 Welcome to the reason live stream. I'm Zach Weissmuller joined by my colleague Nick Gillespie and Emma Ashford a senior fellow at the Stimson Center and columnist at foreign policy magazine and author of the book oil the state and war Today we're gonna talk about the war in Ukraine that began almost a year ago now With Russia's let me take this down here. Thanks. Yeah Well with Russia's February 24th invasion on December 21st Ukraine's president Zelensky Appeared before a joint session of Congress to ask for more for more money and weaponry Which they did deliver 45 billion dollars worth in the latest omnibus bill so let's start off the convert the discussion with a Quick look at kind of the case that Zelensky was making to Congress a couple weeks ago artillery Yes Thank you We have it. Is it enough honestly not really to ensure Bachmunt is not just a stronghold that holds back the Russian army But for the Russian army to completely pull out more cannons and shells are needed. Thank you Thank you very much Thank you for both financial packages You have already provided us with and the ones you may be willing to decide on Your money is not charity It's an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most Responsible way. It is just a matter of time when they will strike against your other allies If we do not stop them now Okay, so I mean the case that I hear I'm making there the two main points are that we need more weapons to push Russia all the way out and This is in your self-interest America to maintain global stability and Norms and prevent Russia's expansion From a spilling into NATO territory where you'd really be facing the prospect of a world war Um, so if we're looking at this, you know purely from a self-interested standpoint, it is he right? So, I mean Zelinsky is a great orator And the case that he's making there is I mean at least partly true and in many cases true You know of the things he said I think it's probably accurate to say that that, you know USA to Ukraine over the last year has not been charity that we have got something out of it You know in terms of we weakened the Russian military We've prevented them from you know helping to take over a country. We have benefited from that Whether to the extent that he means I think is a bit more questionable Where where I think, you know, I start to differ with with some of the things he said are you know He said that, you know, if we don't stop Russia here, they'll come for us NATO allies elsewhere in europe That's I think a pretty you know questionable assumption He talks about the need to push russians all the way out of ukraine And I think that's a case where us interests and ukrainian interests might quite clearly diverge over the coming years And so, you know, I think what he's giving us here is a partial picture And it's pretty true right now because us interests and ukrainian interests are fairly aligned at the moment But it may cease to be nearly as true going forward and that's what I find a little concerning Um, you you know, um, you wrote a book uh a review on a book in foreign affairs On realism. Um, and it seems like you have a lot of sympathies with many of the realist arguments Just so we kind of you know, you know, nick and I are both coming from this from a broadly libertarian perspective And there's a range of foreign policy views within the libertarian movement But uh, generally libertarians tend to be pretty skeptical of um getting involved in conflicts that Don't involve, you know a direct Threat to the american security to american security Um, I'm curious, you know, just so everyone kind of understands the lens that we're all looking at this through What is foreign policy realism and what aspects of it? Do you find most appealing and kind of are most applicable to the way you look at things? Yeah, I mean, it's a really great question. So, um, you know, in the time I've spent a fair amount of time around libertarians I worked at kato for a number of years And in in that time I've sort of come to see that, you know, I think there's sort of two kinds of of libertarians Or two kinds of liberty friendly Ways you can think about foreign policy. Um, one is I think the classic anti-war approach, right? That's very much philosophical very much pacifist. Um, you know, I I would say for myself I certainly don't fall into that camp, but I know there are people with very strong principles in that camp I think the other sort of way you can approach this is much more consequentialist And it's it's sort of taking a more realist approach to the world, right? So, you know, we shouldn't abandon morals, but america can't necessarily be everywhere and do everything We need to think about our national interest And we need to think about how to best achieve American interests in a world that is sort of quite difficult and becoming more difficult for us to do so So for for realists, you know, you don't care as much about International institutions, you don't want to do lots of humanitarian interventions You're not trying to spread democracy, but all of those sort of liberal internationalist ideas Instead you're basically focused much more on defending american interests in a limited way And doing so with the, you know, the minimal force that we can do it So you can see how anti-war folks and realists get along in many cases because they're pushing in the same direction But they're coming at it for different reasons Would you, uh, you know, what what is the big issue at, uh, you know, a big american interest that issue then in russia's invasion of ukraine? Is it that it will destabilize europe? Is it that it will? Um Anytime an internationally recognized border is transgressed That itself is, you know, some cause for support if not outright, um, you know, military defense on somebody What what is the key american interest? Um that you see, you know raised by russia's actions Yeah, so I think there's a couple. Um, so one is I think as you say this this question of sovereignty, right? This question of changing territorial borders by force Now, I mean, this is something that the u.s. Has violated this norm as well Um over the last couple of decades And I think it's damaging every time it happens whether it's russia, whether it's the u.s And we should we should be trying to avoid this So I I do think there's something to be said for discouraging the idea internationally that big states can gobble up their neighbors You know, and I think there's also something to be said for the fact that ukraine is, you know, a relatively western leaning democratizing state Again defending itself against a much larger neighbor and one which borders countries that the u.s. Has committed to defend through treaties So for all of those reasons, I think some u.s. Support to ukraine is definitely warranted But those interests are limited, right? That's not an absolute commitment to send marines us marines to push the russians back out of ukraine at the cost of world war three That's a limited interest in hey, we should probably send them some weapons and funds In, you know, until the point at which that becomes problematic for our interests Well, I think we should dig a little bit into those numbers to better understand whether or not we've reached that point Or we're approaching that point Or whether this is kind of just a justified You know amount of aid that we've we've sent over there so far You know this this was from you know last year About 48 billion dollars worth of aid You know a little less than half of that was for weapons And and other, you know military assets. We just had the omnibus bill Another, you know 45 billion approved there This is kind of the amount of aid that's gone to ukraine versus other allies other us allies obviously the the biggest recipients The us you can see here is by far the largest funder of of ukraine in this conflict Although if you break it down by gdp share of gdp some of the eastern european countries have put far more of their You know national gdp into funding ukraine and obviously Really stepped up to take a lot of refugees the the millions of refugees that have fled from there And then this is just a look at the dod budget and you know defenders of Giving this aid to ukraine will point out that It's a it's a fairly small chunk of the overall budget that has gone to ukraine um, and so therefore, you know in in the big picture Not that much has gone to ukraine they would they would say We've offloaded even you know old weapons that we're not going to use anymore haven't had to Commit our own troops and so this is kind of uh a bargain for the us tax taxpayers Is that a fair argument or is there Uh, you know a case that we've we've gone too far You know funding this Yeah, I mean so again, I think there's there's some truth to that argument that you know that this is a bargain I mean if you'd told a lot of people a couple of years back that we could have permanently weakened the russian military or You know semi permanently weakened the russian military in europe for a decade Um at this cost they would have said you were crazy, right? So it's I mean It's a relative bargain in great power competition stakes That doesn't necessarily make a good idea though. And so I I think there's kind of four four big problems We should talk about when we talk about the aid. Um, you know, three of them are kind of tactical issues And then the fourth is a bigger strategic problem. Um, so the first one is as you say The balance between the us and europe is a bit lopsided. It is getting better And if you look at committed aid, right? So what states say they're going to send it's in theory You're going to get better in the future. Um, that may not actually happen But yeah, it would be good to see european states. Um, I know, you know, they're suffering with the energy crisis They're suffering with refugees, but still they're much closer to the problem It's much more important to them. They should be spending more than the us It's so I think that's that's kind of a really obvious one Um, a second problem is, you know on military aid at least we're starting to see some supply problems, right? We are drawing down our own stockpiles And the us defense industrial base, um for all that it earns billions and billions of dollars a year It's not actually very good at producing these things fast And so at some point we're going to start drawing down important stockpiles for our own military and that's a you know That's a concern. That's something that that we should be aware of The third problem and and this one is you don't hear about this quite as much in the in the media But I think it's interesting to look at that chart to talk about financial or fiscal Aids to ukraine Because right now with the war going on the ukrainian government Basically is relying on foreign aid to fund all of its government services You know, they can't tax the people easily in many areas of the country. There's active fighting They don't know where people are So, um, the ukrainian government is heavily heavily dependent on that direct financial aid And I think you know, the the economist adam adam twos has put it this way He says, you know, ukraine might win the military war and lose the financial war And I think that's you know, we need to ask ourselves how long do we want to keep, you know Supporting just the ukrainian government with you know checks. That's that's another issue And so that leads into I guess the fourth issue, which is the big issue Which is you know, we can quibble about what we're spending now But it clearly can't go on forever And so the question is When do we Stop this when do we encourage the ukrainians to move towards the negotiating table? When do we say sort of enough is enough? We're not going to fund you to take back Crimea And those are very difficult questions with a moral Dimension as well as with this financial dimension But but to be honest, I think that rather than quibbling about the amount right now That's the question. It's how long does it continue for? And how do we think about dialing it back down to a reasonable level over time? What's your sense of that? Well, you know, should those conversations be happening now? And should we be pressuring Zelensky and ukraine to Figure out a way to come to some kind of end to this Yeah, and again, it's a really difficult question, right because nobody wants to say, um, You know, we should cut the ukrainians off. I don't want to say that I think that would be a that would be a terrible thing to do Um, but we should now I think be having conversations at least, you know Inside the us between the us and its european allies About the extent of that support, right? How far are we going to push this? Do we have plans for how to try and actually move away from this conflict because what concerns me right now is You know, I this this reminds me a little of some of the debates over afghanistan, right? We are, you know, we've had this period of what was in many ways a very justified conflict, right? We we have, you know, may our national security needs But we're slipping down the slippery slope into something else and I would hate to see this just become, you know Every year we contribute 50 billion dollars to ukraine. Um, and so, you know We should be thinking about the places where we could make it Easier for the Zelensky government to consider opening negotiations, right? So it may be that pressure from the us might actually help Zelensky publicly and doing that Um, we should be thinking about, you know, the limits of support We should be thinking about if we see a ceasefire on the ground If we see a stalemate on the ground is this the time to start suggesting that we move towards negotiations So it's a really difficult question and I don't think we're quite there yet, but we need to be talking now Yeah, what about russia, um, you know Russia is the clear aggressor here, um, you know, and we can talk and maybe we should about You know the various actions really over the path, you know Since the end of the cold war that america has either taken or enabled that might make Russia a little bit more jumpy and things like that, but there's you know, there's no question Putin decided to invade at a particular time We levied a really kind of unprecedented sanctions unprecedented peacetime sanctions against the country Against russia at the beginning of last year Is that working? Or what should we be doing to Putin and his regime to say hey, you know what? Maybe it's time you're you're obviously losing here anyway. Maybe it's time you get to the negotiating table So one of the reasons I think why our debates in washington gets so wrapped around the question of the us will pressure Zelensky to end the war is because we don't have that much leverage on the russians We just we have much more leverage on the ukrainians than we do on the russians in this context We have as you say, we've applied a lot of sanctions quite heavy sanctions. They're taking their toll I mean, they're causing quite massive economic damage inside the russian economy But what they're not doing is stopping the war And we've basically seen already that putin is has been willing to escalate quite substantially instituting a draft of People into the military from russia Annexing provinces talking about how this is, you know, going to be a bigger war that we fought as long as needed So he's escalated, right? Even despite all of these costs and that to me suggests that, you know, we we probably have some leverage we could talk about Sanctions relief as part of a package, you know for the russians But it's not clear to me that we have the ability to compel them to come to the negotiating table I just think we do to talk a little bit more about the geo politics Obviously india and china are the two biggest countries that were like, you know, what we don't care about american sanctions We don't care about western sanctions Is there anything that we should be doing? You know on on either allies or trading partners like china Places like india to be like, hey, what, you know, you got to help us out here or is that just You know a dream scenario that the us would restore order in europe by pressuring, you know people in other parts of the globe Yeah, so there's basically two approaches to to sanctions The one is you can take the approach that the obama administration took prior to the jcpoa Which is you build this big international coalition of states that have some interest in, you know In that case of stopping it on getting a nuclear weapon The other alternative is you go the sort of trump administration group of you just apply us sanctions extra territorially on everybody um The real problem is right. We're not talking about Small concessions from these states. You're talking about trying to stop chinese russian trade That is huge if you're start talking about stopping india from importing russian oil That is not going to happen. Um, and so, you know, you're talking about serious pain for these states I don't think the economic potential angle is likely to work at all What I do think might be more effective though is trying to get those states on side in the diplomatic space You know right now, um, the biden administration is sort of lumping together china with russia And saying well, you know china is supporting russia in this it's bad They are sort of castigating the indians for continuing to buy russian oil My inclination instead would be to try and bring those countries in and say, hey, we all have some interest in seeing this conflict and You know, what are you willing to do about it? We've already seen signs I think in public meetings between putin and she and putin and modi that they actually do want this to happen So, you know, there's a there's a coalition a coalition. They're ready to be built. I think the gap that is Troubling that is it's not clear to me how it will be bridged is just the question of The territory that russia has taken already along the border and ukraine has You know pushed them back somewhat out of a few of these territories But you know zolensky put out his 10-point peace plan And one of those points is total withdrawal of all russian troops from all of ukraine And you've heard from members of the biden administration even biden himself at some points has said basically We are going to fund ukraine as as long as it takes for russia to get out on the other hand Russia has claimed that they've annexed these four territories along the border And in a speech, uh, I think it's worth playing a little bit of this speech from mark milley the chairman of the Joint chiefs of staff who lays out kind of the military reality For both russia and ukraine at this point And i'd like to just talk about what he's laying out here whether you you agree with his assessment and If he's right, you know what that means in terms of pursuing pursuing real negotiations at this point Of russia achieving its strategic objective the probability of russia achieving its strategic objectives of conquering ukraine of overrunning ukraine The probability of that happening is close to zero the military task of militarily kicking the russians physically Out of ukraine is a very difficult task And it's not going to happen the next couple of weeks unless the russian army completely collapses, which is unlikely So in terms of probability, uh, the probability of a ukrainian military victory Defined as kicking the russians out of all of ukraine to include what they define or what they claim is Crimea To the probability of that happening Anytime soon is not high militarily Politically there may be a political solution where politically the russians withdraw. That's possible the problem i mean what i Hear him saying there is that He's almost, you know laying out a stalemate type of situation here where russia's you know, they clearly like the the art did not achieve their objectives They did not just you know march march into Kiev and take over everything over on the other hand He's things are extremely unlikely that uh, ukraine anytime in the in the near future is is going to Get them out of these contested territories and then you know, there's the question of Crimea, which Uh does not seem like On the table at all is something that's going to go back in into ukraine at this point So given that military reality um Is you know Seeding to some of russia's you know territorial Claims going to be a necessary part of the equation because it's not something i Ever hear anyone in the united states government. Um talking about Yeah, i mean i i think milley is right. I know he got castigated for saying it But you know, you can't predict what's going to happen in a war. You can say you know probability wise You know, these are the scenarios that we're looking at. These are the ones that are likely You know, and I think you know some of the scenarios that are out there that are just entirely unlikely are as he said, you know Russia conquering ukraine is on is is almost entirely unlikely Um ukraine pushing the russians at Crimea very unlikely the russian government collapsing or they're being regime change not impossible But incredibly unlikely And so then you're left with the scenarios that basically have some variant of the ukranians Keep their advance going and manage to reclaim some territory in the east of the country And then, you know, we start talking or the russians turn it around Claim back some of the territory they just lost and then we start talking. Um, and so to my mind, you know Basically if you want to actually end the war with a peace settlement with a a ceasefire with a process of some kind You have to talk about territory. Um, we could just let it turn into a stalemate like the korean peninsula But again, that doesn't seem like a good idea So we are at some point I think going to have to talk about territory even if it's just Crimea even if it's just the territories that russia's held since You know since its invasion of of ukraine in in uh 2014 Yeah, can we uh follow up on that? I want to go to a question that was asked by our audience member ocox He says uh, or they say talk about the 2014 coup Victoria newland biolabs minst two accords killing an oppression of the russian speaking population by the kiev or kiev regime for the last nine years Why don't we start with uh, I mean pick and choose from that what you find most uh relevant here, but What you know, what is the role of the 2014 regime change in in uh, Ukraine and the american role in that What does is that important here or should we not even bother kind of remembering that anymore? Look, I mean, I think, um, you know It is difficult in this situation sometimes to Disentangle conspiracy theories from reality. There's some truth to a few of these things. Many of them are not true um But I think you know the 2014 um governance change in in kiev is important because it's part of how we got here Right. It's the same thing as nato expansion Which definitely helped to bring us to a place where a russian invasion was Possible even as if you know, as you said that earlier the russians chose this Yeah, I mean so I if I may say just because I know, you know A lot of libertarians talk about this stuff in ways that I you know I understand where they're coming from but I also find it kind of insane making Where they'll say well the reason, you know, what russia is doing now is a defensive measure effectively Because the us, you know, it was talking about expanding nato and and the eu is talking about expanding What else could you expect russia to do for you know a million years? They've been worried about exactly what we telegraphed we're doing And then we either help or in the more kind of fervent imaginations of people We actually replaced a democratically elected government with you know one That would be a puppet regime for us, but um, you know russia is the clear aggressor here I mean, I think it's relatively this is part of why I think it's relatively unhelpful to assign states modality in the first place Right states do things that they think are in their interest and sometimes they're horrible and heinous and immoral And this is one of those cases russian leaders clearly think it's important to them to control some of ukraine Stop it slipping towards the west Even if we think that's kind of a parent The the part of the question that I guess I would come back to and talk about a little because I think it's relevant is The question about, you know, the Minsk accords And the relationship between the west and east of ukraine over the last sort of decade leading up to the conflict Um, the the Minsk accords were a deal You know the french and the germans helped to negotiate it with the russians and the ukrainians And the idea was that the territories russia took in 2014 would be reintegrated into ukraine, but with significant federalism Right, so that they would be able to resist, you know language changes or education changes or things They didn't like coming out Kiev And it was never put in place and both sides the ukrainians and the russians Basically refused to take the steps that would have been necessary And so the reason I bring it up and I say it's relevant is because I see similar things being proposed now as solutions to this conflict You know that if we just start talking about federalism If we just start talking about you know ways to integrate these territories back into ukraine that that will somehow solve the problem That has been tried and it failed and I do not see it succeeding in the future How do you um, what is the danger of um, you know One one danger of kind of endlessly pouring weapons into A country like ukraine is is a You are kind of prolonging some something that uh is ultimately You know if we're to believe milley's assessments Kind of playing out to a kind of stalemate and causing all this death And just needless death and destruction when really the emphasis should be on diplomacy But then also the you know, you're you're just increasing the likelihood That something truly horrible and like an existential threat is going to emerge You know a couple months ago There was this kind of scary moment where biden himself was saying We're like closer to a nuclear exchange than we have been since the cuban missile crisis That pudin since then has kind of like backed away from his nuclear threats But it you know any time you're dealing with a nuclear power like that like this Is that um, you know something that should be given more consideration In this debate in terms of the types of aid and weaponry that we're sending over to ukraine Escalation risks are a huge concern in this conflict. Um, I think they were more of a concern earlier on I think it was very clear, you know that first month of the war was extremely dangerous And then escalation risks sort of fell off again They've they've been up and down a little but I mean at the point where at now we're sort of debating You know will sending tanks versus armored vehicles to russia be enough of an escalation for them to go nuclear And you can kind of see that's like that's like little stakes. No, that's not a real question Versus early on when it was well, should we send aid at all? Will that prompt a response? So but just because escalation risks are lower now doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about it And that is one of the costs to american national security of continuing to fund an arm Ukraine, you know for some indefinite period if it was just as you say the question of prolonging the war Um, you know, I might deplore that that notion that that the war will go on longer But equally I have a lot of sympathy for the ukranians who are basically fighting this invasion But you know fighting for their freedom Um, I feel like in some ways that's their choice to make about how long they want to fight But then it's um, it's the the the decision of american policymakers and the american public How much we want to support that how much it's in our national interest to continue to support them And whether the continuation of the war ends up hurting us more than it helps And so, you know, we have different national interests from the ukranians So that's why again, I don't think the prolonging the war question is particularly relevant if you're sitting in washington But there's another um, kind of escalatory question That pertains to the the type of weapons that are being sent over because It seems like the the weapons systems keep getting more and more sophisticated that that are being sent over and kind of the most recent one is this uh, patriot missile system and uh, I've I've pulled a couple clips of Biden and also chris murphy who's on the senate foreign relations committee talking about this because one issue with that system is that it involves You know american soldiers having to train ukranians on it and that's you know Not getting you american soldiers directly involved in the war, but it's getting them closer and closer to The theater of war there. Um, so let me play these clips and have you react to the question of you know What the the types of weaponry that the us is sending over there if there's kind of some hard lines that Should be drawn or or if we're creeping up to those lines How the us calculated the escalatory effect of sending a patriot missile battery to ukran I did not discuss that at all with With the president, but I we do not it's a defensive system purely defensive systems and it is simply a response To war crimes that are being perpetrated by vladimir putin the reality is these are complicated systems as you know And it's going to have a long lead time to get these up and running We are going to actually have to send some american troops over Not to ukraine, but to places in germany and poland to train ukranians So this does obligate more american forces to be in and around that theater And we just want to be clear with the american people that with the patriots comes additional us forces that are going to be close to this conflict. I just think the The the cost to the united states is worth it So do you agree with uh chris murphy on that that the the cost is there's a there's some risk, but the cost is is worth it You know, I think the risks are relatively small at least in the context of patriots that there are other Systems that might start to get up to the level of strategic stability at the nuclear level that might be more problematic But no one's talking about those for that reason Um, I think he's generally correct that the risk of sending the systems themselves is pretty low For me, I think the red line the thing I'm being credibly concerned about is starting to see us forces inside ukraine itself Um, even if it's just for the purposes of training, right? Because kind of we all know how that goes after two decades of the war in tether They're there. They're training, you know, they get attacked and suddenly they're fighting or maybe special forces are there And so that to me is a very slippery slope. It's hard for the public. It's hard for lawmakers to keep track of And so that's something we should we should be avoiding But the more systems that go, you know, the more you're going to start to see pressure To train ukrainians kind of in situ inside ukraine instead of requiring them to go elsewhere in europe to be trained And then the other thing that there will be some us forces sent for is trying to track where all these weapons are going Right because we're flooding eastern europe with weapons And trying to keep track of that without people on the ground is almost impossible So, you know, those are those for me are the areas of concern more so than This specific weapons system or, you know, the armored fighting vehicles or whatever we're talking about this week Well, I mean that that kind of gets into another criticism that i've heard a lot from the more, you know, purest non-interventionist which is like america is falling into this familiar pattern Of handing a bunch of weapons and trainings to groups some of them, you know, not the most savory characters ukraine Is fighting for its, you know, independence from russia, but there's it's not exactly a liberal paradise, you know, zolensky has Imposed media censorship laws. There's this kind of ongoing religious freedom issue with the orthodox church There's the the azov battalion, which has, you know, neo nazis in it and that, you know, this is You know, the the worry that non-interventionists often have is that This is going to come back to bite us We're going to train up these groups and give them these weapons that in the long run We we don't want them to have Is that you know a well-founded fear or is that kind of grafting a situation From the, you know, afghanistan and iraq Which so much of us had had our our kind of like Foreign policy paradigm forged in onto a totally different situation No, I mean, I think it's a general concern that you can basically port to almost anywhere frankly that there's a war going on I will say I do think in afghanistan and in iraq that problem was substantially larger, right? Many more groups many more avenues for smuggling weapons out of the country Surrounding states in afghanistan and iraq where themselves not always peaceful, um, you know, nobody nobody thinks we're going to get an Insurgency in poland right because of this so You know there are that are serious differences And but and I do think we should be concerned about these groups the the ukrainian government though is I looked up its freedom house score just there, which is a decent proxy. It's about 60, which means it's partly free Um, it has reasonable political and civil liberties Um, it you know, it's it scores badly in a few areas, but it has been improving in recent decades So none of this means that it's a democratic paragon of virtue Um, none of this means it couldn't backslide But at least for the moment, I think, you know, we should be we should be very cautious But saying the ukrainian government is is anything other than sort of an ill A legitimate developing democracy and then of course the u.s Should bring pressure on the ukrainian government as much as possible to distance itself from groups like the as of battalion Which there are a very small proportion, but you know, we should be bringing pressure Do you see any sign of that and I guess maybe Excuse me. We can enlarge this to uh, kind of a critique or a question analysis of joe biden's foreign policy He had a major, you know, he gave a kind of major picture that you commented on of his foreign policy Uh in the fall and you talked about it, uh, you know his national security strategy as the lean in of the nss have it all Uh, one of our questioners or listeners Tyler sherman said what effective discussion points Can we have with our friends who argue that every global event is in the interest of us national security or the economy? Biden seems to kind of be like well, yeah, everything is can you Pull back a little bit to talk about biden's larger strategy Such as it is and how how is that guiding our ukrain policy? Yeah, so the the biden administration has actually been fairly interesting early on they showed I think some serious signs that they were considering actually reforms to us foreign policy the withdrawal from afghanistan is the most obvious But as time has gone on their foreign policy has kind of revered to to the mean To the extent that the national security strategy basically looked I mean very similar to the trump one very similar to the obama one to the george w bush one It all worked out pretty well. So maybe you know when something's working, you don't mess with it, right? Well, they all kind of I think buy into this notion And bob cagan had a peace and foreign affairs last week that basically explicitly stated it as you know if the u.s Doesn't protect something whether it's whether it's iraq whether it's afghanistan whether it's libya whether it's vietnam Whether exactly right then everything falls apart and I think you know, we need to We need to be clear about making the point that that is a fairly absurd Argument, you know most of those cases all of those cases Everything didn't fall apart when the us failed to achieve its objective And and and that's the second part of it, right that the us thinks it can just go in and and hold everything together I mean we're you know king canute with the waves or something And how popular I was just gonna say it's not popular argument the american people arguing First of all that america is not perhaps quite as capable as you think of effecting change in the world Not popular And then saying that we have to prioritize and sort of decide where to spend our scarce energy That's not popular either, but but they're vital points Yeah, can I ask I mean because and you know, it's it's basically been a year It's coming up on a year of uh, you know, since russia invaded ukraine and one of the things that was striking In the immediate aftermath of that happening. There was a broad demonization not simply of Putin and the russian government Which makes sense, but things like you know, uh, you know, we we saw stories about how orchestras were getting rid of playing russian music You know certain types of russian goods were being You know boycotted even those one, you know, even many of which did not they simply had russian names But they're not from russia a kind of world war one mentality where people were going nuts I guess, um, you know my in a kind of weird jingoism My question is how did we so quickly? I mean we had not even fully evacuated out of afghanistan where suddenly the us Was plunging into what it considered a good war one that was you know Not morally obtuse but clear and our you know Everything that was good and great about america is exemplified by us going to the aid of ukraine You know how where does that come from and how do we combat that? It you know, not in the interest necessarily of some kind of extreme isolationism But just in like I mean we just spent 20 years Fucking up, you know major parts of the world and now we're like, okay You know now we know what we're doing. We're going to start playing in in central europe You know, I think it might even be simpler than that I think it's um, you know, we we did just spend 20 years screwing up a lot of the things we touched in foreign policy It's kind of a relief to get back to you know, disliking the russians and trying to thwart them, right? So there's an element of I think the cold war was the good war america won it You know getting back to that after the messiness of the last few decades is I think a relief for many people You know, they wouldn't put it that way, but that's fundamentally what's going on The the problem is of course, we're not in the cold war anymore It's not the same world. It's not just the us versus the soviet union You know, we also have the threat or the rise of china We're talking about areas like africa rising in different ways And so, you know, it's a very different world and I worry that Sort of just picking up our mental model of the cold war on trying it back on because you know, that's that's what we feel good doing Is a very bad way to approach foreign policy going forward It kind of seems like that's what the biden administration is trying to do with this sort of democracy versus autocracy struggle framing that they're presenting Which is surprising since you know, biden is so young and forward looking at all of his thinking That he would just merely adopt a cold war paradigm I mean, it's it's telling also I guess that at the beginning of the war on terror Donald rumsfeld and it's kind of hard to remember that rumsfeld is now You know, I'm not only dead, but you know 20 years, you know out of power or you know, whatever 15 years He explicitly said the war on terror was a new cold war Where do you see A different framework that is actually geared towards kind of geopolitical reality today That is not just kind of huffing the fumes of the cold war And you know to to a certain degree that that is also a critique of isolationist You know, there were a lot of people during the cold war some libertarians But a lot of people on the left who you know, essentially posited that the cold war was a An american construct in order to kind of legitimize american hegemony all over the place They're kind of stuck in a cold war paradigm, too Where you know, do you see any place in political power where people are coming at this from a A perspective that actually reflects You know, what has happened in the decade since the seviet union collapsed I think we've seen a significant amount of change Not not perhaps across the political spectrum, but you know, at least within both political parties We have seen some more debate in recent years on foreign policy and the emergence of things that you might See in the future developing into a better foreign policy more suited to this world You know on the left, we've got progressive democrats Who you know, they're very internationalist in their view But they're also very wary of american power And so I think that's you know, that's good. That's something that that should be encouraged On the right, we've got this the rise of sort of, you know, you might call them like hawkish Jacksonian republicans. So, you know, donald trump the people like mad Ted Cruz who you would not call doves by any stretch of the imagination But they've at least walked back from the sort of, you know, we will remake the world in america's image stuff So these these changes are happening, but they're they're painfully slow So it's going to be a long time. I think before they develop into something more coherent to deplace the cut and consensus I'm curious what you think that tendency on where that tendency on the right in particular is going to go There was just an article in reason today by bonnie christian about the kind of GOPers who are against continued funding of the ukraine war and You know, she raised the point that it's sort of there there is a sort of incoherence to it that they're just on this one issue Taking a more non interventionist or maybe even realist perspective, but it doesn't seem to extend to any other realm um Is that Right, or do you see that? You know, what's happening on the right with people like, you know, matt gates or you might look to somebody like Rand paul for more like, you know principled Non-interventionism and within the republican party. What do you expect that to develop into or what? I guess what what's the best case scenario that that could develop into So, yeah, right. So there's a worst-case scenario here Which is that even though those folks are, you know, Once get out of the middle east or wary of subsidizing european defense, right? That they turn and get as an award with china and so that's I think the worst-case scenario um That the best-case scenario though, I think is that you see the emergence of you know on both right and left um a somewhat more restrained foreign policy so Those folks on the right that have been skeptical of ukraine They're the ones that are also somewhat skeptical about spending on european defense Pushing for more burden sharing with europe and I think that's a notion that could catch on pretty easily among the conservative grassroots If it were pushed by folks in congress If you then were to tie that up with a democratic party that actually starts to move in a more progressive direction on foreign policy You know, you could find yourself in a place where you have a pretty stable bipartisan at least Understanding that the u.s. Is no longer the unipolar power that we're no longer going to do everything in the world And from my point of view that would still be better than today's status quo, even if it's not everything I want There's a what yeah, go ahead that plays you as heck. Oh, well, I was just going to pull up one of the uh Questions that I think just gets to one of the fundamental issues that we could weigh in on um from blake jamison Question to the panel. Why is russia doing what they are doing? You must first answer this question before any conversation ensues um, I mean, I guess my my Take on it is that this is is russia trying to You know create a little bit of a buffer between itself and um kind of the west or the nato countries. It's There's these, you know ethnic enclaves in the border regions and it's trying to bring those Back into the fold and just uh, it's It's uh, you know, it's a it's it views this as um, You know creating kind of a security buffer that that's my my general sense of what's going on But I'd be curious to hear what both of you think, you know the the motivation Of russia and and uh, putin in in particular is here I'll defer to you abba. You uh, you you do this for a living Well, I'm curious to hear what you say too, but I I think I mean I think there's an there's an element of truth to that right that this is you know If not russia necessarily trying to create an explicit buffer zone of territory Um, it's an attempt to stop further encroachment. Um, not just by the u.s. By the way by the european union into the area immediately surrounding surrounding russia Now whether that is a correct assessment on the part of moscow, you know Perhaps not perhaps the threat really isn't there. Um, whether this is the right way to do it I think we can all say that was a pretty stupid way to do it. Um But it's a good question And the reason I think is a really good question is because it has lessons for other areas America has been very used to for the last 30 years Basically being um, what realists would call the hegemon in every region That is to say we pretty much run the table in terms of military superiority in every major region of the world That's changing, right? We are we are reverting to a world that's more like the norm where there's a bunch of states that you know Can compete with one another that have military Capabilities that can threaten the us a little bit even if you know, maybe they wouldn't win a major war Um, and so what we're seeing happening in europe right now We could easily see it happen in asia over taiwan or over some other incident And I think you know from my point of view the lessons we should be thinking about from ukraine are the ways in which we avoid Getting to the point where that clash happens in asia Well, I mean to pick up on that. Is there anything that the us could have done You know, uh a year ago or 18 months ago to prevent this from happening because It also seems that I think this is in some of your writings on the topic You know, obviously the russian invasion of ukraine has a lot of determinants and one of them is probably also You know, there is a long-standing desire for that kind of buffer zone a fear of encroaching But a collapsing economy an aging autocrat who was either looking for a legacy or You know, the olympic games didn't work to deflect attention from how poorly he has run russia, you know, maybe a hot war Seems good things like that But you know, was there anything realistically? That the us could have done without going all the way back to 2014 or the breakup of the soviet union or You know, uh, you know pushing ukraine to get rid of its nuclear weapons, etc You know, what what might we have done that could have forestalled this? I mean, that's the big question So from from my point of view and I think lots of people will assess this differently from my point of view By the time we got to about january of 2022 last year There probably was not very much the us could have done. I think at that point it was it was pretty baked in But I think if you go even six months earlier and you look at that summit that biden and putin had where they talked about strategic stability The by the administration came in and sort of indicated they were willing to talk to the russians The russians reciprocated But I think what happened at that summit was the russians decided that the us wasn't interested in actually talking about the issues It wanted to talk about, you know, conventional arms in europe The question of failing arms control What is going to happen to ukraine and georgia and maldova and the us basically wasn't willing to even talk about those issues And so, you know, I don't think it's inconceivable that if we had been willing to explore some of those issues That we might have been able to forestall this and then certainly if you go back further as you say, you know, you go back to 2016 or so and you you talk about, you know, putting pressure on to try and actually implement the minsk agreements rather than getting distracted You know, there's there's definitely ways we could have got off this train Um, I just you know start of last year. It was probably too late Can I just to kind of take this basic frame and then throw it into asia? And you've written about this, but you know one one of the lessons Of of the russian invasion And this was also made manifest by you know, 20 years of american Effectively american failure in iraq and afghanistan, but is that you know superpowers with really big armies kind of suck at invading and occupying and pacifying countries You know, so that's good if china, you know That might be one of the lessons that they're learning and their army is less battle-hardened than russia I mean, that's one of the things that's amazing is people Early on in in the invasion. We're expecting russia to really roll through things because not only is it a major army But it it has battle-hardened Commanders and troops and things that didn't work out But what you know, what are the things that the u.s. Can be doing now? Assuming we want to to forestall China flexing in places like taiwan or you know Just kind of completely finishing the steam rolling of hong kong and things like that Yeah, I mean so You know We should definitely hope that china is taking lessons from ukraine But I think we ourselves should not assume that because the russian military was hollow that the chinese military will be right Very different systems structured in very different ways. We just don't know how effective the chinese military is they could be great They could be awful and that's not something we can predict right now What where I think we can start to You know to to think about getting on a better track here is in the political and diplomatic space, right? So right now in many ways we are on a collision course with china in asia Whether it's to do with decoupling whether you know all these export controls and things like that Or whether it's on the question of you know, do we Shift away from our long-running approach to taiwan and recognize them as a state You know, do we send us troops? My concern is all of that just raises the stakes and basically forces a choice on the chinese leadership If they want taiwan to stay in their sphere of influence then they will have to do something about it And what we've seen in ukraine is that you know, we think that will deter other countries But we may not like the choice that leaders end up actually making So, you know my my approach to taiwan would be mortal on the lines of help taiwan to arm itself For better defense to make itself as unpalatable to china as possible in an invasion And then just try and find other ways to diffuse some of those tensions Because I I do think you know right now The situation us china relations looks very much like the situation in us russian relations 10 years ago And I'd hate us to end up in the same place Could I just ask to follow up a little bit on that? What is the role of the countries that actually, you know, either surround or in close proximity to targets like taiwan? Countries like south korea countries like japan, maybe even australia in europe Uh, you know, do you feel like, you know, poland poland has certainly done an incredible job of absorbing refugees and and kind of Helping be a pass through point for all sorts of things, but are germany and france are the major nato countries? um and the european union countries pulling their weight or is that You know, um, you know, is that a kind of premonition of what might go wrong if something analogous happens in asia? I probably shouldn't laugh when you say are they pulling their weight Um, but no, they're they're not pulling their weight The pols are the estonians are the lapians are the lithuanians are the the checks are And that's because they're very close to russia, right? They're the bordering states. They feel the sense of threat Even with us protection and they could definitely be doing much more They're the ones stepping up on defense And the question is, you know, I think with us presence there Whether germany or france or other countries will ever step up, you know with the us there to protect them and with them feeling a relatively low threat From russia. Um in asia. I think what we're seeing is actually a little more Comforting from the point of view of us planners, which is the south koreans the japanese the australians They actually all do see a threat from china and even with some us presence They are all actually trying to get more capable in the military space So, you know, my my bottom line is I want us allies to carry far more of the burden for their own defense potentially all of it at some point But you know, I see more hope for optimism in asia than I do in europe where You know, after all the grand promises the middle of the year last year We've just reverted to form where the us pretty much does everything Just to um, kind of wrap up the stream I want to return to the the the question of the stream Which is should america keep funding ukraine as we look ahead to this new year? And um, you know, obviously a lot of In some sense the question is like well, it's the or the answer is it's going to keep funding ukraine It's all the fundings are even past the president has the ability to kind of give You know a very free hand to give ukraine weapons because of a previous bill passed by congress But what do you hope like what is the The change in policy that if we want to be hopeful that You hope transpires over this next year To kind of at least if not totally cut off ukraine from funding at least start to Push ukraine towards And to sorry to push russia and ukraine towards some sort of resolution here No, I think that's a good way to frame it that the question really isn't should the us end funding to ukraine because we're not going to and We probably shouldn't anyway The question is, you know, are we prepared to think about how we try and end this conflict sooner rather than later? And that I think requires far less attention by policy makers to what specific weapons systems We're sending the ukrainians or how much money and how fast and more attention to actually thinking about you know How long we want to do this and what we're actually willing to sort of take from You know ukraine in terms of progress, right? If everything stalemates now and there's no further movement on the ground in three months and six months You know, is that when we pressure strongly to come to the negotiating table? Is that when we try and use whatever carrots we might have with russia to get them to negotiate? So I think it's much more a discussion about When we start to take it off or dial back that aid and not a and less a discussion about yes or no right now Do you in some way are we living in trump's world in terms of foreign policy? In the sense of he I mean you were talking about as a kind of jacksonian hawk Obviously, he's belligerent in his personal behavior. He he wanted, you know He talked about a big beautiful military with the best new weapons and toys Wanted spent a lot of money on it. We just had like a major National defense bill that is you know a peacetime record or whatever But but he also did stress the idea that the us isn't going to be Paying, you know the price in literal or figurative terms going forward And it seems like even if biden has committed to a kind of idea of the us As the still indispensable nation he did, you know a year ago roughly or you know ruled out american troops Defending or or being in ukraine You know has was trump onto something with that and is that the beginning of a pivot from Atlet you know a century of america being indispensable to the united states being one player among many I I think you know I always laugh when people say oh what would what would trump have done if he was president during the war in ukraine because I I don't think there's any way to know the answer right my suspicion is he would have left solinsky To twist in the wind because the man got him impeached one time But that's much more, you know if we were to assume a president with trump's rough views and foreign policy But without all his personal pathologies I suspect the policy would look fairly similar to what biden's doing right now You know arming ukraine pushing the europeans to do more maybe not sending all the troops But yeah, I suspect the policy would look relatively similar to what we're doing now And this is I think the thing that gives me some hope In foreign policy is if you look at the trajectory from obama through trump to biden You do see, you know Fairly significant changes in certain areas right in you know, we're pulling back from regime change We're pulling back from nation building The u.s. Is pushing burden sharing, you know 10 15 years ago Burden sharing by allies was a dirty word in washington So things I think are trending in the right direction in a number of areas It's just very slow And it's going to take I think a couple of administrations before we start to see a more complete package of reform can I this might be beyond your scope of Of analysis or expertise, but what the hell? You know when we look at 2024 and when you look at you know, somebody like a ron desantis or a governor You know gavin nuesome or you know the the you know presumptive People who are going to be or kamala harris for that matter is there do we have any sense that these people Have an interest or an expertise in foreign policy Or are they going to be kind of like trump where he had certain instincts, but then You know kind of got rolled by the by the establishment You know, is there is there any reason to think A new generation of leaders is is kind of going to come into place Which will kind of move into the 21st century before it's over I think the answer there is yes, but I don't necessarily think it's this next generation Harris is Fairly ill-defined in foreign policy But one gets the sense that she's closer to sort of the hillary clinton wing of the party Rhonda Santis we actually know from his his time in congress and stuff. He's He's quite hawkish looks more like I'd say like mike pence on foreign policy then on then another possible You know, yes. Yeah, so so that's more neoconservative less jacksonian So but but part of this is I think that there's so much uncertainty with you know, both parties having obvious presumptive nominees if you look a generation down and you look at folks like, um, you know Joaquin Castro chris miller rocana You know, they all have more interesting instincts on foreign policy And so, you know, I think it's kind of a generational shift. Um, we're just we're just not quite there yet Yeah, uh, well, uh, thank you very much for taking the time to talk it through with us, um, And uh, thank you nick and to all the viewers who tuned in tuned in live and those of you listening later We will be back Again next thursday Great. Thanks so much