February 19, 2026
What a thrill to be interviewed by former British diplomat Ian Proud! Don’t waste a minute: acquaint yourself with him here on his homepage, which he elegantly calls “Proud Diplomat.” Notice also his book, A Misfit In Moscow.
Ian is, of course, also on Substack, where he calls himself The Peace Monger, and recently he set up his own PeaceMonger Channel on YouTube.
For once, I was not interviewed as if I were a military geopolitical expert, where I normally have to twist the whole thing in the direction of peace. No, we both had a focus on peace – why it has been disappeared by research, politics and the media, but also what can be done to shape a more peaceful future for us all.
One idea we came up with was that of connecting people through citizens diplomacy – in an era where more or less authoritarian leaders meet frequently and confirm each other as members of a uniform ‘groupthink.’ Because, really, do they care about their citizens? Do they care about the fact that people, the huge majority of humanity, want to live in peace and go about their lives instead of fighting the world and being forced to pay for meaningless militarism?
Are these Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex – MIMAC – elites able to see that their philosophy of ever more weapons used in a framework of offensive deterrence – as do NATO countries – can never – never – create stability, security and peace or build trust and common security?
The good answer is that ordinary people can see that it doesn’t work! We need people-to-people dialogue and actions to stop the elites everywhere from militarising us all to death.
Any reasonably intelligent human being can see that peace has not been the result of pouring in more and more taxpayer money into that big, deep black militarist hole. The result instead is that the world wastes more resources than ever – 100 times more on armament than on all the UN does – while we are now witnessing the ever-increasing risk of wars – on Iran while we speak, but also a larger war in Europe – and the only answer these kakistocrats have is: More weapons!!
And, so, the two peace mongers discussed: What about talking to each other now it has become crystal clear that armament is not producing peace? What would an alternative security system look like? Why is NATO by necessity a warmonger? Defensiveness versus offensiveness
Have a look:
