Plain English with Derek Thompson - What Vladimir Putin Wants—and How Russia’s War in Ukraine Could Reshape the World

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Derek explains why three years—1989, 2008, and 2014—are the key to understanding why Putin is willing to take a massive risk in invading Ukraine. Then, Derek asks five expert guests to walk him through the most important second-order implications of a long major conflict. What are the most important ricochet effects that nobody is talking about? How could the war transform Europe? How could it destabilize Africa and the Middle East? How will it change U.S. politics, or kick off a 21st Century Cold War? Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Charles Kupchan, Liana Fix, Matthew Klein, Alex Smith, Bonny Lin Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Head into the Ringerverse to stay up to date with all things superheroes and nerd culture entertainment. Hosted by a rotating lineup of super fans at The Ringer, including Mallory Rubin and Van Lathen, shows will provide instant reactions to blockbuster releases, insightful backstories on canon, and mind-bending theories, as well as fresh takes on the latest news and rumors. Check out The Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode is the most ambitious episode that we've put out so far. and I hope it is one of the most helpful.

It is about Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. On Thursday, Russia launched what is being called a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and it might be the biggest conflict Europe has seen since 1989 or 1945. Russia attacked by air, with explosions recorded in dozens of cities, including the capital of Kiev. They attacked by land, with columns of Russian tanks crossing over the eastern border, they attacked by sea from the southern port city of Odessa. Now, I want to do two things in this episode.

First, I want to give you my synthesis on why this is happening now. And second, for the bulk of the episode, I want to tell you what I think might happen next. Not just in Ukraine, not just in Russia, but all around the world. So first, let's talk about why this is happening now. For months, there has been a frantic attempt to figure out what Vladimir Putin is thinking. what is motivating his desire to invade Ukraine. Now, the best way, I think, to conceive of his motivations

is to think about three years, three years, 1989, 2008, and 2014. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, marking the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. To Americans, this was a triumph. To Vladimir Putin, it was a tragedy. We know this. He has made no secret of the fact

that he wants his legacy to include the restoration of the old Soviet Union. Well, now Vladimir Putin is becoming a very old and potentially somewhat unhinged man. He's starting to think very seriously about his legacy,

and this might be it. The second year is 2008. In 2008, NATO offered Ukraine a roadmap to join its security alliance. That offer was seen by some, even in the United States, as an unnecessary threat to Russia, an unnecessary provocation of Russia. It would bring NATO too close into Russia's backyard.

And Putin has cynically used that expansion of NATO, that potential expansion of NATO to justify all sorts of military operations, including grabbing chunks of Ukraine and Georgia. Finally, we have 2014. In 2014, Ukraine staged a pro-demonement. anti-Russian revolution that ousted the Russian-affiliated government. This was a revolution that brought democracy closer to Russia's borders than Putin would like. If 2008 was about military insecurity, 2014 represents democratic insecurity.

I think if you put these things together, 1989, 2008, 2014, those are the logs of the fire. the spark, you could say, is a weakened Europe. The UK has left the EU. Energy costs are soaring across the continent. There's a new leader in Germany. And Putin apparently feels this is the right time to rectify the sins of 1989, 2008, and 2014 to reclaim Soviet legacy, push back against NATO,

and also push back against democracy itself. But at this point, there's really only so much we gain by psychologizing and mind-reading Vladimir Putin. The war is here. The real question is, what happens now? War has unintended consequences. In fact, no, scratch that. War is unintended consequences.

When you're dealing with countries that have their own alliances and trade and markets, war touches everything. And that is the thesis of this episode. War touches everything. I think this war could spark an energy crisis. a migration crisis, a food crisis in Asia and Africa, and a geopolitical crisis for the United States. These are the second-order crises, the ricochet effects of the war in Ukraine that are the subject of

today's episode. So today we're talking to five experts on foreign policy, Europe, economics, agriculture, and China, not one guest, five, to think about the most important consequences, most important ricochets of a major conflict in Ukraine. I'm Derek Thompson. This is plain English. I think that the headline is that Cold War 2.0 is starting. That's Charles Kupchen. He is a professor at Georgetown University, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and he also served as special assistant to President Barack Obama. I think we're probably headed back to something that will look like the Cold War, the militarized division of Europe. It remains to be seen how China plays this.

If they stay in a tight embrace with Russia, it may be a Cold War, not just with Russia, but with a coupling of Russia and China. So it's too soon to arrive at any judgments, but this is a game changer. This is also a leap into the dark for Putin. He has 190,000, 200,000 troops on the border of and within Ukraine. Ukraine is a country of 44 million people. Purely from a strategic standpoint, how crazy is this invasion? It's pretty crazy. And in some ways, a little bit out of character because Putin is a tough customer. Putin is a risk taker. But to date, he takes small bites. He grabs Crimea, a small bit of eastern Ukraine, regions of Ghazi and South Ossetia in Georgia. He goes into Nagorno-Karbach. He sends forces into Syria. But they've all been relatively low-cost, low-risk. He is now invading a country of 44 million people.

As far as we know, he intends to topple the government and install a pro-Russian regime, he is, as we speak, alienating and unifying these 44 million people against Russia. So exactly how he pulls this off, how he puts in a regime that enjoys any semblance of legitimacy is something I can't fathom. Kupchen sees two paths forward. Along path number one, Russia is making a massive error. It's buying itself a big, fat mess. 190,000 troops invading a nation of 44 million, is an insane gamble. The U.S. quote-unquote, conquered Iraq with 190,000 troops or so, and that was a total shit show. Ukraine is larger,

richer, much better fortified. A nation of 44 million is going to actually fight back with tanks, not just insurgents with bazookas. It's insane. And that's partly why Putin's actions are so scary to people like Charles Cupschen. There is concern that if Putin is willing to take a risk of invading Ukraine, might he go further? Right? If you look at what he has said in the last few weeks, he isn't just interested in pulling Ukraine back into a Russian sphere of influence. he wants to reverse the post-Cold War security architecture, the territorial settlement. He said to NATO, get your troops out of NATO's eastern flank. And so we have to take seriously the prospect that he could test NATO. That could mean sending more troops from the U.S. and Europe to the NATO border.

More troops to the western borders of countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Romania. This strategy would carry some serious risks. and flame Putin at the very moment when some people might hope he can be reasoned off the ledge, but it would also send a message. We're not going to war over Ukraine, but this is where we draw the line. And that's why I do think that we're headed back to some kind of militarized rivalry of a sort that dissipated in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell down, but unfortunately is coming back to life. And it's, you know, it's, it is devastating on some level.

One, you know, speaking personally, I thought that we had left those days behind, you know, having lived through the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, it was an enormously uplifting moment. It was like, you know, humans are headed in the right direction. democracy and dignity and human rights are prevailing over the alternatives. Right now, I would say history is flipping. It's doing a somersault. It's turning backward. There are some Americans that are going to say, this is not our war. Ukraine is not our war. Russia is not our problem. They didn't attack Connecticut. They didn't attack Hawaii. They attacked Eastern Europe. You, Charles, have written a book

about the rise of isolationism in the U.S. that has a really balanced take on how isolationism is in some ways deeply American and moral. And on the other hand, sometimes it can go too far. How do you balance a ethical consideration of isolationism, an ethical consideration of the idea that Americans need to care about Americans first and foremost with the possible need to remilitarize central or eastern Europe in response to Russia. attack in Ukraine. Well, you know, it's interesting that in the Republican Party, there is a strong neo-isolationist wing, and you have significant voices out there, including former President Trump, who are singing Putin's praises and who are saying, you know, this is not our fight, good night and good

look. Now, it is the case that the United States government has decided that Ukraine is not a vital national security interests of the United States, and as a consequence, we are not sending combat troops. NATO is not going to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. In my mind, that is a correct judgment. But second order, pressing national security interests are at stake. If he goes into Ukraine, he could go further. We don't know how far into Ukraine Putin is going to go. He may go to Kiev and stop, in which case Western Ukraine emerges as kind of a rump Ukraine, the capital of free Ukraine, you might call it. There's a city there called Leviv, and maybe that will be the capital of free UK. Who knows? But if he goes further, then I think you will see an outflow.

If the first side effect of war in Ukraine is the remilitarization of Eastern Europe, what you've just heard from Kupchen is actually the second major side effect, the outflow of migrants from Ukraine to the rest of the continent. In fact, If you turn on your TV in the last day or so, you may have seen car lines stretching for miles and miles of families trying to get out of Kiev in other cities. Leana Fix is a resident fellow with the German Marshall Fund studying international relations, and she told me we may be in the early stages of a full-blown migrant crisis in Europe. We already do see many refugees coming from Ukraine. Moldova has already welcomed 4,000 refugees. It's a neighboring country, and we will see refugees all.

also heading towards Poland and other member states of the European Union. And this will be a task for Europeans now to really stand in solidarity with Ukraine, to welcome those refugees, and further down the road, not to give in into populists who might see and try to portray this as a new migration crisis for Europe. Here's what Leanna Fix is talking about. Do you remember back in 2015, 2016, when a bunch of anti-immigration, far-right populist group started winning a bunch of elections in Europe.

Well, one of the things that triggered the rise of far-right populism in Europe were migrants that came from Syria and the Middle East that crossed the Mediterranean and moved in through southern Europe. And what Leone Fix is saying here is, well, what if another migration crisis

could inflame right-wing populism all over again? So that's ricochet effects number two. And honestly, It's not the only knock-on effect of war in Ukraine that could throw Europe into chaos. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, about 19% of all of the energy that Europeans consumed came from exports from Russia, either oil or natural gas or coal. It's an extraordinarily high percentage.

And then for some of those categories, the share is even higher. So like half of all of Europe's imports of coal come from Russia. That's Matthew Klein. He's the author of the Substact newsletter, The Overshoot, and an Economic Columnist. He told me that if Western countries respond to Russia's invasion by imposing sanctions, Russia's obvious countermove might be to cut off Europe from its energy supplies to literally freeze out the continent during February and March. So basically, since the 1980s, back then it was the Soviet Union,

constructed pipelines that would take natural gas from Russia, far afield as Siberia or have you, and pipe it all the way into Western Europe. And this was very convenient for Europeans because the only alternative sources of gas, they might get, they have to get it from North Africa or the Middle East, a much further field. They later developed some access to the North Sea and Norway, but Russia has still been the main source. All of that gas is controlled by Gasprom, which is a state-owned gas company in Russia that is in charge of developing and then transporting the gas. Now, in theory, this is actually a really valuable asset for Russia because it's a big source of hard currency.

It's how Russians pay for imports of all sorts of things they can't otherwise get manufactured goods and so forth. But it also is a source of vulnerability because Europeans really need the gas. It's a really important source of electric power generation of home heating. And they don't really have any easy substitutes because a lot of gas travels by pipeline. The only other way you can get gas if it's not through a pipeline is if you basically condense it into liquid, make it very, very cold, put it on a specialized cargo ship and then transport it across an ocean, which they do do that somewhat, but it's extremely expensive. And, you know, in practice, you'd have to get it from some places, you know, is that Qatar might be one, the U.S. might be another place, but it's not nearly as easy and reliable and low cost is getting it through a pipeline. So if Russia were to cut off the access to pipelines or restrain the flow in some way, that would be an impact. In fact, they actually can go to Gas Prom's website and they have data on their daily deliveries of gas.

You can see, actually, it's been going down a bit in the past couple months. And whether that is due to some sort of deliberate squeeze or something else, I don't know. But that has been happening. And that certainly could be putting pressure and could be a source of concern for European consumers. Is it conceivable that Russia inflicts enough havoc on global? global energy markets, that it creates a problem for American consumers? Yes. I think it would be sort of indirect.

So if Europeans really get hit hard by not having access to energy, that's going to have all sorts of negative ramifications for the European economy as a whole. Europe is one of the largest economic blocks in the world. It's a major trading partner in the United States. So the extent that they are harmed, that would have all sorts of negative consequences for the United States. You could draw a very rough analogy to what happened with the Euro crisis 10 years ago, where weakness in Europe did, you know, redound to the U.S.

and have all sorts of negative implications and disappointments for people in the U.S. that weren't expecting that. So that's a cost. If Russia cuts off or dramatically restricts energy supplies to Europe, it will be a terrible and extremely painful year for the whole continent. I don't want to downplay that. But without trivializing the pain or horror of war, and it is painful, and horrible, Matt can also see a faint silver lining to this moment. If countries take this opportunity

to build the green energy infrastructure they should have built years ago. So if Russia were very aggressive in cutting off access to gas, I think the best analogy would be what happened in 1973 with OPEC cutting oil production. At the time, that was extremely disruptive and painful for all the consuming countries. But the longer-term impact was that we were able to adapt. Because if you're a diversified, technologically-sophisticated society, you can figure out a way around it eventually. There are alternatives. And so one of the things that happened after 1973 was that cars became much, the fuel economy went way up across the board. And from, in fact, not going up at all to going up pretty dramatically, essentially every year after that. You have innovations in insulation

and home heating to be more efficient. You have the development of new sources of energy. So, such as the deployment of nuclear power, particularly in France. That was a major response that they had. You have the development of new oil and gas fields elsewhere to diversify. So Alaska, Norway, the Gulf of Mexico, actually the Soviet Union was one of the places. So all of these things, the supply response, the demand response, you know, the longer term impact is that this was self-defeating when OPEC did it, that they ended up losing their ability to have that kind of influence on geopolitics. And in fact, in the 1980s, they were sort of a lost decade for OPEC in terms of their economy. So you could imagine something like that happening here if Russia were to

be too aggressive. I think that's probably one of the reasons why they haven't done that yet. This could be the third ricochet effect of war in Ukraine. Terrible short-term pain for Europe as energy prices skyrocket followed by long-term gain as the continent finally builds out the solar, wind, and nuclear power that make these countries energy independent from Russia. So let's review the ricochet effects we have so far. Number one, the remilitarization of Europe. Number two, a migration crisis in Europe. Number three, an energy crisis in Europe that could even touch the U.S. economy.

The fourth ricochet effect also involves trade, not trade of natural gas, but of wheat. With some of the most fertile land on earth, Ukraine has been known as Europe's breadbasket for centuries. It's the top exporter of corn, barley, rye, but it's the top exporter of corn, barley, rye, but it's the most, the country's wheat that has the biggest impact on food security around the world. Ukraine and Russia are major exporters of wheat to some of the poorest countries in the world. That's Alex Smith. He's a food and agriculture analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, a think tank based in the Bay Area. They export wheat to countries in the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, countries like Lebanon, which imports 50% of the wheat

from total wheat supply from Ukraine, countries like Congo and Oman, which import over 60% of their total wheat supply from Russia. Egypt, for example, is a major wheat is where they get a majority of their wheat from the combination of Russia and Ukraine. So overall, there's a real potential impact for food security and hunger on these very core, very already food insecure places if we see, you know, major disruptions of Ukrainian and or Russian wheat. So Russia, Ukraine, they're critical sources of wheat for many of the world's poorest countries. It's also the case that hundreds of thousands of Russian troops are currently deployed near the parts of Ukraine that are the most central to wheat production. Is that right?

Yes, yeah. I think about 40% of Ukrainian wheat production is in the regions between Kyiv and the Donetsk and Lujansk, the Sephardist regions where Russian troops are currently massed. And sort of in general, Ukraine wheat is surrounding is Kiev. And I think the potential for if there was an actual conflict, an actual invasion, this is the territory that would be the most under threat. So you could see, you know, agricultural laborers pushed off land, farmers pushed off land, actual destruction of crops, actual destruction of these farms, so a real potential for disruption. Famine and hunger are tragedy enough, but historically, famines are also sources of political instability. Think back to Arab Spring, the revolutions that you saw across the Middle East, Tunisia, Egypt,

those uprisings were sparked in part by rising food prices. It was food inflation that was the spark that lit the fuse. So this is why a key ricochet effect, key fourth, ricochet effect, is global famines that could become global political protests. The final ricochet involves China. China is more or less refrained from criticizing Russia and has largely taken Russia's position. That's Bonnie Lynn.

Like Charles Kupchin, Lynn said we could be on the verge of Cold War 2.0 with the creation of two distinct blocks, an anti-Russia coalition led by America and Europe and our closest allies, and another block led by China and Russia. I think what we'll see is significant rebalancing and shifting of the geopolitical landscape. We'll probably see two loose blocks,

one with the United States, EU-NATO on one side, and potentially China and Russia on the other side. We'll see a number of countries in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, more with one side or the other. So, for example, we'll probably see Japan and Australia much more aligned with the United States and EU. Well, interestingly, Pakistan might be leaning more towards Russia. We are currently seeing that Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is currently in Moscow right about Timit Putin. So there's a lot of interesting dynamics that will play out in the next couple of weeks and months as countries grapple with what's happening in Ukraine.

Finally, I asked Lynn about one of the most significant second-order effects that some people are predicting. That is, the idea that a successful invasion of Ukraine could inspire China to invade Taiwan. As a Thursday afternoon, the most read article on the Atlantic's website ran under the headline, quote, is Taiwan next? End quote. The article said, quoting again, Russia's invasion. of Ukraine makes the frightening possibility of China seizing control of the island more real. Just as Putin can't tolerate Ukrainian sovereignty, the Chinese Communist Party will never accept the separateness of Taiwan, which Beijing considers a core part of China occupied by an illegitimate

and democratic government. So I asked Lynn for her reaction. So let me say the parts that I agree with first, which is that I agree that China will not tolerate a separate Taiwan indefinitely, and Taiwan is a core and one of China's top interests, particularly unification with Taiwan. What I don't agree with is necessarily that Taiwan is next, because Beijing does not base its calculations on Taiwan, including when it wants to use force on Taiwan on what Russia is doing in Ukraine. For what we've seen so far, Xi Jinping believes that time is still on China's side with

respect to unification with Taiwan. He has the 20th party Congress coming up this fall, and he probably does not want to engage any risky adventure between now and 20 party Congress. I do think, though, that Beijing is looking at what's happening in Ukraine for lessons learned. And it's not clear that right now, based on what we're saying, Beijing is taking away a lesson that the West will not defend, you know, Taiwan. If there's one lesson the Beijing should be taking right now is, at least on the financial side, the economic side, the West has a large range of tools that it could leverage in defense of a partner. So when you add both together, it's not clear that Ukraine conflict would make Beijing more likely to invade Taiwan or want to invade Taiwan anytime sooner.

So there you have it. Five key. knock-on effects of Russia's war in Ukraine. Number one, troops in Europe. Number two, a Ukrainian exodus. Number three, an energy crisis that hits the U.S. economy. Number four, global hunger that sparks global protests. And number five, a new world order emerging in which China is the core of a major block. There are lots of knock-on effects that I haven't mentioned here. If, for example, the U.S. or Europe shut off swift for Russia. That is swift, the world's main international payments network. That will send Russia into an economic deep freeze that I can't even imagine. Russia, in turn, could respond with cyber attacks, the likes of which the U.S. has never seen before.

I will try to cover these in future episodes, but honestly, I hope to God, the latter in particular, never happens. It's important, I think, when forecasting the future to always, always consider the following alternative. What if I'm wrong about all of this? In the last 48 hours, Russia's invasion has accelerated, but so have the costs of Russia's invasion. Its currency has puked. Its markets have tanked. There are anti-war protests in St. Petersburg and Russian celebrities speaking out online. For the moment, every possible signal for Putin seems to be flashing red. And I want to believe that's good news. I want so bad to believe that's so bad to believe that's the That's good news, that maybe Putin wakes up tomorrow and sees the light and realizes this war

is not only cruel, but also crazy. But there is always the possibility that Putin is now untethered from the logic of markets and the logic of popular opinion and the logic of humanity and the logic of everything and that he just doesn't care. I hope to gather he does. Thank you for listening. And have a safe weekend.