 the global effects of Mr. Putin's war on Ukraine through global connections with Carl Baker, senior advisor to Pacific Forum. Thank you for joining us today, Carl. Yeah, thanks for having me. So it's interesting that when you just talk to somebody in some other part of Europe, it's like they're a million miles away. They don't feel the hot breath of Putin's war. And yet there is hot breath of Putin's war. He is undermining stability in some countries. He is having an effect not only on Europe but everywhere. And it just shows you what kind of a mess an autocrat can make without hardly trying. So can we explore with you today, Carl? What effect is Putin's persistent and war crimes war having on everything? Well, it is having an effect on everything. And where do you start with the impacts? I mean, first, I think maybe you start with the violation of the sovereignty principle. Because I think that's a significant one. And I think that's where we expected other countries to recognize the risk involved. Because ultimately, by invading Ukraine, he has sort of violated that principle saying we can make up our own versions of sovereignty. And that raises issues for Europe, because suddenly we're not so sure about our borders anymore. Now we're seeing now with Turkey trying to claim territorial sovereignty over areas that are occupied by the Kurds in Northern Syria. Of course, in Asia, the big question is, is this the same sort of rationale that China is going to use military force against Taiwan? Because there, of course, the territorial issue is slightly different. But it is still the whole idea of Chinese sovereignty demands that they maintain unity of the Chinese nation. So I think sovereignty is one of the big issues that's involved here. And it's really sort of challenged the whole notion that sovereignty is something that everybody can agree on. Suddenly, China, who has long claimed that sort of recognition of that principle, aren't so convinced of it anymore. And I think that that's an important shift that's driving the dynamics, as you say, amongst other countries as well. What about the liberal world order? The one emerged out of the Marshall plan after World War II, the liberal world order, which was an expression of tolerance, if you will, kindness, inclusivity, internationalism. Well, I think there's a lot of things that are influencing that liberal international order. But certainly what the war in Ukraine is doing specifically to that liberal order is it's challenging, I think, the Western supremacy in that order. Because I see what's happening with the war is that while the United States and Europe initially were very confident that they had convinced the rest of the world to condemn Russia, 140 countries, 141 countries, you know, can agree to the condemnation in the UN resolution. But the fact is, is that it hasn't been universal. And countries like China, India, have sort of skirted around that whole Western dominance and said, well, this may be an opportunity for us to take advantage of Russia's position of being denied access to the Western markets. And we can get cheap gas and oil. So you've seen dramatic increases in the amount of gas and oil that India has imported, even more so than in China. And of course, in the rest of the world, you know, we've seen the same thing, the Middle East, Africa, South America, have seen this as somewhat of an opportunity to shift away from Western influence and take an advantage of the weakness that is created by Europe facing, putting all its emphasis on Ukraine. And global trade and the global economy, you know, we've been thinking the world is flat for a long time and international trade, you know, has benefits to all the participants. But this war is having an effect on food and the supply line. It's having an effect on the availability of oil and gas. What about that? What about the world economy? And I know we're not doing so well for a bunch of reasons, but as we continue this war, as he continues this war, what's likely to happen to the global economy? Well, that's I think an important issue because, you know, when this whole thing started, we said one of the things that's going to be the challenge for the West is going to be inflation. And we certainly do see inflation now. You know, in the U.S., you know, we're complaining about the last CPI that came in over nine, you know, but the fact is that Europe is even worse. Europe is suffering even more because of the high price of gas and trying to find alternative sources for that gas and oil is turning out to be much more difficult than they thought. So, yeah, I mean, I think that the world economy and specifically the Western economies are suffering from inflation. And that's part of Putin's game plan is that he thinks that he can outlast the West because the West is going to retire to inflation. And I mean, I think, you know, if you look at what's happening in the United States, you can see that the Biden administration has shifted its focus entirely almost to taming inflation. The Republicans have picked it up as a political cause to defeat the Democrats in 22 and Biden in 24 as an issue that's near and dear to the American's heart because inflation is running rampant and it's running rampant in places in the United States that are very interested in hearing that sort of rhetoric. You know, it's sad to say that it's a competition between self-interest and the global world order, the effort to stop autocracy or at least control, contain autocracy and then you throw in fatigue. And I think Putin understands all of those things and the question I put to you, Carl, as you mentioned, you know, fatigue, we get tired. The news cycle moves on. Something else has to fill the headline space in the newspaper. The media needs to have some fresh news every day or two. You can only spend so much time on students in school and, you know, the various machinations of the Supreme Court and so forth. And people want a change of subject. So they're tired of hearing about Ukraine and they're tired of dealing with it. And that has an effect. And I think, don't you agree that Putin understands this? He's a smart man, at least in some ways. And he's trying to time us out. He's trying to, you know, wait until we lose interest and we are. Exactly. I mean, that has been, I think, his strategy from the beginning, is that he feels that he can outweigh the United States and Europe, and especially Europe, because Europe is the one that's suffering most. You know, and so now with the war sort of solidifying and it looks like there's really no end in sight. You know, there's no real negotiations going on. Russia has pretty much consolidated its position in the east. It has taken Mohans. It's on the way to taking Donetsk. You know, and so that was, you know, that is certainly a turning point because now what happens if the West is going to continue supporting Ukraine to retake those territories, we're in for a long slot. You know, and, you know, you mentioned it before we started the show, but, you know, you've got Kaliningrad that is over on the other side of Lithuania. There was a lot of rhetoric about, you know, involving Lithuania in some sort of punitive action from Russia for blocking access between Russia and Kaliningrad. Well, that's been solved, but it hasn't been solved forever. You know, it's still an issue out there and expansion of the war is still an issue. You know, is how long is NATO going to be able to maintain this position of supporting Ukraine without, you know, without engaging Russian forces and how long is Russia going to be willing to stick to the script in just Ukraine and not be tempted to move into other areas, certainly, you know, in terms of information warfare and trying to destabilize some of the other countries in the Balkans and the Baltics. He's already done that. You know, clearly, the whole thing with Lithuania was driven towards that, you know, and he's also trying to foment conflict between the Bosnians and the Serbs. So, you know, so clearly, you know, he sees the horizon as very long in trying to resolve this thing because he I think believes that the Russians can withstand any pressure from Europe because Europe is going to bend first because they're democracies, they have more individual voices that are going to be raised to resist this where he's pretty much in control of all information in Russia. So, you know, if you're in Moscow and St. Petersburg, yeah, there's a war, but it's a special it's a special operation. It's not really a war and Ukraine does really belong to Russia. So, you know, everything is fine. And, you know, that's just the fact of a democracy versus an autocracy. And then the cold weather is coming. And the blackmail that he wants to use on those countries where it gets cold like Germany will be more effective as the temperature drops. Yeah, well, you know, that was that's Tom Friedman's argument in a piece of New York Times. If you if you saw it, you know, he's saying that it's Putin's winter strategy versus NATO summer strategy, you know, and we're right now we're sort of at the nexus of that of that of those strategy, you know, and how does that how does that play out? And it's I don't know how it plays out, but it's not going to play out in weeks. It's going to play out in months. And that means that we're going to get into the winter and Germany and Italy and France and the rest of Europe are going to have to figure out where they're going to get the gas from. Because because right now, if you're going to if you're honestly going to move away from Russian gas, you're going to have to find a big source somewhere. And that isn't in Bahrain or Gutter or small natural gas producers like that. If the US help, there was discussion early on early on in the war that the US would deliver a natural gas to stay Germany. Yeah, but but it's an infrastructure problem. I mean, LNG, you know, natural gas has to be liquefied and put on to the LNG containers. And then you've got to have a port that you can actually put that ship into and and offload it. That's not, you know, that's not a pipeline. And you know, with the pipelines there, you know, everything is geared toward a Euro Asian flow of natural resources there. So yeah, it's going to be very difficult. You know, I mean, just and just like the agricultural products, you know, I mean, again, you know, the United States and Europe saw saw some inflation in the grain prices, you know, but in Africa, people are dying, you know, because of this, because they simply can't get they can't get the grain and the grain that is out there is is really expensive. We had a show yesterday with somebody in Kampala. And what a very interesting remark was that not only do people die because they're hungry, but because the lack of food destabilizes government, destabilizes a given country of sovereignty. So you know, you get a greater likelihood of violence in a country that's hungry. And this is going to be happening more now. Yeah. Yeah, well, and that that destabilization doesn't doesn't bode well for Western influence again, because you've got you've got China, you've got Russia, who are and India for that matter, and to some extent, the Middle Eastern countries are taking advantage of this of this blockade, you know, they're they're taking the cheap resources and their and their influence in these other places in the world. So, you know, so then it comes to, you know, another issue that comes out of this is the effectiveness of sanctions. You know, the United States and Europe's almost entire strategy is a sanctions based strategy. And clearly, the rest of the world didn't get the memo that everybody has to implement sanctions, because sanctions are complicated. You know, it takes it takes a lot of a lot of effort to implement sanctions effectively. And what interest do I have, if I'm in, let's say, Indonesia to implement sanctions on behalf of Europe and the United States? I've got to put manpower against this. And what do I get out of it? Not a lot. You know, so so I'm going to look at it and say, yeah, we agree, we support we support your your condemnation, but we'll we'll get around to those sanctions after we improve our trade relations a little bit with other countries. And, you know, we'll be better off. And I think that that's sort of the mindset that's setting in. And then it goes back to that whole, you know, US versus China narrative of what is your what is your long term prospect? What are your what are your what is your promise? You know, the Chinese promise, of course, is this is this wonderful world of of mutual respect and mutual benefit from from, you know, infrastructure development and goodwill, you know, and the United States is long term prospect is what we're going to have a war here, and then we're going to have another one, you know, over over Taiwan. And, you know, and it and to the rest of the world, it looks like, hmm, maybe maybe China is onto something here, maybe we should be a little more neutral about this because it seems that they're benefiting from it. You know, and so I think I think ultimately, you know, that's that's sort of, again, it comes to the erosion of liberal international order and Western influence in making rules and developing standards for that order. Yeah. Can we talk for a minute about, you know, this is hmm, this is a hybrid war. It was clear only in a few days after Putin started this war, that it was a war, you know, to to rain terror down on people, to kill civilians, even more quickly than military, to destroy residential areas and all infrastructure. And, and then at the same time, to use his tools, internet tools to hack into the internet of Ukraine and other countries around, as he has done before with, you know, other initiatives and other parts of Europe, and also, you know, espionage and, and trying to corrupt and convert people such as what he did with Zelensky's Zelensky staff, where Zelensky found only a couple of days ago, that Putin had turned his staff and corrupted them, and now they were working for Russia for reasons that we will probably find out. And to say, you know, for example, I'm thinking of Moldova, that Putin has people all over Moldova turning it and threatening and, you know, a thousand different techniques all in play in Eastern Europe and every country there, you know, and using Erdogan to slow down the applications that was in Sweden and Finland to get into the, into NATO. I mean, all these diplomatic and under the surface efforts at trying to disrupt the coalition, disrupt the coalition and advance his interest in every country around, around Ukraine. I mean, it's, it's impressive. Is it going to work? Well, I don't know. I mean, I think that's the simple answer is, you know, I mean, let's, let's look at it from, from Putin's perspective. That's what the West is doing also. They're trying to influence the rest of the world. And, you know, so, so of course he's going to do that. I mean, because he sees this as a civilizational struggle. You know, he sees this as, as the resurrection of the Russian, of the Russian civilization. And so, and so he, of course he's going to use all means available. I think that's, I don't, I don't find that surprising. You know, I mean, I think, I think Erdogan, you know, President Erdogan from Turkey, I think he had other motivations about Sweden and Finland joining NATO. I mean, and he has his own issues with Russia, you know, over, over what's happening in, in Northern Syria. You know, so I think that that's, that's important to, to appreciate, you know, that, that, that he's, Putin sees this as, as a natural extension of his ability to, to defeat the West. Yeah. And, and it's like, you need a, a world map hanging on your office wall with little pins to identify all the maneuvers he's doing everywhere all day. It's not just the Donbass. It's maneuvers in so many countries and places. So many incidents are happening. So many tricks and tips that he's using. You've got to give him credit for doing that. And you know what, what's interesting is your point a minute ago is that the coalition believed, and probably, you know, in the largest sense still believes that the sanctions will work. But it's not clear that, and that, and they will deprive Putin of resources. But what he's doing on that map doesn't take a lot of resources. What it takes is a few phone calls and meetings and, and smart maneuvering. It's not like he has to spend a lot of money doing those things. So it's just another example, I think of the fact that the sanctions aren't working. Some countries who you would expect help from are not providing help, you know, solidarity on the sanctions. And, and Putin is now into what week number six, I get that right. And, and, and the sanctions haven't slowed them down. Well, you know, and there's an argument about whether sanctions, you know, in, in the West, there's still people who believe that these sanctions are, you know, and they talk about, you know, the reduction in GDP next year is going to be 10%. You know, some, some, some whatever numbers they are, but that's all they are numbers, you know, because I think, I think Putin, Putin has resources and those resources are, are for sale. And, and, you know, and it's, again, and the sanctions, it's not so much that people aren't supporting the sanctions as they aren't, they aren't not support. How do I say this there, you know, sanctions require effort, implementation of sanctions require effort. And what they're not doing is they're not putting forth effort to implement sanctions. And so the sanctions are there, but only if you take the time and, and spend the resources to implement those sanctions. You know, I saw an article that Britain is having to double the size of the organization that implements sanctions because all the sanctions have been put into place, but there's nobody to really implement them. There's nobody to actually check all the licenses that have to be issued, all the reports that have to be done to do that. It's a huge administrative tax, you know, and so, and so it's like, you know, economic sanctions are fine, but you have to understand that, that economic warfare requires manpower, just like military requires manpower. And that's, and that's hard to come up with, with that manpower because there's no, again, like I was giving the example of Indonesia, there's no, no particular benefit for, for countries that aren't directly involved with this conflict. Yeah, and, and, and political focus too. There was a piece on 60 minutes a few weeks ago about how the oligarchs had acquired, had purchased huge amounts of the high-end residential properties in London. And, and they are spending money there. They're coming and going and spending money. Some of it is lobbying, lobbying the members of parliament and other members of parliament, you know, taking the position, wait a minute, they're trying to influence the UK on dealing with, you know, the coalition and sanctions and all that, politically influence them. And of course, by definition, the oligarchs are extension of Putin. And so that's a whole new ball game, isn't it? You buy up valuable properties, you invest in, you know, in businesses, what have you, you, you bring money into a given country. And then you, then you schmooze with the people who run the country and try to change their political will. It's very clear what Putin is doing there. And God knows what other countries would be even easier for him to, to reach in the same way. Well, I mean, look, look at, look at the Middle East. I mean, if you look at a colored map of, of who's actively supporting the West and who's sort of passively just watching, the Middle East is, is the color of passively watching, you know, they are not, they are not really actively engaged. And if you, you know, if you watch some of the, some of the comments by the Saudis during the Biden visit, you know, they said, look, we, we, we respond to the market. If the market demands more oil, we'll put more oil out, but you have to give a time. You know, we're not, we're not going to just, just jump up and say, here, here's oil because Joe Biden says we need to pump more oil. You know, they're, they're a very calculating unit. And, you know, and India, China, you know, they've both said, you know, we don't mind, we don't mind cheap oil. We have, we have economies that need to be developed, you know, and, and this is, we don't have inflation. You guys in the West have inflation because, because of your own action. You know, so you look at, I mean, look at China, they have, they have economic problems, but one of them is not inflation. You know, so, so clearly the West is, is, is suffering the impact, which is what Putin understood from the beginning, is that the countries that are going to, going to have the, the biggest impact are the ones that are going to be the most adamant about implementing sanctions on Russian. Yeah. So, yeah, let's, let's talk about the US, the effects of Putin's war on the US is, it's really interesting. Just the US seems to me to be very vulnerable on, you know, a foreign policy level right now, very vulnerable, certainly on the Ukraine level right now, because of its, you know, internal arguments over every issue, why not this one too. And, and I'm wondering how long the US can last and talk about fatigue. How long can the US last this way, when, when each side, especially the Republicans want to find a way to attack Joe Biden? Where is that $40 billion that was supposed to go directly from Congress into long range, long range artillery in the Ukraine? We haven't heard anything about that. Are we following through? Are we having fatigue? Are we having an argument under the hood? Is Joe Manchin really going to support further, you know, efforts to protect Ukraine? Or are we going to, you know, turn into a politicized argument on that one too? Well, I think so far, you know, it's been fairly, fairly, fairly bipartisan support for, for giving Ukraine aid. I'm not aware of anything that, that we haven't delivered, that we said we were going to deliver. I think, I think both sides have been, have been pretty supportive. But, you know, where, where your point is, is valid, I think, is all the other distractions that get in the way, you know, that, that at some point, when you start trying to fight inflation, then you're going to, you're going to lose sight of, of what your real objective is here, because it's going to become more and more difficult to maintain support for Ukraine. And, and, you know, in all honesty, what, what, what I see coming soon is a lot of pressure from the West, US and Europe for Ukraine to start thinking about what is the settlement. And, and I say settlement, because, you know, as far as Ukraine is concerned, they have, they have stated their objective is to take back Donetsk and Luhansk and, and, and Crimea, by the way, while we're at it. You know, that, that, that is a very ambitious goal, given the fact that it never had control of the entire province of Luhansk and Donetsk. And it, and it hasn't had control of Crimea since, since 2014. And there are legal structures now in place that would require something more than just a freedom march down the streets. You know, so, so at some point, the real challenge for the, for the West and the United States is going to come when we start trying to figure out how do we resolve, how do we resolve the, the conflict? You know, do we really stick by Ukraine for the long haul of trying to take back these territories and how much of those territories do we take back? That's where I think you might start seeing some, some political opportunism in the United States. And then, and then, and then you go back to the, to the weakness of, of the American political system right now, especially in the legislative branch where people will take those cheap potshots because they see it as, as self-promotion. One of the things that Putin seems to be doing in a kind of, well, he's got the war going on, the kinetic war, shooting up everything. And then he's got all the hybrid thing. And he's kind of encircling, encircling Zelensky, making it harder and harder for Zelensky to actually run a government and having the country fall apart physically around him, having his staff fall apart, having his neighbors fall apart. And just waiting, waiting for France to get tired, waiting for Germany to get cold, waiting for Italy to, you know, go into chaos, waiting for the UK to rethink its whole policy because of Boris Johnson's, you know, resignation and waiting for the US to implode. So waiting is a good, good, and you suppose conceptual encirclement around Ukraine. The other element there, Carl, and this is my last question to you, I think, the other element is we have really seen no legitimate and severe effort on the part of, of Putin to talk settlement. And this position now is stronger than it was when that was, that was visible. So query, you know, even if we all agreed that settlement discussions could happen, is he really willing to do that? Or is he going to puff it out right to the western border? That, I mean, that isn't what he promised. You know, what he, what he promised was he's going to get a corridor from, from Crimea, take Donetsk and Dohansk and stop there. You know, I think, I think, you know, his initial, his initial plan may have been bolder. But I think, you know, I think that, that right now he would have you believe that he will settle for that area, for the, for the, basically the eastern part of Ukraine. And that would be, that would be a settlement that I think he would accept. Now, the real question becomes for how long? You know, I think, I think that in other words, you know, he'll take that, he'll take that settlement today and, and, you know, get, you may get the West distracted a little bit and then maybe rethink what he did and go back and try again. You know, so I think that, that he certainly has a winning hand at this point, because that would be a settlement that would be dramatically in his favor. And it would look like he was settling for something. And, you know, and then, and then it's a question of time. Is, is that just a matter of time before he, he moves to, to retake the rest of Ukraine, or at least turn Ukraine into such a failed state that it, it implodes into itself. You know, so I think that, that that's, that's sort of where I see Putin's calculus right now is, is, if they want to start talking about settlement, I'll talk settlement with control of the, of the two provinces, plus Crimea and, and the corridor that links the two. And I've got my buffer. I mean, if you, you know, if you believe his words that all he was really looking for was a security buffer, he can say, I've got that. And he looks like a winner. I mean, that, that is a, is a, a win for him. And, and it doesn't mean that that's where he stops, but it's where, it's where he can stop now and make it look good and get the West distracted from, from sanctions and all that other stuff. Well, looking, looking at this from a foreign policy and the diplomacy point of view, how could, let's assume that, that is the, that the reality from a foreign policy point of view that, that it is time for us to do that, save lives and to, you know, address other more important things like climate change and COVID and world trade and the global economy. And those things are really important. And we were distracted by them. We, you know, we're too busy with this war somehow. And so, so let's assume the United States made a policy decision that it was going to try to enhance settlement discussions or initiate settlement discussions. And that is a, that is a kind of interesting possibility. I mean, look, look at the many times the United States has had the same thought about Israel and the Palestinians and look where that's gone over decades and decades. But let's assume the United States wants to do that. I ask you this as someone who has been involved in diplomacy for a long time and seeing, you know, diplomatic, the ebb and flow of diplomacy around the world for so many years. So the question is how do you initiate those discussions legitimately? What steps do you take? And, and yes, certainly we agree that Putin may be using this as a way, as a stepping stone, a lily pad kind of stepping stone. So the question is, how do you make an agreement? What terms do you put in that settlement agreement to limit his options there? Yeah. I mean, I think at this point, I think assuming that you could get Zelensky on board with, with some sort of compromise, because that's not clear to me that you can at this point, you know, other than, other than threatening him to, to withdraw military support if he doesn't, if he doesn't get on board. I think, you know, what you would have to do is you'd have to start thinking about some sort of, some sort of demilitarized zone in, in, on the border of, of those provinces and the, the strip down to Crimea. And, and, you know, and probably put some sort of, some sort of a line by Kursom, you know, to, to keep Odessa as a, as a Ukrainian city. And, and then you'd have to, you'd have to build up military force in Ukraine, you know, and have some, some sort of a guarantee that, that Zelensky would have a military force capable of deterring further incursions into the rest of Ukraine. You'd have to have the European Union would have to put a pretty big economic commitment to, to support a, a shrunk Ukraine, you know, so that you would have to have, you'd have to have Ukraine become part of the European Union. You'd have to have them provide a lot of economic support, just a, a marshal plan, sort of reconstruction effort in the rest of Ukraine. And, and then you'd have to have some, some promise for what it's worth from Russia that, that they will withdraw some of those forces from, from the Eastern, those Eastern provinces. Oh, is there a way to cast this to make it not sound like Chamberlain and Munich and appeasement? Well, I think we're past, I think we're past that given that the war has happened, you know, and so I think more in, more in terms of 1945 rather than 1939, you know, that, that you have to accept that, that Russia has been partially successful in those areas because they were, they controlled a lot of those areas from the beginning. So, you know, so, so you have, I think you have to accept diplomatically. I mean, I'm saying if you're looking for a settlement, you have to accept that Russia has been successful in those areas and, and concede that, that territory. But that's not an easy thing for Putin to, for, for Zelensky to do, obviously, you know, to actually concede that territory. So I don't think it's, I don't think it's so much appeasement anymore as, as accepting the reality and, and accepting the reality, going back to what you said, to get on to a bigger thing. Yeah. You know, not, not to criticize Biden about this, but I wonder could we, you know, right now, as you said, Putin has a good hand, he has a good hand, and he'll play that out as a very smart poker player for sure, whatever happens. But if you went back to the beginning of this, Carl, knowing what we know now, how, if at all, could we have handled it better, so as not to allow Putin to get this far? I mean, I, I, that's really armchair quarterback kind of stuff, or arm, armchair general, I guess, more apropos, you know, trying to, trying to think about how you rethink how you could have done it. I mean, you, I don't know. I mean, you know, given, given what, what Putin started with, you know, and just the fact that they were able to blunt the progress toward, toward Kiv is, is an achievement in itself. You know, given that it took as long as it did to gain what he did, you know, he's probably the best you could hope for without some sort of external intervention on the part of, of NATO, you know, which would have been a very, very risky strategy, I think, for, for NATO to pursue. But that's probably where it would have had to come. It would have had to come from, from some sort of, some sort of a flanking movement to, to get behind the Russians in the east there somehow. You know, and so it would have been, it would have been almost, I think you would have had to have some sort of NATO involvement to be able to pull it off. You know, and that's, I mean, there's obviously big risks that people simply weren't willing to take there. Is NATO part of the solution here? I mean, you mentioned that the troops might come from the EU, a buffer zone. Well, I didn't even say, I didn't even mention, I didn't even mention troops. I just sort of left out the whole military component of it. Because I think, no, I think, I don't, I don't think you can turn around now and say, we're going to, we're going to let NATO or let Ukraine join NATO. I just don't think, I just don't think that was, I don't think that's an option. I don't think that would be acceptable because that would give Putin every excuse to go back and try again. So what's the lesson of all this? You know, I mean, my concern is when, when we put down our pens and close the classroom door, what have we learned about limiting the autocrats? What have we learned about, about trying to make a, preserve a peaceful little liberal world? It's, it's difficult because you have, because you still have this, this, this focus on the state, you know, and as long as, as long as the state is the primary actor, there's always going to be people who use the state for those purposes. And so I think, you know, to me, the big lesson is we really need to learn how to, how to, how to move away from state influence and, and make multilateral regimes more resilient. But that's very much a, a, a liberal sort of perspective on, on how to, how to fix problems centered around state belligerence. And the United Nations, what about them? It seems to me that when you're talking about the international order, we should be talking about the United Nations. And yet, they have not presented as a relevant force in all this. No, it has to be, it has to be a reformed United Nations, which of course, introduces a whole realm of, of why it's so difficult to, to do that, because states basically control the United Nations. The United Nations are still, are still beholden to state power. Yeah. And one of the implications of what's happened over the past few months is that we have seen, if we didn't know it before, that the United Nations is powerless in a, you know, an argument in which members of the Security Council are involved. It's clear, it's clear now. It wasn't so clear before. And that revelation is part of the implications and what's going on. Yeah. Well, I think it has been clear. I mean, it was clear in the Cold War. We've just forgotten how clear it was. But it's always been, it's always been a fact that the United Nations is, is powerless in, in the context of great power competition. And the last thought is, if you don't mind, I'm going to ask you one more implication is just as the United Nations has, you know, been shown for its lack of power. It seems to me that we are actually, because of Putin's remarks and his stockpile of bombs, that we are closer to nuclear war now than we were at the beginning of this. Am I right? Yeah, I think you're right. And also the other, the other thing that we didn't talk about is, is there's a, there's now an inclination on the part of other countries to privilege nuclear weapons because the narrative has been is that the reason NATO didn't engage was because they were concerned about a nuclear response from, from Russia. So now what you're seeing and Ukraine was, was subject to this because it didn't keep its nuclear weapons. And those, there's, there's a whole discussion there, but I, they're going to cut us off here in a minute. So I don't have time to get into that, but you have Japan, you have Korea rethinking, you know, how, how good is this nuclear umbrella? Should we really have the capacity to, to get our own nuclear weapons? And this, this is sort of the mindset North Korea is congratulating itself for developing its nuclear weapons. Iran is thinking maybe we need to get ours next. So, yeah, so it's open to whole new, new range of thinking about the value of nuclear weapons also. Okay, well, that makes me feel a lot better, Carl. Hey, as I have told other people and other similar shows, it's time for me to leave this discussion and go soak my head. But thank you for your insights and enlightenment on this. Carl Baker, Senior Advisor of Pacific Forum, thank you so much.