The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Is Putin Bluffing on Ukraine? What you need to know

Episode Date: November 23, 2021

We may not be talking about it very much but the situation between Ukraine and Russia is tense and the world is holding its breath.  Russian troops have almost surrounded the former Soviet republic and threats of invasion are very evident.  What will happen?  How will other powers react?  How should they react?  One of my favourite foreign policy analysts, Dr. Janice Stein, joins us with her take on those questions.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Is Putin bluffing? That may be the question of our times. Looking to cook smarter and faster at home? Chef's Plate dinner boxes give you back the time spent on meal planning and grocery shopping by delivering everything you need to cook delicious meals right to your door. Each Chef's Plate box also comes with pre-portioned ingredients

measured out perfectly for your meals. Say goodbye to wasted produce and hello to saving money. Go to chefsplate.com, click the sign-up button, and apply the code THEBRIDGE. That's one word, THEBRIDGE, to get 50% off your first two boxes. I woke up this morning thinking back to February the 7th, 2014. So why is that date important? Well, I'm not sure whether it's important but it was interesting for me i was sitting in sochi russia february 7th 2014 was opening night of the winter olympics that year and i was sitting in the stadium for the opening ceremony at Sochi, Russia.

And sitting next to me was my good friend and my colleague, Ron McLean. Ron was hosting the opening ceremony coverage for CBC, and I was sitting there with him, kind of the color commentator, if you will. And we were in a really interesting position. We hadn't started the program yet, but we were about 30 rows behind Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, the host of the Sochi Games, with the world watching him.

And, you know, a lot of the world having certain doubts about Vladimir Putin, as they have often had, puzzled about what Russia was really up to. But looking forward to an exciting couple of weeks of the Olympics, where Putin would be the happy host. So he's sitting in his seat. As I said, about 30 rows, what in fact was below us. We were sort of up higher in the stadium than he was.

And he was surrounded by his security detail and the various other officials from the Russian government. He'd arrived, and this is an interesting kind of sidebar to the story, he'd arrived with his motorcade. Motorcades is something I've never quite understood. You know, the American president has a motorcade motorcades is something i've never quite understood you know the american president has a motorcade that's like a hundred vehicles long i mean i'm not kidding it goes on forever you know go on google say you know google presidential motorcade and they'll show you footage and it just goes on and on and on there's car after car after car and every possible list of occupants in all those cars. You know, ambulances, special cars for

camera positions, special cars for various aids, special cars for security, but lots of them. And I've always found that a bit puzzling, like it's overstatement by a lot. I mean, when I first saw a prime ministerial motorcade, it was in the early 70s with Pierre Trudeau, and there were like two cars, and he would drive back and forth in 24 Sussex Drive and limoed in his vehicle, and there'd be two, like, security RCMP cars,

which would kind of ghost him on the way there, back and forth. And that pretty much remained the same through a variety of different prime ministers till the early 2000s, when Stephen Harper became prime minister, and there were certain security threats, and suddenly they, you know,

suddenly it was a huge long parade of cars as well. Nothing like the U.S. presidential one, but significant enough. And it still is the same case now with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But I remember being in Britain when David Cameron was Prime Minister and when he used to move around London

go back and forth to visit the Queen and his weekly moment with the Queen to brief her on whatever was going on. It would be David Cameron's car that he was in and one security official. That was it. One security car. So there was a two-car motorcade. Prime Minister of Britain. Nowhere near the number of cars

in the motorcade is the canadian prime minister and certainly nothing like the american president who takes that motorcade wherever he goes right like it happens you know if he's visiting britain or any other country the american president still has that huge long motorcade anyway i mention that because in the basement of the Sochi Arena was the motorcade for Vladimir Putin. It wasn't as long as an American president's, but it was pretty close. So what's the point of the story, Mansbridge? Well, the point of the story is when we're sitting above him, Ron and I, looking down at the back of his head

as he was about to host the opening ceremony of the games, you have to wonder what's on this guy's mind? The world is watching him. The world has its, you know,

questions about his leadership. But what's on his mind right now? Is it really all about sports? Or is there something else going on? Well, as it turned out, something else was going on in his mind. It was the invasion of Crimea, which he saved until the final days of the Olympics. So it was somewhere around the 20th, 21st of February.

A couple of weeks later, the Russians moved in. And the world reacted, oh, you can't do this. It's wrong. You have no right. But what did they really do about it other than speak up, condemn the move by Putin, put in some sanctions. They didn't say, get your troops out or we're coming in after you. They didn't say that.

There was no war as such with the allied nations of the world and NATO allies. Ukraine is not a member of NATO. At least it wasn't then. And the question of whether or not it should be now is still open. Of course, if it was a member of NATO, other NATO countries would be required to ally themselves with Ukraine in defense of that country. So why am I mentioning all this now? Well, we're at the same situation again.

Russian troops surround, or almost surround Ukraine right now. And the fear is they're about to move. There's about to be an invasion. Now, you're not hearing a lot of talk about this. You know, we're so focused on, you know, trials, murder trials in the United States, the reopening of parliament, the minority government in Ottawa, COVID, all, you know, kind of legitimate stories, but we're talking

about the possible invasion of a country in Eastern Europe with troops surrounding that country or almost surrounding that country. Russian troops surrounding Ukraine. What's going to happen? How serious is this threat? What should we be thinking? What should we know? Well, today on the bridge,

we're going to take some time to talk about that because it is important. So we're going to take a pause and then we'll come back with a good friend and a special guest to help us understand what this story is really all about. Back in a moment. Our Black Product Sponsor is The Economist. If you don't already know, its expertise lies in making sense of the world's most important developments. It offers completely independent opinion and analysis, giving you a balanced global view of an issue instead of a biased or politically motivated opinion. And don't be fooled by the name. It covers pretty much everything from culture to science and technology, from politics

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for 50% off your first two boxes. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we welcome you from whatever platform you're listening to The Bridge on today. We're going to try and examine, for the next little while, a situation around Ukraine with Russian troops at the border and with the possibility that an invasion is imminent and what that could mean for the rest of the world if that in fact happens.

And who better to talk about the person I've been going to for almost 40 years whenever there's a big foreign policy question up for discussion. That's right, you guessed it, Janice Stein. One of the founders of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She is a specialist in a variety of different foreign policy areas. She's a specialist in negotiation theory, decision-making,

and international conflict management. All of those qualities are important right now when we try to examine this situation. So let's talk about it. Janice Stein is my guest. Here's our conversation. Well, why don't we start off with, I guess, the simple question. Why is this happening now there was a strategic shift

that started really in the third quarter of 2020 and we're seeing the continual build-up what's the shift peter ukraine the government of president zelensky did a hard shift toward the West, which upped the ante for Putin. Essentially, the diplomatic process, the Minsk process, stalled, and Zelensky turned toward the NATO and the United States. And that is Putin's nightmare. And that's why this is happening. Now, people, depending on who you are and where you are, are quite worried about the situation right now, while others are saying, ah, it's all a Putin bluff.

Nothing's going to happen here. Now, he's proven in the past that things can happen. Stuff happens with him. Stuff happens with him. Stuff happens with him is right. So what is your take as of this moment as to where this is heading? As of this moment, this is a more significant Russian buildup than we've seen in the past. And why is it more significant, Peter? Because the Russian army has deployed forces from other regions and brought them close to the front lines, which tells you this is really not a training exercise.

So the most optimistic interpretation, this is designed to send a signal to the United States, to France, to Germany, to NATO, pull back, pull back, because if the process continues to go the way it is, there could well likely be a war. interpretation is the time for diplomacy is over and Putin has now made up his mind that he is going to prevent and this is the language that he uses prevent the west from pushing up against Russia's borders that's how he talks about it my opinion I don't think Putin's made his mind up yet he's moving all the forces up on the chessboard that he needs. He's going to wait and see if there is any possibility of an agreement. And the agreement is no longer with the government of Ukraine.

The agreement, he has to get a signal that's meaningful from the United States that there is no road to nato membership for ukraine because that's what he's really worried about because if there was such an agreement for nato membership for ukraine then nato actually has to do something if this if the russians move into ukraine exactly exactly And it's beyond that. It would be an intolerable affront for Russia to find Western forces, literally, on what they consider their border. This is a hard thing to say to any Ukrainian. But Ukraine is, in a sense, now the buffer zone in Europe between the West and Russia.

It is best treated as the Austria of the old days when Austria was neutralized. That would effectively be the safest for everybody, including Ukraine. But it's not a position that Zelensky accepts. It's not a condition that half of the Ukrainian population accepts.

And they are getting really strong statements of support now from the European Union and NATO members. And that's what's exacerbating the situation. You were just spent the last few days in Halifax where the, you know, security conference, which is a recognized international conference that's been going on for, well, every year for what, almost 20 years. It's quite a long time. This is our 13th year. 13th year. So you've got a lot of experts from different parts of the world,

a lot of leaders from different parts of the world, especially defense leaders. So they're, you know, huddled in various meetings and, you know, conferences over these last few days. What are you hearing in those rooms? What are they saying? It was really interesting, Peter, because there's two views of what's happening. One is Russia is now an expert at hybrid warfare. It escalates the level just below the threshold of open warfare. It's done so very successfully. And the argument for many at that forum was the West has to respond.

It has to make a strong, credible commitment. It has to respond as being challenged. That's one group. The former president of Ukraine was there, President Petroshenko, and he openly called for admission of Ukraine to NATO, saying that without that, there is no guarantee of Ukrainian independence

and sovereignty, and that this can only end one way. There are others, and we had with us, for example, a former high-ranking official in the Belarusian government who said a commitment for Ukraine to join NATO would be insanity. It would provide the perfect pretext for war that Putin has said over and over again he will engage in if this takes place. And he cautioned everybody he could meet in the halls, don't do this. Don't do this. So probably the best feel I can give you is a very sophisticated German ambassador who said we should go right up to the line, but we should never cross it. We should reassure Ukraine, but we should never offer them admission. And that's this very ambiguous zone that we're in right now. And that's the risk here that Putin miscalculates.

There was a lot of discussion about whether the United States word was worth much after what happened in Afghanistan, whether it did not project an image of weakness. It's pivoted away from the Atlantic toward Asia. And there is a worry that Putin thinks of the United States as weakened and diverted and will seize the opportunity to consolidate his hold on a big chunk of Ukraine. It could happen. Well, if there's one thing we all know is it's awfully dangerous

to go right up to the line because, as you can say, a miscalculation when you're that close to conflict doesn't leave any wiggle room to get out of it. And, you know, that's what we are. Peter, and there are many people listening to us right now. You're going to get a lot of angry email about what I just said. You will. Because what's the other side of the argument?

Ukraine is a democracy. Russia is an aggressor. It's a sophisticated aggressor it's per you know it's uh perfected this hybrid warfare it's a cyber uh violator all the time and it operates just below that threshold and there that may be an accurate description but unless let's call the spade a spade, unless the United States and Europe want to go to war with Russia, they have to be very careful about not misleading President Zelensky and not making promises that, frankly, they have no intention

of fulfilling if push comes to shove here. Now, I don't think push is going to come to shove until the spring because I think this is a serious signal. It's not a Putin bluff, but it's a serious signal. It's pay attention, but I think he'll give it a bit of time until the spring. What signals have been going back the other way? So not very useful ones um if we look just at the last week victoria newland who's the deputy undersecretary of state

you know used words like we have a strong incredible commitment to the defense of ukraine now actually the united states doesn't it does not have any treaty commitments to the defense of ukraine but if you were the ukrainian president peter you can imagine how you would hear that um so there's a double risk here there of course putin hears what she says but zelensky too can be misled um and take false encouragement from what she's saying and interestingly enough this time nobody walked her back what can we take or what can we learn from the experience on crimea which wasn't that long ago, which seemed to have everybody, you know, on edge. The Russians moving into Crimea, even if they were wearing uniforms

that didn't necessarily say who they were, where they were from, but it's, you know, generally accepted, obviously, that they were Russians that were in there. What can we take from that whole experience and the way the world reacted to it? You know, it's very interesting because the situation is similar but different.

Here's the difference. There was this abrupt change in the government of Ukraine, very threatening to Russia because effectively they lost control, but there was no buildup. They just moved and they occupied Crimea which if any Russian that you speak to will tell you Crimea is Russian and any Ukrainian you speak to will tell you that Crimea is Ukraine but they moved very fast very

aggressively they did it with irregular Russian force. That's who those people were. And it was over before anybody in the West could really react. The situation is a little different now. He's moved about 90,000 to 100,000 troops up to the border, and they're sitting there. And so that's the difference that there is time for, let me put it this way, a discussion between Biden and Putin, in which Biden makes a quiet commitment to Putin, that there is no path to NATO membership for Ukraine. But beyond that, it has to be more, Peter, because one of the things that's going on right now as we speak, NATO is actually training Ukrainian forces. So Ukraine's a member, but NATO's training their forces. Who knows that? And the United States has, in the last nine months,

begun to supply much more advanced offensive equipment to the ukrainian military now again in response to what they see as a threat but putin looks at that and says this is a difference without a distinction frankly and that's what's needed to this build-up has anybody in putin's most powerful years of which there have been, what, now, 20, 15 or 20, has anybody said, no, you can't do that? Well, we said no after the fact on Crimea, right? A lot of good data. And they were saying, yeah, after the fact, after it happened, because everybody was surprised by the speed. And there were sanctions.

And those, ironically, those sanctions worked to some degree. The Russian economy suffered for several years. But as you know, we're in a period where oil and gas matter again, certainly in the short term. This is only good news for Putin and for Russia's economy. Nord Stream 2 is moving forward, which will make Europe even more dependent on Russian oil and gas. what can the West do to signal to Putin, you have to pull back from what you consider border territory. Because that's what it is to him. It's very hard in the West to make that argument. But that's what the Ukraine is. After all, for the Soviet period, it was part of the Soviet Union.

So the Russians consider Ukraine part of their territory, and the West, which I do not believe will use force under any circumstances, is saying to the Russians, pull back. If you were Putin, would you? Well,

it's still a gamble, right? It's always a gamble. I mean, when you look at the players on the board, in terms of what the machinery is on the two sides, the Russians are really not in the game, if it ever got to conflict. That's right. But I think I would go out on a limb here. I think that probability is low to diminishing. It certainly would not be the united states you know angela

merkel spoke to twice it's really difficult to imagine a scenario where nato forces would challenge russian forces in ukraine we didn't do it last time i don't believe that that's a real possibility and he knows that he just looked at he just looked at nato and the united states pulled the remaining forces out of afghanistan in what you and i would describe as the most shambolic operation we've ever seen frankly well i probably can guess your answer to this question then because here's the headline in in the latest defense news.com article it's if the russian military crashes through a forest will nato hear a sound they'll hear but they'll pretend they didn't is all i could say right and we'll pull out we'll pull out magnitsky sanctions and we'll pull out other kinds of sanctions and

there'll be all kinds of statements but you know as we say this peter when the soviet army crashed into budapest. NATO heard, but pretended it didn't. 1956 we're talking about, right? And 68 into what is now the capital, into Prague we heard, but we pretended

we didn't. Great powers frankly don't take each other on in the other great powers backyard. That's just a hard brutal reality of great power politics and they're back with a vengeance now let me uh let me bring it home to hear um for the final question on this because canada and ukraine have a have a relationship a strong relationship. And it goes back to immigration from Ukraine to Canada a century ago.

But that relationship is strong. Are we doing, what are we doing? Is there anything we can do on this? Canada has one of the strongest, closest relationships with Ukraine of anybody. And you're right, Peter, it's driven in part by the fact that we have a very large community of Canadian Ukrainians who really care about this part of the world. So Canada has been deeply engaged. We have no independent military capability, and the amount of military material that we might transfer to Ukraine will not be significant in any kind of confrontation. The more interesting question is, what are we doing diplomatically?

Because, and here we do have some leverage because of the closeness of the relationship that we have with Zelensky. This is the moment where Canada actually might play a role. Now, not the role that many Canadian Ukrainians would like, but it's the kind of role where you talk frankly to a close friend and you get the United States to talk frankly to Putin about how dangerous this situation is and frankly how everybody will lose. There will be no winner if this escalates

to fighting. Ukraine will lose. Putin will lose. It will dig him deeper into a cold freeze, which will take another three or four years to climb out of. There's no winners in this. So this is a moment. Canada can

play that kind of role only when it has really close relationships. And in this one case, it has this extraordinarily close relationship with Zelensky. But we have to have a frank conversation with Britain, France, United States. When you provide this kind of military equipment, what are you saying in private to the Ukrainians? Because the worst thing we can

do is mislead you know at halifax this weekend the most poignant conversations were from afghans who talked about how crushed they were because they had been led so often to believe otherwise that the United States and NATO would stay. And just that you could feel it. It was palpable, the crushing disappointment when we did not do that. And as many of us said at that meeting, making promises you cannot keep is not a strategy. That's what applies in this case. Absolutely. Janice, it's always

good to talk to you. On this story, our eye, and when I talk about our, I mean us as kind of listeners and Canadians in general, has been so far off the ball on this topic because there have been so many other things that we've been looking at but this is serious stuff and it could get very serious and uh and you've really helped us to try to understand some of the things issues that are at play on it right now so as always thank you for this let me add one note we'll see how much time you have as i think forward about this peter ukraine is as

serious as it is because it's a buffer zone it's right up against the russian border think about taiwan in the next two or three years there is no chinese diplomat i've ever spoken to who hasn't told me with great passion that Taiwan is part of China. The United States does have commitments, although not a formal collective security commitment, but it does have defense commitments to Taiwan. And the second big theme this weekend was Taiwan, Taiwan, Taiwan will be the testing ground. It's just off China's coast. We are seeing up the Straits of Taiwan now, the Chinese Air Force flying increasing sorties and U.S.

and a Canadian ship sailing the Straits of Taiwan. Imagine a similar kind of situation where we see Chinese buildup of forces and they send the signal. We intend to use force. What commitments are we making? What promises are we making? What expectations does the president of Taiwan have? And that's why, as I said, this is a kind of preview to what we might see that might

be even more dangerous and more serious than what we're than what we're seeing just now and and the other thing that ties these two very different situations together is what you said earlier the slightest miscalculation on anyone's part here and there's a lot of there are a lot of nations at play on on both these situations and the slightest miscalculation could lead to uh to a terrible terrible situation um all right janice uh again thank you so much for this and uh and we'll talk to you again soon pleasure peter as always dr janice stein from the university of toronto and i listed all her other great qualifications and she's somebody who um a lot of people listen to in different parts of the world and not just

from the canadian side from other governments and other countries around the world listen to jenna stein and today you listen to her as well um those last comments about the dangers of miscalculation in a tense big situation uh remind me of that documentary i did two years ago the future of war if you haven't seen it, you might track it down. It's still on CBC Jam. It was a documentary done for the CBC. And I'm pretty proud of it, too. It's a pretty good one.

All right, a couple of quick notes before we leave for this day because I've got to get going. I'm getting my booster. I'm getting my third shot today. I qualify as of this day, so I'm not going to waste any time. I'm going to go get my booster. That's one. And two, I remind you again, a lot of you have been writing in,

and so I'm signing those little book plates. If you grab a copy in the next few days of Off the Record at wherever you buy your books, you know, it could be in one of the big bookstores, could be at Indigo, you know, it could be from, you know, Amazon or Costco or Walmart

or it's for sale everywhere or your local bookstore, it's for sale everywhere, or your local bookstore, your independent bookseller, just down the street probably from where you live. Off the Record is available. If you purchase one and send me, email me at themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com,

themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, I will send you off a signed book late. You've got to include your proof of purchase. That's a publisher's requirement. So send that along and we'll send one off to you. We've only got the next couple of weeks to do that because if you're planning on a Christmas purchase, you should probably do that now.

All right. Tomorrow is Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth. Bruce will be here Thursday. Your turn if there are letters coming in. Not just requests for book plates.

If there are comments you want to make on anything, yesterday's great COVID show with Dr. Lisa Barrett. Today with Janain on the situation around ukraine and whatever is on your mind uh send it along and we'll create a your turn for uh thursday at least a partial your turn on thursday friday of course is good talk with chantilly bear and bruce anderson look forward to giving that to you. Parliament reopens on this day, so I'm sure there's going to be lots to talk about through this week.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.