The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Entering The Third Year of a War That Threatens The World

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

This weekend marks the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Now experts worry whether this prolonged conflict could threaten the future of world peace. Today a special edition of the Bridge that brings together two of our favourite foreign affairs experts. Veteran correspondent and author Brian Stewart and internationally respected analyst Janice Stein. Their thoughts on where we are entering the third year of a major European based war.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. This Saturday marks two years since Russia invaded Ukraine. Where are we on this conflict? A special program today, Brian Stewart and Janice Stein. Join us. That's coming right up. And hello there. Over the past months, a number of you have written in and said, why can't you get both Brian Stewart and Janice Stein on the same program? Well, as some of you know, Brian's been off writing his memoirs. Janice has been fantastic with us for the last year after Brian spent the first year of the Russia-Ukraine story with us. Well, we convinced them to do just

that. And today we're going to hear from both Brian and Janice as we approach the second anniversary, heading into the third year of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Welcome to Tuesday. Welcome. I hope you had a good weekend. It was a long weekend for the country, called different things in different parts of the country. But it was a long weekend. I hope you had an opportunity to take a breather, think about things, and get ready for a new week. Well, we are ready for this new week with the Brian Janus combination. Just a couple of housekeeping notes, first of all. Because it's a shortened week, I'm going to save our special kind of your turn in terms of, you know, one thing about something. We're going to save that for next week. And this week, it's kind of a free-for-all,

a potpourri of your thoughts. I'd like to keep one idea, though, from our new format relevant for this week. Please write in with, it's kind of what's on your mind, right? What's on your mind this week? It could be about domestic politics. It could be about international affairs. It certainly might be after you listen to this program coming up. But I want your kind of, what's on your mind? One thought that's on your mind. What's worked well on this new approach is keeping it short, keeping it to one focus, remembering your name and your location. Please don't forget it. And write to the Mansbridge

podcast at gmail.com, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. And you've got until tomorrow evening at 6 p.m. Eastern time to write that thought down. So one thing that's on your mind, could be anything, could be anything about any kind of a topic. What is it? Focus, short, name, location, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com, 6 p.m. tomorrow. Okay, that's enough of that. As I said at the top of the hour, this Saturday marks the second anniversary of the invasion by Russia of Ukraine. Now, I know they started making moves on Ukraine in 2014 when they went into Crimea. but this second anniversary is kind of recognized around the world as the moment that Russia laid its cards on the table. They want all of Ukraine. So they went in, and here we are two years later,

about to enter the third year of this war, the first time there's been a war of this kind in Europe since the Second World War, and it's been a war of this kind in Europe since the Second World War, and it's been devastating. You've seen the statistics. It's been awful. So where are we? What's happening?

Brian Stewart guided us through the first year. Janice Stein has been with us for the second year, and they're a powerful combination. Many of you asked, as I said, to get them together for a show. And so we've done that, in a way, for today. We're splitting it up. The duty is up. Brian's going to look at the military situation.

Janice is going to look at the, I would just say the international, the diplomatic situation in terms of this conflict. So let's get things started. First up will be my friend, my old colleague, foreign correspondent, war correspondent, author, Brian Stewart. So here we go. Here comes Brian. Well, Brian, it's good of you to join us. We've all missed you in the last year or so. You guided us through the first year of this Ukraine-Russia war. Now you're off writing your book, which hopefully will come out next year, 2025.

So we're looking forward to that. But let's get back into this because I know that you can't stay away from this story. I'm sure you've been peeking at it every day. So where would you, on the military side of things, where would you put the situation as of now? Well, it's a difficult one to peg exactly because we're not in a stalemate, which a lot of people are calling this a stalemate, because a lot is still changing every day. And the odds are shifting back and forth.

But definitely, this appears to be the way the Western support for Ukraine is basically looking weak in some areas. But that's a mixed picture. It believes it has out-armed, wore arms in Ukraine. It had out-manned Ukraine. And across basically an 800-long front, if you can imagine that, it has outstretched the Ukrainians. So it thinks it's winning. But Russia has been overconfident before, especially in the early days of the war. Remember when they were supposed to wrap it up with the use of minor brigades, battalions, and riot comps, and the rest of it would wrap it up in about a week. And here we are starting now our third year of the war. So it has been overconfident.

And we have to remember one thing, because media certainly, and also politicians and others, have this tendency in wars to lead from one conclusion to another very rapidly. They go from over-optimism, oh my goodness, Ukraine's going to defeat Russia probably in a matter of weeks. This is going to be a magnificent offensive. And then when the offensive doesn't work out, which it did not, it swings very rapidly to the other side, which is dire predictions of possible Ukraine's going

to lose the war and things are going, all is wrong all across the spectrum. But remember this, that if you look at just the facts, half of all, Russia has also lost heavily in this war. And Ukraine has won some big victories in this war. Half of all that Russia captured in the opening to this war, it has lost. In other words, Ukraine has won back half of all that it had lost. You know, in those campaigns in Kherson in the north and in the south as well. Kharkiv area, rather, in the north and Kherson in the south.

Those were big wins for Ukraine, and they still hold those territories. The big victory, of course, has been in the least one expected of all, which is the maritime one. The Ukraine has virtually driven the Russian Navy out of the Black Sea area. It has something like 80 fighting vessels at the beginning of this war against a nation with frankly none. And yet here it is, Russian troops have been, Russian ships rather, have been incredibly badly battered. They've had something like 39 hit altogether, 22 of them lost. So there have been big victories that Ukraine has scored.

But the reality is, this is a tired Ukraine. Troops are outmanned. They do need major reform. And above all, they have to dig in. They have to dig in as successfully as the Russians dug in, very, very successfully, last year to hold off the Ukrainians. Now the Ukrainians are digging in radically to hold the Russians off across that vast front. And also, they need massive rearmament and help from the west and that's got to be question mark to it so there there we stand right now i mean it's it's right sort of at a razor's

edge this could go very very badly or it could stabilize and then turn positive again all right let's uh let's break this down into a couple of areas first of all i you know the the maritime story that you tell, it really is quite remarkable. It's got to be the first time in history where the naval battle between two sides, the side that's winning doesn't even have a warship. It's been drones or what have you that have been their big weapon against the Russian Navy. Okay, let's deal with the land war, which is often the focus of these things, and certainly was for the first year of this war. There does seem to be a feeling right now that the Russians are at least advancing, maybe only slightly, but they're advancing.

And just over the last couple of days, they took a city that the Ukrainians were holding on to. So on that front, on the land war, it would seem that the Russians have, at the moment, at least a temporary advantage. Yes, they seem to have. I mean, that was at Divka, the town, the city that they took formerly 30,000, 40,000 inhabitants. This is smoking ruin now. But I mean, they've spent months trying to get that with horrific

casualties. And most of their advances have been quite minor gains in the same way that the Ukrainian advances were quite minor gains. But the same way the Ukrainian advances were quite minor gains. But the Russians have been losing at times up to 1,000 troops a day killed. And withstanding kind of casualties, few really thought they could go on doing. But in fact, they are doing, because they managed to get more recruits coming in, and they reformed a lot of their forces. So they now man the Ukrainians about 470,000 against 360,000, something roughly like that, though all these numbers are often secret and suspect. In any case, the Russians have been slowly grinding forwards, but not in big leaps and bounds.

So that's because attacking in this war, as we said quite early on in our talks, increasingly difficult. You can't really advance without being seen to advance by satellite intelligence, all the other open source intelligence. You're constantly being watched. And the defensive weapons in terms of knocking out armor are so highly skilled in advance that the Russians are paying a huge price for the ground gains they're making. However, they do know that they too, this is a war of attrition,

and the attrition has been on both sides. The Russians have lost horrific numbers. It's expected by the end of this year, they will have lost half a million killed and wounded and put out of action. Ukrainians have been taking terrible losses and they're weary. I mean, the problem with the Ukrainian army right now is it's very close to exhaustion. And who can doubt that? Many of the soldiers in those front lines have been basically in those front lines for the last two years. And many of them are serving in the sort of front lines in those Eastern battles Ukraine used to have with Russia before that. So they're tired, they're not being replaced enough for some R&R, and Ukraine desperately needs to increase the size of its basic land army well beyond where it's going right now.

It has to start mobilizing very large numbers, which is something Zelensky has been reluctant to do, but now is the little option to do. And above all, as well as that, they have to bring in more technical weaponry that they can increase their air defense, because Russia is also now making gains in air attack that is quite formidable. So there's a lot on the Ukrainian side that's weary, but I wouldn't say they're on the ropes. I think they have a tremendous fighting spirit. Morel has been hit, but it is not sagging terribly. In the same way that we all thought Russian Morel was basically at the bottom. Remember the Wagner Army Rebellion and the rest of it that were thought to be days when all the Russian units would basically be considered en masse. That didn't happen.

Well, the Ukrainian soldiers that are dug in keep beating off one Russian attack after the other. So it looks like this is going to be, if Ukraine gets the necessary aid from the West that it must have, it looks like this is going to be a war of slugging it out. The Ukrainians still have a hope, though, by 2025, they will have enough weaponry to have recovered and again go on the offensive. That's basically where it is. Dark days, but not dead days yet. Okay. You mentioned a moment ago the technology of war and the changing nature of the technology of war that we've witnessed over these last couple of years. How are the sides faring on that? Well, again, there are some surprises.

Russia is actually doing much better than expected in the whole electronic warfare front. Now, it shouldn't have been a surprise. We're surprised by our surprise, because that's something the Russian military has been really putting a lot of emphasis into over the last decade and a half, much more so than NATO did. And it's been able now to start, I'm not sure what the actual turn is, but interfering with the communications to things like missiles and drones and throwing them off course, causing them to crash, causing them to go completely useless. And they're doing this at quite an enormous pace. Ukrainians estimate they're losing 2,000 of their drones a week to electronic warfare countermeasures by the Russians.

And so far, Ukraine's having a very severe difficulty dealing with that. The West is trying to rush in solutions and some new weapons are coming along that can't be interfered with that are starting

to arrive but that's a very serious gain for the russians and the west is taking this very seriously indeed with a good deal of some technical alarm because it's clear it's fallen a pace behind the russians in that form of warfare that is of course a very very important form of warfare. That is, of course, a very, very important form of warfare in this age. You know, when this started, as you mentioned earlier, none of us really envisaged that this was going to be a long war. In fact, there was that sort of sense it would be over in days or weeks at the most. Obviously, it hasn't turned out that way. But what are the experts that you're following thinking now in terms of

what they see ahead? It's very much changed. And I would say most of them are saying it's surprised them too. But really, what they're now talking about is the long war, that this Your 2024 will be one of a major action, but no victory by either side. 2025 will be war still, possibly Ukraine beginning to come back on the offensive more. But there's even now talk of a war going into 2026, which is kind of alarming. Of course, all of this is barring some kind of diplomatic settlement or the collapse of one side or the other. Both are possible but not seem to be very, very possible by the military analysts at the moment. I can't wait to hear you talk to Janice on this very subject,

what she makes of it. Right. Not surprisingly, she sees a lot of the focus on what ends up happening in Washington in terms of how this could play out if it stretches into a much longer war. What about, you know, the constant sort of kind of drumbeat we hear from Ukraine is that they need help in terms of more weapons. You saw the Danes over the weekend saying, we're going to give all our artillery, all of it, to the Ukrainians. We're not just going to give them a little bit.

We're going to give them everything we have because they need it and we don't. Including the F-16s. Exactly. Now, what about Canada? You follow these things in terms of our weaponry and what we've given. It's one thing to be giving money and we've clearly done some of that. We've given some tanks, a couple I think, and we've given done some of that we've given some tanks a couple i think um and we've given lots of artillery shells have we got more to give well we certainly also give a lot of train but we're we're not stars of the giving uh this day we're not at the bottom and either we have

basically donated about nine billion a little over billion, which puts us sort of in a mediocre range. There's much more everybody could give. There's very much more that Europe could give at talks of 100 billion euros a year. These are still very small portions of their GDP or even of their own defense spending. There's much more that all the Western countries could do if they decide to do it, you know, without really hampering their own military abilities. And so I think in Canada, the question, as it does in other countries, will come down to public attitudes. And I'm not sure the Canadian public is holding as firm as one would have expected a year ago. I think some of the polls coming out are showing that,

you know, close to 50% of Canadians think we don't need to give any more or shouldn't give any more. So there's been a softening of the Canadian public attitude out there. And I think, of course, politicians will be listening to that very closely. But in Europe, there's a real fear that we have the rampant bear again at our doorstep. What if Ukraine falls? What does it mean for Europe? What does it mean for the end of peaceful times, as one minister has already called at this latest Munich security conference. There's a real dire sense there that we simply can't let Ukraine fall. And if we can't let Ukraine fall, we've got to stop messing around with half measures and quarter measures. And even the Americans could give far more than they're actually giving now, without it being a significant part of their defense overall budgets.

Okay. Before we infringe too much into Janice's territory, let me bring you back to the military side with the final question here. And that deals with military leadership. It's interesting, in the two years of this war so far, we've witnessed leadership crisis on the military side on both fronts. On the Russian front, remember the whole Prokosin thing, and now on the Ukrainian front with Zelensky moving on Zalushny.

What is your sense of the quality of the military leadership that is, you know, at the top of the pyramid, so to speak, on both sides? I think it's very high on the Ukrainian side, and there are some very good Russian leaders on the slightly below the top, but sort of the very important middle ranks. But these most, almost all of the Ukrainian and Russian really were brought up as students

of the same Soviet era military. And if there's one criticism that's made of both sides, often is that they're still stuck a lot of, their heads are stuck back in 1980, kind of warfare in the Soviet style of this and that. And this is, you know, inevitable of any long running system. But we should remind ourselves too, I think that, you know, in World War II, I mean, how many changes of command did the British go through, say, in North Africa before they got to Montgomery and others? How many generals did the Americans go through? A lot. So, I mean, this happens. And I think there's also a period where you have to be careful of just the weariness. I think the

Russians, the Ukrainians are very, very war bound. And how they can keep this vitality up of thinking of all new breakthroughs and new ways to fight when they're exhausted and working 18 hours a day. It really does surprise me. But yes, you have very good officers on both sides. I think the Russians were very badly officers off the top, but we don't know how much meddling was done by Putin then. And the Ukrainians have made some big mistakes, but we don't know how much meddling was done by Zelensky either, quite a bit apparently. So until the historians can get at the record of how much autonomy did the military have, how much decision making was really theirs?

It's very hard to make a value judgment of just how really good they were. But I think, obviously, the world's military is very impressed by a lot of what the Ukrainians were able to do. That was stellar leadership at dark, dark times. And just a last quick point then. As far as you're concerned, the military leadership on both sides is still behind the political leadership on both sides? Yes. Yes, I think so. I think Zelensky is a very, very strong leader, and I think there's no question Putin gets what he wants,

or else generals tend to follow the windows or end up in very distant assignments in Africa, you name it. But he's not shy in toppling people at the top. All right, we're going to leave it at that. Brian, it's been great to talk to you again. Good luck

with the book and thank you very much. Who knows, we may be talking about this a year from now uh on the third anniversary heading into the fourth year of the war uh but for now uh good grounding on this thanks so much my pleasure thank you brian stewart with us after uh well we haven't heard brian's wonderful voice for voice for about a year, but it's great to have him back for this special show where we're trying to assess where we are after two years of the Ukraine-Russia war

and as we are about to enter, starting this weekend, the third year of this conflict. Okay, Brian is just half of our two-parter today. Janice Stein is coming up with her thoughts on more, I guess, the kind of diplomatic side of what's happening as a result of this conflict. But first, we're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back. Peter Mansbridge here. This is The Bridge. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Today's program is a special edition. We're looking at the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine, and we're looking forward into the next year on two fronts, the military front, where you just heard from Brian Stewart,

and now we're going to look more at the, well, I guess it's safe to say, the diplomatic front as we bring in Janice Stein. Janice, of course, is from the Munk School at the University of Toronto, and she's been fantastic for us in this past year of handling both the Ukraine story and the Middle East story. Today we're focusing on Ukraine, given the anniversary involved. So let's get at part two of this special edition with Janice Stein. You know, it's funny how Munich can play a role in the future of the world. We saw it in 1938, and we're seeing it now in 2024.

This security conference that's taken place the last few days in Munich has set a real somber tone among a lot of the world's leaders about where things are heading. There was a lot of talk, obviously, about the Russia-Ukraine and this anniversary coming up, but it's set against the backdrop of a very somber state of the world. were saying this is the most dispirited group of people they've ever seen at a Munich conference. And that's saying something all focused on a particular issue, which is really what's driving the conversation. Of course, the war between Ukraine and Russia, where are we at in it? But more broadly by, and this is in a sense such a change in the European tone, where is the United States? Is the United States in? You know, I take away from everything that happened at Munich this, there's no de Gaulle there saying, bye-bye the United States.

We want strategic autonomy. There's not even a Macron who has said that over the years. It's, my God, we want the United States in. So what a paradox. When the United States is becoming more unreliable, when they're facing the prospect of a possible Trump presidency, Europe is opening its arms and hugging the United States tight and saying, we want you in. Yeah, it's a puzzling situation because if this wasn't an election year in the United States, it's very unlikely we would be facing this situation. Right, right. And I think it's more than that. If it were anybody else that was almost anybody else that was likely to get the nomination, the Republican nomination, we wouldn't be facing a situation like this. But Trump, having made the comments that he did about NATO

literally two or three days before the Munich conference started, just sharpened the anxiety of Europeans who have this feeling that it's all on the table. The United States' commitment to NATO is on the table. The United States' commitment to Ukraine is on the table. The United States' commitment to Europe is on the table. And so you really are getting almost a hyper-anxious response from Europe right now toward the United States.

What would it mean? I mean, let's just play this out for a second. So let's say Trump gets a nomination. Let's say Trump wins the presidency. Let's say Trump actually keeps a promise that he's making and pulls out of NATO. What would happen to NATO? Yeah, and that's exactly what the Europeans are playing with right now. And Trump doesn't even have to formally withdraw from NATO.

He has to, frankly, just continue to to trash talk it in the way that he did last week. And that would then undermine, it would undermine, first of all, Russia's belief that there was really a commitment to collective defense. Now, since Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden has said over and over and over, if you attack one inch of NATO territory, we are all committed to the defense. This is a collective security organization. We are committed to defend each other. That's what Trump really undermined in that comment that he made. commitment to each other's defense, would France say to everybody else, if Poland were attacked, to go back to old historical memories of 100 years ago,

if Poland were attacked, would we be all in? There's a real worry that the withdrawal of the most powerful member from that commitment undermines the whole structure. And secondly, of course, there's, you know, the unparalleled military capability that the United States has. It outspends, still does, the next, depending on how you count, the next 11 powers in the world. That's just massive. There was, you know, a whisper talk. It's unclear, actually, what Russia means, but it was deliberately, I think, orchestrated putting a nuclear weapon in space. And nobody knows exactly what that means. But there's no European country that frankly, has the both the science and the expertise in autonomous weapons, in nuclear weapons, in rocketry that the United States has. That's not a question of spending.

That is such a yawning gap between the United States and everybody else that nobody else could match it. So it's a sober realization of how big the gap is between Europe and the United States and how big it is between a Russia that is willing, frankly, to throw men at it, that doesn't have the sensitivity to casualties that virtually any European democracy would have. Democracies are more vulnerable to casualties than autocracies. So there's grounds for worry if the American commitment is weakened.

And that's what you were hearing. You were hearing it from Denmark. You were hearing it from Germany. You wouldn't normally hear that kind of conversation. You're hearing it from Denmark. You were hearing it from Germany. You wouldn't normally hear that kind of conversation. You're hearing it from the NATO Secretary General. They can fill the gaps for Ukraine over the next year. That's a manageable project. They can provide artillery rounds, but could they match a determined Russia?

That's a wholly different order challenge. You know, in some ways, Putin must be amazed at the situation he suddenly found himself in. Because it seemed a year ago, it almost seemed like Russia was on the ropes. Right. Putin was on the ropes. Right. That he had everybody against him and that, you know, there was open talk about whether or not, you know, he could survive.

And then, of course, there was the, you know, the attempted coup against him in the summer last year. And now where is he? Now he's got everybody worried about world war three he's got the americans uh looking like they or at least they've got trump and some of the american media looking like they they they see him as the future putin as the future um he's he's so buoyed by power and the ability to wield power that it appears like he had his only opposition leader killed in the last few days.

I mean, the turn of fate for Putin in the last year is astonishing. It really is. It really is, Peter. And think back to the spring of last year is astonishing. It really is. It really is, Peter. And think back to the spring of last year. Prigozhin was marching down the highway in an open mutiny. And I certainly remember everybody saying, well, this shows you how challenged Putin is. It shows you how weak he is. You know, he's not going to be able to reconsolidate power. Well, look where he is now, a year from now. The people who took to the streets to memorials, Navalny in the hundreds, not the thousands, many arrested, no real capacity to dissent inside what is a fairly tough autocracy

willing to arrest almost without limit. Industrial production way up, way up. Producing the rounds of artillery and ammunition that, you know, your current can only dream about. Economy, yeah, it's being inflated by mass spending, but not vulnerable. The ruble, you may remember, drops right after the war. Back up now. So this is, for Putin, I would suspect he's doing far better than he thought.

Now, what does this all depend on? It depends on a mag of Republicans. That's really what this is all being created by, right? The fact they deadlock Congress, the fact that the administration can't get a spending bill through, and the fact that people are so worried about a Trump presidency. Were that not going on,

I think the whole tone would be so different. You know, the irony in these past few days, you've got the NATO countries trying to defend their less than 2% commitment to GDP spending on defense, some of the countries, like Canada. Yeah. And meanwhile, you've got Russia. Now, you'll tell me if I'm wrong here, but I'm sure I read this week that their commitment of the Russian GDP is 5% on military spending. Go up on 6%.

It is 6%. They are spending 6% of their GDP on military spending. Now, that's partly what's inflating their economy, right? Because, you know, when you spend heavily on industrial production, and that's what they're doing, the Russians, you know, that's how FDR got the United States, frankly, out of the Depression in the late 1930s. That's really what finally lifted the U.S. economy. So that's not a long-term strategy for Russia, but it is a very, very effective short-term strategy, which has to redouble Putin's commitment.

You know, I think two other things are striking, Peter, in this whole story. There has been a lot of discussion was Putin sending signals to the West that he's prepared to negotiate a compromise. It's really hard to make that argument when you listen to that long interview he had with Tucker Carlson. So for those Europeans who would like to see that, I don't think there's much evidence. The other thing that really struck me about Europe, it is so overwhelmingly shaped by this one war.

So no Iranians invited to this conference this year. They were simply, they've been there before. They were not there this year, despite the fact that we have a major war going on in the Middle East. We have a Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Munich. A ripple on the sides of the conference. So Europe, which talked about its global role, thinks of itself as a global power, is looking inward, looking fearfully at the United States,

and increasingly focused on its own problems. You mentioned China. What should we assume that the Chinese leadership, President Xi and those around him, what do we assume they think of the current situation in terms of russia well you know they they made a bet xi jinping made a bet on putin withstood enormous american pressure to separate themselves out to condemn the aggression um he did not and he did not because gg he did not because he sees Russia as an ally in attempt to rein in what he calls American hegemony. There's a shared agenda there that they want a multipolar order where countries like China and Russia have a much greater voice and the Americans

no longer see themselves as the single most important power in the world. Well, when you have a United States that is so politically dysfunctional, Congress is so dysfunctional, for Xi Jinping, nothing could be better, frankly. And so Wang Yi, who's a seasoned, much more moderate diplomat, no wolf warriors in sight any longer, goes to Europe and he says, we are a country that plays by the rules. We are committed to the existing institutional order. We just want diversity in that order. He came equipped with comforting, reassuring messages, which normally the Europeans would have celebrated. And they might have said to the United States, you know, go slow because they don't want to be,

especially Germany doesn't want to be forced to choose. But what was so striking to me, Peter, they didn't have the bandwidth because they're so focused on their own backyard and the risks in their own backyard and the fear that if indeed Russia succeeds, and, you know, as Brian said, it is far from over. It is far from over.

But should Russia succeed, what would that mean directly for their security? And that's not only the former East Europeans. This is not the Baltics only, or the Poles, or the Armen Europeans. This is not the Baltics only or the Poles or the Romanians. This is Denmark. This is Denmark where the prime minister announced that they were emptying their artillery stocks. Can you imagine this? They were emptying their artillery stocks and transferring every bit of it to Kiev right now. In other words, they are putting their thumb in a dike right now.

That suggests a lot of alarm. Well, I'll say. All right, well, let me ask you the big question then. Coming up in a couple of days on Saturday, you have the second anniversary. We head into the third year of the Ukraine-Russia war. How different is the world we live in today than it was before the Russians crossed the border? I think it is truly different, Peter.

What that Russian invasion did, first of all, was shatter European assumptions that they were safe in a rules-based international order. You remember our Deputy Prime Minister talking about that rules-based international order, which is a wonderful thing for Europe and Canada as long as we had it. But I think what that invasion did is just shake everybody's confidence that that kind of order was going to continue unchallenged into the future. These last two years have affirmed that. And we are now back in a world of predatory

great powers. And that's why the fear is so intense, because if Russia succeeds, that is different from some war that's thousands of miles away between two small countries. This really says to the Europeans, war can be a successful option. They thought they had left that behind in 1945 and were never, ever going back to it. And then to layer on that, a presidential, would-be presidential nominee, Donald Trump, who says, if you don't pay your dues, I'll tell Vladimir Putin to do whatever the hell he wants to do.

That is almost beyond comprehension for the Europeans. I heard a Republican yesterday on one of the, I guess, two days ago on one of the Sunday morning shows who said, listen, you know, he says one thing to his supporters right now, but he'd do something else if he was in power. And I'm thinking, this guy just said it's okay to lie about your position because you're never going to do it yeah and if you were a european leader right now would you make a bet on donald trump there's no responsible european leader that could afford to do that. So that's the third big one. There's no peace dividend anymore in Europe, right?

We're back to increasing military spending. That's such a change. 18 of the 31 members, Peter, are now at 2%. Before this happened, three, four were, depending on how you count. But now more than half are, and there's tremendous push on those who are not to grow their military spending. This is both an old world that we historians and political scientists know very well, but it's a world that every European wishes they had left behind forever. You even heard the Canadian defense minister, Bill Blurt, saying, you know, the countries have got a pony up to the bar. Did he not look at his own situation before he said

that? Maybe that was as much a signal to the other countries as it was more directly to whether it's Mr. Freeland or Justin Trudeau. I don't know. But it sounded kind of silly for a Canadian to be saying that when we're not there. No, we're not there. And we're a distance away. But, you know, he comes. It's really interesting. Bill Blair is an unusual defense minister.

He's a former chief of police in the country's biggest city. He wants to get a problem solved, he gets it solved. He's got a crime, he's got a crime problem, he knows how to redeploy forces. And I think there are times when he looks at the portfolio he has now, at the beat he has now, and he's frustrated and he's mystified why it's so challenging for us to increase our defense spending. Last question. Are you worried?

Yes. I'm worried because war is back as an option, Peter. And war is back as an option when we're talking about large language models and AIs and autonomous weapons and cyber security and when there's no longer really clear front lines between armies and civilians. If you look at these two wars that are now so disturbing the world, civilians are on the front lines of those. So how can we not be worried? Well, on that discouraging note, we will call this a day and see where we are next Monday

when we get back together again and have a more conventional program in terms of what's happening. You know, Peter, I just do want to say that Brian's caution is important. It's not over. Ukraine is not giving up. Allies are not giving up. And in war, it's never over

until it's over, and it's not over. All right, Yogi, whatever you say. It was great having you and Brian on at the same time. We'll have to do this again. He's already got his nose back in his book, so he's like the groundhog. He won't

come up for another year. We'll have to pull him out. That's right. Thanks, Janice. Take care. Take care. Have a good week. Yeah, you too.

Janice Stein, part of our doubleheader today to keep those baseball analogies going. Janice Stein and Brian Stewart. As we approach the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that'll be on Saturday, and then as of Sunday, we're into the third year

of that conflict. That wraps up this special program for today. Tomorrow is a Wednesday encore edition. A good one, too, actually. Bob Woodward from the Washington Post will join us again with his thoughts on the Trump era.

Thursday, it's your turn. Now, once again, short lead time here, so the question is pretty open. What is on your mind? What one thing is on your mind what one thing is on your mind it could be domestic it could be foreign easily before and after that last hour um but give me your thought keep it brief you know one paragraph at most what's on your mind and we'll have this kind of potpourri edition of your turn on Thursday, along with the random rant here. So I'm looking forward to that. Keep it brief, name, location, and in by 6

p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow. Got it? Thanks for listening today. I'm Peter Mansbridge. It's been great talking with you, and I look forward to talking to you again through the Encore edition tomorrow, and then, of course, on Thursday for your turn. Take care. Talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.