 Let me go ahead and introduce our panel for today and go from there. So good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our discussion of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, which is a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Department of Political Science and the School of Education and Behavioral Sciences here at Middle Georgia State. Also co-sponsored by the MGA Political Science Student Organization and the Alpha Museta chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, which is the National Honorary Society for Political Science. So first, what we'll do is talk a little bit about the department and then introduce our panelists and talk about the structure of the event and go from there. So we have several different programs that are offered by our department. For those of you that are unfamiliar with us, we have a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. We also offer minors in Political Science, African and African diaspora studies, environmental policy studies, global studies and pre-law and a certificate in European studies as well. For those of you that are not familiar with us. So as far as our panelists go, I'd like to welcome first Dr. John Hall, who is an Associate Professor of Political Science and has been here at Middle Georgia States in 2015. His doctorate is in Political Science from Auburn University. We also have with us Dr. Thomas Matrock, who is an Instructor of Political Science here at Middle Georgia State. He has been with us since 2020, I think, if I'm not mistaken, and is a former professor at Air University, UNC Greensboro and Army War College and is the Executive Director of the Joint Civil-Military Interaction Network. His doctorate is in, I believe, a conflict resolution management from Nova Southeastern University. And last but not least, I'm your moderator, Dr. Christopher Lawrence. I'm Associate Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department. I've been here since 2012 and my doctorate in Political Science is from the University of Mississippi. I'd also like to thank Dr. Matthew Haverly for joining us this evening and certainly he's welcome to share any thoughts he has on our questions as we move forward as well. And I'd like to thank our attendees. We are a little low on attendance so far. Hopefully a few more people will be drifting in here in a little bit because certainly I believe this should be some interesting material. So for those of you that have not joined us for one of these events before, the format is fairly straightforward. I have pre-selected into consultation with the panelists a few potential questions to ask and we'll start with those. And then we also though are interested in your questions as well, which you can ask in the chat window, which I will try to intersperse with our discussion questions as well. And please be courteous and civil to each other in the chat window. Usually we don't have any trouble with that. So I'm not too worried about that. So let me move forward and just to tell you briefly kind of an overview of what questions I anticipate will probably be asking. So I'll ask them to have some questions about the historical background of conflict. Current developments, we had a discussion event about the conflict in Ukraine about, I believe it was seven months ago or so. It was six, seven months ago. So obviously a lot of development since then, potential for how this conflict gets resolved an exit strategy or off ramp or whatever you might wanna call that. And then also how Ukraine support has been evolving with regards to the European Union, the United States, other allies as well. So let me get rid of the slides here for now. And so you can see our panelists more clearly. And now further ado, I guess we'll go ahead and start with our first question if everybody's ready for that. So great. So our first question is just a bit of background probably about the conflict, specifically what historical links are there between Russia and Ukraine and how does that sort of play into the conflict as it's played out over the last, well, depending on how you're accounting either eight years or eight months. Next time I know if you wanna take that first so it will yield to your expertise in foreign policy. Yeah, yes, you're too kind. Yeah, this is an interesting one, especially when we say, okay, let's put a mark on the wall and say, when did this conflict emerge? And so certainly we could look at February of this year and say, well, that's when the conflict began. We've talked about the following eight or nine months or however that comes out. One of the things I would say is when I think about this ongoing conflict, my start date for this conflict is 1919. And it started with the establishment of the Soviet Union Bolshevik Revolution and what Putin perceived to be Lenin's betrayal by establishing Ukraine, a country that never existed. And we hear that same narrative today when Putin says Ukraine is not a real country. It's a colony at best of Russia. So in thinking that 200 year present, I would put my start point for this conflict at 1919 and using, and this would be Putin's own statement that he really believes that it was Lenin that kicked this can over and caused this ongoing problem. Of course, we can always go back to Catherine the Great who first annexed Crimea. And so there's been a long historical connection in this region long before there were countries, long before 1648 and Westphalia and sovereign states and all. So this has been pretty much a conflicted region for a good long while. Now, that brings us up to February of this year. I found it interesting that during closed door briefings to congressional leaders on February 2nd and 3rd, General Mark Milley, the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that Kiev would fall within 72 hours with a cost of 15,000 Ukrainian troop deaths. In April 5th, Milley testified, I do think this is a very protracted conflict and I think it's at least measured in years. And NATO, US allies, partners in Ukraine are going to be involved in this for quite some time. So I bring this up to demonstrate that we never even had a good understanding of the situation from the start. And we've been playing catch up, running around trying to make sense of all this. So what's the history then of the conflict? It's one of catch up from our perspective in that we have not taken seriously since Putin's Munich speech to his June 21 speech where he said that Ukraine is Russia and there is no Russia without Ukraine and that he would be all in on this conflict because the alternative is not acceptable, no Russia. So that's a little bit of the historical piece of it that I find is absolutely fascinating. If we start at 1919, look at what is perceived as a betrayal and as Putin said, the fall of the Soviet Union being the worst event of the 20th century and then coming into Maidan in 2014 and the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Eastern Ukraine, we see just one long continuous fight. And this is simply one manifestation of that long fight that's been ongoing and arguably we could really go back to Catherine the Great, we could go back to Ukraine's connection to Lithuania and Poland, we could go back to the 1300s to look at the historical root of what we're seeing today. So I hope that was not too long-winded to talk about the history of this conflict. Those are great points. Just like you said, Tom, to ask the question when does the Russian-Ukrainian issue begin? You could measure that in millennia, you could measure that in decades. You made great points. I would actually start in 1991. I would go to the fall of the Soviet Union and we have the breakup of the Soviet Union. President Vladimir Putin was there. He saw that, like you said, he referred to that as the single worst thing to happen in the 20th century. If anyone, any of our students who have joined us and thank you all for taking part, if it was familiar with the 20th century to call the breakup of the Soviet Union, the worst thing that happened is to ignore quite a few horrible things. This gives us an image of what Vladimir Putin wants, his policies. After the fall of the Soviet Union, you have a lot of what was once Eastern Europe in the Soviet Union, breaking off into independence movements, creating liberal democracies, and the Russians were losing that buffer that they preferred to have. Also, if you're familiar with the 20th century, the 19th century, if you know why Russia wants to have a buffer between it and the rest of Europe, particularly Germany in the 20th century, France in the 19th century, and they were losing that. So with the breakup of the Soviet Union, you have the seed being planted in President Putin's head that this is the collapse of something great and he wants to bring that back. In the 90s, especially in the 21st century, you see democratic elections putting in to the presidency pro-Russian and pro-western candidates. This eventually comes to a head with the invasion of the Crimean Peninsula, the annexation of it, and the eventual invasion of Ukraine proper. Again, great job, Tom. Just trying to add a few more details there. The history between the Russians and the Ukrainians is quite extensive. The number one thing to keep in mind for any of our students who aren't that familiar is the view of Putin and many Russians that Ukraine is part of Russia. They have the same view of Belarus. So there is this belief that Ukraine is in fact artificial, that it belongs to Russia and that the Russians are using military force to try to guarantee that. So we can probably circle back around in this later, but that's a great introduction. Yeah, thanks so much, and as you're saying that, John, I just want to add in, because as you mentioned, Ukraine and there's no Russia without Ukraine and it's interesting too that Ukraine was established first, historically. So there was a Ukraine before there was Russia and that the Rus come from Ukraine and the Moskva come from Russia. So it's an interesting historical twist that when we look at where the Rus come from, vice the Moskva. Yeah, great, great points, John. Thank you for... Okay, great. Thanks as Dr. Hall plays with his lights there. Let's see. So kind of more specifically, kind of getting to the geopolitics here. Why do you think that Russia wants to control at least the eastern and southern parts of modern Ukraine, if not all of Ukraine, such as the Crimean Peninsula and the so-called Donbas region? What's in it for Russia in controlling those areas? Is it just about being a buffer area? Is there something more to that? Great question, I'll jump on. There are several reasons, geopolitical reasons for the Russians wanting to have access at least to the far eastern portion of Ukraine. On the one hand, money. It is a heavily industrialized region in Ukraine. There are extraordinary amounts of coal that are present there. So you can ask the same question of any nation state. Why would you want a region that's heavily industrialized and has a lot of coal because of the resources that are there? In addition, there are some geographic reasons for wanting to control at least the eastern portion. And that is that it connects Russia. It creates this land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula that they seized back in 2014. So if you seize the Crimean Peninsula, it makes sense that you would want to have a land bridge to connect. Also, there are relatively simple political reasons. There are a number or a higher number of pro-Russian civilian populations in the eastern Donbass region. That is important to say, but it's also important to note that when pulled, vast majorities of Ukrainians do not have positive images of Moscow even when you look at the Donbass region. So to simply claim that there are a lot of ethnic Russians, Russian speakers in that area, if this were 20 years ago, that would be an interesting argument. But today, there are so many bilingual people in the eastern portion of Ukraine that that doesn't really add up. So why would Russia want at least this eastern portion that they somewhat seized, although they're losing a great deal of it today? Those reasons, there's a great deal of wealth there. It's a land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula. In addition, from the perspective of national pride, Russia started a fight that in many ways you could look at as Russia has been losing that fight from very early on. So if for no other reason, maintaining control of areas that they have controlled in the past is another major reason that the Putin administration would want to keep what they have seized. When we speak later about possible exit strategies, that might be one of them, allowing the Russians to keep the areas in the Donetsk and the Luhansk that they have seized already, although they are losing ground significantly. I will leave it at that and turn it over, Tom, for reasons why Russia would want to at least maintain control of the eastern portions of Ukraine, mainly because they have them now. Yeah, no, I echo everything you pointed out, John. And I'll just add, if I could, when I was looking at this question that Chris had sent along, again, and to understand Putin, this is getting into Putin's mind. One of the things we realize or should realize is that for Putin, history matters. And Crimea is incredibly important to Russia, as I've mentioned with Catherine the Great's first annexation of it in 1783. And this history is well-known to Russians and certainly to Putin. And this too was the beginning, the birth of the Russian Empire, when Sweden's Charles XII was defeated by the Cossacks. And so this specific, why this peace? There's the geopolitical peace and then there's the historical cultural peace that's so significant. And this all contributes back to this point about why there is no Russia without Ukraine. So for Putin, history matters. And one of the things he wants to do is to rewrite the history of Ukraine and Europe. And to do that, he has to have a territory, possess territory. And I had already mentioned about Lenin losing Ukraine in 1922 with the formation of the Soviet Union. But to be even more specific, to drill down even more specific and to add to the points you made, John, one of the things that Crimea in Eastern, the Eastern portions of Ukraine offered to Russia is a warm water port and control of the Black Sea. And to allow its Black Sea fleet access to the Mediterranean into North Africa, the Middle East, and we see that in Syria. Because if we remember the events that occurred, it was the annexation of Crimea, which freed up of the Black Sea fleet of Russia, which then allowed it access to Syria and we recall that Russia had been pushed out of the Middle East and it had no presence in the Middle East whatsoever. But now it's able to move its forces into Syria to support Assad and now put that foothold back into the Middle East. So we now have a Russia back in the Middle East, access to the Mediterranean, control of the Middle East, control of the Black Sea, as well as allowing for the weaponization of food and landlocking Ukraine. So why the Eastern portion? Yes, absolutely industrial base. That was also always the industrial heartland of Ukraine. It also for security purposes and also as you said, the bridge that would move from Russia proper to Crimea. And I would also then add to that strategically it landlocked Ukraine, weaponizes grain, access to the Mediterranean and allows for all kinds of troublemaking. Now as Russia seeks to reestablish itself as an empire and this is Putin's language that Russia needs to reestablish itself as an empire, but you can't be an empire unless you can project power. And this allows him to project that power outward. So I hope that adds to it. Great, thanks. Excuse me. So given what you said before, where do we stand with the conflict of the moment? Obviously things have developed quite a bit since our last discussion and I think it was late February, early March. And how much have things changed since Russia really poses some early gains in the war, particularly in the East and to some extent even in the North. Obviously a lot of that has changed. So how has that changed? What is the trend if there is a trend in the conflict? Great question, I'll jump on this one. To summarize, a great deal has occurred in the last month and a half and that is basically in the form of a counter-offensive by the Ukrainians. To summarize the entire war, what we once thought was a conventional military superpower literally crosses over its border and proves that it is incapable of subjugating the nation state of Ukraine. I will address the reasons for Putin's mistakes later, but from the outset, the Ukrainians have shown themselves to be overwhelmingly more capable militarily than Russia or the United States thought they would be. As the Russians changed their strategies and pull out and seem to abandon any attempts at taking the capital city of Kiev, they refocus their efforts in the East for reasons that we've discussed. There is the most, the highest level of support for Russia is gonna be found in the Eastern Donbass region. So they refocus their efforts there and had some degree of success, but the counter-offensive as of late has taken back extraordinary amounts of land in the East getting into the Donbass actually threatening to get closer to Crimea, looking at the southern port city of the southern city of Kurshom. The Ukrainians have had extraordinary success in this counter-offensive. So much so, in fact, that Vladimir Putin requested a call up of over 300,000 Russian reserves. That is a sign that the Ukrainians are fighting the Russians in a way that Putin had absolutely no comprehension of. In response, in addition to the call up of 300,000 plus soldiers, which has not proved successful so far, the Russians have recently started a strategy that can best be referred to as terrorism, shooting missiles, guided missiles into Ukrainian cities. Most recently, in the last 24 hours, using unguided suicide drones, sending those into urban areas. The Russian strategy utilizing these terrorist tactics is showing us, again, how much less effective the Russian military is conventionally than we thought it was. So the most recent updates have been extraordinary success on the part of the Ukrainians and Russian tactics that are starting to suggest that they do not have the military capability of subjugating Ukraine. One thing we can look at is the use of S-300, anti-aircraft missile systems. If you're familiar with any military technology, when it comes to anti-aircraft weapon systems, the Russians are phenomenal. They have a giant geographic area. The need for anti-aircraft weapon systems is grand. And the Russians are using old anti-aircraft weapon systems to strike civilian targets in Ukraine. That lets us know basically one thing. Why would you use an anti-aircraft weapon system to attack cities that might insinuate that you are running low on precision-guided missile systems? The U.S. and European slash global sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine may be showing itself to be effective. If Russia is running out of expensive, sophisticated weapon systems, it might be because they simply cannot build anymore. The sanctions may be having an effect. So most recent changes, again, just to summarize and find a spot to stop talking is very difficult for me to do that. The Ukrainians are doing quite well. The counter-offensive is beyond impressive. And Russia, as a conventionary military force appears to be as, I'm gonna say, incompetent as they have proved to be so far. On that note, I will stop. Yeah, absolutely, John. There's certainly very little I could add to what you just spoke to regarding the current status of the conflict. When I was reading this conflict, or this question, Chris, one of the questions that came to my mind was, maybe we should ask also which conflict? Because what you had just addressed, John, yeah, absolutely. I mean, those are the facts on the ground and that certainly makes great good sense. I would add to that the hybrid warfare and the hybrid threats in the asymmetric warfare that are also simultaneously going, being conducted along with the more conventional things that John just laid out. One of the, again, we have to go back to 2014 and look at the annexation of Crimea and the movement into the Eastern portion of Ukraine and how that, and then that movement into Syria. And then if you'll remember the movement of Syrian refugees into Europe. And the stress that that placed on the Europe and Union in 2015. And so this really began then, this use of migrants or weaponizing migrants and refugees. And so the goal then was, if we could get all, if Russia could get these migrants and refugees all moving toward Europe and stress the infrastructure of Europe, Putin, who was not militarily strong enough to take on NATO could actually press the EU and NATO to collapse by through this weaponization. We saw that same similar activity along the Polish border and Belarus when Russia was bringing in refugees, migrants and putting them on the border in Belarus and pushing them toward Poland. So this hybrid threat of using refugees and migrants to de-stabilize sovereign states is part of this war, this much broader war that is going on. So we see the conventional fight right before our eyes in Ukraine. And I say, possibly we need to open the aperture a little bit and see this geopolitical shift that's going on right now within the context of Russia wanting to reestablish itself as an empire. So that's the one example of using migrants and refugees or weaponizing them. And this goes back to the garrism of doctrine within Russia to use unconventional hybrid threats out there. The other is the asymmetric warfare that continues to go on. One of the things we look at is cyber-enabled information warfare as part of that asymmetric fight and recognizing that Russia in many places is winning the information war. And that Russia in many places in the world is still seen as the champion of the oppressed and US is still seen as imperialistic. And so this part of that war is also going on and what we see then is Russia playing this long game to divide Europe and undermine European support for Ukraine. So this all then becomes part of that ongoing asymmetric conflict warfare and using hybrid threats to stress the infrastructure of the states and primarily NATO. That would be the happiest thing for Putin would be a NATO collapse and that he is successful in separating the European NATO countries that he severs the transatlantic relationship between the United States and Europe. That's a great point there that you made on one of the piggyback on that. It's one of the ultimate ironies of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is it's so many of President Putin's goals have been completely reversed. He has been his own worst enemy. He has had this fear of NATO expansion which in a vacuum makes sense. If you go back to the early nineties the collapse of the Soviet Union throughout the nineties there were several agreements made that NATO would not not might not would not expand Eastward into the former Soviet Union NATO did. When you look at nation states like Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia those were in the heart of the Soviet Union. Now they're in NATO. So in an effort to prevent this possibly fictitious invasion of NATO forces into Russian spheres of influence he has actually encouraged more nation states to possibly join NATO. The possibility of Ukraine joining NATO I still look at that as a very, very long shot but he literally made it more of a possibility. So it's shocking how so many of President Putin's goals or at least his stated goals have actually reversed after innovating Ukraine. He united the Europeans and the United States. It's important to note if you look at domestic politics the Trump administration may have been one of the most anti-NATO administrations in American history. I don't know why I said may have been was one of the more anti-NATO forces. Again, this America first movement by the Trump administration by definition means America first and the desire to spend less on NATO. Vladimir Putin took NATO at one of its weakest points and literally made it stronger than it has ever been. So again, the mistakes by President Putin are extraordinary in this case and we can address some of those later also. Great points. Yeah, if I could, because I really do want to underline what you just pointed out, John. And I also wanted to add to that. So just highlight or add to it. And that was going back again to 2014. And the issue being that Putin had, if we remember that, is he was upset. He was, what got him all riled up was that Ukraine wanted to become part of the European Union. And not part of the Russian economic union. And so as yet, I agree with you that NATO was certainly a factor in all of this. And I also highlight as part of comma and the economic piece as well. Because that was really the gen, that's really pushed that first domino over in 2014. Was it Yanukovych? I'm blanking on the president at the time of Ukraine. He was playing a deal, right? He's kind of leaning toward Russia. And then at the last minute said, ah, no, no, no. I mean, I want to go with the European Union. And that then caused the lie down, so forth and so on. And I would also add to that, as you pointed out, John, that another concern that Putin has and has always had is it's fear of the color revolutions. And he saw that happening with that shift toward the EU, not necessarily NATO, but shift toward the EU. Yeah, NATO was coming. I mean, that was obvious. But it was the economic shift to the EU that also caused him a great deal of concern. Great, thanks. Excuse me. So a couple things before we move on to the next question. The first thing is, I appreciate the observations and questions in the chat, and we'll try to get to some of those later on. Also, if you have questions, feel free to ask them in the chat. We're more than welcome to take those as well. So let me go ahead and actually take up a question from the chat, which is kind of a more straightforward one. So Rowan asks, I believe I pronounced that correctly, how did Russia lose its flagship? I saw. Is that a reference to the Black Sea Fleet? I believe so. The Moscow, I think it was. Yeah. There are, Tom, I don't know if you wanted to jump on that first. No, no, go ahead, please. That is yet another, as far as we know, because, understandably, we do not have CNN embedded reporters throughout the region, as we did in Iraq. That is a great example, it's like a little microcosm of what we thought was a strong military, conventional military by the Russians, and incredible underestimation of Ukrainian resolve. I believe, as far as we know, that was a relatively not a very old missile system that was Ukrainian, not US. I think two were launched. I think there were multiple of the states made by the Russian sailors, as far as we know, because, again, I believe every Russian sailor involved died. The flagship of the Russian military, or the Russian Black Sea Navy, is at the bottom of the Black Sea. It was an extraordinary underestimation of Ukrainian military skill and an overestimation of Russian conventional military techniques. It was something that should not have happened. If you were to fire decades old anti, I don't even think, I think it was specifically anti-ship, but if you fire decades old anti-ship missiles, two of them, say the USS Ronald Reagan, they're not getting through. There are multiple redundancies in place to protect US aircraft carriers. And yet this did get through the Russian. So how did they lose the flagship of the Black Sea fleet? Underestimation of Ukrainian military skill and overestimation of Russian skill, a breakdown in simple defense strategies for the protection of all military forces at sea. This is just another example of the Russian military proving itself to be exponentially less effective than we thought they were before this invasion. I'll leave it at that, and there might be other details to add in. Great question. Yeah, no, you're absolutely correct. And what it does point to is the vulnerability of systems. And as you're talking, John, it made me immediately think, the British, when they went to Argentina, lost a high-tech missile ship, I think to a little Exocet missile that a couple of guys on the Zodiac raft shot at it. So, yes, some of these larger, Russians have already lost 1,000 tanks. I mean, so, tanks, ships, these become just big targets. And a couple of guys and gals, as I said, with a raft full of TNT, you can put a big hole in the side of a ship. We saw that in the Middle East with one of our vessels. So, yeah. Great point. Again, not to insinuate that U.S. naval forces are magic. It's tactics. The U.S. would never lose an aircraft carrier in the Black Sea, not only because I can't imagine a scenario in which a U.S. aircraft carrier would be in the Black Sea. That is a sea, it's not an ocean. One of the main reasons aircraft carriers in the U.S. Navy are so impossible to destroy if anyone ever tried, is because they would not be in an area that ceased to attack. And if a long-range weapon system is sent, they're fast. It's really hard to hit something in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic or Indian Ocean. Being in the Black Sea is a disadvantage. And as you mentioned, we have had a U.S. destroyer. The U.S.S. Colt was attacked by basically, let's say, the equivalent of a bass boat or a Haunted Boat, but kind of. Some guys on a raft. Basically, and we learned from that. We've adopted changes in strategy. But again, how the flagship of the Russian Navy was possibly destroyed by such an inferior force. Number one, it's not an inferior force. And number two, the Russian military is not what we thought it was. Then they are proving that daily. This is not to insinuate any insults to the Russian military. It's just a fact. Yeah, yeah, this was one of the dangers of ever employing your forces, is that your adversary gets to make a realistic assessment. We had for a good long time, good long while. And I speak from being in the Cold War as well. We looked at the Russians as being 10 feet tall. And then when we met them, no, and they are not. And they are proving that again, that they are not 10 feet tall. They are being beaten daily by people. It also goes to show that it's not weapons that wins wars. It's people. And the fighting spirit of the Ukrainian soldiers, the Ukrainian citizens, the civil-military interaction of these two groups is holding the Russians off. Great, thanks. So get back to something that Tom was talking about earlier about the use of refugees and things like that. The potential is a destabilizing force, but also, I mean, those people are also, people that are likely to be suffering as a result of the conflict. So are there, I mean, obviously beyond those groups as well, what groups are likely to be suffering as a result of the conflict? And what is the, well, what are their prospects? I guess it's probably the best way to put it. Is there any positive to that changing? Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. And one thing I'd like to highlight too is when we talk about hybrid threats too, it's not necessarily as though Russia is saying, well, I'm going to go to Syria and push all these refugees into Europe. But when I see it happening, I ask, how can I leverage that to my benefit? How could I do that? And so, yes, these people are in fact suffering, being uprooted, taken away from their homes, whether it was in Syria or now in Ukraine. And one would have to ask, well, what's the return? What's the return policy here? Will these people come back? Is this going to be a long-term brain drain? Is this going to be, what will Ukraine look like? What will the end of this look like if there isn't it? Or will it be just a perpetual ongoing conflict? So I think we're in a position today where we really have to look at, and I know NATO was looking at, protection of civilians along with civilian harm mitigation, because civilians are caught up in the middle of all this and finding themselves being weaponized simply by their movements, by their pushing against structure. So it's not as though it's an intentional activity, but it's one that's being capitalized on and leveraged by the adversary. So yes, I think the suffering, I hate to be pessimistic, but I don't see much end to that suffering. And the other question we have to ask ourselves, and I know it's further down on the list of questions that were out there, is how long can this alliance be held together? How long before these stresses on the infrastructure of the different states causes people to relook the strength of their commitment to Ukraine? And as we said, and then couple that with energy, I mean, Ukraine has already today stopped exporting electricity to try and reestablish its energy. But then we couple that with oil and gas that it's flowing at lesser rates. And yeah, I think the pain is going to spread long before it gets any better. Great point, Sarah. You hit the major elements. Civilian populations in this situation are extremely vulnerable due to Russian military strategy. The indiscriminate bombing of municipal areas is something that President Putin has long since shown is not something he's willing to accept is something he is very quick to go to if losing. Women, children always disproportionately impacted by military conflicts like this. I would point out that considering if you're looking at areas that are geographically controlled by Russia, the LGBT community would be disproportionately impacted. Russian domestic policy does not recognize LGBT rights as we do here in the United States. That's a community that is overwhelmingly oppressed in Russia, so any areas they take over would also be in danger, but great summary there. The Russian strategy, Russian military tactics present a situation where anyone who's a civilian has the possibility of suffering disproportionately. Yeah, I think the numbers I've seen now are 90-10 civilian to military, just conflict writ large. So to look at the impact on civilians of warfare today, the numbers that they were looking at is there are 90 civilian deaths every 10 military deaths in modern conflict. So what we see is, yes, that the civilian population is disproportionately impacted and harmed by this. Thanks. So getting into something that you've all been kind of dancing around here, which is miscalculation, right? Why do you think Putin apparently miscalculated his belief that Ukraine would quickly capitulate to his demands? And I guess more broadly, I don't think it's just Putin. I mean, we were talking about this earlier with, I think you're almost mentioning Milley's estimates, right? At the beginning of the war, we miscalculated, the West miscalculated, the world miscalculated. I think everybody except possibly the Ukrainian leadership miscalculated. Why do we fail to predict the magnitude of Ukraine's ability and willingness to resist? Great question there. To start off with US predictions that were so wrong, is Russia, when the United States is trying to predict the military capability of Russia, we are at a disadvantage. If the US Defense Department were to make estimates about the UK or France or Australia or Japan, where we have extraordinary military alliances with, we can make accurate assumptions. With Russia, there's a great deal we have to take from the Kremlin and they have overestimated military capabilities on many occasions, obviously. That's one of the major reasons for that. In terms of Vladimir Putin, there are a lot of reasons. I would argue that the number one source for miscalculation for President Putin, thinking this would be a war that ended in a matter of days with the capitulation of all of Ukraine, the summary execution of the democratically elected government, and Ukraine basically being brought in as a puppet state, has a lot to do with the fact that there are disadvantages to being an authoritarian. There are disadvantages to being a totalitarian military dictator, not that that's technically what Putin is, but kind of that's what Putin is. When you are an authoritarian regime, when you have back slid from liberal democracy through ill liberal democracy back to authoritarianism as Russia has, the disadvantages are that you tend to surround yourself with political sick of bats who will tell you whatever you wanna hear. There isn't a great deal of bad news that is normally brought to President Putin. So as is the case with many tyrants, it's hard to find people that you can surround yourself that will speak truth of power. As a result, it's understandable that you might think your military is a little bit more capable than it actually is. You might find yourself and advisors are constantly telling you the Ukrainians will collapse, Ukraine wants to be a part of Russia. It's easy to be wrong. The advantages to liberal democracy are found in the fact that we do argue, we do have multiple parties, we do have transparent government systems. We have institutions in place that have centuries of experience not necessarily lying to power but telling truth to it. So a lot of reasons why Putin would misunderstand this. Beyond that, you have the past. What happened in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea? What did the US do? What did NATO do? What did the European Union do? Not much. Were sanctions put in place? Yes. Were expensive, sophisticated weapon systems sent in? No. He had literal history right there saying this is what happened when I took the Crimean Peninsula. Maybe that's what'll happen when I invade Ukraine. The outright invasion of Ukraine by Putin turned out to be similar to the Nazi invasion of Poland to the UK and to France, just a bridge too far. So he had experience with NATO not necessarily doing anything when he took pieces of Ukraine. He had a relatively successful support of pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass that continued to exist. There was a strong belief that the West was not united enough to stand up to Putin. There were also the years of the Trump administration again, neither here nor there, neither positive nor negative, just the fact the Trump administration and its America first policy led Putin to think America's not that interested in going toe-to-toe with the Russian juggernaut. These are some of the major reasons I would look to for why Putin underestimated Ukrainian resistance. And that's because as tyrants before him have always or tended to do, he didn't have access to the most accurate data. Anything unattractive might not have been brought to President Putin. And when he says, I think we're gonna take Ukraine quickly and efficiently and without much trouble, a lot of people around him said, sure, of course we will. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And what I would add to that, maybe sidestep around here a little bit. When thinking about Russia, I've always come back to Winston Churchill's observation that Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. And that really, Christy, your point, how did we not see this? You know, we have the best intelligence gathering apparatus. We've got everything, you know, right? Why didn't we see this train wreck coming and do something coming forward? And I agree with everything John just said about the lack of pushback, the sanctions that, yeah, they were, yeah, sanctions at best have a very mixed track record of whether or not they influence behavior of others. But what I do find interesting is that I think all we needed to do was believe what Putin said. He didn't hide any of this. None of this, he didn't, this was not like in a mystery to any of this. His Munich speech was very, very clear. The Munich Security Conference, he was very clear about his intentions and he told the world that. And then in his June speech, I don't know, was that like two hours long, he laid the whole thing out. You know, he said, this is what I'm gonna do. And it makes me think of Hitler. I mean, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf. I mean, he published it here, you know, whatever. But bin Laden, this is what I'm going to do and consistently we fail to listen to what we're being told. And again, and then we struggled to try and understand how did we get blindsided like this? How did we not see this coming? And I think a part of it is we just don't pay attention to what we're being told. You know, why did Putin go too far? You know, Roman Backer and Joanna Rack started, did some interesting work here. And I think one of the pieces is a faulty decision-making. And for all the reasons you had mentioned, John, and I would add to that, the Imperial superiority syndrome, that's what Russia and Putin were suffering from, along with colonial thinking syndrome. And these two really influenced what was already a faulty decision-making system because Russia is a corrupt system. And interestingly enough about that, when we say, okay, what does it mean by a corrupt system? The struggle there is we can only know pieces of that corrupt system. We can never see the whole corrupt Russia system. We only get to see bits and pieces of it. So we don't see just exactly how all these pieces fit together, but one thing we do know, and that is that Putin is the keystone when it comes to social, political, economic and military. So it's not so necessary, it's not such a, I'll maybe talk about this a little bit later on if we have time. So it's not so much that, well, you know, Putin is the guy. It's that Putin is the keystone. And if he's removed, we can expect to see another keystone put in there. We don't necessarily expect to see the collapse of the system. Another thing that I would highlight about, you know, how did he go too far? How did he mess this up? Is all Russian political thought in the first decade of the 21st century has been imperial. So if we go back and look at the academic side, the scholarship side, we look at all that for the entire 21st century, first decade of this century, it's all been focused on imperialism. The other issue too, is I think that before the invasion, Putin had made a lot of demands on NATO, but not on Ukraine, the demands were on NATO. And I think this speaks to that part where Putin's ultimate goal is to sever the transatlantic alliance. And to, because in his mind, it's the US that is the issue. I mean, he wants to, it's us, the US that's the goal to sever us and keep us out of NATO and out of Europe. The other is that, again, starting in 2010, so first decade of this century, it's all about imperialistic thinking, but starting in 2010, if we look at Putin's speeches, all of them included a piece on Russian war potential. And I think this goes to your point earlier, John, that it surpasses all other power. And so when we see this imperial superiority central begin to develop in this century, the first part of this century, we see now that the scholarship, the theory, the history of imperial Russia is reemerging. And then we begin to see in the second decade, everyone of Putin's speeches talk about the power of the military, strongest thing that Russia has. And now we begin to see all the pieces being set in motion for this reemergence of an imperial Russia. But the other part of that is to be an imperial power, you have to have, you've got to be strong militarily and territorially. And so Ukraine becomes the first domino to push over. And this is why other countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, the whole Eastern flank begins to look at this and wonder, are we next? Because again, if you have those imperial designs, you have to have somebody to be an emperor over. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, the one thing I was kind of thinking about is you were talking about it was the lack of information at the center being kind of a common theme in Russian and Soviet history. I'm thinking back to central planning under the Soviet Union, where you have these quotas that were supposed to be fulfilled by the regional factories and things like this. And the people of Moscow Roy didn't know what was really going on in the factories. There was all this accounting fraud, there was all this manufacturing of stuff that didn't work. And then when we look at the military that Russia has today, you see kind of the same thing, right? But on paper, you have this very strong military that is full of people that are basically selling the gas out of their tanks to civilians to feed themselves, right? And I guess the question is, and maybe as simple as, nobody is willing to tell the boss that this is going on, right? But I mean, in any organization, right, there's that fear of, okay, the boss is not gonna want to hear bad news. Why is it so pronounced in a place like Russia as opposed to the United States? I don't know. I mean, is it, you would think of there being limit to how much authoritarianism can stop information from getting to the top, but apparently there isn't. Yeah. Yeah. And why did it get to your point, Chris, too? Part of that, just the corruptions baked in to the whole darn system, everything. And so, to your point, nobody's telling the truth. And everybody knows, they all know nobody's telling the truth, you know? And that makes the decision-making incredibly challenging when, because everybody in the system knows it's corrupt. And this was, you know, as your point with, you know, Stalin and one five-year plan after another. Yeah, the, so yeah, I'm with you. There's nobody there to tell the emperor he has no clothes on. And if there was, they'd say he's lying anyway. I think it's important to note the assumption of Putin that the United States and NATO would do nothing, would not do, or not do what we have done, or would respond in the same way we did with the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. To think, to go back just a year ago before this invasion to imagine the U.S. sending in the, for example, like the high Mars long range artillery weapons systems to Ukraine would be unthinkable. To think of the number of anti-tank weapons systems that have been sent in by the U.S., by Germany, by NATO forces would have been unthinkable. To this day, sending in say F-16s or F-15s is still unthinkable, but the overwhelming push of the line of what was considered acceptable for NATO and U.S. forces to send in to help Ukraine, I think was the biggest surprise. I think that if President Putin, go back in time, knowing what the U.S. and the NATO military response would be in terms of aid to Ukraine, I don't think he invades. It's impossible to truly get across how embarrassing this has been for the Russian military. No one looks at the Russian military as a near peer of the U.S. anymore. There's the United States, there's China. That is not to take away from Russian forces if they were to be invaded themselves. I am not saying that Russia is now something that you could just conquer, nor am I saying you should never want to do that. But if it really hard to underestimate the catastrophic embarrassment that this has been, Ukraine is across a border, one border, and the Russians have proved incapable of maintaining logistics, maintaining fuel in their vehicles. The corruption that you see purchasing extraordinarily cheap tires for a multimillion dollar tank for weapons systems that should operate but don't. This has been a catastrophic failure for the Russians. The embarrassments just continue to add up. I can't imagine Putin recognizing this as the possibility of it happening and ever actually invading. I think Putin has stuck now and looking for that magical off ramp, whatever it may be. But again, can't stress enough, NATO response to this invasion has really not taking away from the bravery and the overwhelming skill of the Ukrainians. But the NATO aid has dramatically shifted this equation in a way that I don't think Putin expected at the outset. I think he thought NATO response to Crimea 2.0. Yeah, I mean, I am, before I move on, I think the one thing that I'm kind of thinking of is Putin overplaying his hand in the sense of I mean, I think that what you're saying about the West not responding, I think there's a good possibility that had he just mildly escalated the war, said it's essentially gone to what is now plan B, right? Take over more of the East, build that land bridge to Crimea, maybe he doesn't get that response from the West, right? But the director, essentially the assault on Kiev, for a Kiev, right? And wanting to decapitate a sovereign state, I think is the bridge too far, right? Because it allowed people in places like Lithuania and Finland and Romania to say, okay, well, this could happen to us, right? Whereas, if it just said, okay, we're going to expand the Donbass, right? We're just going to expand the control of the territory to what the Lukeshawks Republic claims it controls, right? I'm not sure people in Lithuania are gonna be losing as much sleep about that, right? Which is ultimately what puts the pressure on NATO in the US to respond, right? Is that you've got those frontline countries that are saying, okay, Putin comes after us next. Now, maybe that's just speculation on my part. Maybe the tripwire was just escalation in general, but to me, that just seems like that was the sort of, okay, this is a line that we can't allow somebody to cross, right? Because if he can go in and basically take over a neighboring country, what stops either him doing it again or what stops China from doing this in Taiwan or some other country or Mongolia or something, right? I think that's the miscalculation to me more than anything else. And also, of course, he probably has a more sustainable war if he doesn't try to start this new front through Belarus, right? But that's a different question, I guess. So at this point in the conflict, right? People have talked a lot about exit strategies and off-ramps and things like that. Obviously, some of which is maybe about saving face for Putin, which begs the question. First, what are the off-ramps? Is there an exit strategy? And I guess the other question is, is there, now the Ukrainians are almost emboldened, is there a compromise they're going to live with, right? Are, you know, is it returned to the 2000, is it returned to the sovereign borders or bust for Ukrainians at this point, right? Or, you know, I mean, can Zelensky settle for less than the 2014 borders politically, right? Now his military has shown that they can do things, right? Does that mean reconquest or Crimea or the war is not over? Or what is the, what can Putin settle for that also Zelensky can settle for? I don't know, is that the empty set? John, do you want to jump in? And that's the million dollar question, how could this end? I think for the Ukrainians, and President Zelensky has actually said this pre-2014, the Ukrainians have provided they're still getting NATO support. They have proved themselves more than capable of preventing the Russian military from militarily dominating and subjugating Ukraine. So I think for the Ukrainians, they're going to want all of the Donbass fact, they're going to want the Crimean Peninsula back, they're going to want assurances that Russia does not invade ever again. I think they have definitely gone past that point, provided they're still getting NATO support and who can blame them, they're winning. They're taking on what was considered to be one of the most powerful military on the planet and they are embarrassing them on a day-to-day basis. Having said that, for Putin, that's the even better question, because who knows? I don't necessarily think that Putin has an exit strategy that would go much farther than the Soviet war in Afghanistan. I think this will continue on and get more and more and more painful, more and more and more Russian civilians will have dead sons and uncles and fathers coming back to the point that it does cause a demand for some kind of a regime change possibly. This could end in the Kremlin with a bullet to the back of the head of President Putin. Having said that, if President Putin went somewhere in between, I think he would look at maintaining the Donbass region, looking at maintaining what he had before and a chunk of Eastern Ukraine. These are the possible exit strategies. And then there's the devastating possibility of one exit strategy involving escalation and the use of tactical nuclear weapons, which I do not see happening militarily that would make so little sense for Russia to actually do that. I'm hoping that's not a possible exit strategy. So while answering the question without really answering the question, for the Ukrainians, I think the end of this war is a unified Ukraine pre-2014. For President Putin, I have no idea. I would have gone the route of trying to mainly achieve what we gained in the Eastern Ukrainian regions and then try to sue for peace. But I think for President Putin, the unfortunate reality might be that there really is no exit strategy beyond perpetual war. And however that ends, it ends. So I'll leave it at that. And turn it over to Tom. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I'm just making a quick note, because I think you hit it. And this is looking at Ukraine and rushing in a broader context. And so it is a talk before, I think in an earlier webinar, where we talked about we've sort of entered into an age of perpetual conflict. And so, but we're stuck oftentimes looking for conclusions that look like, you know, signing a peace treaty on the USS Missouri or, you know, that there's been some kind of negotiated conclusion to this. And then there's a date we can put on the calendar every year and say this was when the war ended. I don't think that's gonna be the case here. I don't think we're going to see a conclusion. I think we're gonna see an ongoing conflict without conclusion. And what that's going to look like, I don't know. I mean, because we are now really looking at shifts in warfare. This is a tectonic shift that we're right in the middle of. And we're trying to make sense of it. And that's frustrating us because we would like to oppose a rational actor model onto this and look at do a cost benefit analysis and predict what the outcome is going to be. The only thing I'm absolutely certain of is the outcome will be dictated by Ukraine. Whatever this outcome is, they will get to decide what it is. And I do take Zelensky at his word. He said this war started in Crimea and it will end in Crimea. And I believe him there. What I would also add to this is also, as we're talking about Ukraine and Russia and the conflict before us, is again, looking at it in a broader sense and looking at it as a world war. Arguably, we looked at World War II. We look at the conflict in Ukraine being the biggest military engagement in Europe since World War II. And one of the things that's being argued is this war in Ukraine is actually a bigger world war than World War II was. As we look at grain, as we look at fuel, oil, gas, energy. So we're seeing the impacts of what's happening in Ukraine, Russia spread out all around the world. And the chances that what's happening between Ukraine and Russia will destabilize huge portions of the world. If we think back to the Arab Spring and the idea that one of the catalysts of the Arab Spring was a lack of grain coming into the Middle East. And that really was one of the things that pushed a lot of that fight. Timothy Snyder did some interesting work on this. And one of the things that he would suggest is that this war will establish the principles of the 21st century. And again, looking at in this context of a much broader world war. And the challenges that we now face ourselves is not just how will the hostilities in Ukraine cease, but what new principles of interstate relations will emerge from this. And so that really makes this fight look incredibly important. The other thing is Putin is in a position now, when we talk about exit strategy, he can't be backed into a corner. And that's, I think, something we have to remind ourselves because if Russia loses the war, he'll just claim that they won it. And the creative fiction will be believed. Just as Chris had mentioned about the five year plans and just the absolute corruption of the system. People will just say, okay, yeah, we won. So Putin's kind of in a really interesting position because he can't really lose. He can't be backed into that corner because we're talking about Mikhail Bakhtin said that, you know, Russians live inside of a lot. And Putin is a master at it. And one of the things I did pick up this morning that I thought was interesting was Dana Massakot at Rand Corporation was talking about how this failing war has actually strengthened the far right critics of Putin. Because we tend to, a lot of us tend to look at Putin as, you know, he's the, I mentioned he's the Keystone and so we kind of want to personify this and say, well, you know, Putin's the guy. But we forget that there are far right critics of Putin right now. And that this failing war is pushing these hardline hawks to favor sharp military escalation. So they're, you know, the off-ramp, we're looking for the off-ramp, they're looking at how to re-escalate this because, and Putin's in a position now that if he doesn't escalate, he's not threatened by the peaceniks in Russia. The threat is from the far right critics. So he now has to actually escalate the conflict to keep his position in Russia. So his options are really, really shrinking. And unfortunately, the most viable option he has is to escalate to maintain his position within Russia itself. So that's, again, not to be a pessimist, that causes me concern, especially when people start rattling the nuclear saber. Yeah, I guess the other question related to that would be, if Putin escalates or if this continues, right? Do other states start to take advantage of Russia's weakness, right? I mean, you've already seen that to some extent in what's going on in Armenia and Azerbaijan, right? Azerbaijan has basically pressed its conflict with Armenia. Do the Georgians go after South Ossetia? Do the Kazakhs make a play for more into Siberia, right? I mean, if you're ready, and Russia's a big country, right? So they've got to defend all these borders, but at the same time, they've also got to go on offense. I mean, I don't think it's likely that Finland's got to try to reclaim St. Petersburg right now, but at the same time, right? There are all possibilities that Putin has to sort of keep a mind there, right? And so, I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. So, and I, you know, at the same time, you're talking about escalating, right? I mean, that almost opens the door for, okay, well, why don't the Moldovians just retake a transvestite, right? Or, you know, what's Putin going to do about it at this point, right? He can't really move troops through Ukraine to stop them. I guess the only question is, you know, at least with the Moldovians, right? You would assume that somebody would try to be holding them back, because they want to, you know, play nice with the EU. But I'm not sure that the Georgians or the Armenians or the Azerbaijanis or whoever, you know, have such compunctions, right? You know, all these frozen conflicts from the last century, right? Or just basically out there still. And, you know, that's one of the problems that, I mean, never resolving sort of the breakup of the Russian Empire sort of created, right? The Soviets sort of froze all that in place, but, you know, in any event. So we did have a question from the chat about sanctions and their effect on the Russia economy. How much is, are these sanctions and the knockout effects of the conflict going to set back their economy? You know, are we talking years? Are we talking centuries? You know, what is the, you know, we've alluded to that already in terms of the shortages of supplies and manpower and things like that. And it probably got to get worse before it gets better. So, but what is the magnitude of that likely to be on a country that already is not, you know, at the forefront economically as is? I would go the decades route, the brain drain that is occurring throughout Russia is something that I don't know if we have the mechanisms to measure it right now. This is something we will see over time. This will lead to Russia being reduced to an even weaker state than they were before. We just thought they were stronger. If you have the ability, unless you are one of those hard line, extremely right-wing Russians that are just yearning for the days of empire and the Soviet Union, if you have the ability, the money and the possibility, you've probably left Russia already. The people who are leaving Russia are generally those with financial resources, with advanced degrees, you're losing your engineers, you're losing your medical professionals. The long-term effects of these sanctions are just, I think, you know, unimaginable to really measure right now, but we will see over time. And I think that President Putin could not possibly care less. All politics are truly local. He is maintaining his own power structure. The decisions that he's making still are just economically suicidal. Having said that, it's important to remember that nothing against the people of Russia, and there are over 140 million people there. If you look at GDP, for example, they're not in the top 10, they're just outside, but there are American states, California, Texas, and almost Florida that have a higher GDP than Russia. We need to really remind ourselves that this, what Putin wanted us to think of as this terrifying and powerful Russian presence is not that powerful. And they've proved that time and time again, if you look at the military, their spending is south of $70 billion. The US military spending in 2021 was in the vicinity of $800 billion. Russia, long-term, the sanctions, the brain drain, the loss of resources because of these sanctions is going to emerge militarily and economically exponentially weaker than they already were. The only major differences this time, we will know how weak they are. Without nuclear weapons, which Russia has a great deal of. Again, even there, we do not know how many warheads they have that are actually maintained properly and capable. I would not want to ever test that, but without nuclear weapons, we look at Russia the same way we look at nation states like Iran. I don't mean to say that in a way that takes away from the possible danger of Russian nuclear escalation. I think long-term, the sanctions and the war itself are going to provide us with a very accurate view of Russia as an exponentially weaker nation state than we thought they were. Everything Putin wants, he is going to get the opposite of. In my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, I just quick was jotting down some notes to myself and I appreciate that question. I think in no particular order, yeah, sanctions, just a mixed bag there. I mean, I'm not really certain that sanctions really change behavior. And quite often, sanctions have a disproportionate negative impact on the weakest parts of society anyway. So it's really not addressing the, for lack of a better term, elites. So when I look at sanctions, I don't think they really do much. And it takes so long for them to take effect as well. It takes years for sanctions to really get hold of an economy. Now that said, before Putin did this, before Putin set this war into motion, he had brought a lot of gold out of Africa, mining interests that Russia have in Africa. So there's money that was set aside as well before this even happened. And he's making a bundle of money now on oil exports and oil prices as well. So, who are these sanctions having any impact? I'm always very pessimistic that they do. One thing I would want to say too is that, and this goes with sanctions, it's that Russians have a history of suffering. And that being part of a national character for lack of a better word, that suffering is not unknown to the Russians. And that's part of Putin's narrative as well. And as you mentioned earlier, John talking about NATO is moving eastward and it's threatening us. This feeds in then to say, see, I told you, here they come, the West is coming after us, militarily and economically. Like I've always said, they're coming after us in Mother Russia. And that animates a patriotism within Russia because again, history matters and they know their history. And so, and the other part it does too, I think is it speaks to the urban-rural divide in Russia. As you mentioned, John, only 40 million people across 11 time zones. And the number I read this morning, it said approximately 700,000 males have escaped Russia to avoid conscription. 700,000 out of 40 million. We look at that 700,000, oh my gosh, the system's gonna collapse, Russia's gonna go belly up. No, it's 700,000 out of 40 million. We just need to do the math there. The other part too is, yes, as you mentioned, rightfully so, I believe those elites who had the capacity to leave are leaving. And you're talking about a brain drain and this and the other thing and they're going. But that leaves the rural who have this immense pride in Russia suffering, the peasant in Russia is revered. I mean, even throughout Russian literature, whether it's Tolstoy or Tostayevsky or any of them, it's the peasant who sees things clearly. These elites don't get it. They're blinded, but we trust the peasant. So I think a lot of this too, when we do sanctions and we do allies is feeding into that narrative that's strengthening, not necessarily weakening of that character and that resolve of the Russian. I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but that's, you know. I'm glad you made that point. When you're looking at, granted, the 140 million Russians is a population-wise, a large nation state. Yeah, I'm sorry, 140 million. I don't know why I said 40 million. I did not mean, I'm glad you mentioned the inability of sanctions to do really much of anything by themselves. I'm referencing more of the war itself, the atrocities of the war and the geopolitical ramifications of the war. And when it comes, when you look at Russia right now and they are getting military tech from Iran, they are looking into North Korea. They are looking at soldiers from Syria. If these are the three predominant sources of military aid that Russia can look to for help, A, they're in trouble, and B, I think that's where these sanctions might have effected me. The inability of bringing in micro processors and computer chips that go into complex weapon systems, I think they're running low on incredibly sophisticated weapons and they're not able to restock. But you are right, sanctions by themselves have a horrible history of gaining the results that you want. However, fighting an incredibly unjust war of choice. Over time, I think that's going to really turn Russia into an exponentially weaker nation-state than they were coming into this. I think it's going to be devastating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no argument whatsoever, John. I think it's spot on target. What I would add to that, say it's at least worth looking at or at least taking a glance at. And that is Russia's status across Africa. And again, as I mentioned, you know, still many, as you said, many people, many countries, many others see Russia as fighting the oppressor, fighting the imperialistic US. And so some of them are hedging their bets and they're looking at this and saying, yeah, war of choice, yeah, but it's a European war. But here, us in Europe, they're in Africa, we've got our interests too. And Russia's standing up again, standing up to the imperialistic West, which they mean US. And yeah, so we're kind of, we'll sit back and see how this plays out, because there's still going to be a Russia tomorrow, no matter what happens. That's a great point. And there's an actual huge advantage to that. I think that's why you're not going to see President Putin go the disastrous route of escalating the nuclear weapons. I think once he makes that decision, he loses China, he loses the silence of India, he loses those days. It'll be impossible to gain support, but if he does that, God help us all. He no longer is fighting the oppressor then. Exactly. And so yeah, he's got to maintain that image, which then, yes, you have a pile of bad actors and you mentioned all the North Korea, Iran, all feeding into him. But then you have these other marginal actors throughout Africa that are kind of trying to find out how they can protect their interests to see how this falls out. Yeah, I agree completely. Okay, great. Well, I had a couple more questions, but we've arrived at 6.30. Since I can give a point for us to adjourn, but maybe we'll have time to ask those questions at another event. Based on what we talked about today, it doesn't sound like the Ukraine conflict is going to come to a close anytime soon. So we'll probably be back here in February or March and discussing this again. But anyway, I'd like to thank our audience for joining us this evening, a little bit light today, but I don't know, hopefully that doesn't reflect fatigue with the conflict or lack of interest in their national politics at least. Maybe just a timing thing. I don't know, maybe we're up against some important event. Let's see, but also I'd like to thank our panelists. I'd like to thank Dr. John Hall and Dr. Thomas Matrock. I'd like to thank all of you for joining us. And let's see, we are planning one more event for this semester. Well, we don't have the details in front of me, but I believe we're going to be discussing the outcome of the 2022 group editorial and midterm elections on the Monday after the election, which I think is the 14th of November. That's, I'm not mistaken. So in about, I think it's just about four weeks from today because today is our first day of early voting, by the way. So go ahead and take advantage of that over the next three weeks if you want to beat the crowds. And let's see, so that'll be our final event of the semester. So hopefully you can join us for that. Of course, you can find more about our department and things like that on our website at www.mgi.edu slash political science with a dash somewhere in there. And then we will also be posting a video, this video as well as our past discussion videos on our YouTube page. Like I said, that will probably be posted sometime tomorrow, so keep an eye out for that. And thank you all again for joining us. Thank you for taking time out of your afternoon and evening and hopefully we'll see you at our next event. Great, thank you. Thank you all. Y'all have a great evening.