The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - What Will Putin Do?

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

The UK and the US are prepared to give long-range missiles to Ukraine for their fight against Russia.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Monday, that means Janice Stein. Lots to talk about today. That's coming right up. And hello there, beginning of another week. Peter Mansbridge here with The Bridge. Mondays means Janus Stein. We're going to focus in on something on the Ukraine-Russia situation today because it is really interesting and potentially explosive. So we need to deal with that, and we're going to deal with that with some substance. Also, a little bit of the old, what are we missing from Janus time as well?

All the focus on Ukraine and the Middle East. What else is going on that we've been missing? But first of all, some housekeeping. You know, listen, this is a big day. This is a big day in Ottawa. Parliament returns. So we get to watch all that exciting action again. But also today, two big by-elections.

One in Manitoba that the NDP have held for some time in the past. The other in Quebec. In a riding that the Liberals have held for quite some time. Can those two parties hold onto their seats? If they don't, what does it mean? There's lots riding on what happens today,

both in Parliament and in those by-elections. So obviously we'll be taking a close eye, keeping a close eye on both of those. Question of the week for Thursday is your turn. Last week we had a lot of responses to the question, if you were running for Prime Minister, what would your first promise be?

We had a lot of reaction to that. And what we've decided to do this fall is to bounce back and forth between pointed questions like that one versus what's on your mind. So we'll change each week. So this week it's a what's on your mind is the question. And you can talk about anything. It might be about politics. It might be about these by-elections. It might be about parliament returning. It might be about climate change, carbon tax. There's all sorts of things that you could talk about. Or it could have nothing to do with politics. But the same rules apply.

We're not looking for essays. We're looking for your thought on what's on your mind, what is it and why is it on your mind, and you should be able to do all of that in a paragraph, a normal paragraph, okay? And last week, you guys were great at that. There were a few people who went over the, tipped over the edge and went into long emails,

and I understand why they do that, but to keep this moving, we're looking for short form. So, your answer to the question, what's on your mind, include your name, include where you're writing from, and here's the address you write to,

themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. We're always interested in hearing from new people. We heard a lot of new writers last week, which is great, and we want to keep that going. So if you're a listener to The Bridge, and I know that we have a lot of listeners, because I see the numbers every day. So don't be shy. Write in and let us know what's on your mind.

Tomorrow, special guest, Tim Cook, with his new book. He's written a lot of books he's a military historian the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa but he's prolific he's been a guest on this program before love hearing from Tim Cook his new book

is called The Good Allies and it's about the relationship between Canada and the United States during the Second Allies, and it's about the relationship between Canada and the United States during the Second World War, and it's really fascinating. Spent some time the last week reading it, and lots to talk about with Tim on that. That's tomorrow's guest. Wednesday is our normal encore edition.

Thursday is your turn and the random renter Friday, good talk with Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson Alright, let's get to our opening discussion today Our regular Monday feature With the great Janice Stein Here we go Okay, here's the issue The issue is long-range missiles.

Both the UK and the US want to give them to Ukraine. The question is, what do they do with them when they get them? Where do they fire them? And what consequences could there be as a result of them firing long-range missiles, say, at Russia, which is the only target they'd have right now that they'd want to use them for. So what's the problem here, Janice? The big problem, and Vladimir Putin made it really clear in a speech on Thursday, he laid it out, he said, look, in order to operate these missiles,

which of course come from NATO countries, the Ukrainians would need help, intelligence help, targeting help. And if the United States agrees to this, because it's clearly U.S. missiles that are the most valuable here. Russia would be at war. He actually started the other way. NATO would be at war with Russia. Use those words. And Russia would have to take appropriate action in return. Okay, well, let's break this down to try to understand the threat here and whether Putin is actually making sense. I mean, the Ukrainians have been using drones quite successfully, some of them long-range drones, against Russia. And those drones, I assume, are coming from a number of different places.

They are, but there's a large component of them that are domestically manufactured inside Ukraine. So it's because they're not that complicated. It's true, they're not that complicated. And Ukraine is really up to the game and able to manufacture them. And two, they don't have the payload that these kinds of missiles would have. So they're not as effective. Because what are Zelensky's targets?

And he just made them clear again on Sunday morning. He said, look, not at any civilian infrastructure, for sure, but he has been going after with drones, you know, energy centers, power centers, some very close to Moscow, just on the outskirts with Ukrainian drones. All right. What about Russia and the long-range missiles it's using to fire into Ukraine? Because are they all made in Russia or are some of them coming from Iran, North Korea? That's why I pushed this issue to the fore this week.

The U.S. intelligence and many others, not only U.S. And Zelensky is feeling that his allies are putting constraints on how he can use the missiles that he gets from France, from Britain, and from the United States. There's an argument to be made here, and Zelensky is making it. And let's layer on, the British and the French want to be able to take the constraints off and let him use the missiles as he sees appropriate on the battlefield. It's Biden and his team who are not prepared to do that. Okay, I get all that. Here's where I get confused.

I get confused at determining exactly what the constraints are that the UK and the US and France are putting on Ukraine. What are they saying they can do and what are they saying they can't do? So up till now, from the beginning of the war, from February 2022, we've seen NATO allies progressively loosen constraints on weapons. You remember at the beginning, no tanks, no F-16 fighter aircrafts. Each time, by the way, because Putin threatened, and then when the more sophisticated technology came in, he really didn't do anything. So there is a story here that one could tell of Vladimir Putin bluffing each time there's

an escalation in the level of technology that's been delivered. It's been going on for two years. So the first breakthrough came when the United States said, yes, you can use missiles over the border into Russia, but only where Russian troops are staging in order to attack directly. So that's 40, 60 miles within, but no further than that. And that's the constraint that's still in force now. Zelensky wants that constraint removed because he wants to go way behind the lines inside Russia

to attack any kind of military infrastructure. Are those the same constraints among all the countries that are allied with Ukraine? There's a really interesting dance here. The Brits and the French, and particularly the Germans, we've been through this process two or three times before. We want to remove the constraints, but they won't do it unless the United States signs off.

And why is that? Because on the off chance that Vladimir Putin might mean business this time and might actually move on the argument that NATO is involved in this war and attack either any NATO force, but it could include the more powerful ones. They need the United States to be fully signed on before they're willing to run the risk. That's what this is about. Is there a degree of bluffing going on all sides here? Well, this is the big, big question. We only know somebody's bluffing.

What we call their bluff, if there are poker players listening, we know exactly what we mean here. We only know somebody's bluffing if we go ahead and do it and they don't do anything. And that's what the British and the French, that's what Starmer came to Washington to tell Biden. Look, we've increased the sophistication of this technology. We've taken off constraints. Biden has threatened, Putin has threatened before he's bluffed. He threatened before the war started.

He used a phrase, if anybody intervenes on behalf of Ukraine, they will see consequences of the kind they've never seen before in their life. People read that as implicit nuclear threat. Then there was a really scary moment in October 2022, when the U.S. had really good intelligence from two sources, Peter. One was Russian generals' chatter, in which there was a discussion under what circumstances would they use tactical nuclear weapons.

You could say that staged for the benefit of the people who were listening. That's entirely possible. But then they actually saw the Russians do something that they had not yet done, which is take some of those missiles out of storage and connect them to launchers. But that really got the attention of the Pentagon. And there were very high level interventions and discussions directly between the Russian chief of the general staff and the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Austin, the Secretary of Defense and his counterpart, in which everybody made clear how far they were going no further.

And that was it. This time, I would say Putin's words are stronger, more explicit than they've been in the past. And the real dilemma for NATO leaders, and Biden comes at it in a different way than I think Starmer does, and certainly than Macron does, the real dilemma is, are you sure he doesn't mean it? Even if he's bluffed three or four times, are you sure?

Can you tell me that you're really sure that he doesn't mean it? Of course nobody can. And Biden's whole predisposition right from the beginning was not to run the risk that this could

ever escalate to a NATO Russian war. That's been his primary strategic goal throughout this whole thing. What's your expert analysis on this? Who's bluffing here? It's bluffing or not. I'm going to have to do this right. It would be insane for Vladimir Putin, given the strains on the Russian army right now. It is so stretched. He doesn't have enough men. It is much less powerful than everybody thought before this war started. And to attack a NATO member, Poland, the Baltic state, which are easier targets for him, he would run a terrible risk of escalation.

He would be putting everything at risk if he did it. So if you follow that logic, you say, run the risk. There is another side though. We're only going to know we got it wrong when we cross this red line and we use some kind of tactical nuclear weapon and breaks the taboo that's been

in place for all these years. And there will be some point if we go far enough that that can happen. You can't rule it out. And therefore, I tend to be conservative and agree here with Biden, don't run risk. As unfair as it is to Ukraine.

And the third part of this story, Peter, even were Zelensky to get the capacity to use missiles. And once he's got the capacity, Zelensky surprised the United States before in some of the things that he's done. You know, allies are notoriously difficult to control once you give them what they want. Once he's got the capacity, yes, he will attack the energy infrastructure inside Russia. And yes, he'll be able to better attack staging grounds. But it's not the game changer that he thinks. Each time what's happened is Russia just pulls its forces further back out of range.

The big problem for him right now are glide bombs. These missiles wouldn't change that. What's driving a desperate Zelensky right now is what's happening on the ground in the Donbass, where Russian forces are very close to breaking through. In the central town, that is the logistical center. And they are five miles outside of Prokhorst, which is so key to Ukrainian supply lines in Lugansk. Once that happens, they are really strategically positioned to continue

to advance these missiles will not change that so you have to ask yourself everything considered is it worth the risk I would say no not now but I'm in a minority I am in a minority let me tell you

are you in are you in the minority you're not in a minority, let me tell you. Are you in the minority? You're not in the minority in Washington. You know, they're divided in Washington, which is really interesting. Okay, Austin, the Secretary of Defense, does not want to do this now. The President's instincts, I would bet, are shrieking against doing this right. Anthony Blinken might be more willing to run the risk.

And that's why I wanted to put both sets of arguments on the table, because this is a moment where everybody has to say with some humility, we just don't know. It's just we're rolling the dice here, Peter. We just don't know. What about Sullivan? He probably, the determining vote here, I would expect when all this gets done, Jake Sullivan. He, you know, he has not fought the president once

when Biden put limits. He's not taken him on, frankly. Now, again, we're in the waning days of the Biden presidency. We have a desperate Zelensky now in a way that he, you know, he hasn't felt like this since the early days of the Russian invasion. Things are really tough in Kyiv right now and in some of the other cities. And you're seeing depopulation of all Ukrainian cities in Donbass as the Russian army moves.

So there was that sense of desperation. Does Jay Sullivan decide there's only another four months left of the Biden administration? That's it? And we take the risk now? And, you know, Macron, as you remembered, when the war started, went to Moscow to make

peace. He was sure he could do it and mediate. He gave that up and he's now the hawk on this one. So probably I would say this is the toughest decision that Biden has to make. What do I think he'll do if I look back at the trajectory?

Each time the pressure got this tough, he ultimately agreed to take the constraints off. That's what the record shows. One last question on this, and it's kind of related in a way. You mentioned how Starmer was just in Washington last week. Now, he's only been prime minister for a couple of months. That's twice already he's been to Washington. What does that tell you?

It's really interesting, because here's Starmer, a Labour Prime Minister, after 14 years of Tory rule. You would think, and Starmer has separated himself from Biden on the Middle East, right? And you'd really expect a Labour Prime Minister to be a lot more cautious, given where his party generally stands on these. No, not on this issue. And I think for two reasons, really, Peter.

One, Starmer is looking for a way for the UK to be back in Europe, if not formally, then in substance. And it's a high priority for him after Brexit, which he thinks of as a Tory disaster, to repair relationships with France, particularly, and Germany. And this is way back. Secondly, he also wants to be, the Brits suffer from the same conflicts that we Canadians have. He also wants to be the indispensable ally to the United States.

And he knows how central Ukraine is to the Biden administration. And so I think he's trying very hard to play that role. You know, and it's interesting, Macron didn't come. It's Stormer who came to try to persuade Biden that this is where now Europe is on this issue. They recognize that we're potentially at a turning point in this war on Ukraine. All right. Well, it's going to be interesting to see how this one plays out.

It is. You know, we expected a decision by the weekend. We didn't get it. We didn't get it yet. Peter, it shows you how fraud. Okay. We're going to take a break. Listeners will notice that we haven't dealt with the Middle East this week,

and we're not going to this week. We're taking a pause on that one. We'll obviously get back at it again next week. But we are going to do in our second half something that Janice has helped us out on the last couple of years, really, and it's this sense of what are we missing, because there's so much focus on Ukraine and Russia and the Middle East, a lot of other things happening in the world, and we're going to touch base on a few of those in our second half. But first, this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode.

That means Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Okay, what are we missing? Well. First up, judicial reform in Mexico. Now, that sounds rather bland and dry. Tell me why it isn't.

Isn't that amazing? I'm going to put that one at the top of my list. Peter, why do we care about judicial reform in Mexico? So, first of all, this is the largest judicial reform of any major democracy. Unprecedented. 7,000 judges, including all the judges of the Supreme Court, will lose their jobs as soon as this all goes through, which could be as early as next year.

And every one of those judges will be elected. What qualifications do you have to have to be a judge? Law school and just a few years of experience, and you can run and be a judge at the federal level, the state level, or the local level in Mexico. Wow. No bar association recommendation, nothing, nothing. So anybody who's gone to law school and has worked for a few years can write. Secondly, this legislation sets up a new tribunal for judicial discipline. It can investigate any judge. It can fire and impeach any judge.

And oh, by the way, their decisions are final and you can appeal. So I think everybody gets the picture here. Now, why did the president of Mexico do this? To root out corruption, to limit hypocrisy and to ensure a fair judiciary. And by the way, the new president of Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum, who will become president October 1st,

she supports this plan. This plan is going to be implemented. It's passed the two houses. They need a majority of the state legislatures. They're well on the way. Why should we care? Well, first of all,

Canadians should really care about this. Mexico is our NAFTA partner. We have extensive and complicated trade arrangements with Mexico under CUSMA. And we all depend, all three countries depend on enforcement of rules. That's what trade is all about in the end. It's about enforcement of rules. So we assume a fair, educated, and impartial judiciary.

Not clear at all that Mexico will have that. Justice Rosalie Rubella, who is a former Supreme Court judge in Canada, was asked what she thought about this particular plan of judicial reform. She said, fundamentally, judges need to be unafraid. They cannot look over their shoulder all the time and respond to polls of what voters think, because if you do that, you can't make decisions about what the law means in the large public interest. And so she too is worried about that. Now let's add one other component to the story.

Cartels, drug cartels are very important in Mexico. Anybody who watches Netflix has a sense of how heavily involved cartels get in politics

in Mexico and in a few other Latin American countries. And they do that by financing the election campaigns of political leaders. Well, door wide open now. All finance an election campaign for judges. And without any transparency, it's entirely conceivable to imagine what kind of judiciary Mexico could have here. There's a lot of different angles to the story.

And, you know, we'll see what happens because, I mean, they're not the only country on the continent that's looking at some form of judicial reform. Yeah. Not that extensive in the U.S., but certainly some movement on the way things run in the justice system in the states right now, especially at the Supreme Court level. Okay.

And, you know, Peter, not to bring up the Middle East, but you remember them in Israel. Yeah. They had a similar plan for judicial reform. It split the country in two, and the country has not recovered, frankly. That's the fundamental divide. And it was never about whether you elect judges or not.

It was all about where the courts had jurisdiction and what they were doing and how that gored some of the interests of people who proposed. Okay, our next stop is France. You know, it was a couple of months ago, there were the elections, and people, it looked for a time like Macron was going to get the hook. As it turned out, he didn't. But here we are a couple of months later, he didn't get the hook, but he also doesn't have a government yet. He hasn't been able to form one. What is going on there?

Well, I mean, again, France, the heart of Europe. We were just talking about France government yet he hasn't been able to form one what is going on there well i mean again france the heart of europe we were just talking about france in the first part of the show right and um mcflawn cannot form a government he rolled the dice and his party uh came in fourth with the smallest number of votes. Who came in? First, a coalition of the left. So you think when you're looking for a prime minister, go ask the coalition of the left who their candidate is, and you nominate that person.

Not Emmanuel Macron. No way. And he said it explicitly, am I going to give that kind of power to the left? So he goes to Michel Barnier, who is a leader, a small party, smaller than his, even with 47 seats. Why does he go to him? An experienced diplomat and negotiator, did the Brexit negotiations with the UK. But because Macron's goal is not to have that famous pension legislation, this is going to only happen in France, where you have a God-given right to retire at 62.

And when Macron pushed that up to 65, that was a completely ill-breaker. Macron's dug in about that because France is aging. He goes to Barnier and he says, form a government. Well, there's only one way for Barnier to form a government because the left, the first order of businesses, repeal that extension of the pension legislation. Take it back

to the good old days where life starts when you retire in France. That's the attitude toward work. You don't have a life until you retire. Well, what if only in France? I say, could we have this?

But who's Bernier going to be dependent on? Marine Le Pen's party. The National Rally. And so we have in France for the first time a government that, if it survives, is going to be dependent on a far-right populist party, which will now decide, Peter, when they pull the plug on this government. On the retirement question, obviously, Janice, you and I are doing something wrong here. I always say I'm so far past my best before date of legal retirement that I can't remember when it is. You get better every day.

Okay. The next country, you know, if I'd been writing countries down on a piece of paper, I probably would not have included this one simply because I don't know what's's going on there and i rarely ever think about it or or see anything about it but you've got it in here libya because of their central bank yeah i just thought this story was so intriguing peter but we we couldn't miss uh talking about it just for a minute or two. What's at stake here is Libya's central bank. Now, who cares about central banks? Exactly. Who cares about central bank governors?

In fact, most of us don't want anything to do with those people, certainly at a public level. Well, here's what happened. There's two governments in Libya, one in the West, one in the East. And allegedly, this governor of the Central Bank of Libya, Sadiq al-Kamir, has been looking the other way, while some warlords import oil, paying market prices, and then the governor has been

subsidizing this oil so that it could be resold into Europe, which is not getting oil from Russia as a result of the Ukraine war. Everything's connected to everything. And allowing these warlords to get the profit.

What happens here? Forces who are opposed to that, largely in the East, kidnap officials from the central bank and force this central bank governor who was lucky, he was forced into exile in Turkey. Central bank shut down.

Stopped functioning. Libyans can no longer, first of all, there's huge inflation in the fuel markets, electricity shortages, and Libyans cannot withdraw money from the banks. They're not functioning.

The geopolitical system that I've been talking about in one way or another for the last year, all playing out in Libya. The government in the east, also led by a warlord supported by Russia, Egypt, and the UAE, largely because there's a joint dislike of Islamists. The government in the West supported by Turkey, strongly supported by Turkey and the United States. And there's now desperate attempts to mediate. It doesn't look good. And we could have a civil war break out in Libya. Again, I mean, we had a civil war when Moammar Gaddafi was killed.

It lasted for nine years. It was brutal. Until 2020, there's been a pause, but this issue with the central bank governor and the shutdown functionally of the European economy could push them over again. You know, I had two thoughts. Why did I care? Well, the last thing, first of all, the Middle East right now. It means right now it's another civil war, which pulls in all the same players. But that second thing, I thought, wow, these central bank governors, they matter, right? They really matter. They do their job so quietly and we don't think about them. But when they don't do their job, they really matter.

Lesson there. We'll go back to Europe now, Germany. You hinted at this a little bit last week. There were state elections recently, and the AFD is a right-wing party, somewhat described as a neo-Nazi party. They did well. They broke through in two states on the eastern side of Germany,

the old East Germany portion of the country. So this obviously has a lot of people worried about what this means. What are we looking at here? How do you view it what's your sense so i i certainly paid attention to the story either this is the first electoral win by a far-right party in germany since world war ii now so we have to stop over that for a minute and say something's happening here, right? And the story is not dissimilar, interestingly enough, in France. It's just a mirror image.

They are the largest party in one of the states now, Turindia, the second largest party in the other state, Saxony. The current coalition came in third, fourth, and fifth. So the second party, the traditional German party, is the Christian Democrats, you know, a centrist party that leans right. There's one more election coming in Brandenburg, and if they do as well, I think, and all of these, by the way, are the former East Germany, which is the center. So there's grounds to really worry about this. Here we are in Germany. These states will not be able to form a government

because no other party is willing to form a government with the AFD. So why does that push politics? It pushes politics to the left. And who's doing well on the left? This is an incredible story. In Germany, too, there's a party named after its leader, Sarah Wagenknecht, her name is, and it's called the Sarah Wagenknecht Party, the BSW in German, and she's a former communist. So this is, in a sense, you know, she no longer is communist, and you can argue many people in Germany were former communists, and how much does that mean? And that's right. But this is a left-wing populist party. She doesn't

disagree with the anti-immigrant stance of AFD. She's running in East Germany. So you're seeing, in a way, the fusion of far-left populist Germany across that right-left divide, and it puts those two

all central parties, you know, social democrats, Christian democrats that have run Germany since World War II in a position they've never been. Let's bump it up one more level. Germany and France are the core of Europe. They are the richest, most powerful, and their alliance is what has ensured peace in Europe, frankly. It was that breakthrough in both countries. In France, at the national level, the government's dependent on a far--wing party. In these two states, it'll be dependent on a left populist party centered in both countries. It's at risk.

You know, how serious were you when you wrote to me saying the most stable government in Europe these days is Italy? Yeah. Which is the last thing we ever would have guessed, right? At least a few years ago. Who would have said that? Yeah. Right? Italy we used to love because the government would only last nine months, and they shut up the chairs.

George Maloney, who also has come in from the right, but that is the most stable government in Europe right now. Wow. Okay, last... By the way, for anybody who's watching Trump and Harris, as I assume many of us in this country are, it's not only in the United States that populism is a big issue. It's in the biggest democracies in Europe, very similar stories. Yeah. Okay, last stop on our little quick trip around the world to see what we're missing. Japan.

Yeah. What are we missing? You know, I picked this one because this one really speaks to Canadians very, very quickly. Biden administration and Trump has said he wouldn't approve it either, does not want to approve a $15 billion bid by Nippon,

a Japanese steelmaker, to buy U.S. steel. Now, and they're arguing, all of them, that it's on the grounds of national security. Well, Peter, I am very doomed because this is on the grounds of national security. This is an electoral issue. The U.S. deal is in Pennsylvania.

The unions are opposed because they are not at all convinced that Nippon will keep its word and preserve jobs in the state of Pennsylvania. The governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Pirro, is opposed for the very same sets of reasons. But how do they justify this in the administration? And the decision is not made because they have a review process by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the administration. And the decision is not made because they have a review process by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States with a great acronym. I can't even pronounce it. CFIUS or something like that.

C-F-I-U-S. It was supposed to make a recommendation. I think the Biden people winked at them and said, slow it down until the election is over. But just look at this. The U.S. administration is invoking national security to protect one of its industries, first of all. This is a level of protectionism

that is now enduring in the United States, and any Canadian government now has to understand and accept as real. Secondly, very largely driven by electoral politics. So you turn to your most important ally in Asia. United States, Biden has invested so much effort in bringing Japan in, in the broader coalition against China, and then turns around and says your biggest company, Nippon, is a national

security threat to the United States. Now, why do Canadians care about this? Because we had the fun of this under the Trump administration. When the Trump administration invoked national security and slapped tariffs on our aluminum and steel, we were absolutely outraged. For sure, we were irritated by the tariffs, but we were more outraged than any U.S. administration could consider Canada a national security threat. Boy, are the Japanese angry, frustrated, and unhappy about this.

You've given us, as you always do, lots to think about, but here you've given us a lot on a global scale of different areas to look at, which we clearly have been missing. And good for you for forcing it onto the agenda for this week. Glad to have talked about it and look forward to talking to you again. Seven days. Take care. Have a good week.

You too. There you go, Janice Stein opening up another week of the bridge right here on SiriusXM channel 167. A couple of reminders about today. Parliament reopens. Let's watch that and see

is it going to be the same slinging match in Parliament in question period or is there going to be a new degree of civility? Don't hold your breath. And tonight, two key by-elections. It'll be very interesting to see what happens there and the impact they may have on the political landscape. Tomorrow, Tim Cook.

Looking forward to that discussion, that interview on Tim's new book, The Good Allies, about Canada and the U.S. during the Second World War. Some really interesting stuff in this book, as all of Tim's books are. Wednesday is the Encore Edition. Thursday, your turn. And the question this week is, what's on your mind?

Don't be shy. Give it to us in point form, right? No essays. Just give us the facts, man. Give us the facts. Friday, you're a random renter, of course, on Thursday as well. Friday is good talk with Chantel and Bruce. That's it for this day.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in about 24 hours.