Jeffrey Sachs: The Geopolitics of Peace | Consortium News

[Scott75]

I've listened to parts of Jeffrey Sachs' speech to the European Union in the past and thought it was quite good. The full article can be seen here:

https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/jeffrey-sachs-the-geopolitics-of-peace/

For those who haven't heard of Jeffrey Sachs, here's the short bio that's at the end of the article:

**

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the U.N. Broadband Commission for Development.

**

This article is essentially his speech, with a few things that he referenced in his speech added in. He gave it on February 19, 2025. Quoting the introduction and conclusion of his speech:

**

This is an edited transcript of Professor Jeffrey Sachs’ speech in the European Parliament at an event titled “The Geopolitics of Peace,” hosted by former U.N. Assistant Secretary General and current BSW MEP Michael von der Schulenburg, on Feb. 19, 2025. The transcript has been edited for clarity and annotated. 

Thanks to all of you for the chance to be together and to think together. This is indeed a complicated and fast-changing time and a very dangerous one. So, we really need clarity of thought. I’m especially interested in our conversation, so I’ll try to be as succinct and clear as I can be.

I’ve watched the events very close-up in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine, very closely for the last 36 years. I was an adviser to the Polish government in 1989, to President Gorbachev’s economic team in 1990 and 1991, to President Yeltsin’s economic team in 1991 to 1993 and to President Kuchma’s economic team in Ukraine in 1993 to 1994.

I helped introduce the Estonian currency. I helped several countries in former Yugoslavia, especially Slovenia. After the Maidan, I was asked by the new government [in Ukraine] to come to Kyiv, and I was taken around the Maidan, and I learned a lot of things firsthand.

I’ve been in touch with Russian leaders for more than 30 years. I also know the American political leadership close-up. Our previous secretary of treasury, Janet Yellen, was my wonderful macroeconomics teacher 52 years ago. We have been friends for a half century.

I know these people. I say this because what I want to explain in my point of view is not second-hand. It’s not ideology. It’s what I’ve seen with my own eyes and experienced during this period. I want to share with you my understanding of the events that have befallen Europe in many contexts and I’ll include not only the Ukraine crisis, but also Serbia 1999, the wars in the Middle East, including Iraq, Syria, the wars in Africa, including Sudan, Somalia, Libya. These are to a very significant extent the result of deeply misguided U.S. policies. What I will say may well surprise you, but I speak from experience and knowledge of these events.

 

[snip]

 

Audience Member: Do you think the way out of this conflict is a Finlandization of Ukraine?

Jeffrey Sachs: Excellent question. Let me just report one aspect about Finlandization. Finlandization landed Finland No. 1 in the World Happiness Report year after year. Finland is rich, successful, happy, and secure. That’s pre-NATO Finland I’m discussing.

So “Finlandization” was a wonderful thing for Finland. When Sweden and Finland and Austria were neutral, bravo. Smart. When Ukraine was neutral, smart. If you have two superpowers, keep them apart a little bit. If the United States had any sense at all, it would have left these countries as the neutral space in between the U.S. military and Russia, but the U.S. has far too little sense. 

**

[August1991]

Unlike Jeffrey Sachs, I have always been pro-American. (IMHO, the best feature of you guys is your 10th Amendment.)

Anyway. Whatever.

Canada could not hope for a better neighbour. And, you Americans - Zelensky ocean threat - could not hope for a better neighbor.

 

 

 

 

[Scott75]

1 hour ago, August1991 said:

Unlike Jeffrey Sachs, I have always been pro-American. (IMHO, the best feature of you guys is your 10th Amendment.)

Anyway. Whatever.

Canada could not hope for a better neighbour. And, you Americans - Zelensky ocean threat - could not hope for a better neighbor.

I have to chuckle a bit here. I'm not American, I'm Canadian Mexican :-p. Secondly, what gives you the idea that Professor Sachs is not pro-American? Mr. Sachs is anti imperialist, not anti American. I'm not sure what you mean by "Zelensky ocean threat".

[August1991]

13 minutes ago, Scott75 said:

I have to chuckle a bit here. I'm not American, I'm Canadian Mexican :-p. Secondly, what gives you the idea that Professor Sachs is not pro-American? Mr. Sachs is anti imperialist, not anti American. I'm not sure what you mean by "Zelensky ocean threat".

My thoughts on Sachs? He's a typical American abroad who opposes his country.

Ocean threat? Let me be clear: Zelensky, in Jewish sarcastic fashion, tried to threaten America with Russian A-bombs. "You have a beautiful ocean." IOW, "You'll be next!"

Zelensky wanted America leverage to move Russia.

Trump would have nothing to do with this. He saw though it immediately.

 

[Scott75]

6 hours ago, August1991 said:

7 hours ago, Scott75 said:

...what gives you the idea that Professor Sachs is not pro-American? Mr. Sachs is anti imperialist, not anti American. I'm not sure what you mean by "Zelensky ocean threat".

My thoughts on Sachs? He's a typical American abroad who opposes his country.

I think you've confused Sachs' views of America's military industrial complex with his views on America itself. Sachs himself is deeply involved in trying to improve not just U.S. politics, but the world as a whole. Here's the introduction to his Wikipedia page:

**

Jeffrey David Sachs (/sæks/ SAKS; born November 5, 1954)^[4] is an American economist and public policy analyst who is a professor at Columbia University,^[5][6] where he was formerly director of The Earth Institute. He worked on the topics of sustainable development and economic development.^[7]

Sachs is director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.^[8] He is an SDG Advocate for United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 global goals adopted at a UN summit meeting in September 2015.^[9]

From 2001 to 2018, Sachs was special advisor to the UN Secretary General, and held the same position under the previous UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and prior to 2016 a similar advisory position related to the earlier Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),^[10] eight internationally sanctioned objectives to reduce extreme poverty, hunger and disease by 2015. In connection with the MDGs, he had first been appointed special adviser to the UN Secretary-General in 2002 during the term of Kofi Annan.^[10][11]

Sachs is co-founder and chief strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger. From 2002 to 2006, he was director of the United Nations Millennium Project's work on the MDGs. In 2010, he became a commissioner for the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, whose stated aim is to boost the importance of broadband internet in international policy.^[12] Sachs has written several books and received several awards. His views on economics, on the origin of COVID-19, and on the Russian invasion of Ukraine have garnered attention and some criticism.^[13][14]

**

He is someone who has had a very distinguished career and whose goals most would agree are to be aspired to. He recognizes the faults in his country and like any good patriot, he points them out in the hope that putting light on them will help get them fixed.

[Scott75]

6 hours ago, August1991 said:

Ocean threat? Let me be clear: Zelensky, in Jewish sarcastic fashion, tried to threaten America with Russian A-bombs. "You have a beautiful ocean." IOW, "You'll be next!"

So long as the United States respects Russia's interests, I sincerely doubt that'd happen. I think most people are aware that the U.S. and Russia are the 2 countries on earth that could end most if not all life on earth. Biden's green lighting the bombing of Russia was perhaps the dumbest thing he did in his entire tenure. Even Trump realized the idiocy of this move:

https://apnews.com/article/trump-putin-russia-ukraine-atacms-f3ca80252ea2812b6ab4f6844f7ecd23

I saw in the news just now some media reports that Trump is 'turning' on Russia, but I don't think that's true. He starts his social media post by actually pointing out something that media likes to ignore, which is that Ukraine is getting pounded, continues by talking about how he's considering sanctioning Russia more and ends by saying that Russia -and- Ukraine should come up with a peace deal. Saying that he's considering throwing a few more sanctions on Russia is hardly much of a threat at this point. I think his final comment is directed more towards Zelensky than to Russia, as it's Ukraine that he's stopped supplying with weapons and money last I checked. An article on the whole thing can be seen here:

https://www.wionews.com/world/russia-ukraine-war-us-president-donald-trump-warns-of-sanctions-tariffs-on-russia-until-ceasefire-is-reached-with-ukraine-8831867/

 

7 hours ago, August1991 said:

Zelensky wanted America leverage to move Russia.

Trump would have nothing to do with this. He saw though it immediately.

Agreed. Do you agree that Trump made the right choice?

[August1991]

On 3/7/2025 at 10:01 AM, Scott75 said:

I think you've confused Sachs' views of America's military industrial complex with his views on America itself.

...

I have never met Sachs in person.

I know his writings and several of his graduate students.

Sachs has an ego.

[Scott75]

20 hours ago, August1991 said:

I have never met Sachs in person.

I know his writings and several of his graduate students.

Sachs has an ego.

If you like, you can tell me how you came to that conclusion. From what I've seen of him, he seems like someone who has been right about a lot of things, especially in regards to the war in Ukraine, and so should certainly be confident in many of the things he says.