or thanks to frederic pike and justimagine standing there in russian tanksgoing right by you evo dalder was theu.s ambassador to nato under presidentobama he is the co-author of the emptythrone america's abdication of globalleadership thank you for coming onambassador do you believe nato shouldhave greater involvement in thisconflictwell i think nato has decided the unitedstates has decided not to be directlyinvolved i thinkhistory will tell whether that was theright decision if there was aninvolvement it should have happenedearlier in order to deter the attack inthe first place um but clearly politicsat home and politics abroad suggeststhatthe concentration of nato is ondefending nato territory and not and notukraine that doesn't mean we can't do uhmuch more uh to help the ukrainiansindeed the u.s issending much more equipment and now weeven have the german government sendingstinger uh missiles and and anti-tankweaponsin order to help the ukrainians defendthemselves they certainly have a rightto defend themselves and we ought tohelp them as best we canhow significant is it that germany willsend weapons to ukrainei think it's very significant germanyunder under its own laws not adoesn't allow the shipment of armamentsto uh to nations in conflict and it wasone of the reasons it refused uh for solong to provide lethal aid to theukraine back in2014 and 15 when russia first invaded uhukraine the germans led the effort toprevent the delivery of even defensivelethal equipment they've now turned 180degrees they're ready to help theukrainians with significant capabilitiesuh that are going to help the ukrainiansstem these these tanks that wewere just seeing uh and make sure thatthey don't uh reach their attend atarget so it is significant for germanyto do that of course following onthe right decision to uh to halt thenordstrom 2 pipeline gas pipeline torussia as wellhow much do you think the calculation bynato countries to not put boots on theground in ukrainehow much of the calculation is due tothe fact that that nuclea that uh russiais a nuclear power that has significantcapabilities on that front and the cyberfront in many other waysyeah i think uh you have to be realisticwho is it that you are countering andwhen it comes to russia the largestmilitary power in europe withsignificant nuclear weapons uhcapabilities uhand and a leader who has repeatedlythreatened to use nuclear weaponsincluding as recently as a couple ofdays ago you got to be careful uh andthen you also have to look at interestuh and clearly the russian interest inukraine is is significant that's why itwent to war uh and you have to comparethat with the u.s and nato interest inpreventing that war when youbalance all all out it's tough decisionandpresidentpresident biden like others has made thedecision that directly engaging in thisconflict is not the right thing to do atthe same timelet's find other means to counter therussians whether it's through sanctionswhether for beefing up uhnato and of course helping theukrainians in order to ensure thatwhatever happens today or tomorrow inthe end this becomes a failure forvladimir putinthat is clearly the goal they've made itclear they're looking at the long gametoo making this a failure to vladimirputin if russian forces topple ukraine'sgovernment can russia manage to maintaincontrol over ukrainewell it's going to be very verydifficult uh we're already finding thatthe russians are having some problemsactually even take gaining control of uhparts of ukraine along the capitalbut once it is in control once it hasoccupied it uh we clearly have aukrainian population that has been uhmobilized in order to counter a foreignoccupation just recall what happened in2003 the united states interveneinvadediraq very quickly toppled saddam husseinin the regime and today we're still eventherebecause a major insurgency uh kept usthere for many many yearsi think that's what we're going to beseeing and i wouldn't be surprised tosee the united states and other natocountries helping the ukrainians in thatinsurgency to make sure that the cost ofthe russian invasion is going tocontinue to grow uh so that russia atone point or another understands that itneeds to reverse course i'm going to getto this viewer question about thesanctions this viewer asks why did theu.s government exempt almost all formsof russian energy from its sanction listenergy is a massive export for russia ifwe truly cared wouldn't we be cuttingoff that lifeline as wellwell the problem is is that of coursethat we don't rely on muchrussian energy the u.s we we import someoilit's the europeans who are uh highlyreliant particularly on gassome countries get a hundred percent oftheir gas for electricity and heating uhfrom russia to turn it off means to factno have no electricity and no heatingit's the middle of winterin europe and uh having countries makethat decision is just one that is uhthat is too difficult at the same timeit once again underscoresthe incredibly importance of uh europeto reduce its dependence on russianenergy to start looking for alternativesources of gasjust last month for the first time moregas came through liquefied natural gaslngports and ships was imported into europethat came through russian pipelinesthat's where the future lies and overtime europe will have to uh need lessrussian gas and at that point cutting itoff from the rest of the world is theright thing to doambassador evo dalder thank youmy pleasure