The Duran Podcast - US Military has Overextended Itself - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: November 11, 2023

The US Military has Overextended Itself - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen

Welcome to today's program. My name is Glenn Dyson. I'm a professor at the University of Southeastern Norway. With me here is my friend and colleague, Alexander Mercuris, from the very popular and informative Duran. And the guest today, we were able to get back John Meersheimer, one of the most popular IRS scholars in history. So welcome. It's great to see you again. It's great to be back with you guys. So since last time we spoke, I would say that the world has become more complex and more dangerous. Not only are we still fighting against Russia and Ukraine with no clear solution, but also we see now that the situation has changed very much, I would say, over the past two, three weeks as we seem to come to terms that we're reaching the end of this. But making matters worse, we also now have another war.

in the Middle East, also yet again without any clear way of resolving it. So today I thought we could really talk about the strategic considerations for the United States because it appears that the US decided to prioritize its conflict with China, which was the idea behind Obama's pivot to Asia. However, at the same time, now fighting in both, or at least seeing a lot of its resources being bogged down in Europe and the Middle East. So I guess during the multipolar moment, when US grand strategy largely depended on upholding its primacy

in every corner of the world, it made sense to prioritize everything, but with less reduced capabilities, in the new world, it seems that the US still prioritize everything, but then it ends up not prioritizing anything. So, Professor Meersheimer, how, I know this becomes too many topics with Ukraine, Middle East and China, but how are you seeing the current development? Is there a lack of strategic focus or what can we expect from Washington at this point? I think, Glenn, on October 6th, the United States was in a situation where it definitely saw China as the principal threat.

threat. They call it in the Pentagon the pacing threat. But of course, we were also involved deeply in the Ukraine war. But I think the Americans thought they could handle that. And the Middle East looked like it was stable. And there was really no problem there. And we didn't have to worry about it in any meaningful way. And Jake Sullivan made these famous comments where he said that the Middle East was very stable. and that was good for the United States, which of course it was. Then it all changed on October 7th. It's really remarkable. First of all, how this just came out of nowhere. I don't know anyone, myself included, who saw this one coming. I mean, we knew that there was sort of constant trouble between the Palestinians and the Israelis, especially the Palestinians in Gaza.

But I don't think anybody anticipated the scale of the attack that took place. on October 7th or anticipated what the consequences of that would be. But the end result is the United States is up to its eyeballs and alligators in the Middle East now, in addition to Ukraine. And of course, this has all sorts of implications for pivoting to Asia to deal with the China threat, which is what the United States is principally concerned with. So you have this fascinating situation today where you have these two major crises, one in the Middle East and the other in Ukraine, that show no signs of ending anytime soon and have real consequences for American grand strategy. One has been hearing a great deal in the last few weeks about an attempt by

the United States to resume dialogue with China. And there's reports, there's discussions about Xi Jinping coming to the APAC summit and perhaps meeting Biden there. And is this a piece of good fortune? Is this something that, you know, they're now going to be trying maybe to say, well, let's not focus so much on China whilst we've got these two burning problems going on. This is an opportunity to try to come to some kind of stabilisation of the situation with China. Or are we going to see another failure.

dialogue because we've had some really very unhappy results from previous summit meetings between Xi Jinping and Biden in the past with Xi Jinping on one occasion, according to a Chinese readout, complaining directly to Biden that you tell me one thing about US policy and then something completely different happens. I think, just building on what you said, Alexander, that the Americans understand they're in deep trouble in Ukraine and they're in deep trouble in the Middle East. And therefore, we do not want any trouble in East Asia. And if anything, we want to, you know, tamp down any tensions between the United States and its allies on one hand and the Chinese on the other hand. So I think that in a funny way, these two crises,

outside of East Asia are forcing the United States to tamp down its rhetoric and its antagonism towards China. I mean, it was quite striking how hardline the Biden administration was toward China after taking office. I mean, they really doubled down on what Trump was doing. Trump was quite hardline with the Chinese, but the Biden administration went well beyond that. And there was, I think, little sign that we were going to change our basic approach before October 7th. But I think since October 7th, the United States has begun to change its tune in East Asia, and it's in large part because of these two crises. What about the Chinese?

Might they say to themselves, this is an opportunity to take advantage of the fact that the United States is distracted by these crises? might we look to do some things of our own that can play to our advantage instead in Taiwan or some other place or will they want stability as well? I mean, for the record, I think they'll want stability. I think they've got problems of their own. But maybe you have any thoughts about this?

I mean, just guessing, looking at this situation. I think your comments indicated that they might take military. advantage. I think they will take diplomatic advantage. I think they're taking diplomatic advantage of the situation. And it's, you know, as I like to say, it's mana from heaven for them. I mean, they get to portray themselves as the good guys. They get to blame the Americans, appropriately so, for, you know, this crisis in the Middle East, because the United States did hardly anything to settle the Israeli-Palestian conflict. And now the Israelis and the Americans are joined at the hip in terms of waging this war.

So the Americans definitely look like the bad guys and the Chinese can talk, as can the Russians, in ways that portray themselves as the good guys and the Americans as the bad guys. So I think diplomatically, they are taking advantage of this. And it's causing the United States, all sorts of headaches. What they do militarily is another matter. I think with regard to Taiwan, they won't do anything as a result of this. And I think your general point, Alexander, that they have problems of their own and the last thing they want to do is start a war is correct. But I would imagine that they'll push a bit harder in the South China Sea. I wouldn't be surprised if they get rougher with the Filipinos, right? Because they have a dispute with the Philippines.

pains over, you know, who controls particular portions of the South China Sea. So they may get a bit more aggressive there. But I think overall, your basic point is correct that they're not going to get too aggressive. I think that assessment is probably correct because if they can communicate to the neighborhood that the United States won't be there always to protect them, that, you know, they would have to be more careful which horse to bet on. So I think that there could be a lot of diplomatic benefits in terms of pushing a bit in the South China Sea. But in terms of Taiwan, I think a military campaign there would be devastating.

And also, I don't think it's something that the Chinese want to do because if they see time as being on their side, which they tend to, which is my impression, at least, that the way they see it, why do something today if you're going to be in a favorable position tomorrow? And again, if the U.S. doesn't push for abandoning the one China policy and pushing for the secession of Taiwan, I don't think there would be any trigger which would make it necessary to go to that length of military means. Glenn, can I just say one thing very quickly? I think that the Chinese understand that their employment of Wolf Warrior diplomacy in the past was a fundamental mistake. And if you look at Chinese-Australian relations at this point in time, the Australian leader was just in China meeting with Xi Jinping, and they had a very positive meeting. And it looks like relations between Australia and China are beginning to improve. And I think this is the direction that the Chinese want to go in. And this gets back to my point, Alexander, before, that I think that the Chinese understand they can take advantage of the Americans now because of this mess in the Middle East.

And that, coupled with abandoning wolf warrior diplomacy, will do all sorts of good things for the Chinese in terms of their situation in East Asia and around the globe more generally. Yeah, well, the Australians, they had a policy for many years, at least since the days of John Howard and also under Kevin Rudd. But I remember speaking to John Howard once, a former prime minister, and he was making this argument that, you know, the Australians should have to choose between having close economic partnership with China and having this close security partnership with the U.S. However, I think over the past few years, they did exactly that. They picked one against the other. And I think there's been many political forces in Australia, which has been looking to walk this back a bit and try to, yeah, not necessarily to be a frontline state.

On the other hand, they do see China as a challenge. And as a medium-sized country, obviously, the United States will remain. their primary security provider and ally. Well, I was just in Australia, as you know, Glenn. And just talking to Australians, I think they understand that it's important to contain China and to limit China's growth in the region. But at the same time, they don't want a war. And they understand that they are closely allied with the United States

and that the United States can behave in wild and crazy ways on occasion. So what they want to do is have their cake and eat it too, which is to contain China in some sort of reasonable way so that there is no war, but at the same time facilitate economic intercourse so they continue to get prosperous and do very well for themselves economically. But again, at the same time, making sure that there's no war. And I think given what's happening around the world today, the stars are lined up in a propitious way from making that happen. Because again, getting back to my discussion with Alexander, I think that the security competition out there is being damped down by the United States because of these two other crises. Can I just now turn to the Middle East crisis? Because the Middle East crisis is the most intractable crisis throughout my lifetime. It has been going ongoing all my life. I don't imagine that it's going to end. be completely resolved any time soon despite the fact that there's talk about it being resolved. But at least at the moment, in the crisis we have at the moment, there is a risk that it could get

worse, but there are opportunities perhaps to prevent it doing so. And again, my own sense is that America's adversaries in the Middle East, who are there, Iran, it's very very, very, various allies at the moment do not want to get involved in this war, that they do not want to get into a direct confrontation, either with Israel or with the United States. Is this something that people, first of all, is that also your own perception? And perhaps what do you think the United States is going to do? Is it also in a kind of going to get into some kind of implicit dialogue with its enemies in order to try to keep the situation? under control, because if it escalates, I mean, it could easily escalate in all sorts of ways, which I think would be very dangerous. There's no question about that.

As you well know, there are a lot of hawks in Washington who would like to go to war against Iran yesterday. So there is a body of people who are super hawkish on Iran. And by the way, they blame Iran for what Hamas did for Hezbollah. Iran is the master puppeteer in their story. And if we can deal with Iran, that will solve all these other problems. I believe this is ridiculous. I believe that Hamas and Hezbollah, think on their own. They certainly get support from Iran, but taking out Iran, it's not going to solve

those problems. Furthermore, you're not going to take out Iran. You're just going to make the situation worse. And so I think in the final analysis, what the Biden administration wants to do is make sure that this doesn't escalate. As we were talking about a few minutes ago, the United States has its hands full with Ukraine, China, and the present war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel. The last thing the United States needs is for this war to escalate to the point where Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are all in the fight, and the fight with the Palestinians spreads from Gaza to the West Bank. I mean, this is a nightmare scenario. We will get pulled into it. Just look at all the military assets we have in the region. Hard to imagine us,

sitting that one out. So then we're in a full-scale war in the greater Middle East. This would be a disaster. So my sense is that the Biden administration is playing tough with Iran and with Hezbollah, but for the purposes of preventing the war from escalating. So I don't see us causing this war to escalate horizontally that Gaza, Israel, or the, Hamas is real war in Gaza. And in fact, I think that behind the scenes, the United States is trying as much as it can to shut this war down in Gaza because it's not to our advantage. But is it a possibility that Israel, what do they say, that the tailwags the dog,

is it possible that they are pursuing objectives different from the United States? indeed, what would be the objectives? Because I know obviously the stated objective would be to take out Hamas, which sounds like something the entire Western political media establishment would support. However, there also seems to be a wider objective in terms of resolving this Palestinian problem, which Alexander has mentioned been going on for all of our lifetimes. But does this entail, if it entails ethnically cleansing and annexing, at least northern parts of Gaza.

Again, I hope I'm wrong, but can this objective then be achieved? But also, I'm just thinking about what would be the reaction, because I don't think the neighboring countries want to join in on this. But, you know, I see the rage boiling in the neighboring countries. I see Western allies becoming more uncomfortable with the war crimes. And even within Israel, there's a lot of opposition, which tends to blame Netanyahu. So I'm just wondering, is it possible for Israel to achieve what he wants? And is it possible for Israel to pull America into something it doesn't want to do?

Or it's a very strange relationship between Tel Aviv and Washington? Well, the general point that I would make in response to your various points is that the only solution to this problem is a political one. And the Israelis tend to think that the problem can be solved militarily. This goes back to the early days of Zionism when Zeev Yavitinsky, who was a very famous Zionist thinker, invented this concept of the Iron Wall. And basically, the Iron Wall said that if Israel used military force, it could beat the Palestinians into submission. It could force then to accept the fact that Israel controlled all of the territory and the Palestinians had no choice but to live under Israel's thumb. The Israelis have employed the iron wall for decades on end. It doesn't work. They're not going to be able to beat the Palestinians into submission.

So they can pound Gaza all they want. They can destroy all the Hamas forces they want. but the Palestinians are going to come back another day and fight. They're going to rebel. They're not going to live underneath Israeli occupation without putting up resistance. So the only solution along the way, the only viable solution, in my opinion, along the way, was a two-state solution, which is where you give the Palestinians a state of their own, which is right next door to a Jewish state. That was the only solution. But we failed to make that happen. Every president since Jimmy Carter has tried hard to make that work, but it didn't work. And we're in the

mess that we're in now. And I find it almost impossible to imagine that we're going to get a two-state solution. So this is why I agree with Alexander that this is the worst of all the crises we face. and it's hard to see, you know, how we and the Israelis get out of it. Can I just say, I mean, my own feeling, and this is my own view of this, is that President Biden made a mistake when he went to Israel and embraced Prime Minister Netanyahu. And to all external appearances, what he may have been saying in private may have been different, but to all external appearances seem to be giving Prime Minister Netanyahu.

and Yahoo and total endorsement to do whatever it wanted he wanted to do in Gaza. And I find it very difficult to understand myself why, given the fact that the United States does have leverage, perhaps not as much as it used to, but it still does have decisive leverage, in my opinion, over Israel in these sort of moves. It took that decision. Was it not understood in Washington that if you do something like that, then you risk being dragged in to a crisis over which you may have only a limited amount of control. I mean, it wasn't recognized. That logic wasn't recognized in Washington, and in particular wasn't recognized by President Biden. Let me just make a couple points on

First of all, for a long time, it's been manifestly clear that President Biden has a passionate attachment to Israel. He is deeply committed to Israel. And I think that is what led him to go over there and to hug BB Netanyahu in a very public way. Even though Netanyahu and Biden have long had adversarial relations, I think that, that Biden's love of Israel, love of the Zionist enterprise, just caused them to go over there and do that. And of course, you're right that this was not a smart thing to do from a strategic point of view. And by the way, you can make the argument that it was not in Israel's interest for him to do that. Because as was the case in the United States after 9-11, the Israelis sort of overreacted,

to what happened on October 7th. They were almost unhinged by the events of October 7th. And of course, this happened in the United States after September 11th. And we went on a crusade. We did all sorts of foolish things on the foreign policy front. So I think in the Israeli case, for understandable reason, there was going to be powerful incentive or set of incentives for them to do foolish things. And what was needed was for the United States to cool them down, to tell them to think long and hard about what they should do to deal with this really serious problem, to put it mildly from their point of view.

But we did the opposite. We basically went over there and put ourselves in a position where they could do anything they wanted, and we had hardly any leverage over them. And now we're in this terrible mess with no sign of getting out. I saw the General Brown, who was the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who strikes me, by the way, as a clever man. I mean, he's somebody who understands these things rather well, at least understands of a certain extent.

Anyway, he said in, apparently he was in Japan, but he was asked about the conflict in Gaza, and he said that destroying Hamas would be a very tall order, in other words, a challenging thing, for the Israelis to achieve. I mean, is that, should we take that as a sign that there are some people in Washington who perhaps are saying, you know, maybe in the Pentagon, maybe, you know, we need to start thinking in a more political way rather than in a military way. And you said that the United States might be looking for ways to tamp down this conflict, the one in Gaza.

Could this be a sign of that, you know, the General Brown is talking this way? Yeah, I think you're right. And I think that he's not unusual in the foreign policy establishment. Even strong supporters of Israel, many strong supporters of Israel, many strong supporters of Israel, who I know are deeply depressed because they think there is no military solution to the problem. They do not believe that you can defeat Hamas in any meaningful way. And people will point out that if you listen to the Israelis talk, they say that it's going to take many months, if not a year or so, to defeat Hamas.

And the question you then have to ask yourself is world public opinion and American public opinion or more generally, Western public opinion, going to support a continuation of what the Israelis are doing now for a year. And I find that hard to imagine. This is going to have to stop at some point in the not too distant future. And in the end, Hamas is not going to be defeated. And so therefore, you need a political solution. But Alexander, I would ask you, what is the political solution. This would have been my question because I tend to agree with what you said. The two-state solution was pretty much the only way out.

Because if you look at the demographics, if you look at Palestinians, which is included in Gaza and the West Bank, they're about 50-50 with the Jewish people. So from this perspective, if you don't have a two-state solution, how do you preserve the Jewish state? Either it would be ethnic cleansing or it would be apartheid, but otherwise, I just don't see what another solution would be. And I guess the best one can hope for then would be able to go back to the way things were before the 7th of October, but it doesn't seem like either the Palestinians or the Israelis seem to interest it. Well, I think, you know, just to build on what you said, Glenn, I think that before October 7th, Israel was effectively an apartheid state.

It's very controversial to say that. But as I've pointed out on a number of occasions, Amnesty International Human Rights Watch and Bitslelem, which is the leading human rights group in Israel. All three of those organizations have produced sophisticated reports that make the case that Israel is an apartheid state. Furthermore, if you follow the Israeli media like I do, it's commonplace for Israelis, including Israeli elites, to describe Israel as an apartheid state. It's only in the United States or the West more generally that you can't say that without being attacked. But it is, in large

part, an apartheid state, right? Now, the problem is that since October 7, it's because, very apparent to all sorts of people that that is the case. Before October 7th, it was a rather mute issue. What the Israelis were doing to the Palestinians was not talked about very much. It looked like the Israelis, before October 7th, were able to manage their problem with the Palestinians, both in the West Bank, where Mahmoud Abbas was doing their dirty work, and in Gaza, where they basically had the Palestinians in this giant open-air prison and under control for the most part. And in fact, as everybody knows, the Israeli government was happy to work with Hamas to undermine the Palestinian authority in the West Bank. So the situation looked at

as good as it could look for Israel, given the fact that you had this suffocating occupation, or if you want to call it apartheid, call it apartheid. But the situation is just fundamentally changed now. This issue was out on the front burner, and everybody's talking about how to solve it. And once you start talking about how to solve it, the issue of apartheid, the issue of occupation, comes front and center. and this causes enormous problems for the Israelis. So you want to ask yourself, what is the discourse going to look like moving forward once we get a cease fire here?

We are going to get a cease fire at some point. Then the question is, what does it look like? Are the Americans really going to push hard for two-state solution? What are the Chinese and the Russians going to do? What are the West Europeans and East Europeans going to do here? What are the Israelis going to do? Are they going to tolerate living in a state where they dominate the Palestinians with the ever-present problem of an eruption, like a first Intifada, a second Intifada, an October 7th? So the world, the world has just been, the Israeli world has just been turned upside down.

One cannot underestimate that. And by the way, if you look at Tom Friedman's column in the New York Times today, which I would suggest that people look at. You don't have to agree with a lot of his analysis, but his description of the situation in Israel is really quite stark. It's in Israel he's never seen before. And he makes it very clear that everybody there is really scared. You've had this profound change take place in Israel.

And again, the question is, where does this all lead? I have to say I had very little knowledge or experience of the Israeli media until this crisis. And actually, I've been rather impressed by the level of diversity and discussion that takes place there. Certainly more than happens here in Britain. And I have to say also that I find in that a sign of hope, actually. I get the sense that a lot of Israelis do not want to live in a part of it. garrison state, that they would be amenable to a solution. But maybe expecting something like that to happen soon is to ask too much.

Perhaps you can start with smaller things. And, you know, we have this expression. I presume you have it in the US too. When you're in a hole, stop digging. Maybe stop settlement expansion. I mean, that would perhaps ease the tension. stop this violence that there is in the West Bank, stop these threats that are coming from, or at least marginalise these people who are making all of these threats about, you know,

the Temple Mount and all of that kind of thing, which apparently there has been going on. I mean, these would perhaps not be big steps towards a, you know, a resolution of this crisis. But at least they would be steps of a kind. And that might provide you with some time and political space to start thinking forward about more substantive things. I have to say, I can't see any of that happening whilst Netanyahu remains Prime Minister. But perhaps these are the sort of things one should be focusing on the moment, you know, these more limited things, but these more achievable things. I just made two quick points, Alexander. One is, I think, given the recent events, October 7th and what's happened since then, it's hard to imagine the Israelis being willing to accommodate the Palestinians in almost any way.

I mean, they are just so angry. And they're also scared. And when you're scared, that creates an environment where it's hard to make any sort of concessions. That's point one. Point two is you do not want to underestimate how far to the right Israel has moved since you and I were young. And all the evidence is it's going to move further to the right as the number of ultra-Orthodox in the society increase over time. You know, for all the complaints that people have about Benjamin Netanyahu, and I fully understand those complaints. And by the way, if you go back to the Friedman column, he is railing against Netanyahu himself. But the point I would make is in the context of the governing coalition in Israel today, he's not on the extreme end of the political spectrum. He's really kind of in the middle.

And one could argue that if you get rid of him, whoever replaces him would be even more hardline. And I would argue that, you know, five, ten, fifteen years out, Israeli prime ministers will probably be to the right of Benjamin Netanyahu today. So I'm very pessimistic. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm dead wrong. But I just don't see much hope here. I thought, yeah, we could switch gears a bit to Ukraine because, well, how would you see the Ukraine being impacted by the war between Israel and Palestine? I guess obviously in this case, it appears that the United States have been forced to make priorities and the priority is now quite clear that Ukraine must take a back seat to Israel in terms of offering aid.

But I don't think this has been, this isn't a real variable which changed the whole thing. I think it was just it happened at a very awkward time because I think the, if not the collapse, the decline of Ukraine has been building up for some time. And as we began discussing, I think the media seems to have changed in the West dramatically over the past two weeks. Suddenly, you know, left and right, we have articles recognizing that, you know, Ukrainians are losing. Just now they announced they would start mobilizing women because there's no more men to fill the ranks. And the weapons are running out.

They can't really do any more offensive. You have internal political splits. The Russians are making gains, especially around Avdivka, but also other areas. I'm just wondering, how do you see since the last time we spoke? What is the direction of Ukraine here? Well, I listen religiously to Alexander every day, and I've learned from him that the Russians were winning in Ukraine for a long time before October 7th.

The Ukrainians are in deep trouble. This is before October 7th, and it was only a matter of time before the Russians effectively won the war. We can discuss what. victory looked like, but the Russians were destined to win the war for reasons we three all know well. I think, however, it's quite clear that October 7th has sped up the process because it's quite clear that the United States cares more about the Middle East, cares more about Israel to be explicit, then it cares about Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

And given that the Americans are aware that the Ukrainians are not going to win, it doesn't make sense to prioritize Ukraine over the Middle East. So I think what's going to happen here is the Americans are going to go to great lengths to try and get some sort of negotiated settlement in the near future. And they're not going to give the Ukrainians the resources, both in terms of money and in terms of weaponry, that they had promised them earlier. So the Ukrainians who were doomed before October 7 are surely doomed now. I mean, how well is understood is it in the United States that this is actually a crisis, the Ukraine crisis, Unlike the Middle East. The Middle East crisis is all but intractable. The Ukraine crisis could have been avoided entirely and can still be solved. You can actually find a way forward to bring the whole thing under control. You don't need to make concessions to the Russians that would impact on the core interests of the United States. You're not going to see.

a collapse of the American position anywhere in the world if you negotiate a resolution of this crisis with the Russians. Does this understood within the administration? Because one of the problems, again, is that they seem to me to have got themselves trapped by this formula that, you know, you don't do anything without Ukraine, which shifts the burden for negotiation on the Ukraine. Ukrainians themselves who are going to find this very difficult, whereas the U.S. could itself start talking to the Russians about this problem, and that probably would lead to an outcome, a positive outcome here. I want to make a quick statement, and then I want to ask you a question.

Delusional thinking about Ukraine in the U.S. government and in the foreign policy establishment, has been quite profound for a long period of time. And it remains the case to a large extent. I mean, you occasionally see evidence that people understand, especially in the media, that Ukraine is in deep trouble. But nevertheless, you still see lots of pieces where people are talking about Ukraine ultimately prevailing, and all we have to do is this or that, and it will rectify the situation. So I would just say, you, you don't want to place too much hope in the American government, understanding the basic facts of life and trying to fix this problem as best we can. But by question to you, Alexander, is what is the solution here? You know, how do you shut this one down in a meaningful way?

I can tell a story about how you get a frozen conflict that could turn into a hot conflict again. But how do you get a general peace agreement here? What does it look like so that this problem is basically put to bed? Well, it's quite interesting because Putin actually made some straight. He made some comments about Ukraine very recently. There was an event that took place on the 4th of November, which is a public holiday in Russia. He met various people from civil society groups, and then he went off, as he often does, on a tangent talking about Ukraine and the conflict. And he also talked about the history.

He always brings up history. He's a very historically minded person. But if you sort of took it aside and looked at what he was saying, it seemed to me that he was. basically setting out the basis for a negotiating, a negotiating position. And I want to say clearly a negotiating position. I'm not suggesting that he's talking here about the eventual outcome or the outcome that he would accept. But he made some points. He said, first of all, there are areas of Ukraine, which have always been historically Russian. The Bolsheviks created this bigger Ukraine. areas which are Russian, well, some of them, most of them are returning to the homeland.

And my impression was that if Ukraine were to accept the four regions plus Crimea as part of Russia, that would settle the problem completely as far as he was concerned. He has some concerns about other cities. He talked about cities in Ukraine in southern Russia, in southern Europe. Ukraine especially, which were created by Catherine the Great, which are Russian cities. So that would include presumably Odessa, but he wasn't talking about uniting those regions with Russia. So I can see that he is probably thinking about some kind of protections for Russians there, some kind of role for Russians there. Then he also talked about Ukraine itself, the core region of

Ukraine. And he went all the way back to the 17th century. He talked about how at that time it consisted of an area around Kiev, Chernigov, Jietermir. He seemed to accept that that is distinct in some fashion. He made it absolutely clear, though, that this part of Ukraine, this central region, certainly, under no circumstances can be part of NATO. And I got the impression that basically he doesn't think that he doesn't want to see Ukraine in NATO. But one thing that also struck me about the comments that he made was that he said absolutely nothing about the Western regions of Ukraine, the Habsburg provinces, places around Wolf. He doesn't seem to have any interest in those.

all. And also, he said nothing about sanctions. Now, he avoids talking about sanctions altogether, but he was talking here about how he was talking about how the conflict in Ukraine might evolve. So I don't think that he would be looking for any kind of sanctions relief. I think he understands that that would be impossible to get from the United States. States. I don't think he feels that that's needed. I think he's prepared to let Western Ukraine go its own way completely. I think that for the central regions of Ukraine, he, as I said, certainly doesn't want to see them in NATO. And that is, I think, for him, an absolute red line. So I think there is a basis for a discussion here, not an easy one. And he didn't talk. And I thought, found

this again interesting. He didn't talk this time about reopening the whole security situation in Europe, which he has done in the past. Perhaps over the course of negotiations, he might want to have some kind of strategic dialogue with the United States. The Russians have recently spoken about the need to restart a strategic dialogue with the United States, but they say they can only happen once the war in Ukraine ends. So I think there is a room. If people are pragmatic and realistic and understand that the Russians are winning the war, I think that there is room for some kind of discussion.

And I think that what Putin wants, what I think not just Putin, but the Russian leadership collectively won, is a stable situation. on their Western borders, they no longer think that they can develop a productive relationship with the Western European countries. I think that's become clear. But Putin also said, and this is an interesting comment that he made very recently, he said that with the Europeans, for the moment, we can't have a real dialogue with them. They lack agency. They have decided what they want. But with the United States,

we can get back into discussion eventually. So he seems to be thinking that some kind of a dialogue with the United States would work in Russian interests and can be resumed and can move forward productively. But all of the previous plans of establishing gas pipelines, all those kind of things to the Europeans, I think this has been part to one side. But let me just push you just a bit on this. I think what you're saying is that the only possible deal here is the Russians get to keep the four oblasts they've now annexed plus Crimea. Yes.

And in return, you get a genuinely neutral Ukraine. It breaks all ties with NATO. And I would imagine even the EU. I think so. There's a military dimension inside the EU. Okay. I agree with you. I think if you want to get a deal now, that's the deal.

And I think there's a reasonably good chance you could get that. But here's the question I have for you. Do you think that the Americans and the Ukrainians would accept that deal? Well, this is the great question. I don't think the Ukrainians at the moment are capable of accepting a deal like that. And that's why I said, I think that saying all the time that, you know, we're not going to do anything without the Ukraine. The Ukrainians must take the lead in these negotiations is to take you nowhere at all because the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian political system cannot negotiate on this basis.

It's not that there aren't people in Ukraine, even within the government, who don't see the way that the situation is shaping out and who might not want to negotiate along these lines. But the problem is that the system, the political system in Kiev is now so fragmented. And there are so many people who are still so dogmatic, ideologically opposed to these kind of concepts. And who would probably, by the way, even prefer and outright defeat to a compromise of this nature, which would compromise their own vision of Ukraine. And, you know, this isn't something one should underestimate. I don't think the Ukrainians are capable of doing this. But if the Americans start pushing in this direction,

if they start holding discussions with the Russians quietly about this, and the time window is not great, by the way, because he did say other things, which are more ominous as well. But if the Americans were to start broaching these ideas to the Russians, then I think that with the Americans, the Russians could move forward. Now, it would be complicated to persuade the Ukrainians to agree to all of this. But this isn't like Vietnam, where, you know, the Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese, always saw South Vietnam as part of their country, which they wanted to take over.

For the moment, that doesn't seem to be Putin's objective. He's not looking to take over the whole of Ukraine. And it would be very challenging for Russia, as I think you've discussed it yourself. It would be very challenging for the Russians to achieve that militarily anyway. So I think that there is a basis for a discussion between the United States and Russia. That's possible from the Russian side. The question is, and I can't speak here for the US. I haven't seen any sign that in the U.S.

People are thinking about this, at least not within the current administration. But, I mean, perhaps there are others who might be. I mean, this is the big question. Let me just jump in here a second. Given what you said about the fact that there are a lot of Ukrainians who would be opposed to giving up any territory, If I'm playing Russia's hand, right, I'm playing Russia's hand, and I'm in the driver's seat militarily, and I know that in the future there's a possibility that Ukraine may want to come

back and take territory. Don't I have an incentive to take four more Oblast now, to take Kharkiv, to take Odessa and so forth and so on. Don't I want to take almost half of Ukraine and make Ukraine really a dysfunctional state, rum state? So down the road, if things turn south, I'm better positioned than I would be if I froze the present situation on the ground. Well, I think that there are certainly voices in Moscow that are thinking in exactly that way. and I think Putin is absolutely open to that kind of thinking. And you can see that there is, at the moment, a debate taking place. That is why this can only end in that manner

if there's an agreement between the Americans and the Russians, and one which the Russians were confident, the way I outlined, it could only end in that kind of way if it was agreed between the Russians and the Americans, and the Russians were confident that the Americans, Americans would stick with it. But given the trend, the course of events, I think that quite plausibly the Russians would take more. And we come back to what Putin said about these cities,

and he was clearly referencing Odessa here, but of course not just Adessa, places like Nikolaiath, which is the great shipyard, and other cities on. the Black Sea Coast Kharkiv as well but also cities that were created by Catherine the Great and Potomkin he was specifically referencing those and he says these are Russian cities

and talking in that way he basically is signaling that you know unless there's some kind of agreement that satisfies Russian security concerns now and which will stick and which they're confident will stick with the future,

they will go on pressing forward until they take these places to. And I think militarily, they increasingly think they can. He also says something else, by the way, which was potentially very ominous and should not be underestimated, because I said that he always talks about history. And he was talking about 17th century history now. And he was talking about how the original Ukraine, broke away from Poland, came to join Russia.

And he said that the Ukrainians of that time, those in Kiev and Chernigov and Jitomir, they sent a letter to the Tsar, the Russian Tsar, which is still apparently in the Russian archives, in which they referred to themselves as Russian Orthodox people. Now, I don't think he meant by that, that today these people are Russian. But we've had in Russia,

this is something where I think Glenn is much more informed than I am, but we have in Russia increasingly this developing concept of the Ruski Mir, the Russian world. And it did seem to me that what Putin was hinting at there was that unless there's a deal done very soon, the Russians will not just take the four regions, the four oblasts, and perhaps, you know, a awful lot more, but that they might consider also Kiev, Jitumir and Chernikov

as part of the Russian world, in which case whatever government is left in that region of Ukraine would have to be in some way a satellite of Moscow. I think in the West we tend to underestimate the impact of what the Minsk agreement meant, because there's a very little trust now. That's my impression in Moscow, that any agreement we could offer them. Can I just cut it?

Can I just quickly cut it? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, because you're absolutely correct. And in those same comments, Putin actually mentioned the Minsk Agreement, and he actually spoke about the absence of trust. So in all, and this was in the same discussion as the one that I've just been discussed,

where he made all those other points which are just been discussing. Because I guess if they could get a deal now in which they do not take more territory, but there would be certain that Ukraine would remain neutral, not join NATO, and also that the language and cultural rights of Russian speakers in the south and east, that this would be protected. I think they would go for a deal. The problem is the trust is gone, and any agreement you will come with, they would have to see it in the context,

Minsk, seven years of being, well, fooled effectively, but they see all other agreements back from, you know, the NATO-Russia founding act of 97. It was very specific. We weren't supposed to place any troops in the new member states. But only recently, the NATO General Secretary said, oh, this is unacceptable. That means you have a two-tier system within NATO. So we were openly denouncing agreements we made in the past. So I think, I don't think they would need something very solid in order to trust this. And in the absence of it, I also think that they might go

for more territory, which would be prolonging the war. That being said, I think it would be hard. I also agree that they don't want to talk to the Europeans. They said that even back in December of 21. That was the point. Let's just talk to Washington. It's kind of pointless to

talk to the Europeans. But I think that, as John mentioned, the delusion, I think, would be difficult for Washington to discuss as well because in the US, just like in this country, by the way, we've been talking for two years that Ukraine is winning, Ukraine is winning, but now we're kind of coming to terms, okay, they're not winning, but we're kind of replaced it with a new delusion because now we're saying,

well, there's a stalemate. But still, if you look at the actual war of attrition, the artillery rates, the missiles, the equipment, the amount of mobilized men, these numbers are shifting very quickly. in Russia's favor. So it's not a stalemate. So at some point, something's going to break on the Ukrainian side. So I think if they want to negotiate based on this premise that we're now in a stalemate,

as opposed to Ukraine winning, we just replaced, I think, one delusion with another, which would then result in, I guess, the western side entering discussions with conditions, which would be, well, too unacceptable to the Russians. I'm not sure, John. your use on this. I'd like to make a quick comment and then ask you a question, Glenn. I think in terms of stalemate, people who make that argument focus on territory, how much territory has been gained or lost by either side. And of course, there, it kind of does look like

a stalemate if you just use territory as the indicator. But that's not the key indicator. The key indicator is casualty exchange rate. And the casualty exchange rate, despite the fact it's hard to get precise numbers, I believe decisively favors the Russians. I think the Ukrainians have lost enormous numbers of soldiers. It sickens me to just think about the number of people who have died in the counteroffensive alone, but since the start of this war. And this is due in large part to the fact that the Russians have a massive advantage in artillery. And then the Ukrainians were foolish enough to launch this crazy counteroffensive, which was doomed to fail. But it's not a stalemate because what matters in a war of attrition is the casualty exchange ratio. And it favors

the Russians greatly. And they have a much larger population. And this, of course, explains why the Russians are going to win this one. We can debate what victory looks like. But, Glenn, the question I have for you, as a West European, if the deal that Alexander described is put into place, this is going to look like a humiliating defeat for NATO. Russia is going to effectively win. Ukraine is not going to become part of NATO. It's the end of the open door policy. What do you think will be the consequences of Alexander's outcome for NATO and for Western Europe? That's a great question.

I think it's not just stimulating for NATO, but I think it can cause a lot of divisions. Just before answering that a quick note based on what Alexander said before, if you look at the Ukraine's ability to negotiate, this would be so weak because I think a lot of unity was premised on the idea that they would be able to win. But once they have to negotiate and recognize defeat, I think you have the political leaders like Zelensky

clashing with the military, quite upset about being pressured into this offensive, which they see as a, you know, PR war. And, you know, you have the civil society, you have the far right nationalist. All of them will start to, I think, collide or their fragmentations will deepen if they put in a position where they have to negotiate. But in terms of NATO, I think it looks a bit like it could go both ways. On one hand, I keep hearing the rhetoric in the media every day that this war has brought NATO closer than ever before that because of this external threat it necessitates greater integration.

On the other hand, I think some countries, especially in Germany, might see itself as, yeah, we'll reconsider some of the security arrangements because as more and more now, as we now have to speak more about actually having negotiations, I think their media's opening a bit more about what actually happened, what led to this war. And as we begin this debate, I think the knowledge that we could have prevented this war quite easily. And also, once it started that, it was actually peace negotiations were sabotaged. I think like a former NATO general, Haral Kuyat, the German army, he was making this argument that he thinks, a NATO might fragment because he thinks the Americans through the Germans, you know, the front line against the Russians. and now effectively leaving them very exposed.

So I think this could have a serious damaging impact on NATO. And I know that some people are trying to make a victory lap that, you know, okay, we lost Ukraine, but at least we got, you know, Sweden and Finland. But I've heard a lot of voices now from Sweden and Finland, which never had majority support for joining NATO until, you know, the emotions took over last year. And then, you know, they were pulled in very fast. without the referendums or anything.

So I think it could be a perfect trade fuel. It might not actually work in our advantage. I think NATO could fragment. But again, it's hard to predict. But Glenn, just to go back to where we started, you want to also remember that given the new focus on the Middle East and given the pivot to Asia, that works against NATO as well. So you could have a double whammy here in the sense that NATO suffers a significant defeat

in Ukraine, point number one, but point number two, because the Americans are deeply committed now in the Middle East, and of course they care greatly about China and the pivot to Asia, that NATO will be left in the dust. Yeah, and I think this was always the trade-off. The United States provides security for the Europeans, and then the Europeans, they tend to, well, let's say, obey or be more and more compliant, accepting U.S. leadership. And I think over the years, we always complain. The Americans would say, you know, the Europeans should pay more for security, and the Europeans complain, you know, we should have more political autonomy. But I think that you're very correct, I think, now that in this crisis, first of all, NATO didn't seem able to do.

deliver what it promised. I think, and also at the same time, the United States will try to pivot to Asia, but also to the Middle East. I think some of this trade has weakened further, because for the Europeans now, they have effectively surrendered a lot of, all of their strategic autonomy. Remember for so long the EU talked about strategic autonomy, European sovereignty, this is all out the window. And at the same time, we see America will take his focus and its resources elsewhere. So we're, you know, we're not the center of the world anymore. So I think this tradeoff in terms of giving up political sovereignty, but on the other hand, getting American security, I think this is all not gone because we have now given up all sovereignty almost,

and we will have much less security. And I think a defeat in Ukraine would only add to this problematic equation, if you will. I just would say, just very quickly, I actually don't believe that if you get the deal Alexander was talking about or some variation of it, that Russia would then be a threat to Eastern Europe, much less Western Europe. I think the idea that Russia is this great military threat to Europe is not a serious argument. The Russians have no ambitions. They're not even going to conquer. I think we all agree on this.

Not even going to try to conquer all of Ukraine. They would be crazy to try and conquer all of Ukraine. They would run into huge resistance from the ethnic Ukrainians in the center and in the western part of the country. And again, as we've talked about ad nauseum, the Russians had no interest in even invading Ukraine, right? It was NATO's foolish policy, as again, Stoltenberg has now made clear, that precipitated this disaster. I agree. I'll just quickly also point out that I think one of the things we missed from the consequence of 2014 was Russia largely abandoned its dreams about finding a post-Cold War settlement with Europeans because it had this greater Europe initiative before then, build based on Gorbachev's common European home.

But not only did they drop this, I would argue that they also dumped the Western-centric foreign policy ever since Peter the Great 300 years ago, Because what they've been doing since 2014 has been to have their own pivot to Asia, economic pivot. So no one in the West seems to ask why we thought we could collapse the Russian economy before the weekend. And yet now, two years later, we haven't been able to put a proper dent in it. And I think this is because since 2014, they made sure that there are strategic industries, technological partnerships, transportation corridors, bank currencies, all of this were aligned more towards the east. what they're calling it is the greater Eurasian partnership where they seek a balanced multipolar Eurasia. So this is very different from Russia in the 19th and 20th century

when they had hegemonic ambitions. They neither have the intention or the capability would be foolish to even pursue such a goal. And I think this is actually something we might welcome because we tend to think of multipolarity in Eurasia being something negative. But from Russia's perspective, they would have liked to have a bit close relations with Europe just so they wouldn't become too dependent on China because they accept Chinese leadership, but they will not accept Chinese dominance. And the difference is if Russia is able to diversify its economic partnerships.

But this is what I find to be so strange, because when we're trying to undermine the Eurasian Economic Union, that means the Central Asian states will become more dependent on China instead. You know, when trying to split the Germans from the Russians, the Russians will be more dependent on China. And I just, it's not even just with the Russians. We do the same with Iran, pushing the Indians to decouple from Iran. Well, then Iran will be even more dependent on China. So I think that Russia sees itself as a balancer in Eurasia. And I think if we would pull back a bit, I think a natural balance would, would a sense. establish itself, which is why it could be beneficial for the United States as well.

But again, I tend to be more optimistic about this Eurasian construct, of course. So I think I interrupted you, Alexander. Well, what I was going to just say was that I entirely agree. I don't think the Russians are any kind of threats to Eastern Europe. I follow the Russian media, which you can do, you can read what they say. You can see what Russian officials say. You can see what Putin himself says. they've never shown the slightest interest in wanting to return to Eastern Europe. I think they know

perfectly well that doing so would be far beyond their resources and would not be in their interests to do in any way at all. I think what the Russians want is stability and security on their western borders. They don't want NATO close to their territory, which is unsurprising. That's what great powers do. they don't want another great power encroaching too close to their own territory. They don't want that to happen. They want NATO kept away and their optimal outcome, their optimal solution. I think this is what Putin was basically saying, is that they would like a general framework

arrangement with the United States, not the kind of close relationship that was been talked about in the 1990s. I think that's all forgotten. I mean, they've given up on that entirely. But a relationship with the United States, which ensured stability on their western borders, they don't want to encroach on Eastern Europe because they know that would involve the Americans,

that would get them into problems with the Americans and with the Europeans also. But they also want the Americans to recognize that they don't want the Americans pushing too hard against them. then the Russians can focus on sorting out their pressing internal problems, which are, you know, not inconsiderable, and which they talk about all the time, and which they're concerned about. I mean, their economy has stood up to the sanctions pressure well, but they are still in a difficult period of transition, as they fully recognize, and sorting those problems out. the moment is their priority. So they want a period after this war of stability. And if they can get it through an agreement with the United States, then that, as I said, for them would be a good

outcome. The danger is that we won't have that negotiation and that agreement with the United States. And then in that case, even if the Russians don't particularly want to move deeper into Ukraine, they might decide that in order to keep the West further at bay, in order to avoid a situation where Ukraine might, in the absence of such an agreement with the United States, emerge again as a potential threat to them, then they might feel that they not only have to move further west into Ukraine, but that they might have to make arrangements in Ukraine themselves, which costly to themselves, though they might be, in terms of time and effort and money,

is the only outcome that can secure that modicum of stability and security on their Western borders that they need. And that would be less than an optimal outcome for them, but coming back to the question about NATO, Yes, the agreement that Putin is floating, and he's only floating, we're not yet in negotiations, things might be modified. But yes, this agreement would be a big blow to NATO, but it would not be the existential disaster that a further Russian advance deeper into Ukraine and a potential collapse of the Ukrainian state,

as we know it, would be. That would really put the whole question of whether NATO really is capable of providing East European states or middle European states with long-term security guarantees. That really might put it into jeopardy. So I think that the United States also has a good reason to pursue this kind of negotiation, whether it will, of course, is another matter. You know, our focus here, appropriately so, is on sort of Ukraine and just Ukraine. But if you think about the region, there is all sorts of potential for escalation beyond Ukraine. First of all, there's the Black Sea. Secondly, there's Transnistra.

Third, there's Belarus. What happens when Lukashenko goes and the Americans try to foster a color revolution in Belarus? Then there's the Baltic where the Baltic Sea is basically surrounded now by NATO countries, now that Finland and Sweden are in the alliance. And very importantly, there's the Arctic, right? Of the eight countries that are physically located in the Arctic, seven of them are NATO countries. The one exception, of course, is Russia. And the Russians have now brought the Chinese along with them, much to their chagrin.

They did not want to have to do this. but they need all the help they can get up in the Arctic. So you have potential for trouble in the Arctic, the Baltic, Belarus, Transnistra, and the Black Sea, in addition to potential problems inside Ukraine itself. So this is a very dangerous situation. You know, we talk about horizontal escalation in the context of the Middle East, appropriately so. But it's not only the Middle East, it's also in Eastern Europe. Yeah, but yeah, I completely agree.

and these are very intractable problems, and they're basically hostages to fortune, which bad policies have created. I mean, you know, we should not have pushed all this way into these areas without perhaps thinking better about the kind of intractable problems that we're seeing. What the Russians, this is why the Russians, as I said, for their point of view,

and some kind of long-term enduring agreement with the United States would remain an optimal outcome. Because all of these things have happened, undoing them, how do you undo them? I mean, you know, you don't want to invade these countries. Breaking up NATO is, you know, it's a nice thing to think about. I don't think that Putin, very practical man that he is, probably thinks it's an achievable objective. So better come to some kind of solution with the United States, provided it is an enduring one, which means that you can somehow de-escalate all these tensions so that the Russians can get on with their affairs, and the Americans can get on with their affairs also.

That, I think, as I said, is the optimal one from the Russian point of view. But if that can't be done, if you can't come to an agreement like that, then the Russians have shown that they will protect their interests, their security interests, in what they used to call the near abroad. They will do that in Ukraine, whether they are already doing that in Ukraine. They're doing that in Belarus, and they'll be very heavily involved now in what is going on in Belarus. They brought Lukashenko himself on board fully. Undoubtedly, they will have their people in Minsk. They'll be ensuring that their economic ties are there. They'll be keeping track on everybody who is in Belarus.

They'll be looking at Transnistria and Moldova. They'll be looking at Armenia. They can defend their interests in all of these places. And they will do so. But rather than spend time, energy, effort, putting out the fires in all of these places, I think they would still prefer some kind of general security arrangement with the United States. That means the United States stays out of Belarus. It stays out of the Southern Caucasus, which is another area where the Russians are concerned about.

It probably stays out of Moldo, but at least NATO does. And if that can happen, and the Russians can be sure that that will stick, and that's very difficult to get that to stick with the United States, and the Russians know that. But if they can be sure that that will stick, they would be content with that outcome. If not, as I said, they have the means and the will, and they've shown that they have both to ensure the defense of their own interests, as they see. What's very interesting, just picking up on what you said just now, the Russians from the get-go have been interested in a general security arrangement in Europe. Yes.

They were not interested in conquering territory. They understood that they had lost the Cold War. And occupying Eastern Europe was a nightmare. Did they want to really go back and do that again? The East Germans revolted in 53, the Hungarians in 56, the Czechs in 60s. They almost had to go into Poland three times. And then they're the Albanians and the Romanians. Oh, my God, do you really want to go back and conquer those territories?

No, they wanted to work out some sort of security arrangement. The biggest problem is the United States. The United States then, and even now, has a crusader mentality. The United States is deeply committed to running around the world and interfering in the domestic politics of all sorts of countries. to make them into democracies, right? People talk all the time about American leadership. We need American leadership, which means America has to run the globe. And the end result is that that runs right up against the Russian desire to create some security arrangement where Russian

interests are taken into account. The Americans are not interested in taking Russian interests into account or Chinese interests into account, unless they absolutely have to, because we think we are the benign hegemon and we have a right and a responsibility to run the world. And boy, when you're dealing with a country like that, it's very hard to get meaningful agreements. And that's why one could argue, if anything, Putin was too trusting of the Americans for too long a period of time. I think that Putin really believe for a long time, even after the famous Munich conference in 2007, where he expressed his anger at the West, especially the United States. Even after that, he was too trusting of the Americans. Well, that is exactly correct.

And of course, he doesn't trust them anymore. And he's made that very clear. And that's why getting this agreement, if it can be done, it will be very, very difficult and might not be possible, because, of course, you're completely correct. I'm sure about the United States. it finds it very, very difficult to negotiate these kind of arrangements with the Russians. By the way, I should say that I've been reading articles recently in the Russian media that talk about a new Yalta, time for a new Yalta, which of course, to the Russians, they would perceive it very differently from the way that word is perceived in the United States. So again, we can see the vast chasm of, you know,

conception there. But the Russians would like these kind of arrangements. And I think because they are in the process of achieving a military victory in Ukraine and have demonstrated to the Americans that they have the ability and the will to defend their interests, they're hoping that pragmatically the Americans might come round this time and that they can secure something which they can actually consider more solid so that there might be now Putin was talking back in December about a treaty which would be ratified by the Senate I have to say I think that's a might dream to be honest but that's my own view but anyway something that would stick that would you know could be come part of international law something of that kind now

whether that's achievable, whether that can happen is another matter. But yes, you're absolutely correct. The Russians and the Americans see things in a completely different way. The Russians do not any longer have a messiah, messianic complex. They're not out to spread communism around the world. The periods of time when they did have those ideas, relative to their whole history, is actually quite brief. This is a more typical Russian approach to policy if you look at the sweep of Russian history.

But this would be the optimal outcome for them. But just to say once more, the time window for this is not unlimited. The war is taking its course if the Russian sense that the Americans are not interested in coming to these kind of terms, then the Russians will just press on

and dictate the arrangements that suit them. And if that means fighting fires, they have, or so they believe, the means to douse them. I think that what's missing from the Russian imperialist argument is the whole story of what actually has happened because there's a common thread for the past 30 years what the Russians have been doing.

Because if you look back after the Cold War ended in 89, they did have this goal to, like John pointed out, to create a security arrangement in Europe. And like I think we discussed before, they got it for a while. They had the Charter for New Europe in – sorry, the Charter for New York in Paris. No, sorry, the first – in 1990 where they agreed we would have a Europe without dividing lines and indivisible security. We would form the OSCE based on this in 1994. And this was the whole problem of NATO expansion. We canceled inclusive European architecture. But the time and time, again, they tried to find other ways.

Even Yeltsin Putin suggested we could join NATO in 2005. They had an agreement with the EU. They would harmonize the integration initiatives. So there wouldn't be any dividing lines in their common neighborhood. In 2008, you had President Medvedev proposing a, new pan-European security architecture, which could fit NATO within, but be all under the same roof. You know, the EU, Russia, Union, which was proposed. You had all this time proposals for common Europe, because without it, what we refer to as European integration wins,

you know, where do we draw the new dividing lines. And this is why we always have this, you know, this deeply divided societies from Moldova and Georgia, Ukraine, that if they have to join NATO, it's two problems. One, that means a large part of the population, which is pro-Russian, will be marginalized, which is so in Ukraine as well. And second, it would have hostile military lines on their borders. So if you leave out this whole story for 30 years that the Russians have been working very hard to realize effectively, you know, Groszbozschev's idea of a common European home, then all you're stuck with is, you know, Russian nationalism, restoring the Soviet Union and, you know, Russian empire.

But I agree. I think it's very flawed. Yeah, the point I would just make very quickly, Glenn, just to support you, is there's no evidence to support that. I mean, that's the key point here. There's just no evidence. There's no evidence that Vladimir Putin is an imperialist who is bent on creating a greater Russia. It's hard to make this argument in the West. People accuse you of being a Putin apologist or what have you.

I'm sorry, there just is no evidence. Even the largest Rosafoba, I guess, Michael McFaul, even he recognized no one in Russia was asking to take back Crimea before the West toppled the government. So I'm not sure why it become controversial to say that this is not about territory. It's about the security architecture. But of course, if they can't get an agreement, then they will impose one. And that does entail altering territory. So I would see the territorial conflict as being a symptom of collapsing security architecture as opposed to being the main variable. But you also want to remember, Glenn, that up until 2014, when the crisis broke out, February 2014, nobody in the West was arguing that NATO expansion was designed to contain Russia.

right? Michael McFaul was not telling Putin that we're expanding NATO to contain you. He was telling Putin he didn't have to worry about NATO expansion because it was not aimed at Russia and the United States was a benign hegemon that was interested in creating a giant zone of peace in both Eastern Europe and Western Europe. So the key point here is we did not see Putin as an imperialist before February 2014. And the reason we then switched our rhetoric and turned him into one of the world's great imperialist, the second coming of Adolf Hitler, after February 2014, is because we wanted to be able to blame him for the outbreak of the crisis and not be in a position where we had to blame ourselves for expanding NATO eastward to include Ukraine and Georgia.

I completely agree. Anyway, we seem to be. running out of time. Any final words before we wrap this up? Well, I think there is a deal possibly possible to be made, but coming back to the points you were making, John, is there any real chance that the United States will take? There is even an understanding in the United States, not just within the administration, but in the wider political class, that that there is an actual possibility of coming to a political diplomatic resolution of this. Because as we said at the start of the program, we have multiple crises now in all sorts of places. In Ukraine, in the Middle East, potentially in the Far East, perhaps in other places that we can't even think of now.

And the United States is itself looking, well, it's got an awful lot on its hands. you would have thought that it would want to have fewer problems, not more problems. And if it could bring to an end, at least for our lifetimes, you know, the crisis that we now have in Europe, that would be a geopolitical plus for the United States. But are they capable of thinking in this way? Are they able to move forward and to start this kind of substantive negotiations? which the Russians are at the moment talking about. I think only if they have no choice.

You know, that famous saying, necessity is the mother of invention. I think the Americans' learning curve is pretty much flat. They just don't learn. I'm talking about the American foreign policy establishment. And it's hard for me to believe that they will suddenly see the light. However, if circumstances around the world leave them little choice, remember what we were saying about American policy towards China these days that the Americans are trying to tamp down the competition because they're so preoccupied in Ukraine and now in the Middle East. It could be the case that if the situation in East Asia and in the Middle East gets much worse in both of those places, that they have. no choice, American policy makers, but to think wisely about events in Ukraine. But I would

not hold my breath. Things have to get worse in order to get better, in effect. I heard similar comments that maybe if the economy collapsed, then we will have, but this is kind of terrible ways of thinking as well that things have to get so much worse before they can get better. But I think the main problem which obstructs is also what John pointed out before, which is the disease, because for Russia for the past thousand years, since Kivandrus collapsed and the Mughalians invaded, a key struggle has been to find reliable maritime corridors. And this was defined a large part of its history. And I think in Europe, they only have three real corridors. And the one would be Black Sea. And of course, NATO getting hands on Crimea,

I would put an end to that. And then you have the Baltic Sea. But of course, now with the Baltic states and Sweden and Finland in NATO, even the former NATO Secretary General said, in the future we could put a blockade of St. Petersburg in the Baltic Sea. And the third one, of course, is the Arctic. And the Americans will now open four military bases in Norway, making us a frontline state.

And, you know, so it seems this is a huge concern for the Russians. and I think scaling back one or then scaling back all of them, I think it would be too tall of an order to use your words. So, John, any final words before we wrap out of? All I want to say was a pleasure dealing with you guys, and I thought we covered a lot of territory and said some interesting things about some very interesting and depressing subjects. Thank you very much for joining us again, John.

Yeah, thanks again. You're welcome. Be well.