 Welcome to this show politics for the people and I am Stephanie so Dalton your host for this weekly show today's topic is but Biden's pushback Through sanctions on Russia, which has turned into a war to seize and control Its neighbor Ukraine actually in the last 24 hours. So to discuss the topic We have a panel of guests and the panel today is Jay Fidel. Welcome and Karen buzzard. Welcome. Thank you for participating now Putin's war is already 24 hours old with destruction and casualties Mounting as we are talking here. So Jay did diplomacy and revealing and removing all Putin's surprise tactics and Threatening sanctions fail Yes, is it yes, I mean, you know, it seemed like a good idea at the time But here we are and I think Putin never intended to be sidetracked with diplomacy He he wants to you know advance his agenda He wants to take this territory and he is taking the territory and the rest of it is propaganda is With if if Putin dismissed all diplomatic asks and sanctions threats then Okay, so clarify what you think his name's arms. How about Karen? Can you comment on that? What are his aims? I? Think his aim is to Keep Ukraine a non NATO member or whatever you call it because the criteria for NATO member is to be a Democracy so if he can kind of keep these conflicts going then it you know, it's sort of a pseudo not democracy now, but But he wants to be sure that it's kind of kept off kilter and Also, he wants to assure that he has access to the Black Sea Which is if you look at the countries that NATO is going after they also run the Black Sea Including your crane so he does not want to be cut off with the access to the Black Sea by NATO bases once they become a NATO country Yeah, can you review what were? Ukraine's intentions. How far did they get in wanting to be? NATO what's the status of that request or if there was a re ever request? Well, it's not really been a it's considered. I think it's Classified as a I can't remember the term a pseudo democracy or something They have a term for it, which means they do have an elected official president everything But I believe the elected official controls the courts and picks the judges and so forth. So it's sort of like the US almost but So there's like There's part of it that's kind of democratic but part of it isn't democratic So it's kind of a borderline democratic at the moment Okay, well not to get to hung up on this, but I was thinking that You would talk about whether Ukraine actually required did they get to the point of requesting To be in NATO So having to do with you know, the Putin's Issue that he doesn't want them in NATO that when did they ever request to be did they ever move in that direction? I don't think they can request it until they meet the NATO There's certain criteria you have to meet to be a NATO member and they haven't met the criteria yet Oh, that's okay. All right. That's interesting because um, I've heard so much about their economy, etc But anyway, okay, that's that's helpful. All right, then um, you know what jay does um Does hardening Are we at west the west's response to this illegal and unjustifiable violent incursion Into another country if we try to harden The uh response or increase the threats. Does that mean uh risking nuclear war? Well, it depends on how far you go doesn't it? Um, right now, uh, he did some pretty um pretty strong things this morning That is uh president Putin president biden He did some pretty strong things in terms of the sanctions. What he didn't do Was cut russia off from the swift money transfer program And he's holding back on that. I guess he thinks that that better to have that in his pocket To use that later because it will have a profound effect on Not only the economy of russia, but the economies of all the world Um, because you can't try out, you know, can't transfer money to or from russia Um, I think I think one and by the way, uh, mitch mcconnell is with him, but beyond him Mitch mcconnell made a statement this morning that he thought that biden ought to you know, pull out the stops That he ought to use every sanction available including the swift Terminating the swift money connection Um system, uh in order to make the point So, uh, it's okay. It's all right. He's done what he can do. He's he's held the one really powerful thing in his pocket yet There are probably other powerful things in his pocket I'm not sure that That putin has, you know, that's going to surprise putin Putin has already figured out what biden can do And when and why and he's probably a step ahead of him. He's a smart guy so, um To go to your original question, you know, have have the sanctions worked Well, they didn't stop him from entering, uh, ukraine They didn't stop him from, you know, moving his troops and his tanks and whatnot Into ukraine blowing up all the, um, you know, ukraine military facilities in stop them And the question is whether swift or anything else at this point is going to stop him. So If you go to war, you know, uh this morning, uh, biden said he was putting another 8 000 troops On the western border of ukraine Um, that's threatening. Um, not sure where the Was it biden or, um Is putting troops in ukraine on the western biden I think you make, um, Putin. No, no biden is moving 8 000 troops to The western border of ukraine Which is pretty, you know, it's threatening and it suggests that, uh, you know, just as they put As they put 175 or 200 000 troops on the eastern northern southern borders of ukraine We put, you know, I don't know 10 or 15 000 troops On the western borders. I I mean it it bespeaks of of war Whether it goes to nuclear war, I I kind of doubt it. I think this will be A convention or war if you want my expectations, stefanie Yes, what what will happen here is, um is ostensibly Putin will take over ukraine. He will he has invaded ukraine. He will take over ukraine He will arrest anybody Who opposes him? He will seize the government put a puppet government in all within a few days But that's not the end of it Because this will be a long-term permanent smoldering condition Where you have Underground resistance By many many people in ukraine. They have done this before Uh, where they they will attack the russians when they get the chance It's it's not going to go to a You know a peaceful situation For a long time if ever At the same time, I think I think it's a great threat to western europe Let me add that if you look at the map You know with with all regard to the analysis that Putin is Is concerned about the nato countries coming closer to him I think the nato countries are very concerned about this move in ukraine if you look at a map You will see that uh, ukraine is like an arrowhead pointed directly into uh, eastern and for that matter a part of western europe And if if if putin has control Of ukraine and he moves troops to the west of ukraine and missiles and the like and you know war materiel He will be in a great place To put political pressure To express power Right in the middle of eastern europe and uh very close to western europe So this that's a high stakes ballgame But to answer your question, I don't think we're going to a nuclear war It'll be a ground war and it will be a very regrettable war And a lot of people will die and and it will change things that the three of us cannot possibly expect right now Okay, thank you Karen going back to biden if um He's been under criticism For not invoking and applying the sanctions sooner In fact, even from the president the zalinsky seemed to question Why are you waiting for us to be destroyed before you are going to apply some of these threats sanctions to threats? So where do you think that issue stands now? Well, he continued to be criticized for that or will that drop out and be um Of of no use in the conversation or will it go on as a debate? What do you think? Well, I think I would have eliminated his negotiating power You know, you apply the sanctions as a way to negotiate what you want Uh, if you go ahead and apply it to begin with then there's no ability to negotiate You know that you won't apply the sanctions if they you know do do whatever they agree to So I think it was um a good stuff to wait because he had to see what Putin was going to do There was a chance that they could have you know, they were meeting regularly. There was a chance they could have reached some kind of negotiation Well, wasn't there a credibility issue as far as biden was concerned? It seemed like they thought that he wouldn't do it that he's in this is part I guess of his weak uh weakness reputation um or or what impugned impugned reputation by the by many GOP people but um wouldn't the Applying the sanctions early allow you to stop them as you know as soon as nothing happened I mean by wouldn't there be a date involved in other words? Is it just a why a yes no thing or Didn't he have some leverage that he didn't use by having an early? Um I guess if you don't want to negotiate you just go ahead and apply the sanctions, you know, but it's just a matter of Whether you think you can gain something through negotiation Okay, I mean you don't see that negotiation can include some stimulus from sanctions or a little bit of uh, you know, um You know encouraging encouraging participation Uh, go step by step, you know and what you're um using the sanctions for or something like that and it's part of the negotiation Okay, all right. Well, well jay, you know getting back to the issues. Um, we're facing and that you you went on mentioned Well and clearly um, are there any soft spots on putin? Is there any soft spot or do we go to the other end of the spectrum where he might He is he maniacally driven? I mean is the man crazy? Is there any you on that? even You know even paranoid several enemies um, I think he is paranoid. I think he is maniacal, but Um, he's got the ability to shape an argument. Uh, however outrageous it is And he's got the ability to control the russian people Uh, no matter how many lies he has to tell him and he's got the ability to command a couple hundred thousand troops and all those missiles and Weapons of all kinds that he has accumulated even in a down economy. It's really You know, the footnote to that is why do that in an economy that's failing in russia? You know, how much money he's spending on this adventure And then I say to myself, wait a minute At the same time we see his his uh, his adventure in eastern europe We find a report from I guess it was some scientist That um, that that'd be more wildfires all over the world Uh, the climate change is getting worse faster than we thought Um, they say it as a test of humanity Are we passing? No We are occupied in these incredible violent destructive murderous adventures by budin And um, we don't have time or opportunity or money And to deal with the the biggest threat the existential threat of all Climate change, you know, this is like takes us off the path Completely for as long as it lasts everybody in europe and for that matter the u.s. Although the u.s. Kind of You know declined in its interest In climate change So, you know, this is this is so destructive. It's hard to believe And I was telling you, you know before there's a comparison with munich and appeasement and chamberlain um and hitler except in that case Hitler got chamberlain to agree to let him come into Let it would come into the sudetenland That may be in the offing here. That may be some kind of quote settlement end quote That takes place in the middle of all this murder so If that happens, it's really sort of an extension of the beginning of world war two And and right now I think the guys in ukraine must think that that's a real possibility Because they were surprised, you know, like the same kind of shock and awe type surprise As in in poland in the blitzkrieg in 1939 They're not really going to do it. But then they did it So you asked me if he's a he's a pathological case He is but he has always been determined to do this And it was only a chess game, you know with these Negotiations diplomatic and treaties and the like he always knew he was going to do this It was only a matter of controlling his public and arming his army and bringing his army to the border And now he's doing it. Are we surprised? Well, uh, that's that's the question. Are there any more surprises and uh, karen the Some reports are that it is it is Lost for us that we removed some of the our russian intelligence people there or we had to I think in 2017 something came up and we pulled The rest of the people out of those that were close to the kremlin or maybe we had to but But as a result of that, we don't know about the situation surrounding putin And there's some speculation that he's fairly isolated because he's been sick and he's been afraid He's very afraid of coven and he's been staying away from everything and not going anywhere for really a long time So it's considerable isolation. So the question is is he getting any Resource or guidance or other opinions? I mean even dictators will have a council, right? Even if they're a little bit constrained and being totally authentic But what do you think about those ideas that we don't know his state of mind? It may be that he's in a particular place that is not healthy. What do you think? Uh, well, I think this is not a short-term issue. It's been an ongoing issue for many years. It started in 1999 when the u.s made a strategic decision to expand NATO into Eastern Europe And there were warnings that even at the time they went from 15 members to 30 members Most of them in Eastern Europe that this was going to have severe Consequences this new policy of expansion Particularly as you know, as I cut up poking the bear, you know, you're poking Putin because You know, basically you're beginning to threaten what they feel is the Russian security So I think that has been a major factor the NATO expansion and whether it was wise to expand it The purpose of NATO originally after World War two Was to keep the Russians out to keep Germany down and to let the u.s kind of controlled us pretty much controls NATO So I think this was a policy that had serious consequences and then a second There's been kind of a shift in mission in NATO Where they no longer feel like they have to abide by the established treaties and UN security council agreements So the examples of that actually I saw the former one of the former Ambassadors to the soviet union u.s ambassadors And he was discussing the cuban missile crisis And he said what people didn't know at the time was that u.s had missiles in turkey Crained at russia Or at soviet union at the time So part of the negotiation was they would take the missiles out of cuba In exchange they would remove the ones from Turkey because they're you know, they were sick they both felt where they were security threats so I think the issue of You know looking at security threats has to be looked at not just in the u.s security threats or ukraine, but also russia they felt threatened so I think Some of these policies mission. They call it mission creep where they have sort of gone beyond the as Missions like they eliminated the anti ballistic mission missile treaty in 2200 george bush They've invaded afghanistan and iran without the support of the un security council Because russia is on there so they don't want to take anything to The security council because they have the right to veto it and so I think the u.s has adopted sort of an aggressive policy if you will through nato and This is not to excuse putin, of course putin has his own issues But I think that it has to be put within a larger context than just he's not feeling well or something like that I'm not sure I agree with that. I think there was a time when the u.s was being aggressive in nato, but In recent years that hasn't happened. It didn't certainly it didn't happen in in the uh in the trump years Trump was making friends with russia. Trump was Alienating everybody in nato and the eu. He was not trying to advance the border He was not trying to attack russian security. He didn't do anything against russia And he's not doing anything against russia now He's criticizing biden for being too aggressive and dealing with this and imposing sanctions So, you know, the u.s has not threatened that border and for that matter I don't think nato at least not in recent years. Not my recollection had done anything to push into russia And none of those countries You know have have threatened russia russia is not threatened So, you know, I would tend to think that I'm sorry. What's threatening is not so much. Um The fact that they're going to put nato bases in these countries with Ballistic weapons. That's kind of what they consider threatening Has that happening because nato has has economic problems. It has had political problems with trump. Joe biden is not interested In advancing nato to to the east. He's not doing that And nobody is doing that and uh, so I don't I don't think russia has a legitimate Concern at least not in not in the last five or six years. Maybe longer um, and I think I think what's happening here is He has a lot of reasons Putin does to do what he's doing I mean rational reasons and one of the one of them that that that I catch and you mentioned it caron Is that these countries are arguably democratic? Maybe half democratic, but they they point toward democracy And that is very troubling because Putin is pointing away from democracy If you look at the protests in russia and musko a couple years ago, there was actually a democracy movement He has managed to squash that he has managed to squash and poison his adversaries His political adversaries one after the other Nobody nobody can successfully oppose him in any election You know democracy is now dead in russia. He has killed it and it's recent So when he looks to countries like the ukraine where democracy is actually emerging and That people like it. He's very worried that will affect his power at home And I think that is a hard a hard driver of where he's going. I don't think it's so much the boundaries or the You know the the contention with nato or the american Participation in nato. I think it's democracy and he doesn't want it anywhere near him Well, listen, let's let's those are really interesting points and Thank you for them. I wanted to move over to talk about in addition to nato which we're covering over to the un and the poignancy of that that officers statement At the UN meeting yesterday the security council you already mentioned that earlier About that that making the point that russia no longer belongs on the security council given as You're saying with nato. They're the compliance with the principles and the and the framework of it are no longer Anything they believe in obviously given their actions. So so karen. Can you speak to? The un and what what does it that it can do and why can't it do anything? Don't they usually send blue helmet somewhere? But what do you happen to can you comment on the un please? Well, the un includes russia. So it has a veto vote. So I don't think it's a good if they want to really have a united nations They can't a move that remove the major You know countries and really have a Then it just becomes the world against you know The countries they remove whoever they decide to move would they remove china next or you know So I think it's sort of a slippery slope then if you don't agree with someone's Policies you just remove them from the united nations But the other thing I think going back to a point j made is that I did see a a poll recently Yesterday that 50 percent americans don't think we should be pursuing this That they think that we have other things we should be pursuing such as climate change And that we're getting distracted and of those like 80 percent or end up 80 percent of Independence feel like they should be between russia and ukraine and the us shouldn't be involved because Technically it's not a nato country So we're only pledged to you know defend nato countries. So they think So I wonder how this is going to affect biden politically Uh, if he you know if he goes too far in this direction Okay, that's a good point j that is a good point and I tried to press to find out if you all Had comments on when it was that uh, ukraine had applied to be nato because they're Kind of acting like a nato member biden's making the point that they're not me. That's why we can't go in But can you talk to the u n um issue then j for the security council? I was really pathetic watching them last night You know, I give them credit to the ones who spoke to the the uk representative the irish Representative um the american representative, you know all very articulate honorable powerful statements moral statements Of of a liberal world order Remember that the united nations was established After the war Before the war there was no liberal order and you could take what you wanted Karen made that point early and and that's the way life was Before the united nations was established its most significant contribution Is to have a rules-based global community that you don't go and take what's next to you Um and and so when the united nations is threatened that liberal world order that was created that we created in 1945 and 6 Um is is jeopardized and what you saw last night in the security council, however, it's organized And however, it can be changed or not probably not Um, you there it's um, it's it's not working. Um, they can't take action against an obvious aggression This is an aggression. This is an invasion and if these guys if budin gets away with it, they'll be more Somebody will decide for some crazy kakamemi reason some historic Ancient cultural reason that he's entitled to the next the next neighbor over he will do it again And the world order that was established after world war two because of world war two By the united nations is in great jeopardy I think the uh security council is stuck I think therefore the united nations is stuck. I think the the usefulness of the united nations going forward Is in serious jeopardy and that means the global liberal order is in serious jeopardy I don't know what can be done about it. I I don't know what should be done about it I know that we we we all benefit by having um, you know a liberal Rules-based global national international order on the the issue of politics I think biden biden did a good job in revealing what he what he is intelligence community told him was happening in russia I agree. We don't have that many agents on the ground back a few years ago. Um, maybe it was because of uh, You know a revelation of american Secret documents that turned out a bunch of our spies and agents That they had to leave or were killed We didn't hear the detail of that But the fact is we don't have that much intelligence on on putin I think uh, I think I look at putin and wonder who he talks to He must have you know, a lot of people around him are functionaries um, who really don't participate in the decision process But there must be somebody these are very complex issues And remember, you know, he's an intelligence guy from back when he must have Intelligence people that he talks to about trying to play the chess game with biden Um, and I think that will continue. They may not be visible But they're there and he talks to them. You can't do this by yourself Um, really no human being can do this by himself Now finally, um, mitch mcconnell who today, you know, he's chameleon like Uh, he said that he thinks that biden want to go further and knock off the, you know, the swift system And the like um, and he's supporting Joe biden and you know and responding with vigor um, but the bottom line is um The g.o.p. Is determined to undermine biden If this at any point presents a way to embarrass biden Undermine him politically they will and in fact Trump is doing that on a regular drumbeat basis It's really hideous that when biden has challenges like this trump is on and like like all over him To try to undermine him and and people will follow trump. There's a million tens of millions of people who buy this And and feel that we shouldn't be there. A lot of the Acolytes are saying we shouldn't be there. We shouldn't care We have other problems at home and it doesn't matter how the world order is doing And um, I think that's a real serious threat to biden's authority and ability ability to get it done I mean to have a good result which seems actually distant right now well with uh these comments, um on on our circumstances at this time We were going to have to stop with this and uh, it's not a pretty picture But uh, this we're out of time and this is the politics for the people show it's weekly I'm your host debony stoll dalton and I think karen buzzard and jay fidel for participation vigorous Of our participation. Thank you and thank you to viewers mahalo Thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo You can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linkedin and donate to us at thinktech hawaii.com mahalo