 Welcome to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and thanks for joining us. I'm Sam Brannon, a senior fellow in the CSIS International Security Program, and I'm privileged to be joined here today by three of my favorite foreign policy and security commentators and experts, the people whose opinions I really want to hear on this issue. So we're going to turn to them today to discuss the Ukraine crisis and its implications for U.S. security strategy, Andy Cuchins, Clark Murdoch, and Vikram Singh. Before I turn it over to them, though, I want to provide a little bit of framing, and then I'll let them take it from there, and we'll open to questions with you at the end of the session. Events over the past several days in Odessa, Klobjansk, and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine have underscored the growing danger of a prolonged civil and sectarian conflict. And as high as the stakes are within Ukraine, they are even potentially greater for the United States, not just in Europe and Eurasia, but globally. Fundamental questions about U.S. security strategy are being asked not just in Washington or on op-ed pages, but in capitals around the world. Consider this framing of the crisis by Russian President Vladimir Putin two days after the March 16 Crimea referendum vote. He said, like a mirror, the situation in Ukraine reflects what is going on and what has been happening in the world over the past several decades. After the dissolution of bipolarity on the planet, we no longer have stability. I doubt many in this room would agree with Mr. Putin's analysis, but we would agree that events in Ukraine over the past several months are forcing reflection on what the next decade has in store for the U.S. and its allies and partners globally. At the risk of oversimplifying a very complex set of issues, let me offer four key areas we can go into today. First, Ukraine has opened questions about U.S. Russia policy, dating back to the end of the Cold War. Specifically, questions have been asked of whether the Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama administrations somehow fundamentally mishandled Russia. Did they fail to properly acknowledge its interests, and did they humiliate it in ways that haunt us today? Or did they try too hard to accommodate a Russia that simply acts in ways contrary to international order and stability? How does this change the way we must think about the salience of nuclear weapons? Second, Russia's coercive and so far largely successful use of diplomacy, information operations, irregular and covert warfare, and large-scale conventional signaling has raised immediate questions about the security of other states in Russia's periphery, including NATO allies, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are of most immediate concern. To date, the United States has responded with relatively small-scale rotations of its forces, and its NATO allies have done likewise. Diplomatic messaging has occurred, sanctions have been taken, but so far these appear to have had little impact on Russia's decision-making in the crisis. Moreover, it has raised questions about NATO's long-term ability to stand up to this challenge. Secretary of Defense Hegel last week suggested that the next NATO ministerial must include ministers of finance, noting that today America's GDP is smaller than the combined GDPs of our 27 NATO allies, but America's defense spending is three times our allies' combined defense spending. Third, just eight months after the Russia-brokered Syria chemical weapons disarmament deal, there are again tough questions being asked about U.S. willingness to use military force when push comes to shove. From allies and partners in the Middle East and Europe, I personally have heard sharp concern voiced about a United States that has vacillated from drawing red lines it would not enforce to United States that refuses to set red lines at all. Their words, not mine. On this point, the potentially most damaging to this presidency in the U.S. global standing, President Obama weighed in last week during his trip to Asia. My job as commander-of-chief, he said, is to look at what it is to keep to excuse me. My job as commander-in-chief is to look at what it is that is going to advance our security interests over the long term, to keep our military in reserve for where we absolutely need it. There are going to be times when there are disasters and difficulties and challenges all around the world, and not all of those are going to be immediately solvable by us. Where we can make a difference using all the tools we've got in the toolkit, well, we should do so, and if there are occasions where targeted, clear actions can be taken that would make a difference, then we should take them. We don't do them because somebody sitting in an office in Washington or New York thinks it would look strong. Finally, those who have been watching the Asia Pacific rebalance closely have wondered how Ukraine might deflect resources and attention from the nation's foremost strategic priority, particularly in a time of overall significant fiscal pressure on the Department of Defense. They have also asked how U.S. response may be viewed by that region's fast-rising power, China. With that, let me say how grateful I am to be joined by three tremendous foreign and security policy experts who will share their views on these issues and others today. I will introduce them in the order they will speak. To my immediate left, your right, I'm joined by Andy Kutchens. Dr. Kutchens is a senior fellow and director of the CSIS Russia and Eurasia program. Dr. Kutchens has written and commented extensively on Russia, particularly over the past six months as demand has skyrocketed to understand Russia's role in Syria, the Edward Snowden affair, the Sochi Olympics, and now Ukraine. He has also just recently returned from research travel in Central Asia, where he was able to gauge key officials' views of events. Though he broadly supported the need to reset relations with Russia and find more areas for cooperation during President Obama's first term, Dr. Kutchens is not minced words regarding the administration's handling of Ukraine. In a March 30 commentary, he wrote, Barack Obama is now making Jimmy Carter look like a Tilla the Hun with a series of empty threats and too little too late punitive measures against Putin's Russia. I'll let Andy add some context around that remark. Next to Dr. Kutchens is Clark Murdoch. Dr. Murdoch is a senior advisor at CSIS and director for the Defense and National Security Group in the project on nuclear issues. Dr. Murdoch is an expert on defense planning, the nuclear mission, and strategy with decades of executive branch, congressional academic, and think tank experience. His recent work is concentrated on understanding the military force structure implications of continued sequester level cuts to the Department of Defense. Dr. Murdoch also spends considerable time thinking about how to use hard power smartly. In a late 2013 analysis of lessons learned from the Syria crisis, Dr. Murdoch wrote that there are three primary factors that should guide US policymakers on use of force and maintaining credibility. First, mean what you say and say what you mean. Second, prepare both to carry out your threats and to deal with the consequences. And third, since actions always speak louder than words, use force from time to time to demonstrate your resolve. Last, but certainly not least, I am very glad to be joined by Vikram Singh. Mr. Singh recently joined the Center for American Progress as vice president for national security and international policy. Prior to departing the Obama administration after five years of service, he was most recently the deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia at the Pentagon, where he was on the front lines of the Asia-Pacific rebalance. Before that, Mr. Singh was the deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the US Department of State. In a recent commentary on Ukraine, Mr. Singh wrote about a range of non-military options still available to the administration, but cautioned that failing to impose a meaningful cost for Russia's forceful annexation of foreign territory would further embolden Russia to take similar steps in other neighboring states. It would also affect the strategic calculus of other nations and territorial disputes, increasing the willingness of states to use coercion, subterfuge, and military force with less fear of significant international backlash. Let me turn it over to Andy to get things started. Thanks so much, Sam. I think we could go right to the question and answer. You addressed all of the key questions. And it sounds like we all agree from what you quoted from us. The only good news I have to report about what's happened in the last couple of months in Vladimir Putin's quest to become dictator for life is that it's great job security for me and the likes of us. Before I address Sam's questions, let me say what I think is actually motivating Vladimir Putin in Ukraine right now. And to me, it's fundamentally about domestic politics in Russia. And it's about a new political strategy which he has for himself. For most of the time in which he has been de facto de jure, a leader of Russia, there has been this economic social compact. Russians have lived more prosperously. The Russian economy has grown robustly while Putin has been president and prime minister with the exception of the period of the global financial crisis and then shortly after he became president again in 2012. Now, what's happened since he became president in 2012 when the Russian economy was still growing at a rate of about 3% or 4% underperforming, but still performing reasonably decently, the growth before the situation in Ukraine started had already come to about zero. And he faced a fundamental decision. Was he going to take the measures to restructure the Russian economy so that it would be more efficient? And then to do that, he would have to build in more transparency, better governance, address corruption, improve the investment environment, et cetera, et cetera. Because he couldn't count upon a multiple increase in the oil price as occurred during his first two terms in power. He couldn't count on a 50% increase in oil production as happened during his first term in power. And he couldn't count on a virtual global money party in the latter part of his second term as president, which made the international community ready to lend to Russia a lot. But the problem was, and to me, it's a reminder of the Soviet Union around the early 1980s, let's say 1981, the era I graduated from college, that despite the fact the oil price was at a high and oil production in Russia had grown tremendously in the 1970s, Soviet economic growth was at about zero. Now, did the Soviet leadership under Mr. Brezhnev or his successor, Mr. Andropov, or his next successor, Mr. Chynenko, in the rapid succession, actually want to deal with that and structurally reform the system? No, because it was too politically risky. They didn't do it. And that's the choice that Mr. Putin has made. So where is he going to get the basis for his political support in the future? Well, the new strategy is a combination of sort of a return to what Nicholas said in the first policy of official nationality in the second quarter of the 19th century, autocracy, orthodoxy, Russian nationality. And combined, and more importantly to that, this greater Russia project that he has in mind. Russia has to be, despite the fact it's X times larger than any country in the world, it still needs to be larger. And here comes, and that combined with foreign policy successes of the nature that we might have regarded Putin's performance on Syria in the summer. So I think that's a fundamental starting point for how we got to where we are from late February to today. And unfortunately, I think it's a very, very, very dangerous and risky strategy on his part. Not only dangerous for him, it's probably going to result in ultimate failure. But there's going to be tremendous collateral damage all across the board. One of the first things that hit my mind on February 28th when Crimea was seized by the polite green men was that Gorbachev in the USSR went out with a whimper. And something to my bones tells me that Vladimir Putin is not going out with a whimper. It could get very, very, very ugly. And we're still only in the early part of it. And it's the March 18th speech that he gave to the federal assembly in Moscow right after the annexation of Russia, which was really a mind bender. Probably the most significant speech he'd given before that was in Munich in 2007. And actually, I could agree with a lot of what Mr. Putin had to say in the famous Munich speech. Economic balance of power, changing in the world. That's typically followed by a change in political power. The unipolar world is over. The United States needs to adjust, et cetera, et cetera. Even his New York Times editorial had got a fair amount of criticism. I could find a lot to agree with. But this March 18th speech, this to me, marked a new Putin and a very scary Putin. In a congressional testimony, I concluded that future historians may regard this as the point at which Russia tipped into becoming a fascist state. I mean, look up fascism. You'll see, I think, a picture of Mr. Putin and Russia on the map. I don't mean to be flip about it, but that's kind of what it is. Extreme nationalism, a very corporate type of political economic linkage in the political system, quite repressive to any dissidents, and a focus on territorial acquisition and an aggressive foreign policy. That's it. And if he's talking about borders, it's not just the post-Cold War borders. It's not just the post-World War II borders. It's actually virtually any border that Mr. Putin thinks is illegitimate. That's illegitimate. And that, who is he ready to defend? Is it ethnic Russians? Is it Russian speakers? Well, it's even such a sneaky compatriots. It's a very, very broad category, which can be very flexible. I found that in extremely frightening speech and quite a quantum leap in the evolution of Mr. Putin. So I see there will be increasing pressure on all neighbors. There's essentially an attempt to unwind 1991, and perhaps even earlier, that this will not stop as long as Mr. Putin is in power. Because I'm correct in that the starting point is this is part of the strategy for maintaining support. And he's gotten a huge binge in popular support for what's happened so far. You have to keep on feeding the beast, if you will. And that is not a happy scenario. Now let me turn quickly to Sam's questions. All right, his first question had to do with, what is your view of US policy since the outset of the crisis you create in following the annexation of Crimea? Has it been weak, provocative, or about right? It's like a little red writing, but. Well, I think weak and provocative are not mutually exclusive categories. So I think from the outset, I think it's been weak and thus provocative. And for me, it really started with the initial response on February 28. Already, the airport in Simferopol had been seized by military forces, clearly that it had to be at the behest of Russia. The parliament had been seized. The speaker of the parliament had been seized. And when Mr. Obama came on at 3 PM Eastern Standard Time, I remember it well because I was at the University of Indiana for my son, who was a freshman there, for the father's son fraternity weekend. I was watching the press conference. And one would have thought that none of that had already happened. President Obama talked about there would be costs for Russia doing X. And I'm thinking, dude, I'm here in Indiana. And I mean, X has already happened. A lot of X has already happened. And I was very disheartened to read a story in the Wall Street Journal. I can't confirm whether it's true about 10 days later about the disagreement within the intelligence community as to what it actually happened. I'm afraid that a lot of our intelligence assets, certainly human assets, are not available in that region. We had nobody on the ground actually in Crimea, if the story is true. And it was very, very clear if there was any weak spot in Ukraine, it would be Crimea. And looking at February 21, 22. Secondly, I mean, did we not have eyes on what was happening to the Simferopol Airport and what was going there on the ground? So some kind of intelligence failure happened. And I think that's something we're gonna need to look into. But with that, it kind of began the series of kind of too little, too late response. One, I think there's been too much emphasis on a search for the off-ramp, the diplomatic solution. Of course, we need to do that. But there was never a shred of evidence to actually support that Vladimir Putin was interested in a diplomatic off-ramp during this crisis. Secondly, this is kind of controversial. But I think that the United States needed to take a firmer role in leading the alliance. Given Europe's deep economic investment with Russia, it was not realistic to expect them to take a leading role. Given the differences in Europe in general, I think we need to be a little bit more forward-leaning. And for example, when President Obama was getting ready to leave on his Europe trip on the latter part of March, and the second round of sanctions was announced, what was striking to me was that while these were more significant sanctions, none of them were actually really gonna have a negative impact on the US economy. So we weren't gonna be able to go to Europe and say, look, we think this is such a significant problem that we are ready to take a hit on our economy. And if we're not ready to take a hit on our economy, how can we make the case to the Europeans who are much more deeply vested? Thirdly, I think there has been too much emphasis on punishing Ukraine, excuse me, punishing Russia rather than trying to help Ukraine. Now, unfortunately, the Ukrainian government has been in ways criminally irresponsible for at least since the Orange Revolution, probably longer, leave themselves in an extremely vulnerable position to Russian pressure. But this is the core of the problem. And if Ukraine can succeed, that's how Mr. Putin loses, okay? And I'll get back to this because of the economic sanctions question a little bit later. So we need more on that. And there I was extremely disappointed with the speech that the president gave in Brussels in late March. A lot of platitudes, you know, mom and apple pie and beautiful values, but virtually nothing concretely said about what we were doing and ready to do to support the sovereignty of Ukraine, politically, economically, militarily, or otherwise. My conclusion was in Moscow, they're laughing and in Kiev, they're crying. Okay, the second question, I'll go through these faster, Sam, I know, okay, yeah. Leave a question or two. Okay. Leave a question or two. Well, okay, I'll leave the military option off the table question for you. I say just. I feel really sorry for Michael Maas to follow both of us. Because we both occupy a little bit of space. All right, all right, okay, good point, good point. Okay, okay. I was just following, trying to follow instructions. The Asia, with Asia rebalance, of course this is gonna affect the Asia rebalance. How could it not affect the Asia rebalance? We thought that European security was virtually solved. So to some extent, and the pie is not growing, but I will leave it to my distinguished colleagues with the details. Let me say something about China. China, what China's perspective on this. I think it's pretty clear that the stock of national sovereignty is sort of a sacred pillar of Chinese policy is a cell, a slow cell. Its value has reduced. Nevertheless, I think there's quite a bit of ambiguity in China about this. At some level, I think Xi Jinping has to kind of admire Vladimir for what he did in Crimea. And that was quite a brilliant operation. Vladimir helped me do this elsewhere. Now China's gonna benefit economically and politically from Russia's estrangement with the West. But I think it will be very, very cautious about signing up for Vlad's new Cold War. Now we can watch very carefully to see what happens with Mr. Putin when he goes to China at the end of May. Certainly Russia's position has weakened. He's gonna get a lower price on the gas deal, et cetera. Let me just conclude with something on the sanctions. Can economic sanctions substitute for use of force? Well, clearly no, that's sort of obvious. But it's really a problem on economic sanctions if your adversary feels himself somewhat impervious to taking a significant economic hit. And here's a problem with Putin's strategy. Since he knows that the economy's in trouble, sanctions come on board. That simply gives him the argument that, well, it's the West, it's the outsiders. They're trying to weaken us, they're punishing us. This is the source of our economic problems. So it's gonna play pretty well into his political narrative. The second point I would make is that the tools are designed for the war on terror and rogue states. And it is economically, it's just impossible to isolate Russia. This is the sixth or eighth or 10th largest economy in the world, depending upon your denominator. And there's just too many states in the world, including many European allies, which aren't really ready to enthusiastically sign onto this. And a last thing I would say about that is that these sectoral sanctions could possibly be interpreted by Mr. Putin as an act of war. And I think we better be aware of all of our own vulnerabilities because we can be damn sure that he will be coming back at us very, very, very hard. And I think we're gonna be in a very long, haul and difficult time with Mr. Putin as long as he is leading Russia. Not only did you follow instructions, but it was a great opening. Thank you, Andy. Clark. How do I turn this on? And then I am not worried that Vikram can hold his own after you. He was specially selected from the thousands of Washington efforts as the only man capable of following you. That's right. All right. Is it on? Yep. Okay. I was happy you didn't use the word red line because I want to talk about red lines. Sort of talk about the way Obama and the United States and others have acted more at the tactical level in terms of how you use force to get somebody to do or not do something you want to do. Because I think from a broader perspective, strategically, people are saying that Obama's weakness and Washington Post has been really tough on him lately blathering and dithering and so on, that that's responsible somehow for Putin's gravity and Crimea. Well, I don't think so. I just think Putin's plan A failed. You know, when his guy suddenly fled Moscow and the Maiden Square revolutions as with the Rose Revolution as with the other flower revolutions led to a change of power, he had to change his game plan because he has a lot at stake in terms of Ukraine. I think for many of the reasons that Andy was talking about. So that from a broad strategic sense that it wasn't Obama's weakness that led Putin to do what he did in Crimea, it was the fact that Putin's first option for doing what he wanted to do with Ukraine failed. So he went to a backup option. Now, I would also argue, however, that Obama's failures at the tactical level in terms of how you use red lines to fail people undoubtedly led Putin to underestimate him in terms of Obama's ability to play the game. To me, I go back again to the group of eight meeting in Mexico where you see the two of these leaders in the same room together. Apparently there's a, I haven't got on the blog because I'm such a Luddite, but apparently there's a film that shows the language of these guys next to each other for about five minutes. And the disdain that Putin had for Obama was almost palpable during that time. You could cut it with a knife. You could just cut it in the pictures, much less in terms of the video on that. And so I don't think Putin had much respect for Obama as a competitor in the great game, whether it's chess, checkers, or dodgeball during this time. And I also think that same issue on the tactical level is something that's really bothering our allies. And I'll just have a few quotes on that because there's no question is Doug Paul said when he was talking about out in the Asian, you know, all the big players out there watched what the United States did in Syria and were appalled and worried about would the United States do the same thing if things went south for them on a particular issue. And certainly when you're dealing with China it makes no bones about its territorial ambitions. That's something they need to think about during that time. I go back to Obama's use or non-use of red lines in Syria where he was very specific about the red line issued first in August of 2012. You know, where he says clearly we have been very clear to the Assad regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us, we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving or being utilized, that's crossed it. After that he said a number of times that's a game changer for us. That changes our calculus. So then we go through, at the same time he's talking about game changer is when the French and the British went to the UN and said we think he's been using chemical weapons in small scales. Well it took the United States another three months to confirm, well yes indeed he has been using them on a small scale. And the actions then, it's one of Sam's favorite things as I said, a third tier White House official announces in the beginning of June the ubiquitous bedroads announces well we are going to take some action. We're going to increase our assistance, you know and we're going to meaningfully engage on this but doesn't say anything about punishing Syria for its use of chemical weapons. Then of course on August 21st, there is a massive or a much larger chemical weapons attack that kills 1400 people including 400 children. So then that starts a swiven where the first thing is, and it took quite a while, the Obama to come there, looks like he's about to use force and launch some retaliatory attacks against Syria and said no, he's going to go to Congress. And then when it's clear that Congress is going to hand his head to him, he reaches out to this former good buddy, Vladimir Putin, who comes up with this issue of removing chemical weapons as a way of taking the place of the ultimatum that the United States had set down with its road line, red line on the use of weapons. Now, one of the things I find disturbing about this, of course, is that it's led to a reinterpretation by administration spokesman of what this was all about. People probably noticed that when Obama has press conference with Aquino during the recent trip, a very, very defensive attitude, prickly attitude, Krauthammer was one that pointed out 969 words in this particular response. And Obama says quote, and I would note that those who criticize our foreign policy with respect to Syria, they themselves say, no, no, no, we don't mean sending in troops, but what do you mean? Well, you should be assisting the opposition. Well, we are assisting the opposition. What else do you mean? Well, perhaps you should take a strike at Syria to get chemical weapons out of Syria. Well, it turns out we're getting chemical weapons without a strike. So what else are you talking about? And at this point, the criticism trails off. Well, it's ridiculous because just that previous weekend, Samantha Powers is asked on TV, the person who wrote the problem from hell about Wanda is asked about, what about these reports that they're using chlorine gas? Well, she says we're gonna run that down right away. We're gonna get to the bottom of that, see what's going on. Well, within a day it's confirmed. Yes, they are using chlorine gas. And then, well, how are we gonna deal with that? Well, a US official said, I wanna make sure I have the right quote here. I don't know if it was Ben Rhodes, could've been, but usually when it's a senior official administration talking to the New York Times, you can bet that that's what it is. Ask the question, well, we really don't wanna draw much attention to it because there's really not much we can do about it. Because we can't ask them to get rid of all the chlorine in Syria. Well, yeah, you can't ask them to get rid of all the chlorine, but they agreed not to use chemical weapons. That's part of embracing the Chemical Weapons Treaty. And they used them. And when you're trying to deter the use of chemical weapons, what you're about is deterring the use of chemical weapons not using force to impose an elimination of all chemical weapons, particularly when you're doing it in the context that in Libya, when Gaddafi apparently gave up all of his chemical weapons back in 2002, we thought there was a great, well, it was only about eight months ago that they announced that the last chemical weapons in Libya were gone. He'd hidden a bunch of chemical weapons. Well, what a surprise during that time. And to think that Assad's gonna give up all of his chemical weapons now, not the way it works during that time. So it strikes me that when you start looking at the track record of how this administration is used for us at the tactical level to try as an element of coercive diplomacy, excuse me, that it has failed at that. Our adversaries don't fear us and respect us. They don't think we're gonna hold them accountable. Our allies are worried about what we will do under similar sorts of circumstances when we make those kind of commitments. Because when Sam was talking about, and I apologize for getting personal, but actually when it comes to using force, it is personal. Because it wasn't just those three lines about meaning what you say, say what you mean, think through the consequences of being prepared to do it. President has to have the right stuff when it comes to using force. The right stuff. And this president, he's asked about red lines on this most recent trip. Well, he doesn't like red lines anymore. He was asked, well, what about Japan's territorial interests in Senkaku Islands? He says, no, no, no. First of all, the treaty between the United States preceded my birth. So that's not my red line. I didn't create that red line. US, Japan treaty, before he went over for this trip, he sends a message, a written message saying that we support Japan's right to administer these territories. And then he's asked about it at a press conference. He says, that happened before I was born. Not my red line. Well, what do you think? If you're an ally concerned about your territorial integrity, you've had it. Ex-Defense Minister from Latvia points out, I said, well, we need some real red lines, not like the one in Syria, but one that really matters, because we're in NATO. Or you have Secretary Kerry saying, Pound and Thay will say, NATO's territorial integrity is inviolable. Let's pronounce the word, I apologize for that. We will defend every piece of it. Well, how credible do you think that is? How credible do you think that is? It is personal. And the consequences of not understanding that when the United States makes a red line, draws a commitment, draws a line in the sand, it is the president's job to make sure that their line has consequences. We could call it a line in the sand. Red lines have too many metaphors, pink lines, lines written in pencil, lines creeping red lines, we have lots of creeping red lines in Korea. But when it comes to saying, don't do this or we'll do that, and then you don't do it, when you make empty threats, how do you have architecture or security guarantees? Over you, Vakar. Okay. On that optimistic note, the floor is yours, Bikram. Thank you, gentlemen, and thank you, Sam and CSIS, for having this event. Obviously, this is an issue that I think we'll be talking about for quite a long time, because this is not a small tactical action. This is a major choice by a large power, and it's a choice to do something that perhaps we in the West had thought was a thing of the past, the annexation of territory, especially so close to Europe. And a thing that I think a lot of commentators are trying to say that there might be easy ways to deal with. There simply are not easy ways to deal with this kind of behavior from Russia or really any other power. This is a tough problem. It's not something new. Americans seeing Russian leaders take actions that we vigorously object to, but don't necessarily have a pat solution to, or an easy way to quickly address. President Eisenhower had to see the Soviets go into Hungary. LBJ had to see the Soviets across Czechoslovakia. President Carter saw the Soviets roll into Afghanistan. President Reagan saw Korean Airlines 007 shot down. President Bush Jr. saw Georgia invaded by Russia, and others in the neighborhood have faced Russian aggression in recent years as well. In none of those cases was there an American response that would somehow magically roll back what had happened. In none of those cases was there something that would not be subject to lots of pontificating by people like us about what we could or couldn't do. So I think it's important to take a step back and say, what are America's interests here? What are the things that we need to be willing to do in response to this kind of action? And actually to find a way to build consensus, because one of the things that serves us best as a country in issues like this, is when we're able to find consensus over what we could do, what we should do, even if there's debate about the tactics. And for all the critics that we're hearing right now about what policy choices have been made, they're primarily debating about tactics. There are not a lot of people advocating for, for example, military action to roll back a Russian annexation of a piece of Ukraine. That said, this is a pretty egregious violation, not only of international law, but also of an agreement that Russia inked with the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine. The Budapest Agreement basically says, we, you know, these countries, we will not use force to violate Ukraine's territorial integrity or sovereignty. It reaffirms that they won't do that. So Russia has both violated the UN Charter and also has violated an agreement that they inked with us. Not to mention that, it's, you know, so the fragmenting of a sovereign nation by force is something that really merits a response. The world of that response comes in the kinds of costs we're willing to impose, not just today, but over time. So I think the best critiques right now of the response are that it hasn't been clear enough what those costs are gonna be in the near term and it hasn't been clear enough how long and enduring the cost imposition from the United States will be. The, my concern about whether the immediate response reflects on US, the United States' stature in the world comes primarily from the fact that it's looked fairly confused. And I think we've had that problem in several cases. I think it looks fairly confused because these things are hard to deal with. How far do you go? Do you unilaterally move forward on sanctions and hope that Europe follows you? Do you get together with your allies and try to come up with a coordinated response? These are difficult things to do. In my view, fairly clear steps to at least target one sector of the Russian economy that would do what Andy said, cost us something as well as cost them something. And a demonstration that we're willing to hope to keep that up for a long time would have served us better than incremental steps on sanctions that look like they're reactive. The bottom line here is that the annexation of Crimea, that in itself requires a fairly clear response from the United States. And that is probably a response that's gonna have to stay in place for some time. So we need to figure out what kind of steps are we willing to take to say, we don't accept this action and we're going to impose some costs on you that we're willing to keep in place for one, five, 10 years. In my view, that should be probably targeted at the banking sector, where a long time European and Western willingness to sort of look the other way in terms of money laundering and other financial crimes could very easily be ended and could allow us through enforcement actions and targeted sanctions to really constrain Russia's financial sector. Those are things that we absolutely need to do. But I think the idea that somehow the recent developments cast into doubt the very framework of American alliances, I think that's really overrocked. The fact is that we have treaty commitments to our allies, to our allies. They're not to the rest of the universe. They're not to the rest of the world. They are to those countries with whom we have entered into those agreements. And I think the president has been very clear, both on the NATO front and certainly in Japan was extraordinarily clear, despite the quote that Clark was putting out there, it was extraordinary clear that he said the article five treaty commitments do apply to the Senkakus. So the value of ambiguity and the value of strategic flexibility in alliance relations is extraordinarily complicated. And it's been muddied by both sides, both on the side of red lines and on the side of what would you do, talking about what would you do in a given circumstance? Being declarative and so clear about what you're going to do when your interests are challenged is really not the best way to practice international policy. When you face challenges, you need to be willing to make responses. When you're willing to take a concrete action, you need to be clear about what that is and sustain your action when you take it. But you also want to leave room for a variety of actions and you want to leave some uncertainty in the minds of potential opponents. And so I think there's a lot of discussion right now about how we could have somehow, how we could be handling and responding to these situations in a fundamentally different way. I don't think that's true. I think the quibbling should be limited to what tactically should we be doing and what should we be doing in a, where could we take stronger action? Where could we potentially have a better approach? Even John McCain's proposed legislation doesn't actually get you out of the realm of the fundamental strategic nature of this administration's response to this challenge. At the end of the day, Vladimir Putin, as Andy's said, has chosen to take on sort of a czarist mantle. It made me actually think back, if you look back to Kennan, Kennan didn't analyze the Soviet Union in terms of just a Soviet, Bolshevik ideology and a Soviet socialist system. He put it in the scope of Russian history and he talked about the neuroses of Russian leadership going back centuries. And he said that Russian leaders have learned to seek security only in patient, but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival powers, never in compacts and compromises with it. I think that might be one of the most informative places for us to go. So not a global ideological struggle, but a Russian leader behaving in a way that Russian leaders have long behaved, a way that has never been something that gets managed quickly and easily by a turn of phrase or a particular action, but a way of behaving that requires a clear response. The United States needs to lead the international community in rejecting the annexation of Crimea and in resisting further dismemberment of the Ukrainian body politic. I do not believe that any kind of, even the kind of sanctions I had hoped for early were the kind of sanctions that were implemented. I don't think any of those were going to change the decision calculus of Vladimir Putin. And I think we get into very fuzzy territory when we talk about changing the strategic calculus of another country, be that of Pakistan or Russia. What you do is manage the situation you find yourself in, protect your interests as best you can, and be clear about what costs you're willing to impose when behavior by states violates the norms for which you stand. That means focusing on a steady set of things we can do, both to impose costs on Russia, but also critically to support Ukraine and other states in the periphery of Russia and potentially in Vladimir Putin's sights. I think the most disappointing thing in our response thus far is that Congress authorized a fairly small package of assistance for Ukraine. I think that if we look at the response today is actually objectively better than the response that we made in 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia, but given the scale of the activity in Ukraine and the direction it seems that Russia is going, I think we actually need to find the resolve between in ourselves and with our European partners and with other countries around the world to have a much more robust response. So there are things out there that we did in the wake of the Cold War that we've let fade in prominence and importance, things like the partnership for peace, which involves a few dozen nations and helps bring them up to modern military standards through assistance and training and education and support. Those are the kinds of programs we need to be looking at ways to reinvest in. And I fear that domestic gridlock and the atmosphere of fiscal constraints is getting to the point that it's making us actually really overly narrow what we can do as a country. When you ask about can we do Asia policy and handle Ukraine, of course we can. We are still the largest economy on earth. We're still spending over $600 billion a year on defense. We have plenty of resources. We have to have the willingness to apply those resources where they need to be applied. We have to have the willingness to make some tough decisions. And we seem to be in a political environment where gridlock is the watchword and tough political decisions don't come no matter how severe the provocation or how important the need. And that is really what challenges American leadership in the world. The gridlock is the issue much more than the specifics of any given response because the world understands how complicated these sorts of issues and responses are. So I'll wrap up with that and look forward to a Q&A. Thank you very much. Let me just ask a few questions to the panel to pick up on some of the themes that I heard throughout the comments. The first one is a question, Vikram referenced perhaps the utility of ambiguity in terms of options and leaving some space for yourself as you manage a difficult problem. One of the first things the president did and has repeatedly done was to take the use of military force off the table as an option. Andy, you had said before that the use of economic sanctions themselves may be escalatory in ways that we don't anticipate. I would assume that taking military force off the table was done in a way to try to diffuse the crisis a little bit. What's your view of how Putin may perceive those statements by the president and does that need any policy correction going forward? Thanks, Sam. And great comments by both Clark and Vikram. My main problem again started on February 28th in the initial response. To me it was clear that actually Crimea was gone and that what we were playing for at that point was for the rest of Ukraine. And it was clear that for Mr. Putin, winning Crimea and losing the rest of Ukraine would never be satisfactory. And that is why the response right from the get-go had to be much stronger and firmer. Now, granted, that's a very hard thing to do when you see such a stealthy and frankly surprising action that was taken. But even in, you go a couple of days after that and a week after that and a week after that and the sense of a very permissive environment from Mr. Putin, that is what was in his head, I think, and led him to think, we can never run the counterfactual and know what he would have done with a different response. But, and this gets to taking the use of military force off the table. I'm a huge believer in deterrence and the counterargument often made by the administration that any kind of military action or certainly sort of military support for Ukraine, the concerns about it being perceived as provocative to Moscow, to me, they just didn't really make, just doesn't make sense. What I saw as more provocative was creating the impression in Putin's mind that there was a more permissive environment. Now, clearly you can't say something that's not credible. That's a core problem. So if you're thinking to yourself that you're taking military action off the table, well, fine, just don't say it. Why say anything about it? What's the point in saying anything about it? Why not create a little ambiguity, as Vikram was saying in your adversary's mind? But maybe more importantly, on this point, I think there are, because the administration would critique people like me and accuse us of being warmongers for, I wasn't ever suggesting we'd provide an article five guarantee for Ukraine or American boots on the ground or anything like that. That's nuts. But there's a whole range of options in between that and sending 300,000 meals ready to eat. So I think there are people far more expertise on what those options are. Now, granted, there is a problem in that the security forces of Ukraine are so penetrated by Russian intelligence, that's a big worrisome issue, for sure. But I think that there could have been more done there in a nuanced way that might have somewhat changed the calculus of history, but like I said, we'll never know. Clark, do you wanna jump in on that? First of all, I go to exactly what it was that President Obama said, he said many things, but on 26th March, he said, quote, of course, Ukraine is not a member of NATO, in part because of its close and complex history with Russia. Nor will Russia be dislodged from Crimea or deterred from further escalation by military force. And then again, as this ubiquitous senior administration official says, quote, the American people are not going to war with Russia over Ukraine, comma, full stop, okay? Like Andy, I also am not a war monger. Well, maybe I am a little bit, but still. There are lots of things that you can do short of launching a desert storm-like invasion of Kuwait. For example, you might actually move forces into what they're now calling the frontline states, that is NATO allies that are on Russia's border during that time. You said, well, NATO has, well, actually NATO has not. What has happened is that the United States sent to each of the three countries in question 150 paratroopers, and those paratroopers were delivered by commercial transportation because we were worried that having them much less jump out of the sky or be delivered by military transport would be somehow too provocative to the Russians during that time. So that's sending 150 paratroopers in when you've got what, 25,000 forces masked on Ukrainian's Eastern border, doing constant exercises, penetrating airspace over Ukraine and so on. There are lots of things that we should have done. And in fact, I think Obama's been a little bit better on the economic side than has been on the military side because NATO, after all, is a military alliance and we should be doing things to indicate to our NATO allies, the new Europe, as Don Runstall used to refer to them, that we are really there for them and we haven't during that time. So for me, strategic ambiguity about when you're gonna use force, that's a concept that was developed in terms of the use of nuclear weapons. That was not a concept that was developed in terms of the use of 150 paratroopers to signal intent into a NATO ally during that time. So there's lots of deployments, lots of things that could have been done on the military side that would demonstrate a much firmer intent than we have here at a foreign show. The only thing I'm gonna throw into this mix is that I think a lot is made of sort of this, as if there's a notion of high-speed tactical deterrence. Isn't so. There is the idea that had we just gone X, oh, then he would have said, oh, well, never mind, I'm gonna leave Crimea or I won't meddle in the rest of Eastern Ukraine. That's unfortunately not accurate and the reason he was not deterred is doesn't find its roots in the current crisis. It actually finds its roots in how we responded to the Georgia incursions in 2008, which remain in place. So that Russian invasion, which was much more sloppy. It was loud, it was noisy, it was messy and it claimed several hundred, I think something like 500 Georgian lives. That was met with no response by a previous administration. So Vladimir Putin has tested the waters and has determined that in his immediate neighborhood, he's not going to face a military response from the United States. And so I agree with what my colleagues here are saying in terms of reassurance and bolstering NATO and sending signals and signaling is complicated and again, you can debate about the tactics, but the failure to deter in this particular set of circumstances, which is essentially Vladimir Putin steadily encroaching on and grabbing the Russian enclaves of neighboring states like Moldova, like Georgia, like Ukraine and potentially others like Azerbaijan down the road, that is a proposition that he tested over years. And so I would say more than what we've done in this crisis, what we didn't do in 2008 has affected the world we're looking at today. One last question before I turn it over to the audience, I've been patient. The question is that there has not yet been a release of an Obama administration second term national security strategy. So there's opportunity to put something in there about this issue to signal very publicly on this issue set that we've brought up here. What would you recommend be in the national security strategy? I'm not saying that Putin's necessarily gonna read it, but it's a chance to have a discussion internally in the administration like we're having here. What are some of the issues that they need to take a hard look at? And then the second part of that question is we've just had the release of a new defense strategy in the form of the 2014 quadrennial defense review. Did that strategy adequately capture the space that we're in now with Russia? Is Russia properly accounted for in our defense strategy if it's going to be the kind of long-term challenge that you all believe that it is gonna be? Whoever feels most comfortable going first. I'll go first on that. I'll start with the easier question first, the 2014 QDR, a little bit like the QDR that came out six weeks after 9-11. I mean, it was legislated to come out at a certain time, so it came out at the time it was legislated to come out. And it was adjusted at the very last minute to talk a little bit about 9-11, but the whole thing had been written before 9-11 occurred. Same thing is true right now. Legislated mandate to put out a 2014 QDR. We're still talking in that QDR about we wanna shape the evolution of both China as a responsible stakeholder and Russia as a responsible partner as well. That was a language that was in there. Can't rewrite those. They're coming out the box. They had probably already gone to the printers before it became in mid-January, before it was clear what was going on right now with Russia and the Ukraine. Now, as far as the national security is concerned, don't put another one out. Last time, the last time you wanna put something out was right after you're sitting there with egg all over your face and people wondering about your resolve. And I would argue you have to rebuild your credibility for action to a reputation for action to use a term that Thomas Schelling used. You have to rebuild that sort of one red line at a time. There's recently an article op-ed by Michael Churdov said we need to reset our foreign policy and have a whole architecture, a red line set. We know darn well if we try to put out five red lines, we're gonna get a number of them wrong. No matter how strong your president is because we don't know what our toleration for pain is and we don't know what the people we're trying to affect. You evolve these kind of things over time. That is a longer term thing. And so I would argue right now if you have to put out a national security strategy, you probably should have done it two years ago. You didn't? Don't do it now. I mean, I think, I have to agree to Clark. I don't think the QDR accounted for this sort of this severe a turn in events and debate. The fact is the international community has rejected what Russia has previously done in terms of these kinds of action in its region. So nobody recognizes of Kasia and South Ossetia as Russian territory but had attempted to move on and figure that there's gonna have to be a resolution at some point and we had continued to try to encourage Russia to be a part of a responsible global order. And any logical, if you take a longer term not Putin's political calculus but a longer term calculus for the welfare of the Russian people and the welfare of Russian society and the Russian nation, that's a much better course of action, right? So I mean, long term Russia would do well to make those reforms that Andy was talking about, to open up its society, to actually have a free media, to be attractive to capital again, to establish the rule of law and to build a Russia that actually has a decent future in the 21st century. This is taking Russia down a path that will not have a decent future in the 21st century. And that is something that I think does need to be factored in to national security thinking. I would imagine the national security strategy is not top of anybody's list at the White House right now given the number of challenges they're facing but obviously the shifting dynamics of power and how sovereignty disputes that had been sort of muffled or very rarely acted on in recent years, those might play into challenging the international order and undermining security in large important regions of the world, including in the Asia Pacific, that has to be something that we look to address. Andy. Thanks. Of course the QDR could not account for this. There are two sides of it, one are capabilities, the other are intentions. Now we know the Russians have been working for the last five or six years to improve their military sector and I think this deserves a lot more attention looking at the kinds of capabilities that they have. There's been a lot of focus, not surprisingly on access denial types of weapons to raise the costs in particular of military interventions of the kind that the United States and its allies have led over the last 10 or 15 years that the Russians have found so noxious to their interests. I would look really, really very closely at the nuclear balance and look at what the Russians are doing there with their modernization program and what we are or are not doing with our program. And I'll leave it to Clark to make a comment on that. On Vikram's comment about the long term, look, Vladimir Putin is 61 years old and he takes very, very good care of himself. He plans on being in power for a long time. And so you may sure we would like to wish for the return back to a reforming Russia, but I just don't see that happening anytime soon. The logic of what he's done and where he's moved has constrained him and is actually encouraging him to go further. So I'm afraid unless something happens to him personally, I don't see any way that we're gonna be dealing with him for a long time. So that has to be accounted for, I think, in the strategy because that's where the intention has shifted. The intention has very much shifted in a fundamental way as from being a quasi-partner, a frenemy to clearly an adversary. And an adversary, which I'm worried, is ready to, again, inflict and sustain major losses all across, all across the board. You know, I know this is kind of a crazy thought, but I had these crazy thoughts for the last two months. They hit me like, I don't even think about them. They just hit me. I was reading Leon Aaron's piece last Friday and the thought hit me. It was, Clark, you know, the greatest achievement of the Soviet Union besides winning World War II, of course, was achieving nuclear parity with the United States. What would really rock Vladimir's world? Would be able to somehow acquire a first strike capability. I know it's a crazy idea. It was not even thought about for decades. I think you need some thought reform. That's what I'm looking at. But look, don't, this cannot be underestimated in any way, shape, or form. But you know what, since we have, frankly, we actually have little capacity to influence Russia. I think we have to think about much more strategically is how we support the sovereignty and the independence of the states on Russia's borders from East Central Europe to the Southern Caucasus to Central Asia. I just came from Central Asia. I spent a couple of weeks there. And, you know, for example, some very thoughtful Kazakh analysts who said that, you know, Crimea may be their 9-11 and how they think about their security and their position. So I think that whole area, we need a Eurasia policy, not just a Russia policy. And again, the core weakness was Ukraine's own sovereignty itself. Let me turn it over to audience questions. I would ask you that you please identify yourself and please do keep it to a question so we can hear more from these gentlemen that somebody will come with a microphone, sir, in the back. I saw your hand. Thank you. This has been great comments. Bill Courtney, a retired diplomat. Over the years of the U.S., Ukraine military-to-military relationship has been considered to be one of the best aspects of our bilateral relations. The police have performed pretty poorly out there, but now that the military are engaged, is it likely that the bilateral military-to-military relationship is going to bear some fruit and the quality of the performance of the military? And then secondly, related to that, there have been suggestions from some observers that the West should provide defensive weaponry, anti-armor, other kinds of defensive weaponry to the Ukrainian military to help them deter and defend. And that kind of weaponry of former Soviet manufacturers available on the market, so it wouldn't be a question of providing them weaponry they didn't know how to use. Would that have been an effective Western strategy over the last several months? Want to jump in on that, Vikram? Do you want to do more than one, or do you want to just? Why don't we serve them? So I think the provision of defensive weapons would not be, again, I don't think it would be decisive. I actually, I truly don't think that in this power dynamic, there's a step that would be decisive in the immediate term. I do think that Ukraine needs a heck of a lot of help and it needs a lot more help than what it's gotten. The mil-to-mil relationship with Ukraine has been good, I understand that from knowing that it's been one of these countries that we've partnered with over the years, but it was nowhere nearly as good as, for example, the mil-to-mil relationship with Georgia. So I think you could see a situation in which, perhaps it's not just an American issue, but the United States could be providing a lot of higher-end military support in terms of how they do things and how they manage their military and how they can run things and how they can integrate the various parts of their security services. And European countries could be providing additional equipment and other things to support their military. Ukraine makes a lot of military equipment. I mean, the Ukrainian army has, it has stuff and the Ukrainians are in the army. I mean, they have a military. The real question is, do they have the command and control and the integration that they need to deal with this kind of complex threat? And I think that would be, that will be tested if we see further military incursions. I don't think you'll see a Crimea situation where it just, where nothing happens. I mean, we're seeing the violence and we're seeing things being contested now. And I imagine that, I mean, there is a point at which the Ukrainians will stand up and they need to be, they'll need to be backed up by countries around the world that don't think they should have their country dismembered just because there was a popular uprising and, you know, one corrupt leader ended up fleeing from office. Unfortunately for the Ukrainian people, they've been besieged by, you know, decades now of corrupt leaders that have left their country in a position where it can be subjected to this. Sort of right in the front here, just a moment, he'll come up with a microphone. Yeah. My name's Clancy McQuig and I'd like to see one of you all comment on arming the Ukrainians with Stinger missiles so that the Air Force can't operate anywhere in their territory. They pulled out of Afghanistan when the Afghans with very few Stinger missiles ran them out of Afghanistan. So the Air Force was totally and neutered and the Air Force seems to have a low tolerance for casualties to begin with, the Russian Air Force does. And then give them the Karl Gustav on the ground so that when the Russians come playing across the water with their tanks and their armored vehicles that they can take them out, both places put such a high price on the Russian game that the Russians have no chance of getting their people to put up with the casualty rate that they're gonna incur if they come in there and I'd like your comment on that. And let me take one more, sir, right here, right over here. Lutai. Thank you. My name is Batgutelya. I'm representing the McCain Institute and I'm from Georgia. So my question is on the NATO potential contingency in the Baltic direction. Today, Russians officially notified Lithuanian side that they are suspending weaponry information exchange on Kaliningrad Oblast. And this was the formal notification they received. I presume there will be some more enhancement with the weaponry in Kaliningrad, particularly maybe when East Kander tactical nukes, but my question would be if in the future we would see polite green guys appearing in one of the Baltic countries. Article five considers support of the L.I. when there is an, quote, armed attack on the member country. So would it be considered as an armed attack or what is the NATO's contingency in this potential scenario? Thank you. Clark, would you like to take a stab at it? I don't think you're gonna see in Ukraine but I'll leave it to Andy to make a more authoritative statement on that. I don't think you're gonna see a Russian invasion of Ukraine with lots of helicopters and with lots of aircraft. They're susceptible to being shot down with stingers. Remember, Russia invaded Afghanistan in support of a public government and so they occupied the country. And it took quite a while for the United States to develop the supply lines and stuff to provide them the wherewithal to start shooting down aircraft in Afghanistan territory. I don't know how far Putin is going. There was a Royal United Institute for Security in London published something, said nobody, including Putin, knows what he'll do next as the situation changes. You sort of agree with that? Do you think he knows how far he'll go during that time? But I don't think it's gonna be an invasion of that time. I think it'll be lots more green men, it'll be lots more violence in cities, it'll be a creeping, you know, I think it won't end or it won't stabilize until a larger chunk of Ukrainian territory has been lost to Russia during that time. I think it will go that far because Putin has had more appetite for this than I thought he had already and he hasn't been confronted with the kind of opposition that's gonna lead him to back off for a while. I think he looks at this as an opera. He's playing a great game in his mind and playing it better than his opponents and he sees a feasible game, I think through another six months of this. And, you know, there'll be, you know, forced ethnic cleansing to use that kind of term which is much more out of Yugoslavia and so on. But I think you're gonna find that they're not gonna be Ukrainian freedom fighters in that strip of southeastern Ukraine that I think is likely to go Russian. So I think the military aspect of it is not gonna be part of it in terms of that. As to your question, I think it depends a lot on how the world reacts to what's gonna happen to Ukraine. I mean, I saw TV show forming the ambassadors for the three Baltic countries, talking with each other, said, well, of course, Ukraine isn't part of NATO. It was clear that they were very happy to be part of NATO during that time and to have the defenses. I don't think Putin is ready to take on that challenge yet unless we have a lot more dithering and ineptitude and passivity from the rest of the world in response to Ukraine. So I don't see that replay happening right away, but could it happen six months to a year from now depending on whether events transpire, I think, in Ukraine? I think so. But I don't think it will, but it could. Andy, do you wanna pick up on that? Yeah, just to follow up, I completely agree with what Clark just said and would offer what thinks slummy tactics. Yeah. I think we'll term what we use during the Cold War. But, I mean, we are coming up to a critical moment with the presidential election. It's been an essential part of the Russian strategy they've been able to claim that the current government in Kiev is illegitimate. And they're gonna wanna make sure that they're able to continue claiming that the next government in Kiev is illegitimate. And so I think what we see the efforts to control and if not to control, then to destabilize areas of Eastern and Southern Ukraine are going to intensify up into the elections. And of course, May 9th, the great victory in Europe holiday coming up on Friday is likely to be a very, very, very nasty day that may look like, may take what happened in Odessa last Friday, look like, well, I won't say it picnic because of, but it's just, it's gonna be a very, very difficult day. So, when the elections are held, the goal is to have as few people vote in those regions that the Russians either, for the opposition forces control or destabilized. Then with the election results, the claim can be made that these results are illegitimate. The voice of these regions have not been heard. Their rights are being violated. And then the Russians will declare the right to protect. They've already been talking a lot about the right to protect. Now, they're gonna likely still want to avoid the full-scale military invasion to protect, but I wouldn't exclude that certainly as a possibility. But I think that's what we're gonna likely to see to up to the point where on April 17th and his phone-in program, Mr. Putin raised the term Novorossiya, new Russia, a pre-Zarist term for the Eastern and Southern parts of Ukraine. To me, this is clearly what he wants. This is the most industrialized part of Ukraine. It is the most wealthy part of Ukraine. It is where the heart of the Ukrainian military industrial complex is. And if you wanna have a greater Russia project, then you wanna have a greater Russian-controlled military industrial complex, you sure as hell don't want the Ukrainian military industrial complex actually competing for you with sales to China as they have been for the last couple of years. So in some way, shape, or form, the end game I think is gonna be for a truncated Ukraine. And it would probably be an annexation of that territory to Russia. I don't think that a frozen conflict zone, Akka Trans-Denise will be satisfactory, and you'll be left with a rump Ukraine which is much economically weaker. Yes, more focused and oriented to the West, but much relatively weaker. So at the military supplies to the Ukrainian, I don't like to say this, but I feel in some ways the train might have left the station. I mean, I think we had to kind of been thinking about this two months ago in a more strategic way. Nevertheless, we need to do what we can do. But let me emphasize again, okay, mill to mill relations that Ambassador Courtney raised. And by the way, this is the distinguished former ambassador of Georgia who is so modest not to inform the audience that he is the former ambassador to Georgia, Ambassador Hotelion, very good to see you again. There is, wherever there are countries that have an appetite for stronger military-military cooperation relation with the United States, do it. I mean, Secretary Hagel get on the airplane, go to the South Caucasus, go to Central Asia and see what people are looking for. I can tell you just from my recent trip that I think there's certainly an interest in greater mill-mill cooperation with Kazakhstan and definitely with Uzbekistan, certainly an interest in a stronger relationship I think with the United States in Turkmenistan, but much more cautious given their studied neutrality. Thanks. Let me take a question from the side of the room in the front, sir, and microphone's coming. Peter Humphrey, I'm an Intel analyst. I'm in touch with the Ukrainian currently. He says, give us tactical intelligence, not MREs. In a country with a flat and increasingly Muslim population, Putin just got himself a million Russians. And he had a couple million more by taking the Southeast. I think that's a big driver here and pundits have failed to note it. Putin will not stop until he bumps into some form of military resistance. So is it possible to establish a training, a.k.a. trigger force southeast of Kiev to serve that purpose? And also, isn't this, he's out of office in four and a half years, something like that. So he's got four and a half years to reestablish Novo-Russia. Maybe he puts puppet Medvedev back in for another. Sorry, are there elections in 2018? And he can run again. He can, okay. So for another six-year term, by current constitution statutes, he would be president until 2024. Okay, so how about training trigger force? Let me take another one in the back, in the very back there. Hi, Joshua Adams. I'm a national security law student at GW. Earlier a mention was made of intelligence failures early on in this crisis. We know Edward Snowden is now entirely in the custody of the FSB. So, and it has been reported that we have had significant losses of intelligence assets with regards to Russia. So I'm wondering what the panel thinks is how big a factor that is in the administration's decision calculus. Who wants to start on those ones? Andy, do you wanna take the first one? Sure. Well, I'll take the first one. And to have just to point out with Crimea, Mr. Russia has also inherited more than 200,000 Crimean Tartars who have a pretty difficult history with Russia and the Soviet Union. And just over the weekend, I saw that the major political leader, there, Mr. Jamelov, was stopped at the border from re-entering Crimea. So far, the Crimean Tartar, this is the Muslim population, has been very, very, very quiescent in all of this. But I think that is, I think that is going to be a problem for Putin. It might also actually increase the larger problem that he has with a increasingly Islamification of significant territories of the Russian Federation. I mean, this was kind of the thing we were talking a lot about before the Sochi Olympics. It was the dog that didn't bite. But there's no question that with the rabid environment of Russian nationalism in Russia today, and this is just beyond anything I've ever, ever, ever seen or even conceived of, that is almost certainly going to increase the problem of the insurgency that the Mr. Putin faces in the North Caucasus and also in other areas of, in the Volga region, where there are significant Muslim populations. Snowden, I believe that it's above my pig, right? I don't think there's, intelligence failure is not the way I would characterize what happened and the inability of our intelligence agencies to predict that Putin would do what he was going to do. There was an almost fatuous comment made by a Pentagon spokesman talking about the 25,000 Russian troops that have been mobilizing and active on the borders of Southeast Asia, where he said, look, we don't have a real good idea of what their intentions are, okay? You can't see those, they're not right out in front. You can see the forces, you don't know what he's going to do with them. I think a lot of us were surprised, I think including Andy, were surprised that Putin did as much as he did and could go on to do as much as he's doing now. And we're talking about people who've been doing nothing but study Russia and Russian leaders for a long time. You don't get humans right just because you study them real hard during that time. And I think that's the case with Putin during this talk. Snowden, it's weakened the United States a bit in terms of its allies. Certainly that was the case with Merkel when she was just here in terms of US-German relations, but that isn't explaining why the European reaction to what Russia is doing has been so weak. It's not Snowden that's responsible for a former chancellor of Germany sitting on the board of the Russian oil company. It's not Snowden that's responsible for the fact that the United States has a bilateral economic relationship with Russia of about $27 billion a year and Europe is a whole $370 billion a year. You talk about, my colleague talks about, let's sanction the Russian banking sector. Well, let's London down the tubes. Let's London down the tubes right now. So there's been a case of interdependency or dependency, depending on how you look at it, created between Russia and Europe right now that Europe is not an independent agent, is not likely to take very forceful actions, which means that when we said in NATO, well, we're gonna move with NATO as an alliance, that means we're asking Malta, we're asking the United Kingdom, we're asking countries right on the periphery who benefit economically greatly from the Russian Empire to take strong actions that will hurt their economies. Not gonna happen. And as for a trigger force, there's no trigger force we can do in the near term that could stop the Russians. What will stop the Russians from going further is a reading of their own interests that they've gone as far as they need to. And why, if you're Putin thinking about the kind of stability, he's in a place where 40, 45% of the population is Russian and the rest is Ukrainian. Well, you push the Ukrainians further away and you make sure you're just left with Russians. What you don't do is take over an area that's 100% Ukrainian and then have to deal with it. As we know too well, occupations are tough. And I think Putin's a little smarter about that. Yeah, I agree that I don't think Putin is looking to occupy Ukrainian, predominantly Ukrainian parts of Ukraine. So I don't think we're looking at the reabsorption of Ukraine into Russia. I think he's looking at what Andy was talking about, Novo-Russia. Once again though, we can very easily sort of move into the realm of talking about military options that may or may not be there. There certainly are tactical decisions that could be made in terms of what kind of support to provide, how you reassure and reinforce and make clear that the NATO alliance is going to stand firm on protecting alliance members from aggression. But we should remember, we're dealing with Russia as a civilization that we've had challenges with for a long, long time. And that's the situation we're in now. If we're not willing to take actions that are punitive, that impose some costs on us in the West, then that will be the sign that we're not serious about the principles that we all claim we hold so dear. And I believe that would be a step that we would eventually regret. We're not gonna like the economic consequences of taking some serious sanctions in some areas. But it is not an all or nothing. I mean, Russia will have it in its interest to, for example, continue to sell arms where it can or continue in the energy market or continue in the financial market if some other sector has been sanctioned. And the United States can have a disproportionate impact in some areas. So taking action in the banking sector is a high order step. If the rest of Eastern Ukraine is going to be annexed, I think it's really impossible to see a credible response that doesn't include steps that hurt both ways. They're gonna have to see that happen. Now, in banking in particular, where the United States goes, so goes the world in a lot of cases because banks will have to self-select out of doing business with Russian banks if they're sanctioned just by the US or targeted just by the US. And so you can have an echo effect. But I think it is important to be very honest about the fact that this interdependence has developed that you're absolutely right. Not only the economy, the properties and all sorts of things in Mayfair and London are owned by lots of Russian oligarchs and Russian oligarchs are owned football teams and this has been, we've welcomed in the West the flood of Russian cash. They're on the Brooklyn Nets. On the Brooklyn Nets, right. So we have welcomed the flood of Russian cash and we're gonna have to decide whether we're gonna figure out a way to do with less of it if we have to impose costs. And I just think it is, I believe that it has to be clearly something we're willing to call for and then it has to be something clearly the United States is willing to take action on even if Europe is uncomfortable about it or doesn't wanna follow. We're gonna have to lead on the imposing of costs. We have to do it just for the annexation of Crimea and certainly for further steps. Let me give Andy a final word and then we'll thank the panel. Two things. One, that's another collateral damage of economic cost for Russia is economic cost for those states that have very strong economic relations with Russia. Some of them which are very, very fragile anyway. For example, I say Tajikistan, which 40% of its GDP approximately is based on remittances from migrant workers in Russia. Kyrgyzstan, around 30%. All of those countries have strong economic ties from the South Caucasus to Central Asia to obviously to Belarus. They got something that needs to be thought about. When we think about what was the core weakness of Ukraine, again, it really is sort of the economic foundation of its own sovereignty. So I think this mill mill cooperation is important but it's this factor, the economic engagement that really needs to get the attention and I would like to see that to be a big part of it. Finally, I think to get back to China for one second because the logic is that the Russians are gonna be pushed more closely to the Chinese. The Chinese are gonna be ambivalent about this. I think that maybe some of the, when we look at the potential economic costs of trying to isolate Russia and for countries that are around Russia, this is, I think this is something useful to talk with about to our Chinese counterparts and even more broadly about kind of where they are. I would maybe it would be useful for Secretary Kerry or somebody to have a trip to, or maybe our Treasury Secretary to have a trip to Beijing but to try to have a serious discussion with them. This is again where Putin is gonna be going at the end of May. And this is a, the Chinese did abstain on the UN Security Council on this sanctions question. And I think it's worth trying to explore to what degree we can work together in this context as well. So not only with our European allies. Thank you very much. And let me thank TJ Chippoletti who did all the work to pull this together. Kathleen Hicks, Director of the International Security Program and told me to stop complaining to her about Ukraine and pull an event together. And my colleagues who joined me for the event to do just that. Thank you so much for coming this afternoon. Thank you. Well done, sir.