 This is Think Tech Global Connections. I'm Jay Fidel, and we're talking about Ukraine. We're asking the question, why does Ukraine matter? Seems obvious, but let's look at the reasons with a fellow who's just published a book on a subject. It's called Why Ukraine Matters. There's a fossil chowdery. We've talked to him before about Afghanistan and Iran about books he's written. He's been, what shall I say, prolific. Hi, Fassel. Nice to see you. Thank you, Jay. It's a pleasure to be here. So I don't think I have to ask why you wrote the book. It's really nothing more important in our world today than the liberal world order and its survival in Ukraine. But let me ask you the question anyway. Why did you write this book? Well, this book was initially, the foundations of it started 20 years ago. When I was a student at university, I picked the thesis of a lot of the factors that we are talking about today. And so if you look at some of the chapters of the book, they have a lot of significance, connections and parallels to historical happenings to what we are seeing at present. For instance, this is not the first time Ukraine has battled Russia. There was a war in 1917 in the Bolshevik Revolution and followed by the Ukrainian Independence War. And a lot of it, a lot of the struggles that we see on the Ukraine side, as well as how it is penetrated the international affairs discussions is similar, though not exactly the same as what we dealt nearly more than a century ago. It strikes me that most of the aggression that we've seen in the past, what, 20 years or so, has been Putin. He's got a thing about Ukraine and he keeps on doing it over and over again. This is like the third or fourth war he's had with them. Well, I mean, this is for Soviet leaders. And I'm going to rewind this a little bit. So every single leader or ruler of Russia has had something or another to do with Ukraine. The last Tsar, Tsar Nicholas II, had a very deep connection with the religious class in Kiev. Lenin, initially when he came to power, kind of felt to keep hands off from Ukraine. But later on, he realized to build the industrialization process for Russia to gain ground and to basically match that of the empires of Europe and even the of Western. He needed Ukraine, not just its grains to industrialize, but also to steal many of the things that the country had. And that is a very similar playbook that has been played from that time onwards. Joseph Stalin has used it in the form of his policy of Haldemar, which many of us know as the starvation of Ukraine. His successor, his successor also primarily focused on not so much the assault on Ukraine, but more so towards expanding the borders of Ukraine and vis-à-vis that would expand the border of the Soviet Union. And this is what I mean by the fact that, and even his successor, Brezhnev. Brezhnev went so far as to say that, okay, I'm going to do something, but at the same time, there are other things that I'm going to go by Ukraine. His interference in what was then Czechoslovakia, his interference in particularly in Afghanistan, these are all lessons that the Soviet playbook kind of harmonizes in all rulers. And when you see what Gorbachev tried to do. And Gorbachev, for all intents and purposes, one of the reasons why he kept a very hands-off to Ukraine is because he had Ukrainian lineage. So did Brezhnev. But this was not completely hands-off. It was basically to understand, okay, if it works in Ukraine, it can work somewhere else. And this is what I try to emphasize in his book, is that every Tsar, every Soviet leader, every now Putin in the last 20 years, though initially he had a hands-off process between 2000 and 2002, but 2004 onwards, this process, particularly with President Putin, becomes much more, the volume gets pumped up. You see the Orange Revolution in 2004, you see a significant kind of political activity and political interference from Moscow into Kiev's affairs. You see that particularly in the, how do I put it, the Orange Revolution's non-success. It begins in the form of a revolution that can work to democratize the societies, bring Ukraine closer to the European Union, but this all becomes kind of like a drama that basically on one end it's getting pulled by Russia. On another end, Europe is saying that, okay, let's bring it into the 21st century standard. And so in this book, I also mentioned the fact that Putin particularly from 2000 to 2008 is kind of hands-off, but he's just testing the pulses of Ukraine. But 2012 onwards, this becomes not just a pulse check, but really kind of like do as I say and really take the initial steps to build the foundations to pull Ukraine into the into the Russian sphere. And one of the reasons which I highlight particularly in this book in a few chapters is to say that Ukraine's industrial past did leave a strong foundation for what it could have possibly and potentially would have had a hydrocarbon gas economy. And that gas economy, if materializes, will bring significant help to Europe. And I think many of President Putin and his inner circles saw this as a direct threat, and particularly in the Donbass area. So what's a gas economy, so in Ukraine, you have two big, two big large consumption economies. One is the oil, which you understand is the oil economy. The other is the gas. Now the gas part is, works through terminals, but it is also a competitor to Russia. Presently, Russia is the one that basically provides Europe with heat. It provides about 40% of Europe's heat. Now remove Russia out of that equation and bring Ukraine. Ukraine potentially can provide 60% of Europe's heat, but it has to go through a period of a lot of infrastructure building, a lot of site installations, a lot of development in the form that could happen. And this has been in conversation within the European Union since 2014. And this is where I particularly mentioned this fact that in 2014, one of the reasons why you have a slicing of the Crimea, the Russian annexation of Crimea, is to lay the groundwork to pull that outcome to not happen. You know, I just unpacked some of the things you mentioned. And by the way, this book is really filled with analysis that we haven't heard before, analysis the press hasn't really covered, connecting the dots to use the phrase we often use over here. And we appreciate that, we appreciate the fact that you're taking the various elements of the history of Ukraine and putting it together for us. And thank you for that. You know, but what I get from the book and your discussion just now is that Ukraine is very important, was very important to the Soviet Union. It was a kind of a dagger into Russia from the West. It was offensive in the sense that it was threatening. But also that represented Western values, Western, you know, industrial possibilities, as you say, Western culture for that matter. Ukrainians are, you know, largely Slavic people, but they're also Western European people. And this is all very threatening to somebody like Putin, who is essentially a Slavic person. So, you know, what we have here is something that was a great asset to the USSR, a great possibility. And when it came apart, when the USSR came apart, perhaps you could say that Ukraine was its greatest loss, not, you know, the stands, Uzbekistan and the like, but Ukraine, because Ukraine had greater possibilities, greater history, you know, economic leverage than any of them. Am I right? Well, it's, I mean, you are right in a lot of the factors. But one of the things that I'd like to highlight is that Ukraine, Ukraine had the most DNA link to the Russian Empire or the Soviet state than any other 15 republics. And I say that because it housed the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons that belonged to Russia. And there's, there's a lot of that that I mentioned this in the chapters of this book is to say that, you know, not only did it house a large stockpile of nuclear weapons for Russia, but all the industrialization, all the military, all the military depots, all the military hardware had been housed in Ukraine. And it was very much this central area, because let's keep in mind, majority of Soviet, how should I say, interactions or even conflict interactions into Europe was via Ukraine. When you see the 70 years of communism between interference, Soviet interference, particularly that begins from the time of liberating Berlin, majority of these attacks came and were basically set up from the Ukrainian areas. Okay. And this is no different from Ukraine's history. Like, you know, President Putin says, Ukraine is a part of Russia for 1000 years, absolutely untrue in a lot of senses. Ukraine had its identity in itself for more than 1700 years. It was part of the Polish Lithuania and Commonwealth. It was sliced into three empires between the Hubsports, the Russians and the Prussians. And the Catherine the Great was part of the Russian Empire, Prussian boy. Inherited these lands, inherited Kievan rules, but the the practice of going and attacking and basically keeping Europe at bay had never changed. And Ukraine provided that center kind of space for those things, for those activities, for those Soviet activities to happen. And so, when you take that out of that equation, you're basically removing Russian link to Europe. If Ukraine goes to the European Union, and like you say, you know, kind of develops its European heritage, connects itself more into the European Union, connects itself more to the European way of economics. This is a huge threat for not just the foundation of his history for Russians, but also the elite in Moscow who believes that no, if businesses are to work and to work well, we will provide the foundation. But the foundation layers shall rest with us, not through an integration of collective economic system. Very interesting. You know, I like to drill down a little with you about the presence of the nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Mind you, Ukraine, you know, for the USSR was a border. It was a border state between Russia, USSR, and Europe. So it's only natural that there be weapons there to ostensibly protect Russia from Europe. And no surprise that Ukraine had the largest share of those weapons. It was on that border. Can you talk about how that all ended? Yeah, so there was a conference called the Budapest Referendum of Security and Assurances that basically brought all the world powers, including Russia, to sign to say that we will honor Ukraine's sovereignty in return when Ukraine basically gives up its right to carry any nuclear weapons of sorts. And that happened. That happened under the administration of President Clinton. It happened under the administration of President Yeltsin. And this is something that has been a sticking point to many European scholars is the fact that while Russia has been a significant story for guaranteeing Ukraine's sovereignty, now it has violated. And it has violated it. But some of the problems with this assurance goes back to say that, okay, if we have committed to the security, but then what are the consequences if somebody decommits? And that has never been mentioned. That has never been talked about. And one of the reasons why I believe that has never been talked about was because it was a good faith agreement. It was a good faith agreement to say that if Ukraine was to give up its nuclear weapons and a stockpile of weapons, it would be easier for that country not to become a North Korea of Europe. And you said if somebody decommits, what do you mean? Who's somebody in what's decommission mean? Well, what I mean by that is like, suppose Russia signs the agreement and say we honor Ukraine's sovereignty and now it goes and invades its lands. That seems like a gross violation of that particular agreement. How does Putin and Russia, how do they justify that? That must be a real interesting, you know, real interesting mental gymnastics. Well, it's interesting. One of the things I was doing in basically writing this book was I was talking to a lot of reporters on the ground through Twitter, through numerous emails and through my networks. And one of the reporters was very kind enough to explain to me this detail and this kind of phenomenon where to say that it wasn't Putin's administration that signed the referendum. It was Yeltsin's administration. So thereby, they are not obligated to be part of this. Internationally, yes. But regime wise, no. That's interesting. An interesting way to break an agreement. It was my predecessor, not me. Every time there's a successor in power, you can break every agreement. This does not lead to international respect, I would say. No, but this is something that's very common and one that has worked very well to the Russian way of basically manipulating communication and language because much of the propaganda around President Putin's engineering of this is that, well, the West has violated its own agreements because they honored to say that after the Soviet Union fell, we will not move east. And they have. And so how do you make sense of that? And I looked into this and I had a number of kind of episodes of understanding this dilemma between how does this kind of logic work and what has happened is the kind of propaganda that President Putin's engineering has worked is because to mimic the West in a way to say that, you know, the West said it would not move east, but it did. Is that part of the agreement? That was not part of the agreement that Russia signed in the Budapest referendum. This was an agreement that was done between Gorbachev and the German Chancellor at the time to say that, okay, if we unify east, what was then East Germany and West Germany, how do we know NATO does not move eastwards? And so the agreement at the time was in return for the unification of Germany, that Germany would assist in financial controls in any kind of deficits that the Soviet Union would have leading up to it. Of course, we all know that after 1991, the Soviet Union disbanded. So again, you run into this other kind of conundrum where to say that, okay, we would help you with the financial controls, but then now the Soviet Union doesn't exist. And Russia is its inheritor, but Russia is not Soviet Union. And here you have another set of propaganda. And Putin was there. Putin was there. No, Putin was not there initially. This was still the first phase. No, not as the leader of Russia, but he was there as part of the KGB, the famous story in East Berlin, how he protected the Russian embassy in East Berlin. Yeah, I mean, there were riots, but there were riots against the regime in East German. And so here's another story that has been kind of like funnel, like, you know, when you look into these reports, and I certainly did into these archives, is that much of these, much of these angers within the local population had to do with their smaller regimes, like the leadership in East Germany and the leadership of East German areas, they were not necessarily targeted towards Russians, although that was the case in some areas. But this propaganda machine has basically turned that around to show that the West has taken advantage when Russia was weak. The West has taken advantage when Soviet Union was weak. And that in one sense is in some part true. But in another sense is, you know, this is an area, particularly in context to Germany, that unification meant that certain leadership had to be removed. Revolutions had to happen, protests needed to happen. But if those things happened, you know, whether or not you had East German installations or Russian installations in place, they were going to be attacked anyway, whether Putin was going to be there or not. Yeah, well, you know, one thing that comes out of this is you're saying that it was not part of the agreement where Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. But Putin apparently treats it as part of the agreement. And the element that he's talking about is the is the move East by the EU and by NATO. And that is, you know, clear in your book, I mean, you are criticizing the EU and NATO as being partially responsible for this. But what exactly did they do to move East? What did the EU do? What did NATO do? And what violation of Russia's rights was involved in that? Last time I looked, they never really crossed the border. But what did they do that is so offensive? So let me clarify this. And there's been a lot of discussion on so particularly in towards towards the time when Soviet Union had disbanded. There was this feeling, particularly in France, that a reunified Germany would be bringing back the same problems of a century back, kind of like the militarism, kind of like the domination of Europe. But how can we kind of not have that happen again? And one of those discussions led to primarily a census between Washington, Paris, Berlin, to say that how do we bring Europe into benefiting globalization into the 21st century without leaving and leaving space for this argument that we've left some countries behind, and therefore it's justified because it's an age old tradition, and we're going to basically follow what we did in the past. But how do we bring the benefits of the past and integrate to the benefits of the future? And one of those discussions meant that we integrate all of Europe as one. And that was the European Union experiment. And the European Union experiment for me is basically Europe's way of saying we are the European UN. Okay, if there's any disputes that can happen, it will be brought to the European Union and we shall resolve. But here's the problem. It has always worked in a Western European standard. You've integrated Eastern European countries, but you've basically never given them that kind of a statute. If you look at the makeup and the architectural makeup of the European Union, okay, it has always dominated by France, Germany, and of course Britain, although Britain now, because of its Brexit nature has a very, I would say... Are you saying that the EU as the original concept of the EU was to include Russia and it's a satellite state? No. What I am saying is that over time, there was this feeling that in the European Union, you can have a relationship with Russia without having to integrate them in as a member. Okay, and this worked. This worked for some time. But it didn't work, particularly because within the European Union, though you brought in these states to be part of member states, old issues did not get resolved. You still had issues related to what was happening in the late 90s with Kosovo and Serbia. You still had issues with what was happening between Turkey and Greece. You still had issues between Britain and Spain related to Gibraltar. These are issues that have still remained. If you go in particularly to understand what has happened in the Ukraine war now, it has basically brought these old issues back to life. One of the reasons why Sweden and Finland wanted to join NATO, in my view, was the fact that they were worried about... But Finland was worried about its old eastern border with Russia. They saw it as a liability. Sweden saw its Goplin Islands, which traditionally, which they fought against Russia a century back, that would be part of an area that they would lose sight of. But these are areas where there's... Well, particularly for Sweden, our military installations, even though they're small, they're very important strategically. And so you see these developments happen, but you see them happen because you have not resolved these old issues. It sounds like this is a very amorphous, objective way of Putin to look at it, because there's been nobody crossing borders. There's no boots on the ground. There hasn't even been hard rhetoric between members of the EU and Russia. He's really searching to find some kind of move east, if you will. I certainly agree that the view of interdependent defense has kind of... It has leaked out from NATO to the EU. There is a synonymity between the NATO defense pact and the EU and they largely involve the same group of countries and the same protective mission. However, I don't think they've moved east. Tell me how they've moved east. Well, so, I mean, the moved east part, I mean, just to clarify, this had happened well between the late 90s and as well as early as 2004. So between... It was mostly the Baltic states. It was mostly Poland, Hungary, all these areas that were traditionally part of the Iron Curt. And this is what I mean by moving east in how the European Union integrated these areas. To the point of this context of moving east, there's also a Russian context of moving west. Okay, let's not forget, Russia has a significant presence in China's area in the Moldovan breakaway region. It has a Belarus which has worked in a way to basically be like a nail for the European Union to cause havoc. These are activities, no doubt, but very much pronounced specifically by President Putin to show that as you move east, I will retaliate moving west. Well, it's hard to say it's retaliation because he's actually taken territory and taken influence in Belarus. He essentially owns Belarus through the puppet that's there and Trinestria, he owns that. That's his. It used to be Moldova. You cover this in the book. Yeah. And he's been gobbling up little pieces all around Ukraine, all around Western Russia for years. And of course, he's been doing his hacking thing on a regular basis from the time the hacking began. So none of that relates to what happened 30 years ago. And he's actively, he's been actively acting as an aggressor against Ukraine for 20, anyway, 20 years. But I would like to talk with you about the Winter War in 2014. Timmy, the gloves were off. Timmy, it was Putin. And Putin was having effect on various groups in Ukraine. And the people in Ukraine were, the whole thing was like a rehearsal. It was a rehearsal for the war we have now, wasn't it? Well, I mean, this is kind of like, I mean, a lot of the things that I covered from that time kind of includes what I've already said in basically taking away the Ukraine's potential in its, would have been gas, gas market. And it probably would have been a powerhouse in the European gas market. But beyond that, there are other factors here. The factors here are the fact that if that dress rehearsal would work, then there were significant reasons to say that it can work elsewhere. But the problem here is this, is that there has been significant developments in Ukraine since 2014. European Union and NATO have significantly bumped up their support in terms of pushing Ukraine to say you need to work on your infrastructure. You need to work on your issues related to justice and law. You need to work on your corruption. On the NATO side, Ukrainian troops, as you see today, the success on the field has largely been because of assistance from American and Canadian allies who've trained these troops since 2014 to make sure that they can understand the modern version and the modern way of using the necessary tools to communicate, collaborate, and to basically work in collaboration with systematic units, which has never been the case even before 2014 when it came to Ukraine's defenses. Well, defenses is the operative word because, in fact, Putin was attacking Ukraine in 2014. And they were on the defensive and he was on the aggressive. As I say, it's a rehearsal. And he failed. He failed. The puppet leader of Ukraine left in the middle of the night in a helicopter. And that was the end of Putin's influence and so forth. And however they got strong by virtue of weapons or advice from the West, the fact is they were always on the defensive. And a lot of Ukrainians were killed, brutally, mercilessly killed by Russians in the Winter War of 2014. They were not crossing the border. He was. Yeah. And this is, there's a lot of back and forth on this. So when I was researching on it, I came to find out that particularly the separatists that had been there, that was basically, that received the blessing of the Kremlin, worked pretty brutally, but not necessarily in collaboration with the Kremlin. So for instance, you would have Russian group support, but a lot of these separatists had their own kind of feeling to say that it wasn't like Russia's going to invade. We are going to have these areas for ourselves. And this is where the problem begins, particularly with what you had mentioned in the sense that you have significant brutality. I believe that had this dress rehearsal waited, maybe this kind of atrocity would not have happened because before 2014, much of the activity, particularly interference of Russian activity in Ukraine was centered in Kiev. It was not towards the East. In 2004, Ukraine had a problem with an East and a West issue where you had the Eastern Ukrainian population that was very nostalgic about the Soviet era. They were not exactly in tune with the globalization. They spoke Russian. They liked the idea of the Russian model. Western Ukraine was completely different. They wanted to align with Europe. They wanted to see the benefits of Europe. The youth wanted the Kiev to look like Paris, London or New York. They did not want it to look like Moscow. So to the point that you're making is the fact that this brutality happened, yes, because of the dress rehearsal. But the dress rehearsal itself, when you look at the systematic way how it developed, was exactly neither did it benefit Moscow nor did it benefit the separatists. As a matter of fact, it brought the conflict against Europe. And I make the argument in this book that had Crimea not been annexed, I think the situation right now would not have happened, but it probably would have been a little more dangerous because of the fact that for years, most of the times when the Soviet Union and Russia had engaged in conflict, it was usually when they were doing well, when gas prices were pretty manageable and pretty manageable in the sense that their coffers were getting a lot of revenue from these gas profits. So if you look at the Russian interference in Syria, the Russian interference in Chechnya, the Russian interference in Ukraine in 2014, these are all times when petroleum gases brought significant revenue to the state. Now, right now that is not the case because it's under severe sanctions, and it has lifeline in other states that basically is giving them kind of like substandard rates, but they have no choice. They have no choice. But at the same time, one of the things that I talk about in this book is that as President Zelensky of Ukraine is really trying to harmonize his support with the European Union and Western Europe, the same Western European partners are the ones that propelled Eton to this point because when he came to power, one of the agreement or the default agreement was, as long as you do not do anything bad that brings us into a full straight conflict, we will buy gas, we will buy oil. But 22 years later, here we are. You know, one thing that strikes me for what you say is really interesting is that, you know, this is a concept that of the, I guess it's the Kennedy School foreign policy and soft power and smart power. And theoretically, at least, it's part of the American arsenal of diplomacy. It doesn't sound like Putin did that. It sounds like he did. But Jay, I think, I mean, I argue about soft power context as well in this book to say that, you know, Europe always thought that, okay, we can work on our soft power as long as the United States provides us with security. But here's the problem. Okay. You can't rely on soft power to galvanize an economy that is not growing despite security assurances from the United States. Now we're at an age where, you know, we are looking at decreasing security, particularly on the United States side to basically cover Europe because Europe needs to pull its way. But Europe hasn't pulled its way because it believes in its soft power, which still hasn't worked. What about, what about on the other side, though, you talk about Europe with advice and counsel to Ukraine, Europe trying to help Ukraine, you're trying to build infrastructure, trying to build industry. It's all, you know, commendable. And, you know, it's sort of a natural thing if the US is involved. But query, you know, all we see from Russia, and disagrees me, all we see from Russia is we want to take territory. We want to take Crimea. We want to take Ukraine. We want to expand our borders to what they were, you know, before we lost Soviet Union. Wouldn't it have been better for Putin and in fact the whole Russian apparatus to try soft power? Because they have a natural fertile ground in terms of appreciating and language and culture, appreciating the Russian, you know, their own Russian background. But he didn't do that. It's always violence. It's always aggression. It's never let's work together. Let's try to build relationships, trade agreements, cultural interchange, all that. He doesn't do it. He isn't doing it now. There's no indication he wants to do it in the future. Isn't that a huge mistake? I think one of the reasons why you see that is because of what has happened in the last four years, particularly with what has happened with COVID. And I think, you know, I mean, if you see the reports of news about Russians leaving because they're going to be conscripted for this war and many of them choose not to want to fight, because no, it's a losing battle. A lot of the hackers that we used to hear about, you know, nobody talks about and I suspect they are the ones who bled. A lot of intellectual brain drain that you talk about in terms of, you know, soft power, diplomacy, culture, links. This is all part of the intellectual lead that I suspect has left Russia since 2021. Because bear in mind that, you know, the preparations for this war have been in place since March 2021. And so I think in that, you know, now we're approaching second year since March 2021. And I think by now, a lot of this brain drain that Russia is facing is a result and a consequence of why they're kind of, I think, shun the soft power feeling. Is Putin going to be able to hold on to leadership? I mean, he's using every autocratic method he can find, but at the end of the day, you know, Russia does have a history of turning the apple card over and getting rid of leaders who are oppressive. Query, do you think from writing this book and all the research that you've done, you think that Putin is there for the long term or is he going to have to go? I think he will remain in power because there's no alternative and there's no alternative state institution that can take the lead in removing him. And I mentioned in this book, why? Because Russia is not a superpower, but it is a power. It has always flexed above its weight. And despite not achieving the success, it has survived. Now, it has survived because it has allies. It needs allies. It can't do this without allies. And I think this is where the problem will be for President Putin is that first, you will see some kind of, I wouldn't say rebellion, but kind of like networks disintegrating. And one of those networks has disintegrated, as I mentioned, but, you know, we don't talk about hackers much more. We don't talk about soft power much more. So this certainly tells me that he is certainly losing his kind of like sphere of influence. But he will hold on to power and I don't think anybody can remove. A couple of, two weeks ago, President Zelensky did mention that he will not negotiate with President Putin. He will negotiate with another Russian leader. And I think that can be a problem because President Putin will stay. He will have controlled state institutions. And the person who will come after him, even if he is able to negotiate peace with Ukraine, I have a very bad feeling that he will, in some ways, be worse than President Putin. And I say that because every Soviet leader, since Azerbaijan, has been pretty brutal when it comes to Ukraine. They've always had their mark on Ukraine. And I think for my generation, who has seen this atrocity, yes, I can anticipate the brutality that is going to happen, that may last. But the next person that will replace or whoever Putin chooses that will succeed in, I think will be worse than Putin. Well, the problem is trust. You know, if you want to cut a deal, you have to be sure that the person on the inside is trustworthy and not pathological. And I think Putin has shown not only Zelensky, but the world, that he's a pariah, that he doesn't care about keeping his word, that he's not a good negotiating partner, and that if he makes a deal with you, he's going to break it. So what's the point? I think the idea behind it is that all deals have a lifeline. And this lifeline is the part when, particularly in this reality that we have to deal with, and this political reality that we have to deal with, that what does this really mean? Because before, let's face it, deals were meant in good faith and in good economic principles. And now that has changed. And that has changed not because of the fact that we are seeing for probably the first time a nuclear war that hasn't happened since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and which very well is a possibility. Now, I'm not going to say that will absolutely happen, but I am concerned. And I'm concerned because all the activities that I read about the historical links that I see around this crisis, that makes me worried. And it makes me worried because that will in some ways infect democracies, not just in Europe, but even here in the United States. That's throughout your book, really, that this is really a test of the liberal world ordered. And this is not just a matter of Russia and Ukraine, this is the matter of the entire world going forward, which makes it very valuable. And your book is available on Amazon, you can get it. And other retailers, yes. Yeah, and other retailers. Thank you. I wanted to ask you if you could find a page, find a paragraph that will simplify your writing and thinking on the book, the subject. Okay, so there's on page 241 on the second paragraph. It goes like this. In Ukraine, previously, European leaders were not prepared for the war or the handling of the refugee crisis that followed. There are parallels in this conflict and failed efforts to rebuild state institutions after subsequent invasions on the chaos that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are also parallels in President Putin and his allies seeing weakness in Europe and the United States taking advantage and aiming Ukraine, knowing other powers won't come to Ukraine's aid. The Kremlin realized that what they could do in Chechnya, Georgia, Libya, and Syria is that what they will also do in Ukraine, a smooth roll over with unequivocal domination, to denazify was only a banner along with saving the ethnic Russian speaking populace residing in Ukraine. Ukraine's response and defending its sovereignty against an invader with the history of interfering in its former Soviet territories is setting up presidents against Kremlin and President Putin's backers. Ukraine has chosen its path as a sovereign state. President Putin denies Ukraine's sovereign state status. He says it is part of Russia. Not only is Ukraine not a Nazi state, but its ethnic Russian communities always had rights as Ukrainians. Putin claims defending Ukraine's Russian speaking minority is a cause for this war. If this is the case, what about the large ethnic Russian populations that fled to France during the 1917 revolution? Will Russia be invading France too? Maybe. Who knows what will happen to Italy, eh? So, Fazl, just one other thing, and we talked about it before the show, is that you write a book like this, okay? You're covering a global issue, a global phenomenon, one that has import everywhere in the world, and one that changes every day. I don't have to look very far in the New York Times or the Washington Post to see a story about how the inflection points going this way or that way, events that are surprising, shocking, and suggest other possibilities. But when you write a book, you're essentially carving it in stone up to that point in, you know, in your examination. What happens going forward to a topic like this? It's a completely moving, everyday moving target. Well, I mean, to be honest with you, Jay, I mean, I focused on a lot of the things that I found that was kind of the things that I found very sensitive to what I thought was an alarm. Of course, there's, you know, there's historical items I've mentioned. There are consequences that I mentioned that has parallels from history. I've spoken about the external actors, particularly the Baltic States, who are much more in tune with the realities what Ukraine is facing, as opposed to Western Europe. So to answer your question, I mean, I primarily focused on the key pillars. Well, all it means, Faisal, is that we'll have to do another show. The book demands a sequel, you see. Well, just to clarify, I mean, like, you know, I mean, I've spoken about fascism, but I did not see this coming that Italy will have its first woman Prime Minister, but Georgia Milani would also be one of the most right-wing Prime Ministers Italy has had since Mussolini. And who knows what happens in American politics. That's a whole study by itself. We have to go Faisal Chowri, a fellow in the Global Policy Institute, who has written this book, this very interesting book, Why Ukraine Matters, and it certainly does. Thank you so much, Faisal. A pleasure, Jay. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.