Fiona Hill On Putin's War And Populism

Fiona was an intel analyst under Bush and Obama, and then served under Trump as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council. Currently a senior fellow at Brookings and the chancellor of Durham University, her books include Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin and There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century — which we discussed on the Dishcast in 2022.

For two clips of our convo — on Russia’s imperial war, and a comparison of Putin and Trump — head to our YouTube page.

Other topics: Fiona’s recent long trip to northeast England; walking the length of Hadrian’s Wall; industrial decline; mass migration; how London is increasingly non-English; the brain drain from smaller places; the revival of nationalism; the fading left-right distinction; populism as a style; the Tory collapse and Reform’s rise; NATO; the Munich Security Conference and Vance; the Zelensky meeting at the White House; Soviet ideology; the Russian Empire; Putin’s psyops with social media; sending North Koreans into battle; the pipeline attacks; Ukraine’s innovative use of drones; the massive casualties of the attrition war; Russia’s resilient economy; the new corruption scandal in Ukraine; war profiteering; Putin’s attacks on civilians; his manipulation of Trump; ressentiment in the West; male resentment in the economy; white-collar job insecurity due to AI; the origins of the BBC and its current scandal; the NHS; the slowing US economy; MTG positioning herself as the real MAGA; revolutions eating their own; Epstein; the demolished East Wing; and what my latest DNA test revealed.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Mark Halperin on US politics, Michel Paradis on Eisenhower, Shadi Hamid on US power abroad, Jason Willick on trade and conservatism, Vivek Ramaswamy on the right, George Packer on his Orwell-inspired novel, and Arthur Brooks on the science of happiness. As always, please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

From a fan of last week’s pod with Cory Clark on sex differences:

Great Dishcast as always.

A quirk of contemporary psychology is that the supposedly outmoded term “neurotic” is still all but indistinguishable from the personality trait of neuroticism. Woody Allen-types now can be thought of as “persons high in neuroticism,” but the reasons for that characterisation — worry, catastrophising, excessive emotional reactivity, inability to mindfully enjoy the present moment, etc — haven’t changed much from the dustily Freudian in the ‘60s or ‘70s, when distinctions were drawn between neurotics who need therapy and psychotics who need Haldol.

Another writes:

Your conversation with Cory Clark was a very nice complement to the one you did with Cat Bohannon two years ago.

As you and Clark were discussing the various behavioral differences between the sexes, I did fall prey to an inclination that you were actually exploring differences between the — gasp — genders!

I am the father of a teenage natal boy who asserts a female identity. This reality has thrust me into the marquee parenting challenge of our time, and with it, an opportunity to study things I never thought I’d need to know. An important part of my education was initiated by your episode with Hannah Barnes. Her book, Time to Think, had marvelous insights and led me to additional research that resulted in my standing athwart a medical intervention that was barreling down the tracks. So we’re taking time to think — to experience puberty and to focus on addressing various pressing, non-gender-related challenges.

As you and Clark carried on about men and women, I was thinking about my child who, if I had to wager, is on track to become a gay man. That assessment is based on 14 years of Daddy’s Intuition. It is not an intuition shared by various medical professionals, school staff, or even my wife (fully, at least). It may be wrong, but I feel it in my bones.

I have a strong view on the pronoun debate, believing that pronouns belong to the speaker who chooses the words, not to the subject. One should choose words respectfully but honestly. So, given the uncertainties and preferences of the parties, I try not to use pronouns with respect to this child but, instead, use the name recently selected by my child. I find that to be a pragmatic and achievable approach.

For the purposes of my letter here, I’ll use “Pat” — which can work for either sex (a la Julia Sweeney on SNL). Pat has a lot of behaviors that you and Clark ascribed to women. My concern is that the stereotyping you employed — reflective of real bell curves though it may be — serves to narrow the acceptable ways in which Pat can be a boy. Pat already has many people reinforcing Pat’s own belief that Pat is a girl. The stereotyping of behaviors reinforces it further, making it harder for Pat to conceive of life as a boy with feminine interests and behaviors if evolution is telling us those behaviors is evidence Pat is a girl.

We’ve recently been binge-watching Derry Girls, one of Pat’s favorite shows. I’m struck by the way in which the relationships between the Derry Girls conform to Clark’s description of groups of boys rather than girls. Pat loves how the Derry Girls are constantly fighting with one another, creating mayhem and then making up in time for their next escapade. (Incidentally, the Sister Michael character is the nun you were looking for to whip little ones into line.) Is this more evidence that Pat is a boy? Or can Derry Girls be girls?

The key, it seems to me, is to grapple with what a bell curve tells you. It tells you that there are real group differences between men and women (and other groups) that we have to take into account in devising any sort of policy. But on an individual level, all of this is completely irrelevant. Of course there are boys who behave more stereotypically like girls than many girls, and vice-versa. The very bell curve that reveals the broad group difference also shows us that individual humans will always defeat the odds. I find this a wonderful part of being human. Others see it as some kind of threat to equality.

Here’s a dissent:

I just finished listening to the episode with Cory Clark on sex differences and was uncharacteristically disappointed with the discussion. I love your podcast and I’m always so delighted with your critical thinking and your ability to move your guests away from generalizing and toward more precise articulation of their ideas ... not this time, though. I was frustrated that a discussion that started out by referencing behavioral research about differences between men and women really didn’t go anywhere — and then wound up on grade inflation at Harvard and the usual complaints about DEI.

I’m a retired scientist and lived through the whole societal adjustment to women entering “male-dominated” professions. My own life experience is that people are capable of huge adaptations, and that when you teach people how to set aside gender stereotypes, the professions can transform themselves and thrive.

What I think would have been more interesting (and enlightening) to discuss are examples of how behavior has so radically changed as the sexes have crossed into each other’s territory. For example, I would love to learn about how the military has adapted its training for women — for both combat and non-combat roles; how they have trained men to accept female commanders; and how they have trained women to BE commanders. And then for men: how do they fare as they enter the “female” professions like nursing; how does their self-image change; and how do they earn trust from their patients who don’t expect a man in that role?

And if you really want to dig into fundamental biological differences between the sexes, I recommend you learn more about ongoing neuroscience research on the sexual differentiation of the brain. If you have not heard of her already, the work of Dr. Margaret McCarthy at the University of Maryland School of Medicine would be an excellent place to start.

As always, thank you for your work. I offer my comments knowing that you value a wide range of perspectives.

I do. And I take your point. There are always directions a conversation can go that, for some reason, never crop up. I try and get to most points but sometimes the flow takes you elsewhere. And the point about a podcast, in my opinion, is that it is all about flow. We do extremely minor edits.

Here’s another listener:

In your conversation with Dr. Clark, the two of you inadvertently acted out the differences between men and women she was describing, with you talking loudly, occasionally swearing and making demands, and she, being careful not to offend you with her words, softening any hard message she might deliver.

Another writes, “I hope you start sleeping better (you sounded in a foul mood with Cory Clark).” Yeah, I really was a bit crabby that day and I’m sorry I was a little impatient with Cory at the start of the conversation. My only defense again is that a podcast is by definition a flawed human conversation; I don’t think of it as an interview or a debate. Which means sometimes I’m gonna be not-my-best some days. Nothing I can do but cop to it when I let you down.

Here’s a guest rec:

Your interview with Cory Clark made me think of Coleman Hughes’ recent interview with Carole Hooven, who did an excellent job explaining the biology of sex. She was a Harvard biology professor pushed out by gender insanity for stating scientific fact.

I have unsubscribed from all things Free Press except for Coleman’s podcast. The FP has an agenda but acts like it doesn’t — and it drives me crazy. But Coleman still seems to have his head screwed on in a balanced way. His interview was excellent, and I think it speaks to much of what you were trying to understand with Clark. Hooven might be a great guest for the Dish.

She’s actually been on the Dishcast twice already — for her book about testosterone, and the ordeal she endured at Harvard over viewpoint diversity. Here’s a clip of Carole talking about how T affects crying:

And Coleman, by the way, was one of the first guests on the Dishcast. On another episode:

I have listened to your discussion with Charles Murray three times. It’s reached me at a very important moment in my life. I’m 37 and dealing with some extremely serious health issues. There are some strong indicators of a very unfavorable diagnosis. But, for this moment, nothing is conclusive and I am living in the realm of the possible.

I will keep this note short for now, but you may well hear from me again. For now I just want to say thank you.

A new reader just discovered a 2023 column of mine, “The Queers Versus the Homosexuals”:

Your article brought me to tears, and I thank you for it. I’m in my late 30s, grew up in West Hollywood, and have been openly gay since 16 ... until I was 32. That year, I was struggling with my mental health and (consequently) decided to transition to female. Today, I am in the early stages of detransitioning in Portland, OR, and as you can imagine, I have thoughts.

Over the last seven years, I have watched my gay community disappear, and for a long time I just assumed that I no longer fit into those spaces. Through retrospective and discussions with other trans people, mostly MtFs, I have come to believe that my community was being erased. It wasn’t me.

My anger started on Grindr.