 Welcome to Global Connections here at the five o'clock block with Karl Baker. We're going to talk today about the global implications of the war in Ukraine, the sea changes, what's happening under the surface. What are the sea changes of Putin's invasion? What has he set in motion? Hi Karl, thank you for joining us on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me Jay. This is the third one on Ukraine and the first two I was obviously wrong with a lot of other experts who thought we knew what the parameters for conflict in Europe were and we were wrong and dead wrong in the eyes of the Ukrainians because I certainly never anticipated that we would be talking today about an invasion into a sovereign country and the world standing by offering thoughts and prayers. While I was watching the State of the Union a little while ago, I noticed that everybody was wearing Ukraine pins. So as I was watching, I went on my smartphone and I looked at Amazon to see if I could get a Ukraine pin because I want to express solidarity with them and there were lots of Ukraine pins that you can buy on Amazon and I bought one and they're going to send it to me and it's going to take two weeks. It's going to take until about the 15th of March and I said to myself, you'll appreciate this. Will it still be relevant in two weeks? What kind of extraordinary things will happen in two weeks? What new revelations will emerge in the next two weeks? Who knows? So we could be wrong again, Carl. I promise you. Okay. Yeah. I mean, and I think that's a very important point to start with is that Klosswitz is very, very accurate when he says once you unleash war, you can no longer prediction is a fool's game because you can't predict what happens with a war. Once you start killing people, the whole dynamic changes because missteps become bigger missteps and that there's just no way to predict what those missteps lead to. An echo chamber of missteps. The Guns of August by Barbara Tuckman. A chain reaction. Who knows where it goes? Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, and that's another thing I was thinking about is, you know, we're trying to guess what happened, you know, that what went wrong and, you know, that's left. We're going to leave that for the historians and, you know, the Guns of August is sort of a sort of almost a stylized version of what happened, you know, in today's world with such a cacophony of voices of different perspectives on what really happened. It'll be difficult, I think, to determine what the truth is because that's part of the problem here is you have competing truths of what's going on. I mean, if you read what the Russians are saying today, they're still trying to talk about they were provoked into this, you know, that's one of the lines. The other line is that we're not killing civilians, you know, and, you know, how does that truth get sorted out in today's world where there are always these competing narratives that try to dominate? You know, in Guns of August, we had a single answer from history. I don't know that this history is going to be the same. Yeah. Well, one thing that's remarkably different about this where we are now is that we can see into the jar. We can see the social media. We can see the, you know, the TV feed coming out of Ukraine. And although he destroyed the television towers, the transmission tower in Ukraine today, there'll be a lot more information comes out demonstrating who knows what, war crimes, atrocities, killing civilians without provocation. And so the world can see, and that means the world can, you know, digest, process, and react to that. And in the speech that Joe Biden gave, you can see that everyone in Congress was reacting to what was going on. It's a global emotional reaction is what it is. So let me ask you, you know, what sea changes has this invasion set in motion? And we don't have to know for sure what the end game is, but what changes has he set in motion? Well, I mean, the biggest, clearest sea change that he set in motion is the West, defined as basically Europe and the United States and obviously Japan, Australia and some parts of South America have unified themselves to the point that they haven't been for a long time. And that has led to a sea change in a commitment to defense on the part of Germany. It's led to a sea change in commitment to economic sanctions against Russia. And it has led to a unified approach to condemning what he's doing in Ukraine. Now, that's a sea change, but how big is the sea? How long does it last? You know, it's a tidal wave, but what happens after this big tidal wave is finished? As you said at the beginning, you know, it was two weeks. Now, how long does two weeks, what happens in two weeks? How sustainable is the condemnation? How sustainable are the sanctions that are being imposed? That becomes the real challenge, I think, is who has the sustainability here. Can Russia sustain its loss from the sanctions? Can the West, specifically Europe, sustain its commitment to those sanctions? Yes, absolutely. That's such an interesting question. You know, because history moves on. The fickle finger of fate moves on. The news cycle is what, 24 or 48 hours. In over a two-week period, there's multiple news cycles, then people forget what happened. And who knows what other things will pop up could be from anywhere in the world on any issue about anything. Could come from China, for example, and, you know, everybody over to that side of the boat. So we live in a, you know, media-driven, high-speed world. You know, the other thing I wanted to ask you about, some of these changes are likely to be more long-range. Some of them are likely to create, you know, set in motion things that won't stop. They won't go away. Maybe it'll be, you know, slow. Maybe it'll be overtaken by other things, but it's new. For example, the notion of the people of Russia ousting Putin. That has come up. There are those who talk about it. There are people with great courage standing in the streets of St. Petersburg and, I suppose, Moscow, questioning whether he should be in charge of this. Is that a change we will see on into the future, or is that just a moment of emotional reaction? It's a question that I just don't even have an answer for, because we don't know. Like you say, so much depends on how this whole thing unfolds. I mean, what is Putin's next move in terms of the war? Because the war has going to take on its own dynamic at some point. You know, does he continue to do what the Russians have done in the past, is isolate the cities and then try to put them under siege? That's what it looks like he's doing. And does that bleed over into an attack on the other countries in the region? And NATO then is forced to get involved? That changes that each one of those scenarios changes the dynamic dramatically. And it's going to change how long one side or the other can sustain itself. And I think that that becomes a big question. But like you say, China is becoming a very important player here, because they're not condemning the action. They're not they're not exactly condoning it. You know, they come with their sort of anodyne line of both sides should take steps to resolve the issue through negotiations. But in the meantime, you know, China has not stepped up and condemned the action as an attack on sovereign territory. It's not taken any action to to join in the sanctions saying that it's the Americans fault for how we got here. You know, and so you know, so they're becoming a very important player because they become the outlet of last resort for the Russian economy. I mean, if we're going to stop agriculture and oil oil and and other industrial products out of Russia, then they're going to go somewhere and they're going to go to China. And so China then becomes the facilitator for the the prosecution of the war from the Russian side. Yeah, it's kind of a tipping point happening. I mean, if you look at it from the point of view of ideology, I mean, if as Joe Biden expressed in his remarks to Congress, if if the if the US the US position democracy wins, that will discourage other invasions of of neighbors of sovereigns next door. If the US position loses, which remains a real possibility, if Ukraine loses, that will encourage the old, you know, non liberal order of nations taking what they want, going back to the Romans taking gall. I want to take gall today, so I'm going to march up there and take gall. And that could happen again, if if if Putin is successful, it will encourage other countries. Well, yeah, I think it will. I mean, that I think that that's that's a distinct possibility. But the point I want to make is that Putin really is is the controlling factor here in the sense that that his his next steps are going to determine the direction, obviously, because he has the initiative. And if he if he chooses to contain it in Ukraine, there's one there's one series of outcomes that seem likely if he decides that this isn't enough, that he has to he has to attack those that are supporting Ukraine. That takes us into a whole different series of of suppositions about how how this ends, you know, because ultimately, this has to become a question of of how it ends. And I think that's part of the reason why so many of us got it wrong in the first place is because there's no rational ending for what Russia is doing right now. There's no, there's no sensible way to think that you can decapitate the leadership in Ukraine and set up a puppet government without occupying the territory. Yet that's what Putin is now saying he's going to do. He's saying he's going to he's going to isolate the cities, decapitate, in other words, kill or remove Zelensky, and then somehow set up a government that's supportive of the Russians. But that that's not a logical ending to this thing, because clearly the Ukrainians have made their statement that they are going to defend the territory. And so the real challenge here is to figure out how how this ends without an escalation, because there's there's nothing really that that Russia can do at this point to to have a successful outcome the way I see it. You know, it's hard for Putin to back down on his loss of face, a huge loss of face, and maybe the loss of his power, and maybe his little, maybe the ouster I was mentioning. And what you know what's troubling is that there are some very strange comparisons. For example, and this is not necessarily in order of importance, it's that it's that song I was I was going to sing for you, maybe I'll spare you from that. It's Out of the Mikado by Gilbert Nassolevin. And it's a little thing done Ressa Titov by Coco character, who says he's got a little list. I've got a little list. And any official gets in my way. I'm going to do terrible things to him. I don't have the lyrics in front of me. But there's there's a recollection there. And of course, in all humor in all comedic humor, there's truth and threat. And he announced he had a little list. And if he gets into that position of power, he will go after people, not unlike what happened in the 30s. And he will ask neighbors to tell on neighbors and family to tell on family. And he will, you know, destroy his adversaries, the way he has done in Russia. Well, but yes, but you still have this this core of resistance in Ukraine, that's that's not going to go away. You know, I mean, and if you and if Russia has learned anything from America's efforts to conquer countries and change their political system, they should have learned that that doesn't work. You know, and they they should have learned they did learn that lesson in Afghanistan in the 70s and in the 80s. And you know, you would think that they would have remembered that lesson. And they would have seen what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan for the Americans. So yeah, you can have a list and you can you can kill a lot of people. And you still have a resistance, you still have a resistance that that's that's now born in blood. And it's even more difficult to get past it. And so, you know, I mean, when you see pictures of people in Kiev, making Molotov cocktails in anticipation of this of this onslaught, you know, that that that suggests to me that you have a population that's not going to quit just because somebody comes in and kills a bunch of people in the city. Yeah, you got to give them credit for their their courage. And it is, you know, it goes back to the Warsaw ghetto in 1944-45 and all that, you know, raw courage, courage is so admirable. And it's already, you know, being demonstrated. Also, I wanted to ask you about the sea change that is reflected in the in the population shift. Maybe that's an overstatement. But 600,000 people have left Ukraine, which is not all that many when you consider it's 44 million people live in the country. And it's a really big piece of territory. But they've left and they managed to get out. They've they were afraid. They wanted to settle somewhere else. Some of them will want to go back, others will stay. What you have is a migrant wave. Allah, what was going on? Maybe what still is going on from North Africa and the Middle East. And so the query, you know, there's got to be a sea change here. And of course, the countries that receive these migrants, Poland, Germany, and a bunch of others, they may they may be acting out of noble cause right now. But it does have an effect on on government and where the needle points left and right. And no, we've seen what happened in in Germany, where, you know, right wing groups have emerged. And basically, because they don't like the migrants. And so clearly, what changes are happening in those are those temporary changes? Or are they going to have a permanent effect? Well, again, you know, I mean, so much of it depends on on where where the violence ends and how it ends, I think. So to answer the question, obviously, if if Russia is successful, and they do eliminate the existing government, and they somehow managed to put in a puppet regime, then I would think that there's going to be probably more people who are willing to just not go back home. And then that does create a new problem for the for the recipient countries. But I also think that that there's people who are will want to go back to to Ukraine, especially if the Ukraine is successful in in at least stymying Russia's efforts to to eliminate the country. So, you know, it's hard to say how how important that that 600,000 emigres really are at this point. You know, but I think I think it's, yeah, I mean, it's so much of it depends on on where we go in the next in the next two weeks in the next month in terms of who can sustain the the the political will to pursue their objectives at this point. And and, you know, I mean, Russia, Russia has has got to be looking at what Putin has gotten them into. Because at this point, their their two options are to restart relying on China, and ultimately become a vassal state of China, because China has the money, it has the it has the outlet for its goods, and it can control it can now control Russia's destiny. And that ought to scare a lot of Russians. And so I think, you know, this this sort of alliance of convenience between Russia and China that Putin managed to pull off, you know, at the at the summit in conjunction with the Olympics, looks good now. But I think that that if if, and it's a big if, I think that that if Europe can actually sustain this this sanctions regime, and stay committed to it, it's going to force Russia, the rest of Russia, not necessarily Putin, but the rest of Russia, to look very hard at the value Putin offers to the Russian people. Yeah, that actually goes to another point we want to talk about. And that is, Russia did not have a very robust economy before Putin began this adventure. And now the sanctions are having, at least according to Joe Biden and others in the in the Western coalition, they have with these sanctions, they have done enormous damage to the Russian economy all within a few days. And so query that, you know, that does change the the world economic order. It's another sea change. As you say, sort of depends on what Putin does. And it also depends on what China does. But but haven't we crossed the rubric on hasn't Russia crossed the rubric on it will not be a great economic power again. Well, I, I don't know that. So I wouldn't be quite as confident as you and Joe Biden are about the success of the sanctions. Sanctions sanctions are not an immediate effect. Potentially, yes. But don't forget, you still got you still got oil and natural gas flowing from Russia into Europe. They shut down Nord Stream two, which is is a pipeline. But they're still pumping a lot of product out of Russia into Europe. And 60 million, you know, the announcement today was that there were 60 million barrels of of oil were taken from from strategic reserves around the world. Well, that's that's minuscule to the 400 million barrels that get pumped out of Russia every day or that we're getting pumped out of Russia every day. So so that's not that's not that's not a done deal yet, I think. So and then the other thing is, you know, that they've been talking about the reserves that the Russians have built up. Now granted, the sanctions and the sanctioning the central bank has limited some access to those excess for foreign reserves that the Russians have the number, you know, that I've seen is 600 and some million. And there may be only 300 and some million or billion available because of because of the sanctions. But even that that's still some. And then again, you have to wonder what are the Chinese really going to do. So I wouldn't be quite so quick to to say sanctions have been successful sanctions can be successful. But it's going to take time just like it's going to take time for Russia to control the cities in Ukraine. Now, you know, I saw an interesting reference to the US and Baghdad. In 2003, you know, everybody said that this was quick, it was fast. It took three weeks to to consolidate and control Baghdad. And that was in a country that didn't have a lot of resistance. So so even if even if they come in with cluster bombs and and the vacuum, I forget the word, but it basically that sucks all the oxygen out of the environment and kills people, you know, it's it's going to take a while to consolidate whatever they gained once that convoy starts moving again. So can it can it sustain that can that again, can the sanctions sustain itself? I think you have to think about months, not days, not weeks. So, you know, the real challenge is going to be which one can sustain it? And then how much does does Russia lose in terms of its reliance on the Europeans and how much does it give away to the Chinese in the process? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So many, so many lines on the chart here all will have a life of their own. One of the things that I that I wonder about is the nature of of war, the nature of invasion, the nature of nuclear threat, the nature of using cluster bombs and other sophisticated weapons against a population that is not necessarily in uniform that is not an army. These are ordinary people from every walk of life. And this is this somehow is new to me that you would attack them directly and intentionally destroy their residential properties and, you know, their neighborhoods and what have you. And I wonder if this bespeaks of a of a new kind of a new kind of aggressive invasion in in the world of of Europe and elsewhere that we have somebody who would do this and somebody who would also rattle nuclear sabers in the process, which seems completely inappropriate. But hey, anything in the storm. Well, but that's again that that goes to how much how much escalation do we get out of this thing. And that's, and that's why it's an open question of how it ends. Because at some point, you have to react, you can't say, okay, Ukraine, you're on your own. If this whole business of a escalation to nuclear a nuclear weapon, then then the whole dynamic changes. And it's going to be very difficult to to control that. You know, once that's why that that's why that whole idea of a nuclear option is so scary for everybody. Because then then you can't just sit back and say Ukraine, you're on your own. The Europeans and the Americans have to act. So, you know, as we get close to the end here, you know, I think that this this has become a real crucible for the West. The West is is faced with with an existential threat here that it needs to respond. And it's done well for a week. But a week is a week. And I'm talking months. This has to be sustained for a month. And we're going to feel the pinch of inflation. We're going to feel the effects of what's going on here. This isn't free. You know, the United States has has the markets have sort of brushed it off in some respects. You know, but this is this is going to pinch this is going to be this is going to be hard for everybody. It's going to be some people in the United States are going to get really tired of the inflation, the gas prices, you know, whatever threats and impositions result from it. I mean, for example, I don't think it's beyond the, you know, the pale of credibility that that the US will be asked to take to take to take the people who come out of Ukraine, the migrants, so to speak. And for that matter, even in Hawaii, and are they going to like that? Are they going to do it in the first place, state by state, they're going to like that? This is going to put, you know, burdens on us. And some people are going to be less than enthusiastic. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And, and, you know, one other one other point that you made is that is this the new kind of war? This is the war. This is this is a war that Russia has fought in Chechnya. It's a war it fought in in Syria. And, you know, I hate to say it, but I've also seen, you know, news reports that said, but this one's different because it's Europe. And Europe is different because, well, because it's more civilized and it's European. And it's not, you know, it's not Middle Eastern. And, and that that sort of rhetoric. And there's there's some truth to that, that this one is closer to home for the Europeans. But this isn't this isn't new. This is something that that Putin has done a couple of times now, and he feels pretty successful at it. And that's apparently part of his rationale for thinking that he could do it again. Well, one, one, you know, undercurrent that might be different is this. So this the border around Ukraine is porous and very irregular. And you can cross that border, if you really want to, you can smuggle weapons in, you can smuggle goods and money, what have you, you can smuggle experts in, you can smuggle, you know, underground in, you can support underground, perhaps as, as opposed to other situations in which Putin found himself. And actually, as opposed to what was going on in France during World War Two with the underground. I mean, it seems to me relatively easy for Joe Biden to achieve a regular pipeline of weapons, supplies, money, people, what have you over the long term of this underground state of war that we are likely to see. And so that'll be different. Don't you think it'll be different from what happened in France? And it'll be different from what Putin expected. And it'll be long term. Yeah. But again, you're anticipating a particular type of war. And Putin has really left himself two options at this point. One is, is to contain it in Ukraine. But he's also, he's also said, if, if you guys continue to provide this support, I'm going to extend it beyond Ukraine and involve, involve NATO, force NATO's hand into seeing how long they can, they can stay hands off. And so that's, that's, that's the risk of, again, this that's the risk of war is, is escalation is really easy to do and really easy to be misinterpreted. Yeah. Well, Biden talked about that. He talked about putting troops on the border. And what he said was he was going to defend every inch. And he repeated it a number of times every inch of NATO territory with American boots on the ground weapons, the whole, the whole thing. So if Putin decides that this slipping underground supplies across the border is problematic for him and he crosses the border, you know, in, in, in response, he's going to meet a very stern response from NATO and the EU and the US. And that means a much larger war, doesn't it? Yes, it does. And possibly with nuclear weapons too. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And don't forget, that's why the United States has been, has been putting, putting forces into, into the Baltics. So, you know, you have extra, extra NATO forces that are moving into Estonia Latvia and, and, and the third one. Lithuania. Lithuania. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. You know, but the more, the more we talk, the more I keep remembering Robert, Barbara Tuckman and the guns of the guns of August. This is, this is, this could have a really bad, you know, dominoes effect here. And, and once it gets to a certain point, we don't know the point, it could be completely out of control. That's right. And then I think that's, that's really sort of a bottom line here is that, is that now that, now that this, this conflict has started, we really need to think about how it ends. And, and we don't know how it's going to end at this point. And, and a lot of how it ends is in the hands of Putin, because he is pretty clearly done this largely on his own without a lot of consultation from people that probably would have advised him not to do it. So one other sea change worth talking about is, of course, you know, the liberal world order is threatened by all of this. And whatever, you know, we fashioned in the United Nations back in 1945 and six is, is, is being undermined seriously undermined. And so it seems to me that one of the, one of the things that's popped out from under the rock here is the impotence of the United Nations. And I guess I'm asking you is, you know, gee whiz, we had always assumed the United Nations would somehow be able to step in and, and protect, but even their emergency general assembly meeting was yesterday. It's still, it's still going on. It's not finished. It's just, it's just a bunch of people making statements at this point. Exactly. Is the United Nations done here? Is this revealed that it is impotent and is never going to be able to act in a, you know, constructive way in the face of this, this kind of invasion? It certainly doesn't bode well for it, I would say. I mean, I don't, I don't know how you, how you, how you kill the, the UN, you know, it has taken on a life of its own in so many aspects, but it certainly does demonstrate again, as it did time and time again in the, during the Cold War, that the Security Council is, is a broken mechanism because it, it allows the permanent five to basically ignore whatever anybody else has to listen to. You know, it allows the permanent five to act with impunity when, when they choose. Am I right in saying, Carl, that no matter what happens, whether Putin pulls out, doesn't pull out, whether Biden is able to hold the coalition together or not, whether Ukraine is able to, you know, defend itself or, and or mount an underground, you know, presence going forward. The world, this, the world has changed. There are things that have happened. We don't know exactly what, but the world has changed and it won't be the same. And sorry to say it happened while we were here. I think so, you know, and if you look at the map of the people who have, have supported the sanctions and the people who haven't, and the people who have abdicated any responsibility, you sort of see what that new map of the world looks like. So I'm specifically saying you see China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, big pieces of Africa, pieces of South America, who are not on board. They've, they've simply said, we're going to wait and see how this all works out. Include India. They abstained. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I mean, look at the, look at the Middle East, you know, they're, they're the other ones that have, have really just sort of not committed one way or the other on this thing. So if you were at this moment, I'm not sure he's finished with his state of the union message, but if you had Joe Biden's ear for a moment, what would you tell him? Sorry. Sorry. I asked you that question. Yeah. Well, you know, I think I would tell him that you better understand that this is a long haul. This, this thing in Ukraine is, is, as I said, it's a crucible for the, for the, for the Western civilization to deal with. And it's, it's a very important one because if you get it wrong, if you, if you lose the coalition here, you, you lose the liberal order. And so, and so while everybody is, everybody is eager to be a cheerleader right now on the success that we've seen, ultimately it's, it's on the European Union. You know, you're, you're trying to say that Biden holds the coalition together. Ultimately, it's the European Union that has to stand and be successful here. Because they're the ones that are going to get hurt more than the United States. And so the United States, as I said from the beginning of, of this whole thing is, is ultimately a cheerleader here. And, and yes, it has, it has a large part of the NATO force, but it's ultimately up to the European Union and the, and the nation states that comprise the European Union to be successful in, in countering what's happening in Ukraine. Thank you, Carl. I, I guess I, I feel better now talking with you. I'm not sure why. Carl Baker, senior advisor to Pacific Forum. I really appreciate your, your thoughtful analysis of this. And I hope we can do it again soon. Thanks. Aloha. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.