 I think we'll get started. Good afternoon. Good morning, everyone. Well, to me, usually my day is done by this point. It feels like afternoon. Thank you all for coming to see what I think is going to be a really important and engaging conversation. To introduce myself, my name is David Green. I'm one of the hosts of Morning Edition at NPR. And I took that job after spending three years as Moscow Bureau Chief for the network, traveling often to Ukraine and covering a lot of the buildup to the conflict in the news that we are all following right now. This is such an important question as to how the United States and the West should deal with this crisis and specifically the topic we're going to be covering this morning, whether the West should arm Ukraine. And as we think about this conflict, there have been so many lives lost. And I think as we have conversations about the diplomacy and the politics, it's so important to keep that in mind. I'm reminded of voices that we heard on the air this week on our program. Katarina Malafaeva, we spoke to her a couple of days ago. She does aid work in Donetsk and was describing the Cold War-era bunkers where families have been hiding for weeks and weeks on end. And when Minsk too went into effect or was supposed to, there were people who were coming out just for an hour or two at a time thinking that this was a moment when perhaps peace had come to check on their homes, to light fires in their homes, to warm them because there was that level of optimism that they would be home soon. And then the violence has really raged on. Katarina told us that her own apartment was shelled and her friend would have been killed where she was sitting on a couch had she not gotten up to take a phone call at the very moment when artillery fire hit. And just yesterday, we saw just the dramatic and painful pictures of the withdrawal of Ukrainian's military from Debaltseva, a place where conflict raged on, even after the ceasefire was supposed to be in force. And just the images of the military under darkness trying to escape after being encircled, it reminds me of one thing that President Poroshenko said when he visited the United States in the fall. These Ukrainian army, imagine these young boys under-equipped and often under-appreciated by the world. They're the only thing that now stands between reality of a peaceful coexistence and the nightmare of a full relapse into the previous century and into the new Cold War. So that gives you just a sense of what is at stake as the West tries to deal with this moment and this crisis. So I want to introduce our four panelists who are up here with me, and then I'll give you a little bit of background on how we're going to proceed this morning. To my left, and we have sort of designed this as a debate with one side on each side of me, to my left directly is John Herbst. He's director of the Dino Patrizio Eurasia Center at the Atlanta Council, a former US ambassador to Ukraine and co-author of Preserving Ukraine's Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression. Ambassador, thanks for joining us this morning. Farther to the left, Steven Piper, director of Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative at the Brookings Institution. He's a senior fellow in the foreign policy program at Brookings and a former US ambassador to Ukraine, also co-author of Preserving Ukraine's Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression. Ambassador, thank you for coming this morning, too. Thank you. To my right, two voices who will be speaking about why arming Ukraine they don't feel is a positive move at this point. Jeremy Shapiro, to my right, he's a fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy and the Center on the United States in Europe and the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings. He previously served as a member of the Secretary's policy planning staff at the State Department and senior advisor to Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Philip Gordon. Thanks for joining us this morning. Thanks for having me. And finally, Eugene Rumer is director of the Russia and Eurasia program at Carnegie. He's a senior associate and director of the Eurasia program, a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the US National Intelligence Council, co-author of Arm Ukraine and You Risk Another Black Hawk Down, and also Conflict in Ukraine. Thanks for joining us. Before we get started, I just wanted to see a show of hands in this room. If you believe that arming the Ukrainian military, making that decision as the United States and its allies is a good idea, just raise your hand. Maybe a little less than half? Is that fair? A lot less. A lot less than half? OK. You guys have some work to do. Good luck. Good luck. So the format this morning, we're going to start with each side talking for about five minutes and basically making the case. And then after those 10 minutes, we're going to open it up to a 20-minute discussion up here. I'll ask some questions. I hope that you gentlemen will talk to each other and address each other. It'll be sort of a fun free-for-all, so to speak. And then after that, you can do that. And then for about 10 minutes after that, we'll open the floor to your questions. My only request is that it's actual questions and not lectures from the audience, if that's OK. And then we'll have about 10 minutes to hear both sides wrap up. And I would love to see where the audience stands at that point to see if you guys have been able to convince the room. So why don't I begin with our two former ambassadors to make the case for arming Ukraine? Gentlemen, the floor is yours. Thank you. Well, let me start. Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Petro Poroshenko all agreed there is no military solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine that there must be a political settlement. The problem is Vladimir Putin does not agree. He believes in and has, from the past year, been pursuing a military solution. We saw that in Crimea, arming the separatists, the invasion by Russian forces into eastern Ukraine, which even included the last several days after the Minsk-2C's fire. And it suggests that the Russians' goal is not a settlement, but that the goal is, in fact, instability to create difficulties for the government in Kiev. And so far, the Russians appear to conclude that the hybrid warfare they've carried out has benefits and gains that exceed the costs. The West has responded with economic sanctions. They've had an economic impact, but they have not yet achieved their political goal, which is to bring about a change in Russia's course towards Ukraine. The US has a commitment to Ukraine under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. That was a big part of the piece in getting Ukraine to give up the world's third largest nuclear arsenal, including 1900 warheads targeted at the United States. We have recommended that the United States provide military assistance to Ukraine, most of which would be non-lethal, but we also recommend providing light anti-armor weapons. When we were in Ukraine in January, we were told three quarters of these weapons in the Ukrainian army don't work, and they would have been very useful in the last several days around the bolts of up. We are not talking about American troops going to Ukraine. We are not talking about advanced offensive weaponry. The goal here is the Ukrainians are fighting, which is to give the Ukrainians the capability to inflict greater costs on Russian aggression and to hopefully persuade Moscow to change its course and shift away from conflict towards a settlement. Vladimir Putin, by all appearances, does not seem to care that much about Russian war dead, but he cares very much about the impact of that on Russian public opinion. And you've seen over the last seven, eight months an extraordinary effort by the Russian government to hide from the Russian people the fact that the Russian army is fighting and Russian soldiers are dying in Ukraine. Arming Ukraine with the goal of getting the Russians to change the calculation is part of an overall strategy that includes helping Ukraine with financial support, economic sanctions, and holding open the prospect of a settlement, but it's arming Ukraine that will help get the Russians to switch that settlement. Are there risks to this approach? Yes, but they are overstated, sometimes grossly so. The risks are in fact manageable, and the risks of inaction are much greater. And it's not just about Ukraine. It's also about broader European security questions, which John will address. The greatest international menace today is revisionist power in the Kremlin, Mr. Putin having one of the world's two largest nuclear arsenals. He has stated he has the right to defend Russian speakers wherever they are, by whatever means necessary. He has stated we have to redraw the rules of Europe. From the post-Cold War era, there'll be no rules. He has said he has a sphere of influence or must have a sphere of influence from the post-Soviet space. If we don't stop Mr. Putin in Ukraine, we will face him elsewhere. He has demonstrated aggressive intent in Georgia. He withdrew the borders of Georgia by military force. He's doing it in Ukraine. To remind us all, his ambitions go beyond Ukraine. He seized a counterintelligence office from Estonia on the day the NATO summit ended. He has threatened Kazakhstan. He's called an artificial state. There are ethnic Russians in all these countries. There are Russian speakers in all these countries. If we do not stand up to Mr. Putin in Ukraine, we may face him in Narva, in Estonia. People who argue that our providing weapons to Ukraine would only get Mr. Putin to escalate may be right. We hope it would deter him, but if he escalates, he has more Russian casualties. As Steve mentioned, he has a problem at home with Russian casualties in Ukraine. If he escalates and he takes more casualties, he'll have less military force to go into new adventures. We have to demonstrate to Mr. Putin by sanctions, which Steve did not discuss, and by providing arms to Ukraine that, in fact, there's a heavy price to pay for his aggression. We'll take that extra minute on the rebuttal. Wow, I'll just remember that you guys have an extra minute. Now, if you guys behave as well as these guys did, that's it, we're going to be very efficient this morning. We'll work on it. Steve and John, we share your angst and your frustration at this situation, but in our view, two wrongs don't make a right. In my view, there are three fundamental flaws with the report as it is written. One, let's make no mistake. This, what you're arguing for, is a proxy war against Russia. Russia will retaliate. We don't know how, we don't know when, but we're confident that Russia will retaliate and we have not considered the consequences of where Russia will retaliate, how and where we'll go. That's a major flaw in the report and in the proposal. Second, there's a fundamental conceptual flaw with your report because basically, Steve, you have argued that there will be a firebreak. There will be no US boots on the ground. If you think about deterring Mr. Putin, then that's a very uncertain way of deterring someone by signaling how far exactly you will go and where you will not go. It signals that you're not prepared to escalate, that you don't have enough at stake to really keep going until you see Ukraine to victory or there's some desired objective where you want it to get. And three, there will be boots on the ground. The proposal calls for not just dumping weapons in the conflict zone, as I understand it, so you'll have to train Ukrainian troops in the use of these weapons. You also call for the defense attaché's office in Kiev to monitor the US defense attaché's office in Kiev to monitor the use of these weapons to make sure that they do not fall into the wrong hands. In itself, I think it's a highly questionable proposition because once those weapons are out of our hands, they're out of our hands, we cannot monitor it. But the idea of sending US military personnel into a conflict zone where just if their GPS is not working or the map is outdated, they could end up in a separatist hill territory. This is precisely the kind of Blackhawk down situation that I think we have not addressed. What do we do about our military personnel, about how do we rescue them? So these are fundamental flaws with the proposal and again, to close and turn it over to Jeremy, two roles don't make a right. Thanks. To some degree, this comes down to the question of whether we think sending arms to Ukraine will cause the Russians to escalate or to back down. It seems to be the idea in the report that the increased sense of casualties will cause the Russians to back down and will cause them to abandon their fight in Ukraine. It is true that the Russians have been hiding their casualties from their people. But of course, there is a dynamic here and if Americans send arms to Ukraine, that will actually be used in Russian propaganda to free up the domestic constraints. It will be portrayed as a war of the West against Russia and as Eugene Suss said, on a certain level it will be and that will almost certainly cause the Russians to escalate. So the question is, are we ready for that? Are we ready for the idea that we need to go to war against a nuclear power for the sake of Ukraine? This seems to me to be a proposition that people aren't really considering. I think it's also important to understand what this proposal would do to Ukraine. David opened with some very touching stories about what the violence is doing. We know what sending arms into a civil war situation like this does. It escalates the violence. We have all sorts of academic studies on this. They're big and they have equations, so they must be right. And in fact, they showed quite clearly that when you send weapons into a war zone like this, the violence increases, the conflict lasts longer and more people die. So let's be clear about what we are doing. We are escalating the war and we are causing more violence than death. I think that's a very serious decision. Now the question, another point brought up is whether the United States owes this to Ukraine. We have this Budapest Memorandum that Steve mentioned which is supposed to represent some sort of guarantee. I have to say, I've read the Budapest Memorandum. It's not gripping, but it's interesting. I'm at a loss in there to understand where it commits the United States to the defense of Ukraine. And I'm not alone. The chief negotiator on the Budapest Memorandum when it was signed said, the memorandum does not mean the United States is willing to come to the defense of Ukraine if it is attacked militarily. That's strobe Talbot who was deputy secretary of defense of state at the time and one of the co-authors of this report. So the United States doesn't have a commitment to defend Ukraine. And I think we need to do as is so often, that we're so often to join. We need to call something by its name. The Russians have invaded Ukraine. We need to acknowledge that. But that doesn't make the Ukrainians an American ally. It doesn't commit the Americans to defend them. And it doesn't mean that the Ukrainian state is any less corrupt or any more functional. Okay, a lot to talk about. Just so everyone's familiar, I think there are copies of the report we're talking about in the room. This was a report that Ambassador Pfeiffer, you were involved in, both of you, and a number of other people with a lot of experience in this part of the world, urging the Obama administration with some very specific recommendations for how to arm the Ukrainian military. And I would like to start there because those are some very powerful words to suggest that what is proposed in this report could legitimately lead to a black-hawk-down situation. And I would like the two of you to respond to that. Is that a legitimate concern? I actually think that that's not a serious argument. And I guess I would ask, Gene, what do you think Western defense attaches are doing right now in Ukraine? The point is, the training is an easy one to answer. The United States military is already going to be training Ukrainian National Guard units at Yavariv in the far western part of Ukraine on the Polish border. You can do training on the equipment far away from the fighting. But on the question, Western defense attaches, as part of their job, are going into the conflict area to find out and be able to report back to capitals what's happening. Now, there may be some risk, but they take lots of steps to minimize that risk, and I just don't see that as a serious argument. Let me just ask you for some specifics. I mean, you were proposing, as I understand it, anti-tank missile systems. The bulk of the assistance proposed in the report is actually non-lethal. Anti-tank missiles is the one exception. Absolutely. That's the one exception, which we acknowledge would require American or NATO trainers on the ground in Ukraine. They don't necessarily have to be trained in Ukraine. Actually, training a team to fire one of these things is a fairly simple process. Now, it's longer in terms of the tactics and how you maintain these things, but we've been told that you can actually train somebody to fire this thing in about two hours. But you can offer assurances that, I mean, even if there would be U.S. trainers on the ground, that there's not a real risk of a situation where the U.S. military would have to go in and get them out. The report makes clear that you would train the Ukrainians away from the conflict area and that you would not provide equipment to the Ukrainians unless they demonstrated they were capable of operating and maintaining themselves. Does that answer satisfy you guys? It does not. It does not, because once you turn these weapons over to the Ukrainian military, there is no way to monitor where those weapons will go. It's a different argument. Sorry. It's a different argument. I missed that, but we've seen, just in the last few days, a very poorly organized retreat of the Ukrainian military from Debaltsevo. It was a route. It was a situation where if we had provided weapons to the Ukrainian military surrounded by the Russian troops and the separatists, we would not have been able to ascertain the use of these weapons. And it's very likely that these weapons would have ended up in the hands of either the separatists or the Russians. I want to get to Debaltsevo. Why are you saying this is a different argument? The argument is about the weapons going into Russian hands, not about U.S. trainers being near the front. I made the argument about both. One, you cannot train without U.S. troops there, and I take your point about training in a far-off training facility, but you cannot monitor where those weapons will go once you turn them over to the Ukrainian military. There's also been numerous stories reported in the press about Russian and mismanagement in the Ukrainian military. There are stories about Ukrainian soldiers volunteering to serve in the army having to buy their own equipment. How do you know that those weapons that you're sending to the Ukrainian military will not end up in the wrong hands as a result of some corrupt or poorly controlled more junior military officers or senior military officers? I think that the report was admirably clear in saying that this military assistance to beat the Russian military can't. That is not something that it can conceivably achieve. It is meant to scare the Russians into backing down. And the question is will it do that? And that seems to me to be a very questionable proposition. And there is also another fundamental flaw, John, with what you proposed. Yes, what Putin has done is an attack on the vision at peace with itself and with its neighbors. The vision that has basically been fundamental to European security since the end of the Cold War. But what you're proposing is basically to fight the Russian military with the hands of Ukrainian soldiers. With us being at a sort of a remote control situation. And I think that's a flawed proposition. If we could stay just on the subject of specific arms and the impact for a moment, I really do want to get to a broader discussion about Putin and Europe. Let me just ask about DeBaltseva specifically because it happened yesterday. We saw this retreat which was incredibly dramatic. I mean, Poroshenko ordered the Ukrainian military out in the dark of night. They were loading onto trucks at the last minute. Their trucks were coming under artillery fire. There were lives lost. It was a mess. Tell me why having javelin anti-tank missiles in place might not have helped the Ukrainian military get out sooner or perhaps stay there and win that battle. Well, I think the question should be how would those javelin missiles help the Ukrainian military because the fundamental problem with the Ukrainian military is in the way it's organized. The way it's been mismanaged for the past 25 years or 24 years since Ukrainian independence with the command and control with the senior leadership of the Ukrainian forces with the whole rationale behind the idea of the military operation of holding the Baltseva, which if you look at the map is basically indefensible. That's a different question. You're talking about overall organization. This is a question of tactical issues and the tactics on the ground to Baltseva. Javelin anti-tank missiles would have been very useful against Russian T-72 tanks that were at the battle front and also some of the non-lethal assistance militaries that we advocated counter-battery radars would have allowed the Ukrainians to target the artillery and the rocket sites that were pounding them into Baltseva. So I agree, there are problems in the broader organization of the Ukrainian military that will take them time to work out, but in terms of the tactical situation the kind of assistance advocated in that report had it been available to the Ukrainians would have had a significant impact on the battle around the Baltseva. The problem is at this point in the end the Ukrainians may not be able to beat the Russian army, but the question is not about beating the Russian army, it's making aggression and escalation so offensive to the Russians that that cost benefit calculation that they're now doing in the Kremlin which says this kind of hybrid warfare works because the benefits are greater than the cost, you drive up the cost and you hopefully flip that calculation so that they abandon it and go to a negotiation. You can see with confidence that the Baltseva would not be in the hands of the separatists today. I can't say that, but I can say it would have been a very different battle from what you saw in the last several days. I would also question, I mean this notion of route, in fact if you watch the images of the Russian APCs out of there, now it was a difficult situation because they were surrounded on three sides and withdrawals are never clean affairs, they're always messy. They've got a lot of this stuff out and they reportedly destroyed most of the things that they had to leave behind. And it's worth noting that the only reason why the Russians were able to conduct this offensive on the Baltseviks, they spent the last six weeks sending heavy arms, tanks, artillery, missiles into Ukraine. So the equipment that we're proposing is just a small divide. And that's one thing, the strutting of the Russian air force had a big impact on the counter-terrorism and the Australian troops have shown that the Baltseva at the Netsk Airport could have made a difference on the ground. And again, why do you want to enable the aggressor to conquer more easily? This is a sort of false thought experiment. The Baltseva would not have been the battle it was if we had six months ago, when we would have had And this is the fundamental point. If we're thinking of increasing the cost to the Russians through this effort, we have to have a sense of what costs they're willing to bear. I think the Russians have been very clear that they view the Ukrainian battle as an existential one. They have a lot of escalation options, because Ukraine is located very close to Russia, unfortunately. And it seems to me that they are willing to do them. We do not have that kind of interest in Ukraine, and we are not willing to go up that ladder of escalation. If Steve is of the view that a few more Russian casualties are going to increase the cost to the Russians to such an extent that they are simply going to back down over what they have defined as an existential issue for them, I'm confused by that reason. Well, let me put you on that point, because let's stipulate here. I agree with you. I think, John, with the view that the Russians care more about Ukraine than the West does. But you leave a very important actor out of that equation, the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians care as much, arguably, more about their future than either the Russians or the West. And the Ukrainians have shown a determination to fight on. And they want our weapons, and they're willing to take the risk of escalating casualties, because they want to be able to stop the Russians, or at least enable themselves to have part of their country under their control. Let me take this conversation to another level and stay on this topic. I mean, you guys used a very powerful term, which was proxy war. Ambassador Piper, you've made the argument that this is the majority of what you gentlemen are recommending is non-lethal. And there's one exception, which is the anti-tank missiles. I want to hear you guys explain why you think that these steps that are recommended in this report would take us to a proxy war with Russia. Because sending anti-tank weapons to be used by the Ukrainian military against Russian armor would be viewed by the Russians as a move by the United States to oppose Russia in what Russia considers to be, as Jeremy said, a conflict of paramount national interest, whereas the United States would be in a standoff position, basically fighting a war, it is a war, through Ukrainian soldiers. So I'm not even sure what the question here is. Russia's view, even our economic sanctions is a form of economical political warfare, if you were. So once we start sending weapons that will result in casualties, they'll see that as what it's going to be, a proxy war, where we're using Ukraine to fight Russia. Do they not have a point that I mean, even if it's very limited, if you are putting US trainers in place to train Ukrainians on weaponry that the West is providing, that that takes this to another level, that Russia will see this as a major, major step. There are a couple of points here. First of all, the Kremlin is already claiming that the Americans are doing this. They parade people. They claim our American soldiers who've been captured. So there will be very little propaganda impact of our actually supplying weapons in Russia, because they're already making this claim. It's possible they'll consider this a step up by the United States, but we have done this in the past successfully, for example, in Afghanistan. And that did not lead us to nuclear war with Russia. So we even had to backtrack out of Afghanistan, in part, because we supplied the Mujahideen. So this is something which does not necessarily lead to a great escalation in US-Russian military confrontation. Is that a fair model, Afghanistan, that this might be a way, in a similar way, that was useful there? Yeah, so the New York Times reported on a CIA study in October, which looked at the entire history of supplying arms into civil wars like this. And they found in that 67-year history that it essentially never worked, that it always just escalated the conflict and lengthened the conflict. And that's why we saw a series of very wasting proxy wars around the world during the Cold War in places like Angola and Vietnam and Guatemala. They found one example where they said it mostly worked, and that was Afghanistan, as was mentioned, which unfortunately also led to 9-11. So it was a sort of partial success. So I think that the point here is that we do understand these dynamics. We've seen them many times before. If we do this, the Russians will certainly escalate. They have many answers to Javelin anti-tank weapons. And when they escalate, we will be confronted with a choice. Should we counter-escalate? Should we send in the next weapon, the next tranche of advisors? Or should we back down and do so in a very public and humiliating way? That is a choice I think we should be avoiding if we know that we are not willing to escalate beyond a threshold that the Russians are willing to. We have about six minutes left. Can I say something on this? Yeah, briefly. The Afghan experience unfortunately shows that once those weapons are out of our hands, they're out of our hands. Long after the war was over, we were trying to collect the stingers that we could not account for all over Afghanistan. It's not a good example in these circumstances. I want to talk about Putin if we can. The word Narva came up, which is a city in eastern Estonia that is almost entirely Russian speaking. And one of the fears that many people have pointed to is that if Putin is able to use the idea of defending Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine successfully, he could take that model elsewhere. The idea of some sort of incursion into the Baltics and bringing Article 5 into question is a possibility that is sort of unimaginable, but I think we could all acknowledge is out there. Well, this is kind of where we're seeing today. A year ago was also unimaginable, so fair. Let me ask the two of you, why is the argument that Putin must be stopped here and that the way to do it is to give the Ukrainian military some more resources and on a limited basis, some lethal resources? Why does that argument not resonate with you, that this is the place where Putin must be stopped? Do you want to? Because we have made a commitment to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, or other NATO allies. And it's an ironclad commitment and we've declared it many times over. They're covered by our defense guarantee. We have not made that commitment to Ukraine, ever as Jeremy just quoted from Strobe Talbot's remarks at the signing of the Budapest memorandum and the text of the Budapest memorandum itself suggests. So I think there's a big difference there. There's a difference. I'd like to come back to the Budapest memorandum because I was actually with Strobe when we negotiated that point. And I think, Jeremy, you pulled that out of context. The Budapest memorandum was on security assurances, not guarantees, and there was a specific reason which gets to the point that Strobe made, which is we were not going to provide the Ukrainians a NATO-like guarantee. The 82nd Airborne was not going to come if there was a violation of memorandum. But we told them that the memorandum meant we would take a significant interest in Ukrainian security and that there would be a response. So that's in the memorandum? Or it's just something that you told them? That's in the negotiation. Now, maybe we say, you know, I mean, maybe you're in negotiation trials. We say one thing, and then we walk away from it. But the impression that we gave the Ukrainians, because bear in mind the number one problem for both the George H.W. Bush administration and the Clinton administration in the early 1990s with regards to the Soviet Union was getting a hold of the nuclear weapons. 1900s strategic nuclear weapons in Ukraine target the United States. We wanted to make sure those weapons were eliminated. This was a big part of the agreement. Now, it's a different type of diplomacy. You say, yeah, we make that commitment now, and then 20 years later, we say, well, we were just kidding. But I think there is a certain amount of U.S. obligation to fulfill commitments made. I'd like to respond to a point that Jeremy made. If we arm Ukraine now, and Putin pays a higher price in Ukraine for achieving his objectives, if he escalates, which he may, we are demonstrating to the Russians more serious commitment in the Baltic states. The point of fact is the Kremlin seized a counterintelligence official from Estonia the day the NATO summit ended. NATO did not respond. We need to demonstrate by a variety of measures that we are serious in the Baltics, and one way to do that is being serious in Ukraine. We just have a couple of minutes left, and I wanted to challenge the forearming side on one point. There seems to be an assumption, or at least an expectation, that this step could at some point lead to Putin losing political support within Russia. Is that a fair assumption to make? Because it seems that his political support is incredibly strong. He is very good at blaming the West. And would these steps not give him sort of play into his hands to an extent and allow him to blame the West even more, bringing Russians behind him to a greater extent? The funny thing about authoritarian regimes is they're stable until they're not. We know that the polls show of having support over 70-plus percent, although the support has gone down from 80% he had right after the annexation of Crimea. We know as well that the money classes in Russia are very unhappy. We know that a good number of the security operat not associated with, say, the GRU and the FSB, foreign policy professionals, are very nervous about what he's doing. We know the Russian people don't like the fact that their economy is in the toilet. We know that they don't like the fact that the Russians dying in Ukraine. All these things suggest that if, in fact, you keep on sanctions, oil prices remain low. And if there are more Russian body bags, Mr. Putin's support can diminish. There's not a civil war in Ukraine. It's a Russian against and against Ukraine. But the Russian people are not supporting that. They're not supporting Russian soldiers in Ukraine. You're convinced that two additional points to make of that. One is polls consistently show that the Russian population does not favor the Russian army fighting the Ukraine. And second, and I think this gets to the heart is worried about this, I think there's a huge amount of evidence. You saw what happened when the first soldiers were being buried in August when reporters were driven away. You've had reports of Russian soldiers buried at night. I've heard from a friend who served from someone who lost a leg in Eastern Ukraine, that that person's been told, if you disclose that you lost that leg in Eastern Ukraine, you lose your disability pension forever. That suggests the Russian government is very concerned about this word getting out. And that's why what happens in Ukraine is not a quote unquote existential threat to Russia for the Russian people. It may be to Mr. Putin and his kleptocratic regime, but not to the Russian people. Let me give you guys a chance to talk about Putin and the political support in Russia. Right, but the examples that Steve and John cite also demonstrate that Mr. Putin controls the propaganda machine and that he's been capable of suppressing the evidence that has really had very little, if any, effect on Russian public opinion. And we also need to acknowledge the dynamic here of the United States getting openly involved in this war. And that will change Russian domestic politics. One of the things that works very, very well in Russian domestic politics is the American bogeyman coming to get you. And when the president of the United States stands up and says, I'm sending weapons to oppose the Russians in Ukraine, that's going to free up President Putin from a lot of the constraints that were just mentioned. I also wanted to come in briefly on that Baltic point, if you don't mind. I think it is very important for the United States to demonstrate its commitment to the Baltics. And I think we have a certain agreement there. But the question is, is defending in Ukraine useful for that? It's not optimal terrain. It's not the same commitment. It doesn't demonstrate our commitment. And it's working with an ally, which is very difficult to work with. In Estonia and Latvia, we've been preparing that defense for a very long time. I think it makes sense to reinforce that commitment as we have been doing in the last few months. And I think we have seen in the Russian efforts in Ukraine the limits of what they can accomplish with hybrid warfare. It worked to a degree in Donetsk and Lohansk. It didn't work in Kharkiv. It didn't work in Odessa. It didn't work in a lot of cities where they didn't have the support. And that's the case in Estonia and Latvia. And I think that those countries have much greater defenses. And we should reinforce that and demonstrate to Putin that there is a red line. But it doesn't have to be in Ukraine. Because at the end of the day, the Russians are weak. And it doesn't matter if the Russians want to take over all of Eastern Europe. They won't be able to. What we need to worry about is less Russian strength than Russian weakness. And when they will lash out at us, because they feel threatened and weak. And that's a very dangerous proposition. Can I give you guys 30 seconds to respond to the notion that Russia is weak? And then we want to move to the audience's questions. There's no question that Russia has an economy based on hydrocarbons with oil prices low. The economy gets much weaker. It's also true by standards of their region. They have a very powerful military which they're willing to use. Why do we want to make it easier for Russia to move beyond Ukraine? It's not of great cost for us to arm Ukraine the way Ukraine would like to be armed to impose a cost on Russia. So even if they escalate for them to achieve their ambitions in Ukraine, they lose more men. And they lose more material. Demonstrating resolve in Ukraine makes Russia like we have a problem in the Balkans. I want to open this to all of you. Looks like no one's interested. If you don't mind, keep it relatively brief, make it a question, and also introduce yourself when you get up. I'll start with you in the front row, sir. Thanks very much. I'm Garrett Mitchell. I write the Mitchell report. And I want to pose the question this way. It was Napoleon who said, once you start to take Vienna, it seems to me that the proposal in favor of supplying arms, as has been discussed, is hardly taking Vienna. It's a faint punch. No one will read that better than Mr. Putin. And my question to the panel is, given the current circumstances, why isn't the greatest interest in America's national interest and its foreign policy interests and NATO's interest to not play half-heartedly in Ukraine, but to put troops in those NATO countries that the ambassadors say he's headed for so that they understand that there are red lines we're willing to draw. They're in the NATO nations. And unfortunately, Ukraine will help them in non-kinetic, non-lethal ways. But it's important for us, it seems to me, us being the US and the West, to not draw faint red lines, which this president has done before. Is this a faint red line that you're proposing? I don't think so. I mean, I think you can do both things. You, on the one hand, as we already are doing is reinforcing NATO states in the Baltic region and the Central Europe, that should go on regardless. But the provision of weapons that are on the relatively low end of the scale when you look at the entire range of weapons that could be provided, I don't think that that draws the red line. And again, it gets back to the point, the Ukrainians are going to fight on, whether we help them or not. I believe that there's a certain US obligation to help them. And I believe that pushback now against the Russians minimizes the risk that I see for Europe, which John alluded to, which is that if Putin decides that these kinds of hybrid warfare tactics work in Ukraine at acceptable cost, then he decides to apply them somewhere else. You guys want to address the? Well, I just don't see this dominant theory working like that, that if we don't stand up when Ukraine, somehow the Baltics will fall automatically. That really is making light of the guarantee. Well, that's what it sounds like to me. That's one. Two, to answer your question or to address your question, I can really fully answer your question. You're asking, why shouldn't we put more troops in Eastern Europe in the Baltics? Well, one, I think we have to have a very different force structure in Europe. Those troops aren't there now. And I agree. We should be reinforcing them. We're doing that. We probably should be doing more. I think we should be helping Ukraine. And the billion dollars of whatever Steve and John you want to put in the Ukrainian military, I think, can be very productively spent assuming there is the right situation in Ukraine to begin to rebuild the Ukrainian military and launch the reforms that the Ukrainian military has been delaying for a long time now. Essentially, you need basically to freeze the conflict and start to build an Ukrainian military with the money as you propose along the lines of what NATO allies have done in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Warsaw Pact. Let's go to another question. Maybe somewhere in the back, a young woman on the aisle right here. Yeah. Mary Jane Maxwell from UDC. I have a question. You've all spoke very eloquently about the position of Putin, the position of Russia, and while at the West, what about the people of Eastern Ukraine? What is their desire to have done? Do they want the Ukrainian army in their defending their territory right now? Thank you. Well, go ahead, John, please. One of the reasons why the Kremlin launched a hybrid war is because their expectation of a civil war in Ukraine in the East completely flopped. Polls demonstrated up through last spring that at most 20, 25% of the people in the Donbass were interested in either independence from Ukraine or somehow joining with Russia. And the Kremlin had to send an FSB Colonel Gierkin Strelkoff because as he complained back to the Kremlin, the locals were not going to fight. That's why you had to rely on Russian quote unquote volunteers and eventually Russian regular troops. Of course, there's been a lot of suffering in the East right now. There are refugees, and there are IDPs. I'm told there are twice as many IDPs in Ukraine as there are refugees into Russia from the Donbass. Most of all, they want the fighting to stop. But if you look at any poll in Ukraine, taken before all this happened, there was no support by a majority of people, even in Crimea, to leave Ukraine and become part of Russia. Yeah, let me just start. I think one of the problems we have in a war situation like this is we very quickly lose any hold on being able to understand what the people on the ground want. Because there's so much propaganda from all sides. And because it becomes very difficult for us to know what they think anymore. And their views change. There's been a lot of sense, just anecdotal really, that people in Eastern Ukraine are very angry at the Ukrainian government for the tactics that they've used for the shelling. But we don't really know the degree to which that's the case. I think that the fundamental point which we see across the world is that people on the ground generally want the war to end, full stop. They care more about the war ending than anything else. And what we know about this proposal from so many other examples is that it will not cause the war to end. It will cause the war to escalate. It will cause the war to spread. It will cause more suffering and death. And to me, that's the essential point for the people on the ground. But the point I'd make is the war is not ending. Last Thursday, Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande broke an agreement that most analysts, including I think a number of people in this room would agree, was significantly more disadvantageous to Ukraine than the agreement that was signed last September, which the Russians and the separatists violated. And yet, you had this agreement that was usually disadvantageous to Ukraine. It favored the separatists, it favored Russia. And what happened at midnight on Saturday when the ceasefire was supposed to begin is the Russians and the separatists went right on fighting, continuing to pound to Bolsheva. And the reports today, even after having taken most of Debaltseva, that that offensive continues. So where's the settlement? It's a fair point, Steve. And I think we don't have a good solution for ending the Ukrainian Civil War or the Russian-Russian War, if you prefer. You can call it whatever you want. We don't have a good option for ending it. And I think that that's a real problem. And it doesn't seem to me a good response to that is to expand it. The war, as bad as it is, we know from a lot of experience can be worse. We have seen worse examples. And we have seen greater escalations in places like Syria and Bosnia, and even in Chechnya, where the Russians demonstrated the types of tactics that they're willing to use. So this war could be a lot worse. And that's essentially what this proposal will do. Now, it's very hard to end. And I take that point. And I think that there's a lot of difficult negotiations that need to go on. But I don't see why making the war worse, hardening the attitudes, is a good way to end it. Can we all make a deal up here? I'm going to take one more question, but then it'll mean you each only have about three or four minutes to close out. That's fine. OK, one more question. Ask the ambassador. Sure. Thank you very much. Thank you, first of all, for organizing this event. First, there is no civil war in Ukraine. There is no civil war in Ukraine. There is war which was brought by Russia from Russia. There is a conflict which was inspired by green men, by FSB operatives, and by GRU operatives, and by Russian troops. Second, without any weapons, well, second is, which is very clear, that for the time being, nobody provided Ukraine with weapons. But despite all that, the Putin Kremlin escalates with every day the situation in Ukraine. First, it was Crimea occupied, then false referendum, then attempt of annexation, then aggression in the eastern part of Ukraine, and then Minsk-1, which was violated, and it was attempt of Ukraine to diplomatically solve the issue. Then Minsk-2, which is being violated right now, Russia has flooded this occupied area with hundreds of tanks, of APCs, of artillery pieces, of rocket systems. And in this case, it's just curious to hear that Ukraine has not the right to be provided with defensive weapons. So once more, without any provided of weapons, Kremlin with every day escalates the conflict. And this is war not only against Ukraine, this is war against Europe, this is war against European and democratic values. That's why Ukraine need first weapons, second, most foreign sanctions, including the fifth against Russia in order to stop aggression today in order not to wait for tomorrow because tomorrow the situation will be even worse. Thank you. Ambassador, thank you. I think it seems appropriate. You guys could respond to that as your sum up, and then we'll let you guys close out. Go ahead. I think that as the ambassador says, Ukraine has the right to defend itself and it has the right to request weapons. I'm not sure what a defensive weapon is, but it certainly has the right to request weapons. And I am very sympathetic to their plight in the face of Russian aggression. I think we should be clear that it is Russian aggression. But I think also that the United States has the right to decide whether it makes sense from an American perspective and from a larger perspective as to whether to provide those weapons. The United States does not have a treaty commitment to Ukraine. The United States would only escalate this war if it provided it and create much greater suffering in Ukraine, and it would create a lot of risks for itself. Its credibility is not at stake in Ukraine, and it has many options for dealing with Russian aggression should it come into the NATO states. To me, it is more than passing strange that those who would risk a war to protect the independence of Ukrainian foreign policy would deny that same right to the United States. It is a U.S. sovereign decision as to whether to provide such weapons into a war. And we need to make that decision on our own, and that I think the Ukrainians don't get a vote. Do you do anything about it? Well, I can't make the point strong enough to reiterate what Jeremy just said. It is an American decision. It's not a Ukrainian decision. Ukraine has the right to defend itself against what undoubtedly Mr. Ambassador is an aggression. No question about it. But we have a say here too, and it's our decision. It's our interest at stake. I would somewhat disagree with Jeremy. I think we have our credibility here on the line, too. But there are different ways. There are other ways to defend our credibility and show our commitment to Europe other than providing weapons for a conflict that neither Ukraine alone nor with the weapons provided by the United States has a chance of winning. And again, Putin is prepared, has demonstrated to escalate, to keep on fighting. There are many things we don't know about what he wants to do and how he does it, because basically Moscow, Putin, has been non-transparent to us. But the one thing he's demonstrated in August and again in February, January and February is that he is prepared to escalate, and he is prepared to make sure that the separatists are not defeated. We're not prepared to go to the same lengths. And I think it's the most important thing to keep in mind when considering providing a little bit of defensive weapons to Ukraine in these circumstances. And also, just one last point. Europe is not on the side of sending weapons to Ukraine. Chancellor Merkel, who's risen to the challenge, like no other leader in the Western Alliance, really has made it very clear she's opposed to it. OK, let me make three or four points in response. First of all, yes, this is an American decision. But I think the American decision should be to arm Ukraine, because that will increase the prospects for actually getting to a settlement. Second, the Ukrainians are going to fight with or without American arms. But I guess here I would differ with Jeremy. I would not so easily dismiss the Budapest Memorandum. There was a commitment there. It was certainly not on the level of the NATO treaty. But things were said to the Ukrainians to get them to get rid of 1,900 strategic nuclear weapons. Then we ought not now to be forgetting that. Third, I would acknowledge there is a risk of escalation, but I think it's grossly overstated. Mr. Putin has escalation options. That is sure. No doubt about that. But it's not simple. More escalation by the Russians invariably means more overt engagement by the Russian army. That makes it harder to hide it from home when you're going to see erosion of public support at home as there's more Russian involvement and more Russian casualties. But it also becomes more visible to the outside world. And that will, in fact, stiffen the support for sanctions, including more sanctions. And the last point, Chancellor Merkel. Chancellor Merkel was here 10 days ago. She said yes, she does not favor providing arms to Ukraine. But she also had the opportunity to say that if you do this, it will disrupt transatlantic unity. And she did not say that. And she also did not say you Americans should not do that. She didn't give the president of the United States a green light, but she certainly did not give him a red bite on arms transfers. Mr. Herbst, the last word is yours. We've seen multiple escalations on the Russian side before we provide weapons. So providing weapons gives Putin pushback to escalating further. And if he does escalate, he'll pay a higher price, which will undermine him at home. Now that's point one. Two, this makes our defense of the Baltic states easier. It also sends Putin a caution about Kazakhstan, a place where we have no commitments to intervene. But where there are a quarter of the population is Russian speaking and located handily along the border with Russia. Three, there's no humiliation to the United States if we provide weapons, stating from the outset we're only providing weapons. We're not going to send troops. And if the Russians ultimately win in Ukraine, there's no humiliation to the United States. We never said we were going to send our forces to stop them. But again, we increased the price on Putin to make it harder for him to continue to the aggression beyond Ukraine. Finally, following up on Steve's point, yes, Europe does not buy and large supply of weapons. Europe does not support when we put intermediate nuclear missiles into Europe in the 1980s to the heart of the Cold War. And they came along when you have strong American leadership. Strong American leadership is missing in this conflict. If we have it, we have a much better chance of good outcome. Thank you. Two questions for the audience. Raise your hand if you are in favor of arming the Ukrainian government. OK, and if you changed your mind, keep your hand up. OK, a couple. And now that's how many people are on the fence. We can ask that. How many people are on the fence? All right. I want to thank Carnegie for hosting this. I want to thank the four panelists. It's an honor to be on the stage with so much experience. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for coming and thank you to your staff. I know you're very busy right now. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Oh, thank you. It's easy when you have a group like this. It's nice to meet you. Very good question. It's nice to meet you. Thank you for saying that. That was great. I learned a ton.