 Aloha, this is Politics for the People, and I'm your host, Stephanie Stoll Dalton. We have a talk show this morning with several guests who are going to bring their informed opinions to the topic of Putin's war and the return of perhaps Pax Americana, which is an article published in Foreign Affairs. And the guests that we have today to discuss this article and its premises and predictions and historical reviews are Jay Fidel and Cynthia Lee Sinclair and Tim Apichella. So welcome, panel. Let's get started with this article. The article's authors, Beckley and Brands point to the fact that Putin's poor judgment in attempting this brazen land grab in Ukraine has possibly gifted, in fact they don't say possibly they say has gifted, the U.S. and its allies with the opportunity to rebuild and reshape international order. So Jay, as an early premise in the article, how do you think about that? Is that a breakthrough in thinking about our dilemma in the world now or not? It's a very inviting possibility, as she was saying before the show, Stephanie, if Trump were president, Putin would have been much further emboldened and earlier emboldened than to do more. And his technique of doing false flags and, for my money, false threats on people and then doing the very same thing he believes he threatens that they will do, it's cute, it's gaslighting is what it is, he's been gaslighting the world. And Biden has developed a strategy to deal with that. I wouldn't agree with everything he's done or not done, but he has developed a strategy. And in that process, he has brought Europe together. And that is remarkable, because Trump did a lot of damage to Europe, to the EU and to NATO. But Biden has brought them together in a coalition and if you want, it's kind of a new continent. It's a continent that collectively, arguably, is another great power. So you have the great power of the U.S., China certainly, Russia at least ostensibly, although that may change with the sanctions and Europe. So the balance of these various powers has been in competition since the Second World War. And now the question is whether the U.S. will return to its position of dominance, which I think a lot of people would say it lost in the last few years and especially during the Trump administration and be the leader of the free world, be the leader of the world, be the exemplar of the liberal world order, which we established in the late 40s and early 50s with the United Nations. And so I think the article stands for the proposition that there's an opportunity here for the U.S. If it carries on, if it keeps Europe together, if it somehow contains Putin and Ukraine, then it can be, should be, the leader of the free world. And given its high morals, you can say that it's imperfect, but basically it's the best morality the world has, collectively, then we can lead the world into a time of Pax, peace, Americana. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I think we kind of had that for a while after the war, but we lost it. And now maybe we can regain it. And that's, to me, that's what the article speaks. Well, Tim, Jay's point is that we may be going to a Pax Americana. Maybe you could talk to what a Pax Americana would look like or has been or is emerging. Can you talk to us about that, please? Well, in my short 63 years of life here on this planet, I have never known Pax Americana. Before I was born, there was something called the Korean conflict. And not soon after Vietnam took place. And then we had all sorts of incursions in, you know, proxy wars, if you will, around in South America. So then, of course, the Middle East conflicts, Gulf War and Afghanistan and Iraq and, you know, the list goes on. Panama. I forgot about Panama. Noriega. You know, so we've had all sorts of military incursions. So really has the United States enjoyed Pax Americana. I'm not quite certain it has. I should like it to be. And I think we all do. But as Ronald Reagan said, you know, a strong, you know, peace through strength. And I'm a big believer in that. And I believe that there's would be despots and dictators around the world that want to like Putin, that wants the world to succumb to their evil powers, and I say the word evil. And it takes, you know, a lot of bullies in this world and it takes a few strong nations to say, no, we're not putting up with it. And the United States happens to be one of those powers. They say, no, you're a despot, you're a dictator. You've seen you've had the stage long enough. Goodbye. Well, well, that's interesting. And with the Pax meaning piece, of course, do you think that? Well, there are two things. One is, did do you think that peace as Valensky meant it in his comments about the President Biden's approach or asking pleading for President Biden to be the leader of the global world? And if he's leader there, he then is the leader for peace. Do you think he meant Pax Americana? Well, I think he meant exactly what I just mentioned, and that is peace through strength. Give us the weapons, give us the ability to fight off a dictator and an incursion and an invasion and a full of war crimes. Give us the tools that we need to make peace. And that's only one piece Putin understands is warfare. And since he started this incursion, this invasion, that is what's required. It'd be great if there could be negotiations and a settlement at the negotiation table. But I'm not sure Putin is really interested in that. I think it's all for show. And what Zelensky was saying is, I need to win this conflict to obtain peace. Yeah, I'd go further to obtain peace for the world. Zelensky correctly sees it in a global context. Yes, not just it's not just Ukraine. It's Europe and it's not just Europe. It's the world. And I think he correctly sees this whole affair as an inflection point for the liberal world order and the safety and security of every country. Yes. And Jay, to that point, we need to see it. The countries need and its citizens need to see that exact point. We are in a 1941 scenario where our isolationism has to come to an end. And Donald Trump put us on that path and it became quite convenient, quite good place for us to be complacent about it. It's time to get back to where we were as a world power and as a world neighbor. And Mike does not make right. And these little despot dictators around the world need to be put in their place. And we have to see that clearly. Let me add, Stephanie, we have to see that clearly. You're right in enumerating some of the mistakes we made over the years since the war. Some of the mistaken adventures hither and yon for various reasons. A lot of them were, you know, were intended well, but it ended badly. And they're covered in that article, by the way, a number of them. We're according to the writers of that article, necessary, necessary to establish American presidents and values, you know, as establish American values in various places and in order to maintain the balance. But if we're smart, if we exercise smart power and we will be able, at least theoretically, to achieve that. That that was why I was thinking to go to Cynthia and ask you, Cynthia, has have we shown that strength that that is our power as we've moved towards this? Do we already model that or do we? In other words, who who's setting who set the parameters here for all of this? Has that come from the strength of US and its allies? And who's setting the red line drawn the red lines now? Is that the US and the allies, Cynthia? Where's that strength that will get us to the power that will give us the peace in the world? Well, unfortunately, money, you know, and one of the things that I took away from this article was that people are political factions and people, just, you know, independent people are happy to sign for the money to go for all these war machines or to go fight a war or to help somebody else fight a war. But when it comes to the diplomatic money that's to really ensure that these alliances are going to hold, then nobody wants to spend any money. And so I think until we get to the point where we are willing to spend the money just to invest in the, you know, NATO alliance in all of our alliances and to expand that alliance. You know, over this last few years, we've been reading all kinds of articles about how dictators and autocrats are on the rise. And what happened to all the democracies? Where did they go? You know, and in this this aggression from Putin right now that's happening, this war on Ukraine, not war with Ukraine, but war on Ukraine. And I think that's an important distinction to make. And it's Putin that's set in all the boundaries. He's setting all the red lines. He's the one who's got the power. And I don't know how we get that back. But I think it needs to be our full focus, because until we get that back from him and he's on the run and he's going, well, let's see, I can't do that because they'll do this, you know. And right now it's more like if he does that, we'll do this. And that's given him all the power. So I mean, and I'm not a great military genius that can figure all this stuff out. But we've got those guys on on retainer, don't we? Hey, Stephanie, I want to jump in on a comment she made. And that is and don't fall out of your chairs, my fellow guests. Don't fall out of your chairs. But there was something Donald Trump did that I actually agreed with. And that was to put put NATO on the embarrassment. Well, he embarrassed them, but he should have dead behind closed doors and say, pay your dues to NATO. The United States is tired of footing the bill 100 percent. So pay your bill, please. And because I believe if you don't have skin in the game, you're not committed to the game. And their payments to NATO was skin in the game. And they did. I think they brought their accounts up to they brought them paid currently. But you know what tip, you know, what tip to scale on this? It was Putin. It was Putin threatening Ukraine. It was Putin invading Ukraine. It was Putin scaring the pants off Western Europe. Yeah, good point. Good point. That's what tipped it. And you know, and one of the pieces in this and many other articles, including a number of articles and foreign affairs, is that it was a huge miscalculation on his part. He hasn't admitted he hasn't bellied up to it yet. But the fact is that he did he win? Did he win? He he messed up a lot of things. He reduced to half of or more than half of Ukraine to rubble already. That's his style. But but has he gained anything so far? Only notoriety, only, you know, pariah status. And so and so it was a miscalculation for sure. And that miscalculation is what helped Biden, you know, solidify the EU and NATO. Well, you know, Jay, to Cynthia's point, OK? So what what do we do to pull this alliance together? And if you go back to the article and think about what it discussed about Truman and how Truman for all of his little guy thing and not stellar reputation as he got started out of the gate. But he he went about fortifying the larger world instead of looking to now. Oh, now what are we going to do to save Ukraine? So he took advantage of some law and some opening that he could build the bigger alliance that then would bring all of that strength to bear. Do you do you call that part of the article and how they were quite complimentary of the way Truman pulled this off? And then that is what established the Cold War and its parameters for holding the thing together for a while. Well, I think World War Two established. I mean, or yeah, at the time, it did establish a great cruise around the world is that, you know, is that if unless you watch out, unless you stop despots and autocrats, they will make a mess. So you have to pay attention. And we knew that for a while after the war. But I think we forgot. Trump certainly forgot. I think we're learning it again now. You can't turn your back on them. You can't isolate because the natural, you know, the natural effect is for them to take greater power, do greater autocracy, do war crimes and all that. And we are learning that yet again. We are learning it again. So, you know, I totally agree with, you know, Tim's point about strengths. And that's a big point in the article. You have got to have strength if you want to maintain a liberal world order. And if you don't maintain strength, you know, you have Neville Chamberlain and you have World War Two yet again. And I totally agree with Cynthia's right now, however well Biden is doing in terms of solidifying, you know, the coalition in Europe. The fact is that that Vladimir Putin every day still today. Look at the papers, all of them. And you will see that Vladimir Putin is setting the agenda. And we have to have to find a way to take that out of his hands. As Trump said, he's very clever and that that is revealed in the fact that he knows how to set the agenda and cow everybody. But that doesn't mean he can cow things forever. And it doesn't mean we can't find a way around his his strategy. Exactly. You know, Tim, would you say that something about the point that of the article that the U.S. and allies have really been living with or have constructed comfortable myths about the possibility and the shackles or the constraints that hold Putin together? Do you think that the world has been living with comfortable myths that have kept them maybe from being as alert and attentive to to Russia's aggressiveness and perhaps other other candidates to who they've not risen yet, but could. What do you think about that point in the article, Tim? Well, I've always believed that Americans are naive. I've always felt that way. I think we always think the best and benefit of the doubt and all that stuff. By and large, we've been Americans are naive and maybe to our credit, you know, we try to think of the best of other world powers, even when you have horrible people like Pol Pot or Idi Amin. The difference is we didn't have interest in there. We didn't have minerals. We didn't have oil. Rwanda, I'm reminded about, you know, the shame that the Prime Minister of Ireland, since it's St. Pat's Day, gave Clinton's administration for doing nothing in the Rwanda and conflict and the genocide. And because we didn't have interest there. And we didn't have a political or a strategic military or mineral interest. And that's the shame of how we pick and choose which conflicts we want to engage in. And I'm not necessarily want to be the police of the world. But at the same time, when the obvious is going to happen, there needs to be a collective action, not just the United States, but other neighboring countries to intercede on the behalf of the victim that's soon to fall because of some despot crazy dictator that has bloodlust and wants to slaughter everyone in its path. And should I mention Putin in this in this also same sentence? So that's point number one. And the important number two is, yeah, we just we need to engage more in diplomatic efforts. And since he made a great point to this, we don't spend enough resources on the diplomatic corps. Donald Trump gutted the State Department. I mean, absolutely gutted it. And we have to rebuild from that from from basically from the basement back to a point where our diplomats are well informed and know what's going on before they open their mouths. And we engage in conflicts and know how to resolve them on the diplomatic level. All right. Now what that that's very, very interesting. Thanks, Tim. And Cynthia, what are where are we going? Let's turn to talking about outcome. So what what is it that that we're trying to reshape in the global community? So what you think that Tim has brought up some issues here about how to be inclusive and be responsive to all these visits? Is that where we're going and how do we get there? I think that is where we're going. There are things like examples of Ireland becoming part of all of this for the first time in history, joining in with the, you know, with Europe to to send things and to be part of the the the hand reaching out to Ukraine. I don't think Putin cares that he kills everybody. I don't think he cares one bit about this scorched earth that he wants to do that. The only thing he wants out of Ukraine are the minerals. And so he doesn't care if it's just level. And so if you think about that and that's what he wants, if that's all he wants, then. How do we stop that? Because so that's when, you know, maybe we do need to get involved. But like Jay was talking a while ago about him doing the whole false flag things. And and I agree with that. But I don't think it's just gaslighting. I think it's a very specific tool called projection. And I have looked at everything Trump did while he was in office with that spyglass of projection, because it seemed that often. Usually I'll say that that's what he was doing when he was accusing someone else of doing something. It was the very thing that he was doing himself. So I think that that's Putin also. I think everything he says has to be looked at with this lens of projection. Is he really accusing someone else? Or is that something when he accuses someone else? Is that not something he's going to be doing himself? Like the chemical attack, things like that. I believe and this is just a very didn't come out of the article. Didn't come from anybody else. This is just my own opinion. I believe that this was planned. Putin had planned to go into Ukraine long before Trump lost the election. He fully well intended for Trump to still be in office. If that was the case. Would that not have made this be nothing for America? There would be no NATO. There would be no response from anybody. We'd all just turn away like Tim says. You know, are we naive or are we just ostriches and want to bury our head in the sand? So, you know, I worry about that. And I wonder in that same sense that Trump had set up that the removal from Afghanistan, right? He released all of the prisoners that we'd spent 20 years capturing and including the head of the Taliban so that he could reestablish his his government and made it be that Biden was in a position where he either had to send in more troops and fight the same fight that he had already fought for the last 20 years or leave. So it was like a no win situation. I'm worried that we are getting into a no win situation again. And that the people that are going to lose are the Ukrainians. Well, that's interesting and the rest of the world. Well, Jay, to that point, let me go to that point. You know, I think I think what what's what's happening is Putin is following his M.O. We talked about that on Tim's show yesterday and there's a really, really, really good frontline movie on it. Called I think on the road to war and it's Putin's road to war. And it talks about his M.O. in so many circumstances. Remember, and by the way, it's available on YouTube for free. Anyone wants to see it. I urge everyone to see it because it explains his career and his his stepping up to power in Russia. He's been there running things for 22 years now. He's a serious player and he controls everything in Russia and he's managed in the past few years to, you know, stomp out for all practical purposes and he protested whatever he does. He's a one man band. He's running the whole country, a great power. That is something. It's like Xi Jinping, but maybe even more more so in terms of Russia. And so what he does, his M.O. is to kill people. He kills them. Then he blames it on someone else and then he attacks the someone else. And that's the false flag thing. He's done that in a number of circumstances. He's used that as a way to achieve power within the Russian government. And he's using that as a way to achieve power vis-à-vis the Ukrainian invasion. So, you know, people say he's a nutcase. Well, maybe he is. I mean, he has no morality, sort of like Hitler. But he has a vision. And his vision is he wants to, he wants to, you know, recreate the Soviet Union. He wants to push the boundary closer to NATO. Mind you, NATO has never really threatened him. NATO has never taken an inch of territory from Russia. And I don't know what the problem is, but the problem for him is he wants the power. It's the power that that that intoxicates him. It always has. Hey, Jay. Yes, Jay. Let me let me throw out an idea. I mean, it is the power and I couldn't agree with you more. But isn't it really he wants to show the world that he is the incarnate of Joseph Stalin? It's not important that I'm like, it's important that I'm feared. You're absolutely right. And that's part of the power, Tim. Right. Everything he has done has created fear. And if you remember, and in Applebaum's article back a couple years ago about what made Eastern Europe work under communism after the war, it was fear. You know, you were afraid you'd lose your position, you'd lose your money, you'd lose your liberty, your life, your property and all these people fell in line. And that's exactly what Putin is doing in the Russian government right now. It's fear. These guys who appeared with him when he made his big fancy speech last week, they were totally totally petrified. He had them all dancing on the stage that he said yesterday to the Russian people. Real quick. OK, Tim, let me get to you here. Wait, wait, wait, I want to hear the speech. It's perfect now. You say any people and particularly the Russian people will always be able to tell apart patriots from the scum and traders and spit them out like gnats that accidentally flew into their mouths. He went further. I'm convinced that this is not this is important. I am convinced that this natural and necessary self-cleansings of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to meet any challenge. There it is. There it is. Stalin, that is a wrong side of that. And where was that? Was that for the Russians or the world? That was for the Russian people. Yeah, yeah. OK. So, Jay, that validates your point. It's cleansing, right? Did you hear the word cleanse in there? It means it means it's back to his MO to kill a lot of people in order to achieve power. Right. So anything to do that. So, so, Tim, I wanted to to touch on this emerging notion I see in this article by the two authors, Beckley and Brands and also elsewhere. And that is, has Putin possibly erred in his judgment so much that this may be the beginning of his end? Tim, can you comment? The world is saying he's miscalculated again to Putin's mind. I don't care. That's what he thinks. I don't care. You will fear me as you did my beloved leader, Joseph Stalin. And so in his mind, he has not aired. He will he will clench his fist and as this article, well, this this message to the Russian people suggests he will clamp down on them. He will he will bring it back to the old Soviet days as a pariah nation and he doesn't care. So is that the end of Putin? Well, there's an old saying, how you can keep them down on the farm when they've seen the lights of the big city. Russians have seen capitalism. They like capitalism. So to that end, he might be at the end of his political days. Because I don't know if they want to go back to 1950s, 1960s Soviet oppression. Let me add a point on that. There was an article in the New York Times or maybe the Washington Post this morning about how Russian government sites, government organizations are being hacked at an unprecedented rate. They're being hacked. They're being stopped. Messages are coming on there about the war, you know, using that forbidden term. There's the Russian government is under attack. And the Russian government is is trying to stop that in the belief that it comes from outside of Russia, not at all clear that hacking may come from inside of Russia. So it could be Putin is in the beginning of the end. Yeah, good point. And I think I'm hearing often that actually Putin does care about something. And it's the people, whoever he hasn't wiped out or genocided, but he knows he has to have a monitor. Could you say that again? That last sentence? Could you say that one more time, please? I said that the one thing he does believe in that he does care about is people that are going to function for him to keep him in power. The ones that he hasn't slaughtered in murder. The ones that are not yet, right. OK, I thought that was what you said. Don't forget the ones who live in fear of the old KGB coming back. Fear of what Ann Applebaum wrote about East in Europe. Fear of of of losing your land, your property, your life and spending and spending a lot of time in Siberia or Ljubljanka prison. Yeah. And your children report you if you step out of bound. Yeah. And to go to Cynthia, that this is arising that as we've as I've heard that the soldiers are even having some problems with this. Arnold Schwarzenegger just sent a big tape over to the Russian people and the soldiers are even claiming that, you know, they deserve punishment for this. It's all wrong, etc. So I wanted to go to Cynthia to see what she might have picked up on this and how you're you're reacting to that. Cynthia, this possibility that he may have erred too far and may go into self destruction. Well, I think there's a lot of people praying for that right now. And and, you know, what you said about the thing he does care about the people, well, maybe the ones that he hasn't cleansed already. I don't know. I don't think he cares about anybody, anything except for his own ego and his own power. He is the, you know, the extreme version of a narcissist with way too much money and way too much power. He's the Donald Trump of the East. Thank you very much. I'll go with that one. I think that all of you are absolutely correct. But whatever the structure of the country is, is what I'm talking about is the minimum he has that piece. He understands that that piece has to be there. But anyway, that's what's coming up is those things that will attest to his power and his position. He's going to protect whatever it takes to get that to happen. So, but I'm hearing from you what you don't believe that that is possible. He's totally not all. I don't want to say less than if he doesn't care about people at all. But, you know, to make a little bit more on Jay's point about that being hacked, I was watching a thing about that the other day and they were interviewing some of the hackers, right? And one of them may very well be in Russia because he was, you know, in this big surround thing shroud so you couldn't see him and his voice was changed. But they are just going after the government. They're going after businesses, local businesses. They're going after individual people, calling them on the phone, saying, hey, did you know? And the guy said, you know, some people just get mad and yell at us and hang up, but some people are open to it and they have questions and they want to know more. So maybe that's where we can really sort of try to make some inroads with the Russian people, because right now all they see is his misinformation. He shut down all the Internet. There's no Twitter. There's no Facebook. There's no Instagram. There's nothing except state TV. So that's all they get. And so, you know, anything that we can do to, you know, flood there, the little bit of airwaves, these are direct telephone calls. They're making somebody figured out a way to hack the lines so that it used to block any incoming calls from outside of the country. And they figured out a way around it so that they can call in to individual people. And that we just have a we're running out of voice of America. Jack, we're going to we're going to make one round here because we're out we're out of time. So let's just let's just start with the round. I'll start with you, Tim, and then back to Jay. Oh, thank you. Hey, Cynthia, we used to have something called Voice of America. Previously, it was referred to as Radio Free Europe. Guess who got that program? Donald Trump, by the way. So my last thoughts are the world needs to not let up. The world needs to get more engaged, more sanctions, more military assistance. I agree with the keep NATO out of accelerating this to the World War Three, but more engagement and don't let up and give Valensky what he wants. If he wants migs, get a mix. Our general say he doesn't need them. But guess what? His general say they do need migs. So get it to him. They know what they want. They know what they need. OK, Jay, last comment. I agree with that absolutely. And every day that goes by with all those people being killed. Oh, gosh, it tears my heart. And what it says is we've got to we've got to give them air cover. We must give them air cover. Otherwise, they're just fishing a barrel. But no, what I was going to say is this. You know, there's two things happening here. You know, one is Putin's quality of battle with his own people trying to do propaganda on them and squash them and arrest them and throw them in jail for speaking out. That's one thing and it's hard to say where that's going to go. I like Cynthia to be right. I like this, you know, I like this to actually take root and the country rise up and oust the bugger. But at the same time, the other the other thing that's happening is is Europe. We have to keep your together. And you can bet that Putin is trying to do just the opposite. He feels that if he keeps on killing these people in Ukraine, they're going to be discouraged. They're going to be disheartened and they're going to give up. And if they give up, maybe Europe gives up. And here's the last thing I leave you with is that don't forget. We have an election in six, eight months. Forget we have an election in 2024. It is not at all clear that Biden and his policies and his abilities, which have been really good and helpful in this regard, will continue. And if a Republican, God forbid, Trump or anybody like Trump gets into the Oval Office, they're not going to continue those policies. And so, you know, Europe could easily come apart. And at that point, we are in the proverbial kimchi. Thank you, Jay. And that is that is a dire thought. And Cynthia, would you like to respond to what where we are now then within these global events that include our domestic one? I've done a positive note about that. It was awesome to watch Congress be united while they sat there and they watched as Zelensky gave his speech and they all rose before and after with, you know, standing ovations in every country, even to. So the one good thing about this, you know, the one good thing that we can take from this is that it's kind of uniting Americans. And it's definitely uniting Congress, which is really nice. And unfortunately, it might not go forward. But for now, let's just take one day at a time. OK, hey, Cynthia, that's wonderful. You've brought us full circle because the Putin's more. This is the subtitle of the article is is for to find the Democratic Alliance and certainly unifying us at home. So interesting comment there at the end. So let's hope we're going to keep going with that. This is Think Tech Hawaii's show, Politics for the People. And I'm your show host, Ebony Stoll Dalton. Thank you for your attention. And we look forward to seeing you again next Thursday at 11 o'clock. Aloha.