Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 5/18/23 Ted Snider on the Dangerous Trajectory of the War in Ukraine

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Ted Snider joins the show to run through some of the latest developments in Ukraine. They discuss the ever-expanding willingness to arm the Ukrainians with weapons that, until recently, were considered too provocative to supply. They also talk about some possible consequences of the drone strike at the Kremlin as well as the U.S. position on Crimea.  Discussed on the show: “How Death Outlives War” (Cost of War Project) “Yemeni Civil War Unleashes a Plague of Locusts” (Antiwar.com) Stephanie Savell is the co-director of the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute. Savell is an anthropologist who studies security, militarized policing, and civic engagement in relation to the United States post-9/11 wars and policing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is the co-author of The Civic Imagination: Making a Difference in American Political Life. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4 you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show aren't you guys on the line again i've got ted schneider he writes for us at the institute and at antiwar dot com and this one is called with upgraded missiles ukraine prepares to strike

Russian heartland despite assurances. And so welcome to the show, Ted. How are you doing? I'm doing well. How you does, Scott? I'm all right, man. I appreciate you joining us here. I'd love to be here. It seems like a year ago, Biden said, nah, look, we're only going to

give him this much help, but not that much help. And then he just keeps moving the line. Tanks and planes and longer and longer range, rockets and artillery and this and that. Now we got the Brits doing their part. So catch us up to date. please, if you could. Yeah, I mean, Scott, I mean, I remember Ukraine official saying a few months ago when they were asking for bigger weapons and the West was saying no. And he actually said,

you know, we've heard this before. Just be patient. The West always says no. And then you wait a bit and we get them. And it happened with the, excuse me, the High Mars, Long Range rocket launching system at Hackman with tanks. It happened with fighter jets. The West keeps saying no and they keep getting it. And there seemed to be this acknowledged red line. Blinken had talked about this red line before where you don't want to give them something with a range far enough that would hit inside Russia or inside Crimea as opposed to hitting Russian-occupied terror in eastern Ukraine

because of the worry that if you strike inside Russia, you promote Russia to escalate. And of course, just like the states, you know, Russia has a nuclear policy that says that if the very existence of the state is threatened. They could hypothetically use a nuclear weapon. So they've been careful not to give them weapons that could provoke that kind of response. And yet, just the other day, earlier, I guess this week or late last week,

the British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace stood up in front of the House of Commons and revealed that long-range storm shadow cruise missiles are, he said, are now going into or are in Ukraine. We know now they're in Ukraine because they've used them. What's different about these is that when the state sent the Haimars, I'm saying that right, long-range missiles into Ukraine, they actually modified them, Scott, so that they couldn't fire as far as they are actually capable.

They capped them at like 50 miles because that let them strike into the Donbass, but not into Crimea or Russia. But the missiles that Britain just sent, it's disputed how far they can go, but they can go at least 155 miles. That's enough to strike inside Crimea. And according to some military analysts I've read, it's enough to strike inside Russia. So Ukraine now has the capacity to strike Russian territory with the cruise missile. And then so this comes on, I guess they would say, the heels of months. of reports of and from all different wide and varied incredible sources of

sabotage and other missions drone strikes I guess especially inside Russia and inside Crimea as well I just read well a tweet this morning that said that there's a railway in Crimea that was I think hit by a drone yeah so so this is the thing you know when when the White House was asked what they thought about First of all, let's get one thing really clear. We keep saying Britain did this, but Britain made it really clear that this was done, quote, with the incredibly supportive of the United States. This is not something that was done. I made it sound like Biden had drawn this line and the UK cross it.

That's not what happened at all. According to the UK, the U.S. was totally aware of this and completely supportive of it. And, you know, when Biden was asked, what about, you know, firing these into Crimea or, you know, into Russian territory. The British replied that they'd received assurances from the Ukrainian government that they'll be used only within sovereign Ukrainian land, not inside Russia. And Biden said in a kind of remarkable statement that it's okay because Zelensky has never compromised on his promise not to strike inside Russian territory.

Well, that's just blindness. because, first of all, as you said, they not only have struck within Russian territory, but there was a whole series of communications intercepts reported on by the Washington Post recently that we can talk about, we should definitely talk about, where it was very clear that Zelensky wanted to strike inside Russian territory. So the missiles arrive in Ukraine, and this happens, as you said, one week after Russia claimed that there was actually a drone strike or an attempted drone strike on the Kremlin, which Russia says was an attempt to assassinate Putin.

We can talk about that more too, but the importance of it in the context of what you're saying, Scott, is how can you say we're okay giving Ukraine long-range missiles because they promised not to do strikes inside Russia? When the drone strike shows that they're prepared to do strikes, not only within Russia, within Moscow, right in the heart of Moscow on that, on the Kremlin in what at least Russia says, maybe or maybe not, was an attempt to assassinate Putin. But we've also seen, as you said, that there have been a pile of other strikes, not just

the one you're referring to today, but there's been, I think it was the, who was it was the Washington Post, the New York Times that referred to a string of drone attacks deep inside Russia. And those include, you know, famously there was the two attacks. on the Angles Air Base back in December of 2022. But on May 10th, there was a drone strike that hit a Russian military ground. On May 4th, there was a drone strike that blew up an oil refinery. I'm not talking, by the way, about things inside Crimea or inside the Donbass.

There's been tons of strikes. The famous strike on the bridge in Crimea, has been tons of strikes in Crimea. I'm talking in the heart of Russia, there's been these strikes on air bases, on oil refineries, training grounds and over the Kremlin. So it's almost, it's almost unbelievable. It's incredible for Biden to say that, that Zelensky's no one shows no signs of breaking his promise not to strike inside Russia when there's been like four, five, six strikes inside Russia. Seymour Hersch commented on this recently by saying that, you know, when Biden said that Zelensky's never broken his word to strike inside Russia, he said it's just like blindness that shows that at least

within the White House that Zelensky can do no wrong. So they've actually now provided Zelensky with the weapons to do the kinds of things he's been talking about. And as I said, there have been these intercepted messages also that showed that Zelensky's considered frequently striking inside Russia. Do you want to talk about that for a second? Let me just tell you what I'm talking about with that? because it's kind of striking if your listeners are aware of it.

Can we do that? Sure. Well, I wanted to, I guess, go ahead and chime in here a couple of things real quick, which is, first of all, if this was just a war between Ukraine and Russia, I guess I wouldn't give a damn if Ukraine was hitting inside Russia. It's not that it's a moral outrage. It's just that my government, my country, are implicated in these strikes inside Russia is the big point here.

You know, obviously the very muddy origins of the war. on both sides and you know the guilt on both sides for the origin of the war play in there as well but that's especially the point here and Scott it's an it's a very important point you raised in fact it just as part of that real quick is a year ago when the war started the secretary defense had his list of rules in the Washington Post and rule number two was keep the war geographically confined inside Ukraine so with strikes on Crimea we're already pushing it Because Crimea is not part of Ukraine. You know, this is, and obviously, you know, different interpretations of that truth can lead to very interpretations of what kind of violence should be perpetrated there by American forces as well, or American backed forces, I should say.

So things have changed like this, this is never the war that was supposed to have been, right? I mean, the war that was supposed to have been, Russia planned a very quick strike. Ukraine, feeling that strike, was very quickly ready to sit down from the table and negotiate a settlement. I mean, what was supposed to happen is Russia was to go in quickly and accomplish what they wanted to accomplish, which was stopping Ukraine from joining NATO and from attacking the Donbass. And very quickly, Ukraine sat down, was ready to sign that. The states and Britain stopped them. And this became this horrific war of attrition where the goalposts keep changing and more and more

weapons keep getting sent. And as Russia said, Russia says all the time, send all the weapons you want. It's not going to change anything. It's just going to make this longer and bloodier and more horrible that it's not going to change anything. And then as you said, Scott, and it's an important point, is that it's one thing that this was a war between Russia and Ukraine, but it's not. And I was speaking to a very eminent military historian and Russian experts the day. You know, he said to me, and I don't want to miss quotes that I have it in front of me, but he said to me, you know, Zelensky's game plan has all. always been to draw NATO into this as much as possible, right?

That's the game plan. And having missiles now that can strike inside Russia, the dangers this draws NATO into it, because if, you know, if you do strike, and keep in mind that the, the Russian government has said repeatedly, we know that Ukraine doesn't make these decisions alone. We know that Ukraine is at least dependent on the U.S. for their targeting information and possibly even dependent on the U.S. we're picking their targets. So if Ukraine fires a storm shadow missile into Russia, then Russia is going to say not only was this a U.K. weapon provided with American approval, possibly American choice of targets and certainly American choice of targeting information or provision of a target information. Then you risk this really dangerous thing that you've now got strikes aside of Russia that could trigger a nuclear response. And Russia is seeing the party who did it as not just being Ukraine, as you said, Scott, but as being NATO.

And then what have you got? Then you've got a potential nuclear war between Russia and NATO, which, by the way, is what Russia was afraid of all along. All along Russia's fear coming into this war was this three-piece. scenario. And that was, what happens if Ukraine attacks Donbass, which they're planning, Ukraine joins NATO, right? So now there's a war between the states and NATO. And Ukraine goes back to reacquiring nuclear weapons or something like that, where he end up with now, and not a conventional war with Ukraine, but a nuclear war with NATO. That was Russia's fear all along. Because Zelensky said like two days before the attack that Ukraine would

consider reacquiring nuclear weapons, right? So Putin's nightmare all along was, what do we have a war with Ukraine, who's a NATO member, so that means a NATO war, and there's a nuclear weapon, then we could have a non-conventional war with NATO, right? And that's the danger exactly right now. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but that's what, that's the fear is that if Ukraine fires a missile into Moscow to trigger some kind of nuclear response, and, and Moscow doesn't see this as a Ukrainian act, but a NATO act, and you have the potential for a NATO war with Ukraine, which is insanity. And why Biden's playing with this stuff and why Britain's playing with

the stuff, it's insanity. Well, and it's not even over Ukraine. It's sort of Donbass, right? It's over who rules the Donbass, which, you know, most Americans, the vast majority, probably better than 90% couldn't find Ukraine on a map, but ask them to find the Donbass on a map. Right. So, but you know, when you and I talk about this, Scott, like it's between, it's about, it's about, It's about the Donbass because this was all about, you know, Ukraine's refusal to implement the Minsk Accords and the Donbass. But in a way, in a way, the states isn't really doing this because they care about the Donbass. I mean, they're really doing this because they were the, after the Cold War, they were the unchallenged leaders of a unpolar world. And then in 2014, when they, when they dare to show that they can.

launch wars not just to defend themselves, but launch wars and conduct coups wherever they want because of their policy, and they go into Ukraine, and they pull off this coup in 2014. And for the very first time, for the very first time in this unipolar world, Putin says, no more. And he takes action. He annexes Crimea. And the states is like, what? And this whole, this whole war is really triggered by America saying to Russia, you can't challenge our unipolar world. So it is about the Donbass, but it's much bigger than the Donbass. The Donbass became the battlefield where Russia was no longer prepared to follow the states and unipolar world.

And the state said, we're not going to let you do that. And so you get a war in Ukraine. Right. Give me just a minute here. At the Libertarian Institute, we published books. Real good ones. So far, we've got Will Griggs Snow Quarter. Sheldon Richmond's coming to Palestine and what social animals owe to each other.

other. And four of mine. Fools Aaron. Enough already. The great Ron Paul. And my brand new one. Hotter than the sun. Time to abolish nuclear weapons. And I'm happy to announce that we've just published our managing editor Keith Knight's first one, the Voluntarius Handbook, an excellent collection of essays by the world's greatest libertarian thinkers and writers, including me. Check them all out at libertarian institute.org slash books. And for a limited time, signed copies of enough already. and hotter than the sun are available at Scott Horton.org slash books. Hey, guys, I had some wasps in my house. So I shot them to death with my trusty bug assault 3.0 model

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your wife will clean it up all right so I don't know if you saw this it was just going around Twitter this morning from a Bulgarian news source although it seemed incredibly written about talks on the stationing of F-35s

in Finland now that they have joined NATO and they want to permanently station F-35s I forgot how many miles they said it was from St. Petersburg there but how many minutes and this is

I understand what they mean when they say sleepwalking to war and I hate that because it makes it sound like it's also accidental but what they really are trying to emphasize with that I think is the stupidity like hey guys you know what we should do next

we should put some F. 35s in there that'll deter them and then they all just agree with each other and they all just keep doing things and yet it's complete idiocy they're all just George W. Bush up and down the line. They have no idea what they're doing or what the consequences could be. And they don't care. And they just think a nuclear war is impossible, so we don't have to worry about that.

Yeah. And I agree with that. I don't like the word sleepwalking because it makes it, it makes it sound like you're just sort of stumbling into something. And this is U.S. policies, right? These are not, this isn't sleepwalking. This is stupid walking, but it's not sleepwalking. And, you know, I didn't see that Twitter. I haven't looked at anything this morning. But, you know, when Finland first talked about a section to NATO and at first they talked about you know not stationing weapons there

and then they seem to go back well maybe they could but this is the point like this is the point that that Russia is sitting there since you know since the end of the Cold War with NATO moving closer and closer and that's not just a political thing

where you draw a color on the map where you know you have a country you color it in blue now or whatever because it's NATO as NATO moves in complete violation by the way not just violation is not to move NATO But after NATO started to move, there were promises not to station permanent troops and stuff on certain, you know, territories.

And as the U.S. breaks, old promises with permanent bases in Poland and missiles in Romania and talk of F-35s in Finland. You know, Russia is sitting there and this stuff is moving closer and closer and closer to their borders. The state says NATO is a defensive force, nonsense, ask Yugoslavia or Libya or Iraq or if it's a defensive force. and defensive force, you know, against whom there is no Cold War, there is no more Warsaw Pact, there is no Soviet Union. These things move closer and closer to Russia's borders. And there's talk about, you know, Georgia and Ukraine. This is not sleepwalking.

And by the way, even if it was sleepwalking, a couple of dozen of the leading U.S. America, not other countries, of the leading American experts have been warning U.S. presidents since 1990. Don't do this. NATO encroachment to Russia. Every Russian president, if you hate Putin, hate Putin. I don't care.

Gorbachev, Yeltsin, they loved Yeltsin, Putin. They have all said stop NATO's encroachment east. When Putin stood up in 2007 or 2008, the Munich Security Conference and said, this is a red line for us. You've got to strut moving NATO like into Georgia and Ukraine. Gorbachev stood up and said, this may be something for you,

but we're not hearing anything new from Putin. I've said that. We've all said that. Like this is... So if they're sleepwalking, Scott, people have been waking them up for 35 years. It's not sleepwalking. It's stupid walking.

Yeah. And look, from the very beginning, you know, in the 1990s, it was obviously Zabinnu Brasinski and Henry Kissinger and a lot of heavyweight supported it. Although Kissinger had his reservations compared to Brzezinski, I guess. But so many people opposed. it, including, and this is the one that always got me, was Paul Nitsa, the guy that wrote

NSC-68, that said that we have to take over the entire planet in the name of not just containment, but rolling back the Soviet Union. Here in the mid-90s, he's saying, yeah, well, we did that. We rolled them back, and now they don't exist anymore, so why would we do this? And, you know, I mean, these are some real hawks. Bob McNamara, who killed all those Vietnamese, was like, man, we should not be. sticking our thumb and the eye of the Russians who overthrew

the commies for us? This is crazy. And of course, George Kennan and, you know, more famously, and so many others though, you know, Susan Eisenhower, the president's granddaughter, put together a foreign letter, a group letter that was signed by like 70 people

including four-star admirals and generals and diplomats, you know, going back to World War II. Scott, this is every American ambassador to Russia. This is, you know, this is, This is also like Gates and Burns and Matlock. Like, you can go down the list, Kenan, you can go down the list of experts. There's been an almost universal choir.

And they knew this when they were talking about it in the 90s. I mean, in the 90s, they were consistently told. You cannot make a defensive pact that brings in all of Europe, excludes Russia, butts it up to its border, and then say, don't worry about it. Well, don't worry about it. If don't worry about it, why won't you let us in and why are you budding up to a border? They'd been told constantly, and they'd also been told, Scott, not only that NATO encroachment east was, you know, was a provocation. They'd been specifically told that Ukraine in particular, there's reams of documentation of these guys telling U.S. presidents, you know, whatever you do, Ukraine in particular is a red line.

So there's no sleepwalking here. There's provocation, provocation, provocation, right? And now sending in these long-range missiles is a further provocation. I don't know what happened in that drone in Kremlin. We know it's real. The New York Times Reuters, they've all verified the video. Who exactly did it? We don't know.

We know that the Russians are saying that Ukraine did it. And we know that for the Russians, this is changing their language. This is a game changer, an attempt on the life of the president, And we can talk about that if you want to, but this is a game changer. Well, without knowing for sure, I mean, I think it's obvious that, or I guess the obvious interpretation would be that the Ukrainians did it, but that it wasn't a legitimate assassination attempt against Putin. It was a symbolic strike for public relations reasons. Yeah, some people have set the roof on fire, yeah. So Ukraine says they didn't do it.

Some people think Ukraine did it, say it was symbolic. Some people think Ukraine did it say it was players that Zelensky didn't have control. of. And some people say it was Ukraine deliberately doing it. Um, you know, but, but, it certainly wasn't a serious attempt on the life of the Russian president, though. So, so Russia says it was and, and, I mean, that's what their state, their statement said, their press statements said, we consider assassination. And to me, Scott, by the way, what's scary about that is, is, is, and this is not talked about much. Um, in fact, it's really not talked about at all. When, when Israeli prime minister enough Tali Bennett was trying to negotiate between Russia and Ukraine. There's been some,

almost no mainstream media coverage, some coverage of Bennett saying we were on our way to an agreement and the U.S. blocked it because they didn't want peace. That got some coverage. What didn't get so much coverage is that at the time, according to Bennett, okay, I don't know, according to Bennett, Zolensky was terrified that the Russians were going to kill him right from the start. He made that famous statement, you know, I'm not afraid I'm not leaving Ukraine. But he did not make that statement until Neftali Bennett said to Putin, can I get an assurance from you that you won't assassinate Zelensky? And Putin said, I won't kill Zelensky, I promise. Then according to Bennett, he calls Zelensky and says, I got a promise from Putin that you won't get assassinated.

And within five minutes, Zelensky goes public and says, I'm not afraid of getting killed because he's been promised he wouldn't be, right? But here's the thing. Here's the thing. Russia promised they wouldn't kill Zelensky. That promises off the table, okay? Because now they think Zelensky's tried to kill him. And so now you get people like Kremlin, Dmitri Peskov, saying very cautiously, we'll take a wide variety of constraints of what we might do. The U.S. ambassador, sorry, the Russian ambassador of the states, Anatoly Antonov, says,

you know, we're going to think very hard about how we respond to the assassination attempt. to do something very, very measured. But then he said, and I am quoting now, how would Americans react to a drone hit the White House, the capital of the Pentagon? The answer is obvious for any politician or your average citizen, the punishably harsh and inevitable. What's that punishment? I don't know, but here's former Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, saying after today's terrorist attack, there are no options left except the physical elimination of Zelensky and his clique. And then the speaker of the Russian parliament, who's close to Putin, says any attack on the president's attack on Russia, there can no longer be any negotiations, will demand the use of weapons that are capable of stopping, destroying the Kiev terrorist regime. So if Russia's serious, the promise to kill Zelensky's off the table.

Interestingly, Scott, I do not want to make a connection here, but it's probably totally coincidental. The next day Zelensky left the country for an extended tour of Europe, it's almost like they said we killed Zelensky and Zelensky left. I don't think there's a connection there, but it's an it's an odd connection. But then the other thing, you know, that we've talked about too is these strikes inside Russia and Biden and UK saying we're fine with Zelensky's assurance you won't strike inside Russia, despite the drone, because he's always kept his word that he doesn't want

to strike inside Russia. And then just really quickly, you know, we get these these reports. from U.S. intelligence that come out in the Washington Post, where Zelensky says to his leading general, and I'm quoting, he complains that we do not have the long-range missiles capable of reaching Russian troops deployment in Russia, and later on an intercepted digital communication with Zelensky suggesting that the Ukraine, quote, conduct strikes in Russia. As recently as as February, just a couple of months ago, Zelensky saying to Zoluzni, I'm probably saying his name wrong, his top general, that quote Ukraine attack, that Ukraine should attack unspecified deployment locations

in Rostov and Western Russia. So Biden says that Zolensky has never gone back in this word not to attack inside Russia. We have documented records that Zelensky has encouraged attacks inside Russia. And now we've got missiles that can attack inside, at least Crimea or Russia. And as you said, Scott, earlier and importantly, the West can say all its wants. And America says all the time, Ukraine makes these decisions, Ukraine, and Crimea is Ukraine. It doesn't matter what the state says. From the Russian perspective, Crimea is not Ukraine, Crimea is Russia. And as the realist foreign policy guys will tell you in these cases, all that matters is what Russian thinks. If you use a missile and attack Crimea and Russia thinks Crimea is

Russia, then Russia thinks you just attacked Russia. Now Russia has to decide whether that, you know, merits a nuclear response or not. It doesn't have to merit a nuclear response, right? Russia has just piles of forces they haven't used in this war yet. It can create an escalated response. Well, you know, Ted, I get a lot of mixed signals about Crimea and what America's policy is or what America thinks Ukraine's policy should be toward Crimea. What's the latest on that, do you think? Well, I think the mixed signals are the policy. The mixed signals are the U.S. policy because what the U.S. wants to do now, I think the U.S. legally does consider Crimea to be part of Ukraine. They never admitted that Crimea was part of Russia.

It's important to remember, though, that Crimeans, by a very large majority, consider themselves to be Russians and want to be part of Russia. And I know you've seen the mainstream press that this has never been, you know, showing in a reference. It's not true. Referendum after referendum, you know, think a parliamentary act after parliamentary act shows that Crimea wants part of Russia. So what the U.S. policy is exactly what you said. It is mixed signals. They want to say on the one hand, Blinken says Crimea is a red line that would provoke Putin. But, you know, Victoria Nuland says that Crimea should be demilitarized and Washington supports Ukraine attacks on military target of Crimea. So we have two different people saying two different things. Why? Because in their fantasies, the U.S. would like to see Russia push out of Crimea, but all of their generals and intelligence tell them that can't happen. You can pour whatever weapons you want into Ukraine.

They don't have the military capacity to take Crimea, first of all. And second of all, what would happen if they did? It would just trigger a nuclear response from Russia. So they can't take Crimea. So what do they want to do? It's an insane policy, Scott. They want to have this Ukrainian counter-offensive, if it ever happens, might happen soon. They want this Ukrainian counter-offensive to not take Crimea because they can't, but

they want to scare Crimea. They want to advance enough that Putin says, oh, no, they could take Crimea, but not enough that they actually trigger a response by taking Crimea, and then hope that it now terrified Putin is prepared to sit down and negotiate because losing the Donbass is one thing, but losing Crimea is another. So they want to have this like really finely calibrated attack Crimea to X, but never to X plus one. And so they want this confusion. They want, they want to be saying we can take Crimea, we're going to take Crimea, while they're also in their military planning saying we're not going to take Crimea. Was that clear? Did I make it even more confusing?

Yeah, no, I hear you. It just sounds completely nonsensical. Not because you said it wrong, but just because they think that they're about to put Putin in a position of severe weakness, and he's going to come to the table like the Taliban in July of 2011, and Petraeus's promises to come and beg for peace on America and Ukraine's terms, huh? It's not going to happen. I mean, it's stupid for three reasons. One is they can't take Crimea. Two, they're not going to scare, if they got close to taking Crimea, the response would be catastrophic. So first of all, it can't happen. Second of all, it's a very dangerous policy. And the third thing is, and again, I don't want to misquote him because I don't have it in front of me,

but several months ago talking to Anatoa Levin about this, and he said to me that that's a very fine calibration. You're asking a very mixed-up Ukrainian army to do it. Very fine calibration. Take all these different tanks and vehicles and soldiers and planes take all of them and calibrate it so finely that you can attack this far but don't cross the line. That's a very big ask. And what happens if you do cross the line? I mean, it's a very dangerous. And again, I hope I'm not misquoting Anatole even, but it's true. You know,

it's like you have to remember, I'm not a military analyst. I'm a pacifist. I know nothing about military. But the people I read say that to do, first of all, an offensive is more difficult than a defense of Russia's defending Crimea. They've got trenches so wide that you can't drive a tank across it. And then a mile later, they've got another one. And then they've got jagged tooth walls. And then they've got tens of thousands of, they're hugely entrenched. It's very, very, very difficult, right?

But then you've got to coordinate. You can't just send your tanks and send your planes and your people like you do playing the game of risk, right? They've all got to be intricately connected and coordinated. plus Ukraine is doing this with a hodgepodge of equipment. They're not equipment that was designed to function together. They've got Polish planes and British tanks. And so you're asking them to coordinate. And then you're saying not only do you want you to coordinate that,

but I want you to coordinate that so fine that you can attack and push Crimea, but don't push quite too far. That's a big request. And as you said, it won't work. And if it did work, it could trigger a mass. of Russian escalation. So you get this really mixed up U.S. policy where they're saying we want to make it look like we can take Crimea. We're going to say we support taking Crimea. We know we can't really take Crimea. So push it just far enough to scare Putin to make him

negotiate. It's a pipe dream, but that's the policy. All right, you guys. That's Ted Snyder. Thank you very much, Ted, for your insight, as always. Appreciate it. Thanks, Scott. You guys can find Ted at antiwar.com and at Libertarian Institute. The Scott Horton show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, ScottHorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.