we are with Doctor K and she's promoting the the same
• 14:32
  concept. I like it.
• 14:35
  One question about Ukraine's EU membership, because I'm think
• 14:41
  you're from Germany. I'm correct.
• 14:43
  Yeah. So Germany is the big power.
• 14:45
  And the question, of course, is now on the table.
• 14:47
  Will Ukraine join the European Union or not?
• 14:51
  And we are waiting for the big answers from the chancellor in
• 14:54
  Munich. He was so, so avoiding it a bit,
• 14:58
  but Ken, as the Commission has proposed Ukraine fast track into
• 15:03
  the European Union as part of a peace settlement.
• 15:07
  Well, I, I would have loved to have seen Ukraine join the EUA
• 15:11
  long time ago. And they're still, despite the
• 15:13
  war, making big steps. Now, I don't know if you're
• 15:16
  catching this in the background, but I'm sitting here in my
• 15:18
  office, but my printer is shared with my entire family and
• 15:21
  apparently someone's printing out homework right now.
• 15:23
  So I'm sorry if you're hearing I'm going to have somebody come
• 15:27
  in in a minute too and be like, oh, where's my homework?
• 15:29
  But no, come on, I this. Is the life of a family mum.
• 15:35
  Yeah, it's not a question if they should or not.
• 15:41
  It really isn't. There's always going to be the
• 15:44
  narratives about how, you know, they're too corrupt to join the
• 15:47
  EU or that, you know, we, we, we've heard all all the reasons
• 15:51
  why. But I think they have really
• 15:55
  proved that they deserved to be in the EU and it's finally being
• 16:03
  realized. That's good.
• 17:00
  Welcome, Ben. This was very patiently done
• 17:14
  back then. We have a history of appeasement
• 17:45
  and of slow decision making in the European Union, which in
• 17:48
  this dramatic times it's kind of a burden for the Europeans
• 17:52
  because every month, every week actually, something big is
• 17:55
  happening and we are always waiting, seeing, coordinating
• 18:01
  and waiting until the decisions are taken by others.
• 20:03
  It is, you know when you say on Monday and world affairs and
• 20:07
  history is made from Saturday until Monday morning and the
• 20:10
  Europeans are missing in action while America is shaping world
• 20:17
  affairs. It is not very convincing
• 20:20
  performance ultimately. But he has sampled half of his
• 20:58
  Navy already in the Persian Gulf for four weeks.
• 21:01
  So, you know, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to assume
• 21:05
  that there will be military action.
• 21:08
  It was quite foreseeable. And then to be surprised and
• 21:12
  then to run like chickens around is not very convincing.
• 21:15
  I think so at least. There's one on the 8th of
• 21:38
  January when the big massacre happened, 30,000 people killed
• 21:42
  in the streets of the many Iranian cities by the Ayatollah
• 21:47
  and he should have maybe acted by then.
• 23:27
  So what's your expectation? He will continue his military
• 23:30
  campaign or he will basically be satisfied with the decapitation
• 23:35
  and let things slip and slide again.
• 25:29
  Yeah, still, I was surprised how effective it is in the 1st,
• 25:33
  25th, 28 hours, 48 hours to have such a impact and so good
• 25:39
  intelligence, exactly where the Ayatollah Khamenei is based.
• 25:43
  And much of his Security Council has been eliminated in the first
• 25:48
  days of the strike. But let me ask you as well about
• 25:52
  the role of Reza Pahlavi. What's the political scientist?
• 25:56
  It's not so happening so often, the restoration of a monarchy.
• 26:00
  Do you think that's an option? Because there is a lot of
• 26:03
  resistance to that also in the European left.
• 26:06
  But there's huge demands for the restoration of Reza Baklavi in
• 26:11
  the Iranian diaspora in Europe. And it's, it's a political very,
• 26:16
  from a scientific point of view, I think rarely in history.
• 26:20
  It has happened in Spain for example.
• 26:23
  It did and there was discussions in some Eastern European
• 26:26
  countries and but do you think that even is an option or do you
• 26:30
  think that is basically a non starter from the day one?
• 28:35
  So let's see, he's not said that he
• 28:49
  wants to be the king. It's basically the idea to lead
• 28:51
  the transition government and then to make the decisions for
• 28:54
  the constitutional form. But as I see it is basically the
• 28:58
  only crystallising figure with millions of support, at least I
• 29:03
  think inside and outside of Iran at the moment.
• 29:06
  Given the celebration after their death and then the end of
• 29:09
  Khamenei, I think he will be having a big role to play.
• 29:14
  But we will see that in the future.
• 31:09
  Let's talk about Ukraine. Four years now.
• 31:11
  The war is raging and there was now the anniversary, the tragic
• 31:15
  anniversary of four years since the full scale inversion
• 31:18
  invasion has started. How do you see the prospect of a
• 31:22
  peace settlement now on the ongoing negotiations?
• 31:27
  And what's your expectations for 2026?
• 31:30
  Will the war go on or is there a realistic chance for a peace
• 31:34
  settlement? I've been in 2025 in March in
• 34:34
  Liverpool, only by bus from Vienna and that one of the
• 34:40
  funeral sites of 800 Ukrainian soldiers.
• 34:44
  It was very moving. And also I've been at the
• 34:47
  Superhumans Rehabilitation Centre.
• 34:50
  So definitely I saw some of the pain, but I saw also a lot of
• 34:55
  courage and a lot of determinations for victory.
• 34:58
  And I guess the recent events where the new Minister of
• 35:02
  Defence, Mr. Fedorov has somewhat convinced Stalink and
• 35:08
  Elon Musk to take Russia off the Stalink system and resulting 400
• 35:14
  kilometres, square kilometres of land regained and re liberated
• 35:19
  by Ukraine has shown that Ukraine is basically on the
• 35:22
  winning side. And once the international
• 35:25
  system shifts back to Ukraine and the American support is
• 35:28
  there and then Ukraine can liberate as well.
• 35:31
  Crimea, which I'm optimistically this is happening after Elon
• 35:35
  Musk has basically given the technology lead towards Ukraine.
• 35:41
  How you see, Because I see in your research you are working
• 35:43
  very much on this whole issues of digital cooperation between
• 35:48
  Europe and the US. And about Elon Musk's policy, we
• 35:51
  discussed it in the beginning already.
• 35:53
  How do you see the shift of Elon Musk?
• 35:55
  Will he be more pro Ukrainian in the coming weeks?
• 36:00
  Will he be more pro European or will he continue his completely
• 36:05
  crazy sharing of extremist content with his mega account?
• 36:11
  How you assess his next steps now in March 2026.
• 37:15
  We had the chance, the Ukrainians had the chance to
• 37:18
  basically take 20,000 Russian soldiers as prisoners and maybe
• 37:23
  also to move towards Crimea. But Musk and others have
• 37:27
  basically cancelled that opportunity with their
• 37:30
  decisions. That was close to high treason.
• 39:14
  It is really difficult to see that Elon Musk, with all his
• 39:17
  complicated personality via Starlink and X is controlling
• 39:21
  the information access and also the public opinion.
• 39:25
  He has massive influence globally and unfortunately he
• 39:30
  has many flaws in his decision making and his assessment.
• 41:21
  So it's Americans who have to update the law for the 2020
• 41:25
  reality. It was justified to find him, I
• 44:39
  guess. I can tell you from my own
• 45:21
  experience on Twitter, because I have this 147,000 case and when
• 45:25
  Epstein file was, this was in the 34th January, Epstein was
• 45:30
  disclosed and I had 3 million views on Twitter.
• 45:34
  And then it was within the next two days it reduced to 300,000
• 45:39
  views on Twitter because I think he had artificially downgraded
• 45:44
  the reach of all users on Twitter.
• 45:47
  That's I think the policy not only against me, but it's
• 45:50
  otherwise no explanation why you have one day 3 million views and
• 45:54
  otherwise 300,000 the next days. Yeah, there's no logical because
• 45:57
  I did the same activity and the same topics and the same tweets.
• 46:00
  Yeah. And so it was no other weight
• 46:02
  and he is manipulating the reach.
• 46:05
  And additionally now the last two days when the Iran war
• 46:09
  started, he had basically the biggest days on Twitter ever.
• 46:14
  So he has enormous information power behind him, but he is not
• 46:19
  ready to share the revenues beside that's another point.
• 46:23
  But when I for example now was by some common, commonest, they
• 46:26
  published my telephone number just today in order to whatever
• 46:31
  punish me and it's called toxing.
• 46:33
  They have done that. Then we made a complaint towards
• 46:36
  him and we made actually 4 complaints about everybody.
• 46:40
  And he said or his algorithm or his service team said that this
• 46:44
  is all totally OK according to his platform and it's not a
• 46:48
  valid complaint. So he is investing nothing in
• 46:52
  decency in his platform while he makes a lot of money.
• 46:55
  And he abuses his control of information and information
• 46:59
  reach completely for his own specific political purposes in
• 47:04
  America and Europe and everywhere else.
• 47:06
  And it's absolutely unacceptable what he's doing in my view.
• 47:10
  And I have called many times on Twitter already for the
• 47:13
  nationalization of X into a public fund.
• 47:18
  And it must be totally managed differently because it cannot be
• 47:23
  in the hand of one individual and his bisarities.
• 47:27
  And I personally think that the whole purchase of Twitter for
• 47:31
  €43 billion was already a very dodgy transaction which needs to
• 47:37
  be investigated again because it's all basically meant to
• 47:42
  manipulate global public opinion with the most important platform
• 47:46
  there is, which X today is, no doubt about it, but
• 47:51
  unfortunately manipulated by its owner.
• 48:09
  And what's the alternative? Leaving is not the option.
• 48:47
  Yes, this vacuum must be filled. By Doctor K By Doctor K Oliver,
• 49:02
  you asked me the big question. OK, You turn the tables of me.
• 49:05
  It's my lonely. Yeah, I know I will one day
• 49:10
  succeed, but it can take another 100 years or it goes a bit
• 49:14
  faster when the Austrians somehow see the light that we
• 49:18
  are really part of the West and ultimately we are depending on
• 49:23
  Germany on that one. Because the Chancellor has said
• 49:26
  in Munich at the conference you attended that he will turn the
• 49:29
  European Union in a defence alliance and we really like to
• 49:33
  stay into that European Union. So when you really get serious
• 49:38
  and turn the Article 42.7 into a more solid security guarantee,
• 49:43
  and then there is no space and no excuse anymore for the
• 49:46
  Austrians not to dump neutrality.
• 49:49
  And so the Germans, hopefully we'll do that and then we will
• 49:54
  dump neutrality and that will be the most happy man in Austria
• 49:58
  for that moment. And this is my plan.
• 50:01
  It's open here on the Internet. And ultimately, when we are no
• 50:04
  longer neutral, we can join as well NATO.
• 50:07
  So that's the logical way of events for the next three years,
• 50:10
  which I'm proposing here. As the chairman of the Austrian
• 50:13
  Committee for NATO Enlargement, this is my answer.
• 50:23
  I should never invite a political scientist who turns
• 50:26
  the table against me and interviews me on my podcast.
• 50:56
  Yes, yes, the NATO has officially
• 51:34
  distanced themselves from me, but I've never claimed to be a
• 51:37
  NATO official. Truth of the matter is I became
• 51:41
  relatively famous in the American media space, which I
• 51:44
  enjoyed actually very much. And truth of the matter is,
• 51:47
  don't touch the Greenland, Mr. Trump.
• 51:51
  And the bases are really very important.
• 51:54
  Carrie Doctor K as you know, when you see now the Iran
• 51:57
  liberation about all of the military equipment of America,
• 52:02
  which was coming from America had to land in the European
• 52:05
  bases in Germany, Rammstein, Aviano in Sofia, in Bulgaria and
• 52:10
  in Britain in many of that military centers.
• 52:13
  And so without the European basis is America could not be
• 52:18
  the global power it is and it has to be for the future.
• 52:21
  So I'm touched, I think a valid point whenever on the American
• 52:26
  media when they invited me to some shows, they said what
• 52:29
  exactly can Austria do to take us the basis because we just,
• 52:34
  I'm a neutral country and of course I don't represent the
• 52:37
  Austrian institution. So I'm actually very pro
• 52:40
  American personality and I don't want to attack anybody but
• 52:44
  Russia and Iran, of course. But nevertheless, I'm very much
• 52:48
  in favor of American European friendship and partnership.
• 52:53
  And I hope that after this whole thing turns out successfully in
• 53:00
  Iran and hopefully the liberation of Crimea, I think
• 53:03
  the whole mood between Europe and America should be much
• 53:07
  closer again, because we are like brothers and sisters over
• 53:11
  the Atlantic. Yeah.
• 55:17
  Look, everything will be decided now on the battlefield of Iran
• 55:21
  and the Americans will see that they will need the European
• 55:25
  allies. And everybody has to position
• 55:28
  himself wisely for the future now because if Iran will be
• 55:32
  liberated, Ukraine will be liberated as well, all of
• 55:36
  Ukraine, and we will be very victorious.
• 55:39
  And then I think our joint cooperation between America and
• 55:43
  Europe in victory will be very good.
• 55:46
  If we're losing, we will fight. Who is to blame?
• 55:51
  So much depends on the outcome of the two wars we are fighting
• 55:56
  at the moment. And I'm actually very much in
• 55:59
  favour of victory of our side. Yes, You know, it's very
• 56:19
  interconnected because we are basically one industrial fiscal
• 56:23
  system with the Americans, the Europeans, Ukraine.
• 56:26
  It's one side and it's the Iranians, the Chinese and the
• 56:30
  Russians on the other side. So of course, if we have managed
• 56:33
  to take the Iranians out of the equation this week, next week
• 56:38
  completely, it's a big, huge hit against the Russian, Chinese
• 56:43
  axis. And that makes a major impact
• 56:47
  fiscally, economically for our enemies.
• 56:50
  And if we win, then of course, the chances of the Ukrainians to
• 56:55
  liberate that territory increase massively.
• 56:58
  If there is some boldness on European sides, which this is of
• 57:02
  course doubtful, but normally the Ukrainians will take their
• 57:06
  liberation in their own hands and we at least will not be in
• 57:09
  the way because ultimately such big ideological conflicts are
• 57:13
  decided on the battlefield. And we have seen that offman
• 57:18
  history and we win or we lose. And I'm for winning.
• 57:47
  Security guarantees for Ukraine is very clear.
• 57:50
  This is about NATO membership. Ultimately Ukraine has to join
• 57:54
  NATO. This is the only way for peace,
• 57:57
  and it's very clear that it's in the European interest because
• 58:01
  having Ukraine only in the European Union without NATO
• 58:05
  membership would give the whole security burden to the
• 58:08
  Ukrainians, the Europeans without the Americans.
• 58:11
  And of course we want the Americans on board.
• 58:14
  And of course, we have to win this debate in America that
• 58:17
  Ukraine should be a member. And it ultimately will because
• 58:22
  once victorious, I think the Americans will welcome Ukraine
• 58:25
  as the eastern shield of the NATO alliance.
• 58:30
  And of course, the Europeans have to give a financial
• 58:32
  commitment for this big standing army in the east.
• 58:35
  This will be the compromise to be found later in the year 2026
• 58:41
  and 2027. Otherwise, the war will drag on
• 58:44
  for decades and nobody can want that.
• 59:05
  No, this is one of the game changing elements, Doctor K
• 59:08
  Carrie, because Mr. Mertz at the beginning of the mandate now in
• 59:12
  2025, he has made this huge decision for the massive
• 59:15
  spending expansion of the German debt, which is basically funding
• 59:20
  the logistical, industrial and fiscal victory or for Ukraine.
• 59:25
  And of course, these decisions which was very close and very
• 59:29
  hard to make and cost him also dearly in the electorate.
• 59:32
  But nevertheless, it was very wisely.
• 59:35
  And this decision will lead to victory because with this kind
• 59:38
  of resources, we can build the German and therefore also the
• 59:42
  Central European and the Ukrainian industrial military
• 59:46
  complex to such a dimension that we compete and ultimately also
• 59:51
  defeat Russia. So that's, I think, the logic of
• 59:54
  everything, because Russia doesn't have the fiscal
• 59:57
  resources to really wage this war on that dimension any
• 1:00:02
  longer. And so they are crumbling and we
• 1:00:05
  are rebuilding our whole military infrastructure.
• 1:00:09
  So Russia will lose this war. We are going to win.
• 1:00:12
  But of course we have to keep the public opinion on track for
• 1:00:15
  that. That's the big battle.
• 1:00:17
  This is our weakness. And this is important to
• 1:00:21
  convince the people that victory is possible, is on the way and
• 1:00:26
  will be coming. OK, good, let's do that.
• 1:01:00
  Sorry, cats or dogs, you ask me cats or dogs and I don't have
• 1:01:10
  any pets. So I'm not a cats man, not a
• 1:01:13
  dogs man. I'm I opt for 0 answer on that
• 1:01:17
  one. The best way to shoot down a
• 1:01:27
  drone is patriot. I love patriot.
• 1:01:33
  I'm a European patriot. I opt for patriot.
• 1:01:50
  I'm not big in football but my children love it very much so I
• 1:01:54
  hope for football. Carrie.
• 1:02:05
  Yes, I try. I try as much as I can,
• 1:02:07
  actually. Yeah, I can lift 100 kilograms.
• 1:02:10
  It's not as much as PIT headset. We can lift supposedly 140
• 1:02:15
  kilograms. Respect PIT but I'm on the 100
• 1:02:19
  and I can lift it once at least and I'm happy about it.
• 1:02:23
  And after this conversation I will go to the gym again and
• 1:02:27
  tweet some photos of myself on my ex account to prove it.
• 1:02:39
  It was very nice that you took time.
• 1:02:41
  May I close and recommend your Instagram account, your Tick
• 1:02:45
  Tock account and Doctor Kay? Kerry Oderman, political
• 1:02:49
  scientist, came to this podcast and interviewed me.
• 1:02:52
  Actually, that is always the case when you have a political
• 1:02:57
  science professor here at the podcast, you have to answer her
• 1:03:01
  question and that I did with pleasure.
• 1:03:03
  Thanks a lot, Carrie, Doctor K for coming to the show.
• 1:03:07
  All the best and thanks a lot for staying on the Gunter
• 1:03:11
  Filling a podcast. A good discussion and we touched
• 1:03:14
  many important issues and thanks a lot for this nice
• 1:03:17
  conversation. Good.