Editor’s Note: I suspect because he is a rare adult voice for peace. In other words, he understands diplomacy. [Don]

Here’s a brief excerpt from Professor Sachs’ interview (“EU Panics as Peace Breaks Out“) with political scientist Glenn Diesen:

JEFFREY SACHS: “In our previous discussions I mentioned a bizarre occasion that I had with the G20 when it was hosted by Indonesia and the foreign ministers met in Bali. I was invited to speak to them by video, so I was on a Zoom call with the foreign ministers of the G20. What was shocking to me was the European and American foreign ministers would not speak to the Russian foreign minister, who was in the room. The whole idea was to show — like high school kids — “we’re in a clique, we’re not even talking to you. You don’t belong to our clique.”  It was so immature. I was stunned. I could speak to them, but they wouldn’t talk with each other, even though they were physically in a room together. The idea was, don’t shake hands, don’t be in a common picture, don’t have a discussion with each other. So this became a norm. 

“And Europe has at least a thousand years — you could argue 2,000 years — of diplomatic experience, inventing a lot of what we call diplomacy. They should know to talk with each other. They should understand … the prime minister of Denmark should understand that Russia’s going to be there tomorrow. It’s going to be there next year. It’s going to be there in 10 years. Are you kidding … to talk this way? So this is — I think — a collapse of basic processes. Essentially my guess has been … because they farmed everything out to the United States. Which also by the way wasn’t true for even the decades of uh the 1980s, 90s and the first years of the 2000s. 

“We should recall that when the United States pursued its absolutely destructive, illegal and idiotic war in Iraq in 2003 many major European powers were against it. When the US pushed for NATO enlargement in 2008 I spoke with European leaders who said to me “What is your president doing? Why is he doing this? This is destructive.” But from my experience all European foreign policy collapsed in 2008. After that it was only … follow the US lead. And I’m hoping I’m counting on some kind of revival of this. It’s interesting. In the last few days Europe has shown glimmers of a European voice, not constructive glimmers, by the way. It’s been more … “We oppose the US, they want peace, we want war.” But at least it’s a European position. I’m going to count that as a modest step forward, that at least Europe is talking like Europe now.”

Here’s Professor Sachs’ recent eloquent speech to the European Parliament:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA9qmOIUYJA