 Good morning. It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. It's time for What Now America? I'm Tim Apachele, your host. Today's title is Make USSR Great Again Invade Ukraine. You know, it was November 9th, 1989. The title is that, Tim. Invade Ukraine. You heard it here on Think Tech. I'm sorry. You know, Jay, that's kind of where we're at in this story. So that's why, you know, we're going to talk about Vladimir Putin and his motivations. And, you know, in 1989, Jay, as you well know, in Winston, the Berlin Wall fell. And then a couple of years later, on December 25th, 1991, the hammer and sickle flag of the USSR came down off the Kremlin flag post. And ever since then, you know, Russia allegedly was going to reform into a democratic nation and join the free society in the free economic world. Boris Yeltsin, with the combination of Valentin Yushmar, decided that a young man by the name of Vladimir Putin would be a great replacement. And back then, Vladimir Putin, believe this or not, was perceived as democratic, liberal, and well in favor of market reforms. What happened in between 1999, when he was appointed prime minister, and today is left to one's imagination. But here we are. And here we are now with Vladimir Putin, who has ordered 100 plus thousand troops on three points of the border of Ukraine, poised what it seems to be an invasion. And that's where we're at. We have the potential of Ukraine being invaded by Russia. And Joe Biden, President Biden has attempted to discuss this matter with Vladimir Putin at Putin's request. And the question goes to you, Jay, is what is Vladimir Putin up to? What is his agenda? I'm taking Ukraine in a word. And it seems obvious. It's like Xi Jinping wants to have Taiwan for many geopolitical reasons. Is this a matter of national sovereignty issues to make Russia great again and have satellite states? Maybe. Maybe he wants to return to the good old days in the USSR. I mean, that seems, if you connect the dots, that's where you go. He did that in the south, the south of Russia, and he's doing it here in the west of Russia. So it's just a matter of getting there. What I find interesting is these conversations between Putin and Biden. And Biden makes these, what do we call it, veiled threats of sanctions. He says they really draconian sanctions, but we don't know what they are. And I'm not sure that that puts Putin off the track at all. He's just playing. And at the end of the day, no matter what Biden does, Putin knows that Biden not going to be able to get Congress behind him. So he's going to do what he's going to do. And I agree with you. The big question is, what is he going to do? And for what purpose? And I think the answer is to expand his influence over Ukraine, which could be a buffer state or could be part of NATO. But if he holds Ukraine, controls Ukraine, he's out of the woods on that. And he looks good to the Russian people and to the world. He looks powerful. You know, Putin is the next KGB spy. He actually kind of excelled in communications and propaganda. That was his forte and certainly he's been able to pass that on down the line to certain leaders here in our country. But the bottom line is, Putin says he wants legally binding agreements between NATO and Russia that weapons will not be sent to the Ukraine and or into any neighboring country and certainly doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO. He's compared this situation to the days of, you know, the October crisis, missile crisis of 1962 when Cuba had missiles and, you know, President Kennedy said vehemently, those missiles have to go. And he's comparing the two as exact same situations that how would the United States like it if Cuba had missile, nuclear missiles back again? Is that a fair comparison on Putin's part? No, how would Western Europe like it if Putin puts nuclear weapons in Ukraine? You know, it's the same thing in reverse, which he will do. I mean, he's trying to get them to stand down on everything. Don't include them in NATO. Don't give them weapons. And there's probably other parts of that deal, too. That for geopolitical reasons for, you know, Putin's, you know, aggressive moves on Ukraine, it obviously, I mean, it gets him in the same direction, maybe the same place as if he took it over. You know, I mean, Putin is a KGB guy. You know, you can always get there indirectly once you couldn't do directly. So how do you achieve the territorialization of Ukraine without actually firing a shot? I think that's what we may have here. So he has the soldiers on the border. He makes threats. He uses hacking to knock off the utilities. He's done that a few times. He's got, you know, he's got people who are working for him inside of Ukraine. He is trying to intimidate them in every which way. And he's trying to intimidate Western Europe. Don't forget the pipeline. You know, he serves up gas to Western Europe, especially Germany. And they never really resolved that, I think. So I think you're right that Putin is going to use this quote agreement and Biden thinks everybody, everything can be resolved by an agreement, even if it doesn't favor your party. So this agreement is very crafty on the part of Putin. And I think he is going to use it. He is using it as a way to control the situation without ever firing a shot. All right. Winston, I'm going to bring up a question from one of a member of our audience. And we certainly appreciate all the questions we get. And it kind of goes along track to what we're just talking about. And the question is, what are the comparisons drawable between Taiwan, the People's Republic of China, and Ukraine and Russia, where America attempt to establish a substantial military presence in Taiwan, it would most certainly lead to war, hence our light touch. Is that the same reason we haven't integrated Ukraine into NATO? I think there are reasonably similar comparisons. And you have to think about it. We're thinking about it from our point of view, which makes sense from defending a freer world. But historically, these nations consider this their area of influence. So when the Soviet Union fell apart, now we have to think about this conglomeration of nations. A lot had nothing to do with each other except imposing this horrendous political ideology of communism on people, which was disastrous. Then it fell apart. And you can imagine, though, that there's a lot of people in Russia that pying for those days when they held that suzerainty over the entirety of then what became the Commonwealth of Independent States later, but they saw their power evaporate. Then they have a savior in a man like Putin, who I think is still pretty well regarded inside of the Soviet Union, whether it's propaganda or not. He is the strong man that seems to be desirable in not just that country, but increasingly around the world. We're seeing the strong manism really make a resurgence. As far as what's actually going to happen, it's like the Wall Street Journal says today that he's going to do what he perceives as in Russia's best interest. So that will continue with the bullying, the threats, the incursions, whether it's... I don't think it will be military this time, actually. I think he'll send in his special forces in destabilizing things and the cyber attacks and all the things that we're used to. But I think that he's pushed it pretty close. And he realizes that Anthony Blinken has been pretty clear that whatever we did or did not do, more importantly, in 2014, when he took over the Crimea, that there could be some very serious consequences this time around economically. That said, he also supplies Western Europe with our... And all he has to do is shut off the taps. So there's a lot of geopolitical interests here that are not going to be solved in a day. And it's not just political. It is economic. It's corporate. A lot of things here. At the end of the day, he is a bully. He's going to continue to bully his neighbors. I just saw in my newsfeed that Slovakia signed a defense agreement with NATO, allowing troops to be used to be, I don't know, stationed, transited their airports. I'm not sure what it is. And so that's right on the border of Ukraine. It came precipitously. This week, right before and during these negotiations in Brussels and Geneva and wherever are also going to happen. My sense is that they're going to back down. They'll find a pretence, they'll pull back. Russia has a lot of problems on its own. But this is a way where he can huff and puff, make himself look good, turn around, say, we've achieved our objectives and go back. Okay. Jay, the more things change, the more sometimes they appear to remain the same. And I'm reminded back in the history lessons of post-World War II when Churchill and Roosevelt met with Stalin and Potsdam. And they basically carved up Eastern Europe, specifically Poland got the shaft. They basically traded away their sovereign rights. Where has been Ukraine in all these discussions? Or has Ukraine under the wire been, you know, are they at the table as this conflict's being unfolded? You know, it's a huge mistake to exclude somebody that should be included. I mean, you are a stakeholder, don't you think? Absolutely. This is what happened in Afghanistan too. We didn't negotiate with all the parties at the table or Trump didn't back when. As I recall, Afghanistan wasn't included in the discussions. Everybody else but not Afghanistan. And so here you have, you know, Ukraine not included. And there's no good reason for that. It does indicate that we don't treat them as very important. We don't treat their government as very important. It's a mistake. And who's to say that Biden and Blinken are doing the right thing? They've been criticized pretty roundly on a number of points. I mean, they didn't mess up, I'm sorry to say, the Afghanistan withdrawal. But I think they might be in retrospect, you know, history will judge, but might be messing up what's going on in Eastern Europe. So I think, you know, it's a very good comparison to see this as the way Hitler dismembered Europe by his bullying and threats and his special deals and what have you in the late 30s, you know, and of course, Chamberlain and, you know, appeasement and all that. And we are probably on a path to do that, do some kind of appeasement and let them get away with it. Whether they actually take the territory, I think, as I said before, I think they'll do it by some circuitous route rather than by direct force. I'm not sure that you could say they would back down because they will achieve what they want indirectly. I don't know if that answers your question, but my feeling is that we are living in a time when Europe is becoming destabilized. Russia is doing it for its own purposes. This is very troubling. And one of the reasons it troubles me, I'll tell you, is that they really need to do this. Does Putin need to do this to retain power? No. Does Putin need to expand his borders? No, not really. Nobody is really challenging his borders. NATO is not being aggressive on the border. And so why is he doing this when he doesn't have to? This is the same thing with Xi Jinping. Why is he going after Taiwan? Is it really critical? Why did he do in Hong Kong what he did? Is that really critical? And in Xinjiang, where the Uyghurs are, does he have to push them around like this? Probably not. He's being more dictatorial as we go forward. And maybe that's part of what Winston said. We live in a world where autocracy is emerging. Power corrupts absolutely. And these guys see their mission, these autocrats see their mission as doing these bold, aggressive things, not for the rational benefit of it, but just to expand their own personal power. And that might be, in fact, in my opinion, it is one of Putin's major drivers here. It's not because he needs to do this. Okay. Thank you, Jay. Winston, we've heard President Biden basically say there will be grave consequences of sanctions and economic deterrence levied upon Russia. Should they invade Ukraine? I guess for negotiation purposes, it's best to keep that generic and not lined out specifically. One specific thing I heard was that Russia would be prohibited from the SWIFT system, which is to say all international wires for banking requires a SWIFT number and a SWIFT authorization. And that Russia would be prohibited. Therefore, all Russian rubles would be contained within Russia. And they really couldn't interact with the rest of the international community. Could you imagine what other kind of economic sanctions we can levy about Russia and prevent them from you invading Ukraine? Oh, who knows what they've really got on the table there? I mean, it might be just that everybody involved in the government at certain level, and their family members are not allowed to be given the permission to travel to the West or to places where they want to go shopping. I mean, honestly, so they're just going to have to shop at the luxury stores in Moscow and be content with that. Order it in by Amazon. Or Amazon. Yeah, cutting them off from amazon.ru. Jeff Bezos won't like that. Yeah, it might be other types of sanctions like that, cutting them out of the international banking system. They'll find another way to get around that. But I think whatever it is that they have cooking, the Russians know what it is. We know our leaders know what it is. But I think the point of Anthony Blinken saying it will be much more devastating, much more severe than anything that was ever proposed before is just, we haven't heard words like this out of the administration for the last year. And now Joe Biden's come up and he's kind of, yesterday was kind of a moment for him, or this week where he's kind of rearing up and putting out his head, whether it's for the filibuster and putting through voting rights and equating people who, as he was giving the speeches at the Black colleges yesterday, do you want to be remembered as a politician as Jefferson Davis or as Abraham Lincoln? And you're sort of making this equivalency of which is, I think, well, obviously different circumstances. But that idea that do you want to be on the right side of history when it comes right down to it. You know, we have to also remember that NATO was almost given a death blow five years ago when you had the former president of the United States saying he questions it. It's very existence. Why should we be in that? I don't know that we should. Maybe we should pull out all of our troops or whatever that solid alliance was, was shaken to its fundamental core to the point where the Germans and the French really had to say, we're on our own here and we need to chart our own. Well, I remember that discussion distinctly and I remember that a lot of it was popular. And that was it's time for the NATO nations to pay their bill. And a lot of people said, yeah, it's about time and we like Trump for that and good for him. And well, he politicized it, Tim. Yes, he did. And we have a question. I don't know if you noticed we have a question. I was going to ask that to Winston straightforward. Yeah, we have to remember, though, that paying the bill is a different thing than dissolving the alliance. And when you that forced Angela Merkel to say, you know, we have to have a different arrangement in Europe. So the Europeans may be looking at this very differently. And I think that they are because they have no great desire to be involved in any conflict or pawns in conflict with Russia. They're dependent on them for their fuel supplies. Now, of course, I think they're working as fast as they can to be renewables and whatever else they can do to get away from that. But fundamentally, there's a giant Nord 2 pipeline coming in through the Baltic that's been drastically approved by this administration. Who knows what will happen with things like that. But the Europeans have to be looking at this from a different perspective than than a newly reinvigorated or, you know, a juiced up American supported NATO might be. But hopefully they will present a united front on this realizing that, yeah, this could this could spill over into something much larger as well. All war spill over into something that was unintended. That's the nature of war. Okay. Thank you, Winston. Jay, you're right. We do have a second question. And before we go to it, I just want to thank Miss Zimmerman for the very first question. So the second question is from Tom Yamashika. And the question is this, could you speak to the criticism that used to be levied against the US for being self appointed policemen of the world? Is it worth it for the United States to expend troops, lose lives, etc. to police the Ukrainian and or Chinese situations? Oh, I mean, that raises the politicization I'm talking about. You know, Trump not only attacked the NATO to east Western Europe on the basis that they haven't paid the bills. It was more than that. He was he was telling his base, we don't want to support them. We don't want to be part of them. And thus politicizing the whole issue. So there were a lot of people asking what Tom Yamashika is asking. Why should we do that? Why should we put America? Didn't we just get out of Afghanistan? Haven't we sworn to avoid putting American boots on the ground, American lives and spending all that money? We spent tons of money, trillions in Afghanistan. Why do we want to do that now? And this is a political feeling that if you went through the base right now, the base would say no way. Okay. And the base and the GOP saying no way means that Congress, even if it might otherwise take action, I mean, I firmly believe Congress is not going to act on anything, not until the elections are done and the GOP wins, then the GOP will do what it wants. But for now, I don't think, you know, he can Biden can count on Congress for any of that. So it's a paper tiger. You know, the answer to Tom Tom Yamashika's question is the American people are at least the ones who control things. That is the GOP. They effectively control it by, I call it a legislative veto. You think Joe Manchin is going to back up an adventure in Europe? No way. And that means nobody will. So my feeling is that when Biden goes and Tony Blinken, they say they're going to do draconian things to Russia, really, really, when's the last time you did that? And so I think they know the Russian snow. Putin knows that it's paper tiger talking. It will not happen. Then what's the preventive from going in? If you really believe that Biden's talk is paper tiger talk, what disincentive does Putin have to stay out of Ukraine versus going in? Optics. Optics. What does Putin care about optics? What optics? Well, he wants to be seen as a global leader. He wants to be respected, held in awe, but not necessarily in fear of war, although we might have that fear by Europe. He has a long plan that will get him, as I said before, that will get him to where he wants to go without firing his shot. Isn't that better? I mean, he's got to deal with people in Russia, too, who don't want to put boots on the ground. So he's not going to go in. He can get there indirectly. It's like what he's done to the US, what he's doing to the US in the election. He's got the internet research agency working night and day to try to divide us and make bubbles and fragment the American public and fragment our government. And he has, assuming he's largely responsible, directly or indirectly for all of this trouble we have in terms of fragmented public opinion, he's done a pretty good job without firing his shot and without admitting that he did anything. You can't be sure that he did it. So the problem there is that he's done a very good job at that without firing a shot, without seeming to be bellicose. In this case, I think you have to see a strategy in other areas and then you can figure out, you can connect the dots on what he's doing here. So A, he's not going to go in, I agree. And B, we're not going to go in either. This is all a chess game. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Jay, for your comments. Winston, President Biden already proactively stated that the United States has no intention of responding to this conflict with military aid. Well, at least as far as boots on the ground, that may change as far as military equipment and assistance to Ukraine. Hard to say how that pans out or not pans out. How is Joe Biden doing specifically to this crisis? Jay says the United States is acting like a paper tiger. Do you agree with that? Or has Joe Biden provided a tone that has Putin's attention and his concern? Maybe both. Are we really going to go and defend Ukraine in some meaningful fashion and provide boots on the ground? It's not going to happen. No, Biden said he won't put boots on the ground. That was a definitive comment. It's not a member of NATO. It is a buffer state. I mean, maybe what will come out of this, let's be optimistically naive and say that Ukraine becomes some sort of neutral state, like Austria after the Allies pulled out of it after the war. Or perhaps something like Sweden or Finland, a buffer in effect. And within this zone, remember, we pulled out of that nuclear forces, intermediate nuclear forces. Those could always be reintroduced. Those types of threats as well. At the end of the day, Putin sells a lot of military equipment to third-world countries and second-world, first-world countries. I mean, the Turks are buying their equipment. So for them to stand up to the world's great power, the United States and its allies, and says, hey, we can do this, and they back down. So why don't you buy some of our whatever military equipment that we're selling? He stands to win in this. He might face some sanctions temporarily, but he's going to go back home with a win. Let's face it, you don't want to be living in Russia. COVID is running rampant. Their life expectancy is shrinking every single year. They've got a lot of issues at home. This is a good distraction for him. He's a bully, so he gets to satisfy that part of the ego. But at the end of the day, maybe we'll come out with something that results in it, hopefully, a little bit more pulling back from the edge. I hope that's what happens. We'll know in a week or two what will happen, but maybe it could be something where there's some face-saving. And the shenanigans are going to continue. Let's not be that naive. It's still going to be poking in at Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania and flying over NATO territories and everything that they can do, destabilizing our own nation, our own elections, as Jay was saying. That's not going away. But if we can avoid something right now, I'd say more power to him. You used the term face-saving, and that's an important term, because whenever you get into a conflict that doesn't look like it'd be resolved, saving face seems to be paramount for our leaders of every nation, not just Russia here. But there was a 1990 Conventional Armed Forces European Agreement, and that agreement didn't just pertain to nuclear weapons, but certainly conventional arms. And there's comments whether or not that can be dusted off, and that treaty be used as the basis to unwind this particular conflict, thereby allowing Putin to save face, and all other parties to save face. You think that's a possibility? Remember, he got kicked out of the G8 when he invaded Crimea. He's still in power. He's still selling gas to the Europeans. It's not a lot has happened since then. Maybe the route with Russia, although Europe and Russia have always kind of wanted to treat each other as cousins at arms length a little bit. But let's face it, Victoria's kids married into the Tsar's family, they all had their blood disease. Maybe this is a route where Putin says, you know what, my basic geopolitical interest for this nation long term lie in tying us firmly into Europe so that we don't have to face that threat on the western part of our border because our underbelly is completely exposed, and who knows about the Far East. So maybe in the long run, he's playing a longer game here that uses this as a platform for neutralizing that and becoming maybe a, I don't know, look down the road 10 years and say, we're partners rather than adversaries or potential adversaries. Let's hope for that. I mean, that would be the best outcome for him so that he can face all the other threats that he's got at home. Alrighty. Hey, we're out of time. Jay, your final comments on this topic? Yeah, we're about climate change. The whole planet, humanity is suffering under climate change and COVID and here we are screwing around on the border of Ukraine. It's the wrong direction and he's not being altruistic. The other thing I want to mention is I think there's a connection here between the paper tiger problem where, you know, we didn't get the build back better bill through and, you know, Biden is all but given up on that. And, you know, he's making, he's stamping his feet about voting suggesting that we have to, you know, change the filibuster on that. But, you know, that's not going to happen either. And his inability to get his initiatives through in this country affect his clout overseas, right? If you're Putin, you are looking at how effective Biden is in the U.S. and you're seeing how powerful a president he is and I'm afraid that he's losing these initiatives. He doesn't look too powerful. At the same time, you know, I think Putin knows how to play the game and look powerful, look strong even if he isn't. So it's too bad we're in this place because as the guns of August by Barbara, the guns of August, great book back in the back 20 years ago evaluating the start of World War One. It was just like this. And if you looked back at World War Two, the things that happened in the 30s were a pretty good signal of what was what was going to happen. And I think mistakes are made even if Putin does not intend to have war. And Biden certainly doesn't want war and the base in this country don't want war. And the people in Western Europe don't want war. It could happen anyway. By the way, it's Barbara Tuckman, the guns of August. And it is haunting now because all these things are programmed for violence for war, just as they were before World War One and two. Great comments. Thank you, Jay. Winston, you get the last word and the last comment. Not going to happen, Jay. We're not going to war. I don't think the shenanigans will continue. No one has any interest in making this a hotter conflict than it already is. My hopes are for de-escalation at this point. Putin goes home, declares his victories, gets whatever accolades he needs. Europe becomes a little bit, gets a breathing room so that maybe they can come with some better options like they have in the past. And we can pull back from this brink. I want to be optimistic, not naively so, but I would like to err on the side that we can come out of this a little bit better. And as far as Biden goes, poor man, he's just hanging on my thread in the Senate. He doesn't have a lot of room to maneuver here regardless whether it's domestic or support for any policies that he's got. So whatever that he can get accomplished, more power to him as well. Tim, the word endemic does suggest itself. At the end of the day, as far as COVID is concerned, we're going to have a long-term model. It'll be endemic. It won't threaten human race so much, but it'll be insinuated throughout. And the same thing with this country. We will lose the democracy that we've had, and we'll have some other dystopian form of it. And it will settle down to some kind of endemic situation in terms of the political arrangement in this country. And I suggest from Winston's comments that what is going to happen in Europe is that Biden, or rather Putin, will find a way to be more influential economically and politically throughout Europe. And it'll settle down into a new system where Russia has more influence. It'll be endemic in that too. Yes. Okay. Alrighty. Well, we ran out of time. I want to thank both my guest, Jay Fidel, Winston Welch for their wise and insightful comments. Please join us next week, Wednesday at 11 o'clock for What Now, America. I'm Tim Epitle, your host, and I hope to see you then. Aloha.