 All right, let's see. We were talking about Russia and Ukraine. Why is Russia worried about Ukraine? I mean, because Russia wants a strategic buffer between it and NATO. Russia would like, I mean, long-term Russia would like to resurrect the Soviet Union. Russia would love to have its sphere of influence, include portions, significant portions of Eastern Europe. It has influence in places like Hungary. It has influence in places like the Balkans, certainly in Serbia, all the way down to Montenegro. It would like to have Belarus and other of its former satellites. But NATO is now expanded through Poland. It is now expanded quite a bit east. Hungary, even though Russia has a lot of influence on Hungary, I think is a member of NATO, if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, there is a lot of encroachment by the West into what the Russians think and view as this sphere of influence. And what they would like to assure, what they would, that guarantees, and this is what they're negotiating right now with Biden and the Europeans, is that Ukraine will not be invited into NATO. What Russia wants is they do not want NATO on their border. They already have NATO on some of their border in the Baltics and elsewhere. They do not want NATO in Ukraine. And that is their primary fear. They ultimately would like Ukraine, if not to be part of Russia, they would like Ukraine to be part of the kind of Russian umbrella, part of Russian influence within Eastern Europe. And they are set on this. And it's not just Ukraine. I mean, Russia is threatening right now on the Baltics. There's particular fear right now of Lithuania falling under the influence of Russia. Again, the Baltics are NATO countries, which the Russians don't like because that puts, again, NATO on the Russian border. It also means that if Russia gets pissed off at Estonia and decides to invade Estonia as it has threatened to do on a number of occasions, that means declaring war on NATO. And Russia doesn't want that. It wants to be able to deal with Estonia and deal with Lithuania, deal with Latvia, which are tiny little countries right there on the border. They would like to deal with them without having to risk war all out war with the United States, which is what the United States membership of NATO now secures. So this part of the world, Eastern Europe, is going to be in play over the next few years, over the next decade. And, of course, the United States has no coherent strategy on how to address it. Nobody in the U.S. really wants to go to war with Russia. Nobody can imagine doing that. Russia is a nuclear power. We don't know how Putin would respond to, I don't know, U.S. troops being deployed in Ukraine to protect Ukraine or to actually be shooting at Russian troops. I don't think Americans want that. I don't know that Americans are really interested in engaging in war in Europe to defend what American interests exactly, to defend what threat to American individual rights or property exactly, to really defend the Germans and the Poles from Russian influence. But what American life, property, liberty is at stake in Ukraine? None, in my view. And I don't think most Americans would like to see that, and I think the Russians know that. So that's an advantage of the fact that the United States is not highly motivated to engage in war with them. And they are taking advantage of that in order to threaten Ukraine, try to influence Ukraine, to be more affiliated with them, show the Ukrainians that the United States is a paper tiger and that Europeans won't come to their defense and therefore kind of push the Ukrainians into the bare hug of the Russians. It's interesting because NATO here, again, is split. You've got the Hungarians are very friendly with the Russians, in spite of being members of NATO. The Turks are very friendly with the Russians, in spite of being members of NATO. But on the other side, the Turks are selling weapons to the Ukrainians. The Turks were also engaged in a war with Russia, in a sense. In last year, in a war with nobody in the United States cared about, but between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis, the Turks supported the Azers, the Azerbaijanis and the Russians supported the Armenians. The Turks won that war, funnily enough, and it was primarily Turkish drone technology that won that. Ukraine today has Turkish drone technology, quite advanced Turkish drone technology that the Russians are actually worried about. So yeah, I mean, you know, this is multifaceted in that sense. The Poles, the anti Russia. But as I said, certain other Eastern European countries are pro. So part, I think, of the Russian strategy, grand strategy, Russians probably have more of a strategy than we do, is to sow as many seeds of disarray within NATO, to show the Ukrainians NATO won't come to their support. And again, ultimately to shift Ukraine, whether through war or whether through just shoving and pushing and urging and to push Ukraine into into the sphere of influence of Russia. Of course, all of this is also under the guys, the guys of the whole question of energy. Ukraine needs to get its natural gas from Russia as does most of Western Europe. Western Europe depends on natural gas coming from Russia. Of course, this is not inevitable. France, for example, doesn't need natural gas from Russia because France uses nuclear technology to produce electricity. And of course, many of these countries, particularly the UK, have a lot of natural gas that they could get through fracking. But of course, these countries have banned fracking and don't do fracking and therefore find themselves now completely dependent on natural oil and natural gas. Russia, of course, to add to all of this complexity, Russia is a relatively poor country that has basically one strength economically. And that is energy, natural gas and oil. Right now, Putin is feeling strong, relatively rich. He personally, of course, is super rich, but relatively rich. And that is because prices of oil and natural gas are through the roof. But in an environment in which natural gas and oil prices decline, Russia's economy is completely dependent on that. It's completely dependent on the movement of natural gas and oil. It's other than that, it is not a very diversified economy. And it is not a very strong economy. It is a very poor, relatively speaking, a very poor country. Putin has not been very successful in terms of achieving dramatic economic growth and dramatic increases of state of living for his citizens. And yet he is beloved by most Russians because he is a strong man. And they admire that. So I think here's the combination. Russia is weak. But Europe and the United States are weaker, not economically weaker, not militarily weaker. But they have no will. The United States has no real interest in Ukraine. Europeans who might have interest in Ukraine have zero will, zero interest, and maybe even zero capabilities of standing up to the Russians militarily. So they're not going to get involved. This is Russia's to lose. Biden can do nothing. He can send weapons to Ukraine, which I think is what he should be doing. But he's not going to deploy US military forces there unless, I don't know, unless there's somebody really stupid in his administration, which is quite possible and it gives him really bad advice. Long term, it's likely unless the Russian economy collapses, it's likely that Putin wins this battle and Ukraine becomes a satellite of Russia. And Europe suffers a consequence. I think I think all of this places Europe in a very precarious situation where they've got Russian Russia breathing down their throat, the US not willing to defend Europe, and Europe not willing to spend the money to defend itself. That is Russia. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening, you get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to youronbookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those, any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow, please consider sharing our content. 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