 Hello, and welcome back to War Economy and State. This is the Mises Institute's Foreign Policy and International Relations podcast. It's our monthly podcast, our supplement, our more bookish supplement to Radio Rothbard where we discuss a lot of concepts around international relations and what's going on around the world in foreign policy. Joining me is my colleague Zachary Yost as always, my co-host, and we wanted to just get back. It's been a couple of months since we did our last episode and we got to get caught up on this stuff and so we thought we would just start back with getting people up to speed ourselves included on what's going on in Ukraine, what's the strategic situation, and my interest at least was peaked by the recent brush with World War III, where in a apparently Ukrainian missile landed in Poland, killed two people, and Zelensky, the leader, president, I don't know, head of state in Ukraine, who's apparently just said no more elections for the duration as far as I can see, so I don't know. We'd call it the Democratic leader for now, but he's the head of state down there and he's just really, really pushing for intervention, even suggesting maybe the invocation of Article 5 of NATO to really get everyone involved as a result of this missile landing in Poland, which he said had come from Russia. And so the fact that he had killed two people, these unfortunate deaths were then to be used as a costus belly to start war with Russia throughout Europe. And fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, the administration came back and said, well, you know, the intelligence shows that the missile actually came from Ukraine and Zelensky was having none of that and is still basically doubling down on the idea and demanding to see evidence and still really pushing for the involvement of the West. But even the Poles, who have since February been pretty bellicose on this, saying, yeah, the missile is not from Russia. But it was quite interesting to see the reaction in the usual places like Twitter, where the know nothings, the people who have always been pushing for World War III on there, were just adamant that the deaths of two people should bring about a global war. Because when people came out and said, well, maybe we should wait for more evidence or I think we should think long and hard about World War III, even if it is a Russian missile, people were saying things like, well, I think you'd feel differently if this had been your relative who died in this missile strike in Poland. But of course, this just shows how blasé these people are about the concept of World War III, as if that village where those missiles killed two people would not be completely wiped off the map in case of World War III. So I guess the way to get vengeance for the death of two people is to cause the total destruction of Eastern Poland. I'm not quite sure the thinking there, but that just shows how people are just shooting off from the hip on this. And so I just, Zach, I wanted to get your basic reaction. I mean, where do you think, do you think we learned anything important? Do you think this was a bad thing for Zelinsky and his reaction to the missile strike? And what does it show us about sort of where the trend is in terms of the international community's willingness to get directly and militarily involved in Ukraine? Yeah, so that was a, I guess, a scary occurrence when I opened up the AP or whatever on my phone and saw that. I was like, whoa. I don't think this is good for Zelinsky at all in that it was, even before the Polish and US governments were saying, actually, we're pretty sure this was a Ukrainian anti-air missile that crash landed in Poland. I had seen Twitter sleuths making what I thought was a convincing case for why it was a Ukrainian missile. So people, especially in Europe, are already becoming increasingly tired of the war because it's hitting home. It's getting cold. Prices are shooting through the roof of everything. They've been rationing gas and electricity and all that sort of stuff. And winter has not even started yet. So once winter really does start, people will be, I mean, in Europe will be uncomfortable. Ukraine, it's going to be a terrible winter for them. But people in Europe are going to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable and Ukraine continues to demand more money. The US government at least has not shown any indication that they are going to stop at least writing checks. I think Biden just requested another $33 billion, which combined with all the other money we've allocated for Ukraine will be more than the entire Russian defense budget. Now, does that does that include like all the weapons handed over? Right. Yeah. So it includes military aid and other forms of aid. But also with some of that, it's aid that won't arrive for, you know, years down the road. Like we, the internet was obsessed with these missile systems called HMRs. I don't remember what it stands for. But we're like, we're going to give you some more. But the ones we're going to give them don't actually exist. They have to be built. And it takes forever, apparently, to build all these complicated modern weapons systems. So their expected delivery isn't for like a year or two. But sort of speaking of the weapons systems, it, I wanted to just mention like so, it seems that this rocket, this missile that landed in Poland was an S 300, which is an anti air defense missile system that was developed in like the 70s by the Soviet Union. And it is no longer in production. Lots of places have it, including Russia and lots of former Soviet places. But I have seen this argument, which I'm not, you know, an expert in this area, but it makes sense to me, given what we know about Ukraine's history and everything. You sometimes will see on Twitter, people arguing, oh, Russia's so desperate, they're using these anti air missiles as ground attack missiles. But other people have said, actually, these are probably just ramshackle ancient, ill maintained Ukrainian air defense missiles that miss and then crash land somewhere. And one could argue that that is what happened here, potentially. And Ukraine once produced a very large percentage of the Soviet Union's, it hosted a large percentage of their military industrial capacity. And since the collapse, it has basically completely rotted away. Viewers might be familiar with the Nicholas Cage film, Lord of War, about an arms dealer. Where does he get off his weapons? He gets them from Soviet post Soviet stocks in Ukraine, because Ukraine is the second most corrupt country in Europe after Russia. So it sort of just speaks to adds to the argument that Ukraine is trying to drag us into this conflict very irresponsibly. You know, they did not maintain their military. They have been ill prepared for, you know, years and years, even though this low grade conflict was continuing. And now, you know, it's likely they knew right from the start, this was a Ukrainian missile, and they're trying to, you know, persuade everyone to launch an actual big war against Russia. So I think that will be used as a cudgel against Ukraine in the cold months ahead. Yeah. And Americans often need to be reminded that the Russo-Ukrainian war didn't start in February 2022. It goes back to 2014, when hostilities became very bad between the eastern separatist regions that were trying to break off and essentially join Russia and the rest of Ukraine. And so that's eight years of war. And it escalated then in 2022 considerably. But this idea that the Russian invasion just came out of nowhere and that they couldn't have known that they would be at war with Russia and such, it was been known for years and what was happening over all of that time. Of course, part of the reality is Ukraine is a very poor country, poorer than Russia even. And we covered that, or I covered that in an article looking at just with all this talk of having Ukraine join the EU and stuff like Ukraine would just be like just so much poorer than the next poorest EU member. So we're talking like Romania, I think. And Romania is like off the charts rich compared to Ukraine, practically. And so it would just be really this odd man out to add Ukraine. I don't think people realize just how unlike the Western European countries Ukraine is in terms of both its poverty and its institutions, right, because of its corruption and so on. It's very much like Russia, it's very much part of the old Eastern Roman Empire, Cezaro, Papism, centralized government. It has all those institutions rather than the Western, decentralized, more liberal institutions that have really existed for the last 500 years out West. But back East, that's very unusual for them. And so it is odd that we're trying, that we're being sold on this idea that Ukraine is is this pretty much a democratic country, like all these Western European countries, very similar. And it's just like us. And I'm always amused by the little bit of racism that's involved is you should care deeply about this war in Eastern Europe. Look, they're white people. And they're like us. What's going on in Africa? I don't know, who cares? Right, yes. Actually, when I was at the Libertarian Scholars Conference, I talked to another person who was on the foreign policy panel who is from Ethiopia and was presenting on US foreign aid there. And she she was like, yeah, no one even knows the civil war is happening. And like, that's killed all these people, all this suffering, no one knows. Similarly, with Armenia and Azerbaijan, I guess two years ago now, no one had a clue that was happening. And I think part of this perception difficulty, it comes, it's really, people have identified it in all kinds of conflicts like Iraq and Libya. It's sort of who do Westerners know from these other countries? They generally tend to know people like Iraqis or Ukrainians or Russians who have come to the West, perhaps just for a short time for university or something, but they're not the mean citizen of these places. It's sort of just creates this very false impression like way back when the idea that every Iraqi just has an American inside of them waiting to come out. And I see that all the time with Ukraine and Russia and everywhere else, all this talk of regime change in Russia and things like that. I think it's sort of bonkers way out there. Yeah, just imagine how the American expat you meet in Europe, right? They do not have the standard ideology or worldview of your average Indiana resident who lives in Indianapolis and is fine living there. An American who chooses to go live in Lyon in France is just a little bit different from that, from your standard Midwestern American and just how they view things. So if you're just going off on what are Americans like, I guess it's like this American who moved to France and relocated permanently here. It gives you a totally skewed idea of what those people are like. Yeah. And just to go back briefly to the Ukrainian economy and how ill-prepared they were, it's sort of shocking to me. I mean, in hindsight, but it wasn't really my job to think about these things for the past eight years. So the Ukrainian military is a post-Soviet military. All their stuff is all their hardware is post-Soviet and they didn't maintain the capacity to really build more or even maintain what they had. So within a few months of the war, they're just draining all of the post-Soviet military stocks throughout the former Warsaw Pact and they ran out very quickly. It deals with everything from the caliber of artillery shells and all sorts of stuff. And now they have to switch over to sort of NATO standard stuff, which is different in all sorts of respects, artillery shell, caliber, and just maintenance procedures, everything under the sun. So it's sort of like they must have thought that this actually wouldn't happen or that if it did happen, it would be someone else's problem. I have no idea, but it's sort of crazy and it's irritating that now we are expected to pick up the veil for their ill-preparedness. Well, and I think you saw a little bit of that irritation even in the elites in the U.S. responding to Zelinsky's demands that the U.S. now start World War III over this missile strike where they were just pushing back against Zelinsky and saying, well, we're just not really prepared to do that right now and these missiles came from you guys. And then here, here's another huge check, Ukraine, and then he comes back five minutes later as Zelinsky comes back five minutes later with a demand for even more money, which that's not terribly popular in America either. So giving more money to Ukraine, well, Americans don't have strong feelings about it. They're certainly not changing their vote to Biden because he gave more money to the Ukrainians. And so that's just, it's mostly downside, probably for the administration in terms of giving more money to Ukraine. That will especially become true if the unemployment rate starts going up soon and Americans start feeling that the economy stinks. And that, yeah, that equation will completely change. Yeah, I think it's, we've allocated more for Ukraine than we've spent on like the highways, like federal highways and all that sort of stuff. And earlier this year in Pittsburgh, where I live, a bridge literally collapsed, you know, so I think it paints a vivid imagery, you know, if someone were to want to make hay out of that, it's like American infrastructure literally crumbling as we give a hundred billion dollars to, you know, corrupt Ukraine. I haven't seen many political actors really do that much, which is sort of annoying, but it's there if they were to want some ammo for that. Well, you can think about how once household budgets start to get pinched and you're seeing then this money you're paying in taxes and it's not coming back to you in any way, that's going to start to be pretty problematic. But going back to why didn't Ukraine do anything? I think they were just suffering from the same disease as the rest of Europe, which is that, hey, the United States handles the over 70% of military spending among NATO members. We just use the U.S. as a backstop for all of this. So if we get into trouble, we'll just expect the Americans to step in. And that was, that's what you've been seeing from the very beginning with all the demands for World War III was the demand for the no fly zone was coming out of places like Lithuania that essentially has no air force. And they got like a handful of planes. I'm not even sure any of them were combat planes. They're like search and rescue planes. And so if you're a tiny Baltic country and you're arguing for the enforcement of no fly zone, what does that mean? It means someone else is going to do everything and the Americans are going to pay for it. And that was just the assumption all along. But what this takes us to our next topic, the so much of these demands for the no fly zone, for direct U.S. military intervention, the freak outs among the Poles and the Baltics and even Slovenia apparently getting involved in all these demands for basically starting World War III was they were saying that to Russia is this amazing adversary that is going to re-establish the old borders of the Soviet Union, roll through Eastern Europe, maybe into Prague, maybe even into Berlin, and Europe's just a sitting duck for the Russians. And of course I was saying, well, let's just look at the size of the Russian GDP. It's like around the same size as Germany. Germany of course could build a nuclear arsenal of its own in a matter of months if it needed to. Russia, yes, it's large. Yes, they have a lot of natural resources, but their economic output is just not good. And this is a backward economy, certainly relative to Western Europe. Russia is perhaps one of the best illustrations of how size can be helpful in terms of defensive capability and throwing your weight around in the region, but they lack the sort of wealth that's necessary to engage in any sort of protracted conflict. And I remember you once just years ago sent me a article, it was by John Mueller. And Mueller was downplaying the role of nuclear missiles actually in restraining the Soviets during the Cold War. And I think Mueller maybe goes a little overboard on downplaying the role of nuclear weapons. But nonetheless, the article made a very good point, which was that Stalin's real fear quite possibly, as if the nukes weren't enough. He also knew that the size of the American economy and the efficiency of the American economy was so beyond anything that even the Soviets at their height in the 50s, early 50s, late 40s could come up with that, yeah, sure, the Soviets could start rolling through Europe and maybe even occupy Europe for a time. But then the Americans would just show up with countless tanks and planes. And you could destroy all those tanks and planes and then the Americans would just build thousands more tanks and planes and just keep them coming until the Russians were destroyed. And Western Europe has that capability too. The French could keep cranking out tanks and planes. And you could destroy them. And then the Russians who have nuclear power, they have their own nukes, they have a large modern economy would crank out more tanks and planes far beyond, especially once you combine the Germans and the French and the British far beyond anything that they the Russians are capable of. So this idea that the Russians were going to roll through and permanently occupy any part of Europe was always nonsense. But it's become clear that just as at least I was saying early on was that, look, how is Russia going to implement any sort of occupation of an area that doesn't have a sizable Russian ethnic minority or majority? And it turns out they're having a real hard time pulling any of that off. Yeah, they're getting a pretty good toehold there. Obviously, Crimea they're going to be able to hold on to. But in far Eastern Ukraine, and I'm sure they'll fight real hard to maintain that land bridge to Crimea through the southern southeast coast of Ukraine and keep the Sea of Azov is like a Russian Lake, basically. But beyond that, looking at their attempts to keep land beyond the deniper, it's just it's not going that well. Now, I don't think Russia's down for the count. The winter warfare is something Russia's pretty good at. But this hasn't changed the reality of the fact that Russia does not stand much of a chance of rolling through Ukraine, let alone through Hungary, through Czechia, through Eastern Germany, or any of that, even without US assistance. So they were wrong. Russia's not about to conquer the world. And the US has basically been swatting a fly with the weapons in terms of the size of its economy devoted to fighting Russia, which of course there are lessons here for fighting China as well, interestingly. But I'm hoping that maybe the administration is starting to see, and maybe that's why they're acting relatively more sane on the issue of these Ukrainian missiles in Poland, that, okay, well, we're holding Russia at bay. It's going pretty well. And we just don't see the need to really escalate from our side. It would have been interesting had those even been Russian missiles, the willingness of the Americans to escalate even in that case. People seem to sort of be of two minds when it comes to Russia at the same time. And it doesn't make much sense. As you said, way back when when things got started, people were, oh my goodness, Russia's gonna be in Paris soon. And but at the same time, they also enjoy making fun of Russian ineptitude and blunders. Like I mentioned before, oh, they're using s 300s as ground attack missiles. They're so broke, you know, they're buying artillery shells from North Korea, evidence of their, you know, ineptitude. So people, I think, are just sort of want to fight Russia. I mean, I don't know if part of it stems from, you know, there's still the Cold War mentality and older people. And then younger people, there's the Russia collusion thing, you know, people are obsessed with that. And that could be playing some role in this perception. I mean, yeah, Russia is not I think that they at the same time they think Russia is this great threat. They also think that we could enact regime change in Russia and break apart the Russian Federation, which to me is craziness. They're like, we're going to liberate the oppressed, indigenous peoples of, you know, the Khmchatka Peninsula and whatnot. And it to me, that's all craziness. I think Russia I mean, the war is not going great for them, but it's not really going great for anyone. And when the dust settles, assuming it's not, you know, irradiated dust, Russia will be the only large state to have any experience with modern contemporary war and will hopefully have learned some, well, maybe not hopefully for us, but hopefully, you know, from their perspective, would have learned some lessons from it. And this is another point. So Russia enacted some sort of mobilization. And people on Twitter were like, haha, Russia failing, they're so weak, they have to enact mobilization for the first time since World War Two. And it did not go well. I mean, it was a big mess, you know, the structure super rusty and having not been used in, you know, what now, 70, 80 years, but I would say that's to Russia's advantage that like they have, they saw, they were like, okay, well, here's a ton of problems with the system, if we were to need it down the road. I mean, could you imagine the US trying to, you know, I mean, technically, we're all signed up for selective service. That hasn't been used since I think the 70s. So would American bureaucrats be super great at implementing that? I doubt it. Not that I want them to practice. But I think it's just sort of Russia, it has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. It does have lots of land, lots of resources, a pretty big population, though that's declining and aging. We can't just discount them. But we just need to be realistic in that they're not going to be conquering Europe, but we also can't treat them like Iraq or Libya that, oh, we'll just install a new government and they'll be happy Western liberals. Yeah, both things can be true at the same time, right? Russia can be a place that matters. But it can also be a place that isn't a global threat to Western Europe or the entire global order. Clearly, it especially matters in Central Asia and even in East Asia. It does share maritime border with Japan. So I mean, that's not nothing. But yeah, they're not rolling through Paris. That's just the reality. And NATO doesn't even need the United States to really enact any sorts of real protections on that. The fact that if Western Europe seems like any sort of a sitting duck, that's Western Europe's fault. They've just elected to do nothing. Yeah, I mean, the West German military had like 500,000 people in it at the end of the Cold War. The UK could put, I think they had three armored divisions on the continent. In parliament, it was discussed this year. One of the bureaucrats was asked a question, when could the UK put an armored division in Europe? 2030. So it's, I mean, that sort of bonkers to think about how everyone has let their militaries fall apart, but it's because they'd rather spend that money on welfare state stuff and let the US take care of it. So it's just sort of, they could remilitarize if they actually felt threatened. But they either don't feel threatened or they don't feel threatened enough to doubt the US will come and take care of them to actually really do much about anything. Well, and at least some of these countries that neglect their militaries, I have some consistency in the fact that they at least try and play nice with everybody. So the French and the Germans to a much greater extent than the British have wanted to play nice with the Russians. They weren't enthusiastic about invading Iraq, unlike the Ukrainians who were very enthusiastic about occupying foreign countries when it served their purposes. But, and then those were denounced by Donald Rumsfeld as old Europe and we have New Europe in Poland and the old Eastern bloc who support America's adventurism abroad. But these dumb Germans, they keep wanting to get along with all these countries Americans hate, et cetera, et cetera. And then the British are always just signing on to whatever the Americans latest thing is. But apparently the British don't really have much capability of their own. They're just sort of our sidekick. And so the British positions, especially I think silly in the sense of they don't have much going in terms of military acumen and yet they seem pretty bellicose in terms of picking fights with people with anyone the U.S. picks a fight with. I can't remember. I think it was an essay someone wrote probably an unheard of relatively new UK publication. I think that's where I read it. But someone argued that the problem the UK has is they speak English. So it's very easy for them to be plugged into American stuff. And so a British elites think of themselves sort of on par with America. But I mean, like I think as you've written about several times, the UK would be the poorest or second poorest state if it was a if it was as part of the United States. I mean, their capacity is much smaller than ours. But their elites think, you know, we're the British Empire in terms of their desire to be a player on the world stage. Yeah, I mean, Scotland boy, if it was in the United States to make West Virginia look like just this this shining modern city by comparison practically, I mean, it's just really quite astounding. And I think that's the thing too is outside of the big the big powers. There are pockets of Europe that are that are really quite poor. So they need to think far more realistically in terms of where they're devoting their resources. But they just get they just they're so devoted to their welfare states right now and just sponging off the American taxpayer that it's really quite remarkable. But that brings us then to the issue of article five in NATO. And it's it is often portrayed in the media as this thing wherein, okay, so the Russians shoot some stray bullets across the Latvian border. And so now I guess the entire world from fit well not quite Finland yet from Estonia to Los Angeles, including Canada and Spain and Italy that we're all now at war with Russia. Because this one country invoked article five and that everyone's beholden to that as if it was just one unified state. But it doesn't seem that it quite works that streamlined in terms of the invocation of article five and and suddenly Canada is mobilizing for World War three. Yes. So there are a bunch of issues with how how people think about article five. And this is something that's frustrating. I am not really familiar with his work, but he seems to be sort of a big MAGA person on Twitter, Jack, probably a sec or something is his name. And I've seen things where he's been like, oh, we need to cut funding to Ukraine. But when this missile landed in Poland, he was like, if this is a Russian missile blood must be spelt or something. So even people who are slowly, you know, moving in the right direction are still, you know, way out from where where I'd like them to be, I suppose, as it were. But first of all, no treaty that has been ratified by the US Senate can authorize can just automatically or or obligate the US to go to war. So there's one constitutional reason for this is that the Senate is not the sole power who can declare war. The Senate ratifies treaties, but the House and the Senate are required to declare war. So we're the Senate to ratify a treaty that explicitly said, you know, if X is attacked, the US must and shall and, you know, go to war. That would be unconstitutional just in a very blatant way. And this has been recognized way back when all these treaties were being discussed. What Article 5 does say that an attack against one is an attack against all, but it does not even obligate the member parties to, you know, charge in and go to war. What it does say is that if such an attack occurs, each of them, meaning, you know, signatories, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense, will assist the party or parties so attacked by taking forth with such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force to restore, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's an agreement that if a NATO member is attacked, the other members will agree to take whatever action they think is necessary. And it is within those member states' own constitutional processes. So the Senate by itself can't just say, oh, the U.S. is obligated to go to war, and the Senate also can't delegate war-making powers to the president by itself via treaty without, you know, the involvement of the House. It is the prerogative of the legislative branch to declare war. So the idea of just Article 5 means instant war. We have no choice that that's craziness. And there's also another aspect of why, even if it did say that treaties are just paper, what matters is what people will do. And the fellow I read who has written a lot about this that's quite useful is Michael Glennon at Tufts. And he's a law professor, but he used to be like the council, like the legal council for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And he's explored the whole history of like the debates that were happening within the legislature when like the NATO treaty and other treaties after the Second World War were happening. And it's overwhelmingly clear that this is the case. And let me see here. I had a good quote. Oh, okay. Yeah. So Glennon points out, the day the text of the proposed NATO treaty was made public, Secretary of State Dean Atkinson addressed the nation. The treaty, he said, quote, does not mean that the United States would be automatically at war if one of the nations covered by the PAC is subjected to armed attack. Under our Constitution, the Congress alone has the power to declare war. Now, of course, it's another question entirely as to what would actually happen. I mean, it seems to me where Article 5 invoked, I mean, maybe we'd get a declaration of war against Russia, but it seems the president would just rush into action doing who knows what. I mean, I'm sort of skeptical that people would actually care. But at least when it comes to legal precedent, that that's the way things are currently. Well, it does seem that the American people have learned maybe a little bit in the last 20, 25 years or so, and that the rally around the flag effect doesn't seem to work nearly as well as it did just 20 years ago. Now, obviously the 9-11 thing, that was easy to get Americans worked up about that. But I think many Americans recognize that they were duped by the whole Saddam Hussein did 9-11. You witness the absolute lack of enthusiasm over boots on the ground in Syria, the total disengagement of the American public in the Libya thing. And it's just not as easy as it used to be to declare some other country to be a public enemy, and that Americans all just flock to invade. I mean, I wonder how many Americans, in case, how many Americans, in case Poland was actually bombed, are going to flock to the U.S. Marines enlistment office to sign up to be shipped to Eastern Europe to fight Russia. And this is a country, again, back to the issue of Russia mattering, even if they are no threat to North America. This is a country where if you're sent to a country neighboring Russia and you're at war with Russia, this isn't like being sent to some village in Afghanistan where you'll probably survive. The U.S. camp you get sent to in Eastern Europe could be completely destroyed by Russian missiles. And so that's just a totally different situation. I mean, there were reports. And again, it is just what I've read and listened to people say that I really doubt 20,000 foreigners flocked to fight for Ukraine, which was the number that came out like within weeks of the start of the war. But there were accounts of like American veterans going and just being completely unprepared for it. I mean, because the Taliban didn't have combined arms or artillery sort of stuff. I mean, when was the last time the U.S. fought? I don't think there's really maybe some old general or something like who was very young at the time. When did the U.S. fight a war like would be fought against Russia? I mean, they have an air force with fifth generation fighters. They have missiles. They could call up millions of people if it really got serious. I mean, leaving aside nuclear weapons. I mean, it's not like any war we've fought any time recently is my view. And that would mean there'd be a lot of mistakes made that hopefully we'd learned from. But I would not want to be one of the people who was used to learn those lessons. That's for sure. Yeah, the issue of political will is very important too. If Russia had to mobilize or the saw themselves as having to mobilize, this would probably decimate their economy. It would be very bad. It would devote tons of manufacturing output and such to military output instead of stuff that would help the Russian standard of living. And so it would be very bad for the Russian standard of living. However, they have the capability to do that and they might have the political will to do that. How much political will exist in America to reduce their standard of living to fight an enemy like Russia? I think there's a big asymmetry there. And since the very beginning, Americans haven't had much ability to see the world through the eyes of their adversaries. I remember back in the war of 1812, when Americans were, hey, let's impose this embargo on British goods and that'll teach them we're serious and we'll make some threats and make their lives difficult. And the British response was, hey, we're fighting Napoleon who presents an existential threat to the United Kingdom. There's nothing you Americans can do that will make us stop that and to change course. And so even at the time, the Americans vastly underestimate the political will in London versus the political will in America in terms of fighting this conflict with the British. And so that's just something that Americans usually don't take into account. But maybe the elites do take that into account and that's why Biden seems unenthusiastic about really doubling down on the whole. Right. With the rally around the flag effect, sort of it's very clear sociologically and also like even like primitive anthropologically that what is needed is an outside threat. So if the threat perception is low, if people don't actually buy, I mean, to me, you know, it's obviously that going like going to war with Russia would drastically increase the only threat they post us, which is nuclear. But if they can't they'd have people would have to be convinced Russia is a danger because when there's an external threat, internal cohesion increases. And so that's why I mean, I'm not surprised at all that Russia's sort of a recent campaign of destroying Ukrainian infrastructure has apparently not, you know, degraded Ukrainian will to fight. I mean, as of this morning, it's my understanding, the last remaining three remaining Ukrainian nuclear power plants that were hooked up to the grid were disconnected from the grid. I mean, a few weeks ago, half of the Ukrainian power generation of non nuclear power generation capability was destroyed. I mean, Kiev didn't have water today because of all these strikes that have been going on. And it's these strikes on infrastructure that led to the incident in Poland to begin with. But it's not surprising to me that the Ukrainian people are still want to fight, apparently, because it's just like the same with carpet bombing. Terror bombing doesn't really work historically. I think there are case studies like, like they compare all of the instances and just overwhelmingly it doesn't work that well. But so it's easy. And so it'd be easy also to understand how Russia could have a rally around the flag effect. I mean, they'd have, you know, hours of footage of American officials saying, you know, Russia, we need regime change, we need to break Russia up, all that. And quite an interesting point I heard recently was that Russia's issue is that they don't have like a national ideology right now. You know, there used to be communism. Well, good heavens don't want that. The alternative is Russian nationalism, which Putin also is disincentivized from appealing to because I mean, there are much scarier people in Russia than Putin when it comes to Russian nationalism. I mean, Russian, there are people who want Putin to be replaced. They want regime change, but the people they have in mind are, you know, much more radical and would probably want Putin back. So, yeah, that's another the balance of wills is also, yeah, definitely applicable here and it's just worlds apart. Well, of course, I agree, it's going to be a terrible winter in Ukraine, terrible in the very real sense, not just unpleasant, like it's going to be in Europe and costly in Europe. And so, yeah, I think we'll just have to return to this topic then at the end of winter, because we'll then know more about what what the next year is going to look like then. But of course, I think there's about a 0% chance the conflict is going to be over before then, right? The Ukrainians are digging in for just the reasons you noted. The Russians aren't going to stop. At least they're not going to be giving up southeastern Ukraine unless just they're really, really pressed on it through and that's going to require way more intervention than what the Ukrainians have. So, yeah, we'll come back after whatever winter war might happen in Ukraine and reassess, I suppose, where we are at that time. So, for now, we'll just have to end this conversation and leave on your note and we'll be back next time for another episode here of War, Economy and State and we'll see you next time.