The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it Resolved, Putin deserves a dead end, not an off ramp, in Ukraine

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

When Putin invaded Ukraine in the Spring of 2022, the western world reacted in understandable horror.  The first major ground mobilization in Europe since The Second World War arrived in shocking, gruesome fashion.  Almost immediately, global security experts were predicting Kyiv would fall within days, and the overmatched, under trained Ukrainian Army could not possibly compete with the Russian juggernaut.  But these early predictions severely underestimated the Ukrainian will to protect their homeland, and overestimated Russia’s military acuity. Now, almost a year into the conflagration, Russia is on its heels, and by all accounts Putin’s gamble has been one calamity after another for his sclerotic regime.   But the question that still remains is, how does it end? For some foreign policy experts, military brass, and Russia watchers, the only way to prevent similar incursions in the future Putin must be beaten outright, and beaten badly.  But others argue that the risks of cornering a madman vastly outweigh the benefits, and offering Putin an off ramp is the best possible scenario to restore order, peace, and stability.   Arguing for the motion is James Goldgeier, visiting fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and a professor of international relations at the School of International Service at American University, where he served as dean from 2011 to 2017.   Arguing against the motion is Emma Ashford, Resident senior fellow with the New American Engagement Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security,and her opinion writing has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, and Vox. Speaker Quotes  JAMES GOLDGEIER: “Putin has had plenty of possible off ramps before and during this war. And he's shown no interest in taking them”.   EMMA ASHFORD: “Putin may deserve a dead end, but it's not clear to me that that's better for everybody else”. The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Jacob Lewis Editor: Adam Karch  Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

These statues have to come down. It's always been a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The problem now is it's a pandemic of the willfully unvaccinated. Falling birth rates are good. They're good for our planet. They're good for our societies. We're not responsible for the escalation with Russia. We're not the ones who invaded Ukraine.

I don't think it's fair to portray people of color as victims. It is a very dangerous time in American politics. Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffiths. when Putin invaded Ukraine in the spring of 2022, the Western world reacted in understandable horror. The first major ground mobilization in Europe since the Second World War had arrived in shockingly gruesome fashion. Almost immediately, security experts were predicting Kiev would fall within days, and the overmatched and under-trained Ukrainian army would not possibly be able to compete with a Russian juggernaut. The war in Ukraine has begun.

Just minutes after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in eastern Ukraine, explosions were heard in key. There are new signs of progress this morning in Ukraine's fight against Russia. Russian forces are still devastating communities by air, but citizens are banning together to keep them at bay on the ground. But these early predictions severely underestimated the Ukrainian will to fight to protect their homeland and overestimated. Russia's military prowess. Now almost a year into this conflagration, Russia is back on its heels, and by all accounts, Putin's gamble has been one of calamity after calamity for his sclerotic regime. But the question still remains, how does this war end? For some foreign policy experts and military brass, the only way to prevent Putin from making similar incursions into countries in Europe

and their territorial sovereignty must be for him to be beaten outright and beaten badly. They argue that Putin's Russia is back on its heels and now is the time not to let up, but to lean in to the Ukraine war. Ukraine says it has retaken the entire Kiev region and discovered horrifying evidence of the retreating soldiers' brutality. What the president of Ukraine is calling a historic day for his country, The celebrations are taking place in the streets after Ukrainian troops recaptured the key southern port city of Hurson, making a humiliating defeat for Vladimir Putin's forces. Ukraine can win. Ukraine must win and Ukraine will win.

On this installment of among debates, we dive deep into the Ukraine war. By debating the motion, be it resolved, Putin deserves a dead end, not an off-ramp in Ukraine. arguing for the motion is James Goldgeyer, visiting fellow at the center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, and a professor of international relations at the School of International Service at American University, where he served as dean from 2001 to 2007. Arguing against the motion is Emma Ashford, resident fellow with the new American engagement initiative in the Skokroft Center of Strategy and Security. her opinion writing has been featured regularly in the New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, foreign policy, and Vox. James, Emma, welcome to the Monk Debates. Great to be here.

Thanks so much for having me. Well, thank you for lending us your time and insights today. An important conversation may be possibly at a turning point in this war, so the opportunity to have a debate with you on our resolution today, be it resolved. Putin deserves a dead end, not an off-ramp in Ukraine is a pleasure indeed. James, I'm going to pass the program over to you, put two minutes on the clock. Let's get your opening statement in favor of our motion. Well, I think the most important thing to note is that Putin has had plenty of possible off-ramps before and during this war, and he's shown no interest in taking them. He could have easily called for a ceasefire when he held more of Ukrainian territory. pressure on Zelensky to agree would have been considerable. But Putin doesn't seem interested in an end to the war. The problem is that even though Putin has failed to achieve his maximalist goals,

Ukraine is unlikely to achieve its maximalist goals. And so that means that if the war is to end, there will need to be negotiations of some kind at some point. President Zelensky will be in a very difficult situation, since his domestic population, having fought as bravely as they have, having suffered as much as they have, having been the victims of torture, rape, looting, and assassinations are not going to want to let Russia remain on any inch of Ukrainian territory. Russian occupation means disastrous consequences for the population, as we've seen. And a bigger problem is even if Ukraine were to agree to a settlement that left Russia on some part of Ukrainian territory, how are Ukrainians believe that Putin will honor

such a settlement. But at some point, Ukraine and its supporters in the West will need to consider how they can pursue an end of the war that does not leave Ukraine in a situation whereby Russia can just come back and do this again after regrouping. So a negotiation would mean not just an end of the fighting, but support for Ukraine to defend itself in the future to deter Russia from doing this again after it has time to regroup. Thank you, James, for that opening statement. You're listening to our debate today, be it resolved, Putin deserves a dead end, not an off-ramp in Ukraine. Emma, you're arguing against our motion. Same opportunity for you, a couple minutes on the show clock to make your opening statement. Unlike, Jim, I think I actually find the off-ramp

and dead-end language to be relatively unhelpful. I think the question we're actually asking here is, are we looking for an absolute victory for Ukraine, something that takes as long as it takes, or are we looking for something that produces a settlement? And I think, you know, there are some problems with arguing for a dead end for Putin or for sort of an absolute victory for Ukraine. We can definitely say that Russia needs to lose this war, but Russia has in many ways already lost this war and continue to do so on basically a daily basis. The European Council and Foreign Relations earlier this year ran some polling on what Europeans

and various states thought about ending the war in Ukraine. And they ended up coming back with this dichotomy that suggested that there are two camps. People that want peace in Ukraine at a reasonable cost and people that want justice for the brutality that Russia has caused. And I would say that, you know, an absolute victory that seeks peace might be something achievable. An absolute victory that seeks justice for Russian crimes is going to be far harder to achieve. Another problem with seeking absolute victory in Ukraine is that it may not be feasible in military terms. The Ukrainians have done amazingly well thus far, but things will likely get harder as we approach the lines that Russia's held since 2014. And a third point or a third problem here is that there

are these escalation risks. We do not know where Russia's red lines are. We have not thus far seen Putin resort to nuclear escalation, but he's certainly escalated by calling for mass mobilization inside Russia doubling down on this war. And we simply don't know where in the future course of the war, we might see this escalate into a broader conflict. And then a final point, I think this assumes, if we're seeking absolute victory, that some kind of frozen conflict, a war that continues for a number of years, is better for Ukraine, is better for Europe, is better for the US, than an imperfect settlement of some kind. And I'm not so sure that that is true. So just to wrap up my opening remarks here, basically I understand why so many people, why Ukrainians are hungry for justice in this case

for an absolute victory to deny Putin an off-ramp of any kind. Putin may deserve a dead end, but it's not clear to me that that's better for everybody else. Thank you, Emma, for that opening statement. You're listening to our debate today, be it resolved. Putin deserves a dead end, not an off-ramp in Ukraine. James, our opportunity now for rebuttals, each of you two minutes to react to what you've just heard. You are first, give us your response to Emma's opening remarks. Well, I don't think that we should be giving up on the idea of justice quite yet. Russians have committed war crimes in this war. So the idea that no one would be held accountable for that is a pretty difficult pill to swallow. I also think

there is the question of reparations that Russia would owe Ukraine for the destruction of its territory. Remember, this is a war that has been fought entirely on Ukrainian territory. The Russians have inflicted this damage on Ukrainian territory. The Russians are not suffering damage on Russian territory. Russia does, will owe Ukraine reparations as part of a settlement. And I think it also means that the sanctions that the West has imposed on Russia for this war should not be lifted any time soon. And if any of them are lifted as part of a negotiated end to this conflict, that also, I think, requires that we have considerations of justice. We cannot leave justice out of an end to this war. Thank you, James, for that rebuttal. Emma, your opportunity now, two minutes on the clock. to react at it at the James's opening statement or what you've just heard. Yeah, so, you know, I guess to James's first point from the opening remarks that Putin

has had plenty of off-ramps and doesn't seem to want them. I mean, certainly, right, he could have chosen not to invade Ukraine. That is entirely in Vladimir Putin's court. But I think, you know, everybody who sort of studies war and looks at these issues knows that you don't get towards a settlement or some kind of negotiation over the issues until the two sides have had a chance to hash things out on the battlefield, right? Battlefield realities end up driving results. They have already made not perhaps concessions, but they have already dialed down their war aims substantially from where they did at the start of the conflict, where they tried to basically conquer the whole country, install a puppet government. Now we're talking about some territorial gains

in the east. And I think in any sort of negotiated settlement, you would undoubtedly see conversations about exactly what territories are involved. You know, if Ukraine keeps making gains, any territory Russia gains may be minimal. And we're also going to see debate over those sanctions. And while I think some sanctions relief is necessarily going to be a part of this process, I do think that Russia is going to have to accept

that some of these long-term sanctions on things like military technology are going to go on for a number of years. And then a final point, I guess. You know, you mentioned that it will be very difficult for Ukrainians or indeed for others to accept that any deal with Russia will last, that we can trust the Russians. And I think that's perfectly reasonable, right?

Who would trust Russia? Who would trust Putin after everything that they have done here? But I think we should also be careful to note that, you know, it is not necessarily the case that peace will favor Russia, give Russia some huge advantage, allow them to build up their military and come back and start another war. And at the same time, that settlement would mean nothing for Ukraine. That's not at all accurate. If there is a negotiation, if there is a peace deal, a settlement, then both sides will benefit from the time and space to rearm, equip, train, rebuild their economies. And so, you know, it is not clear to me that a deal is necessarily

going to place Russia in a better situation. So even if we cannot trust Putin, and I think we probably can't. A settlement is not necessarily going to be in his best interests. It may actually be better for Ukraine in the long term. Thank you, Emma. Let me join the conversation now and come to you first, James. It's really a word that Emma used in her last sentence there that I've been thinking about interests. How do the interests of, let's say, the United States or Canada, where I'm recording this debate from, how are these, in a sense, synonymous with the government of, like, Vladimir Vizelensky and Ukraine. Conceivably, James, could there not be a divergence between Ukraine's interests in this war and

our interests in this war? Well, I think we've seen that the interests are not completely synonymous because the West, the United States, for example, has not given Ukraine every piece of military equipment that it wants. And the United States has had the goal of supporting Ukraine, to try to help Ukraine take back territory. But it has also limited itself because the United States does not want a war between NATO and Russia. And Canada doesn't want a war between NATO and Russia either.

So I think that, again, we have seen that the United States, for example, has clearly has demonstrated that has interests that are different. But I think the general interest, as Secretary of Defense Austin, expressed it in the spring of weakening Russia so that it could not do this again is something that remains an interest of the West. Emma, let's have you come back on that. I want to get your thoughts there. You know, why isn't it in the interest of the West to see this war as one that permanently degrades, defenestrates Russia? to the extent to which it can no longer become what it seemingly has for the last decade or more, this perpetual source of instability in the world. Let me be frank.

There is no scenario in which this war takes Russia completely out of the military, diplomatic, great power equation. Yes, Russia has been weakened by this war. I think that's very good from the point of view of U.S. interests. NATO is perhaps in one of the strongest strategic. positions that it's been in for decades as a result of this war. But this is not going to lead to the collapse of Russia as a state. This is not going to lead to some sort of tectonic shift in Russian politics that brings a friendly democratic government into power. And I think we're kidding ourselves if we believe that's the case. This war is being fought over territories in the east of Ukraine.

And while there is an interest for the U.S., for its European allies, in seeing Russia defeated here, I don't think that interest rises to the level of some of the costs that we might see if this war continues. And again, I believe that some of these costs are worth bearing. I just don't think they're worth bearing forever and at all costs. Hi, Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. I have a favor to ask you, please consider the... becoming a monk member. Membership is free and you get access to a series of great benefits, including a 10 plus year library of some of our best debates, dialogues, and podcasts. You also

get a free monthly newsletter featuring the debates that we're watching around the world. And you get a specially curated Friday weekly monk members only podcast that focuses on the big international events and trends shaping our world. All of us. that again, free at www.w.com. I hope you'll consider joining and becoming part of our community. Now, back to our program. So, James, let's talk about some of these risks. It has been on the top of many people's minds, this very, let's say, loose language. It's the only way you could characterize it around nuclear weapons. Why, again, wouldn't you say, James, that there are certain risks here that are known unknowns, but by the very nature of, let's say, breaking the nuclear taboo,

what that would mean for international peace and security for a generation or more if that taboo was broken, why shouldn't those factors factor into our discussion today of whether or not an off-ramp versus a dead end should be what is served up to Vladimir Putin in Ukraine? Well, I mean, we can't reward this kind of. use of the nuclear threat. I don't believe that the likelihood of him using nuclear weapons is very high. Now, of course, if they're higher than they were before, that's bad enough. And any probability that they could be used is certainly disastrous. I think that the benefits to him would be very difficult to see. Politically, militarily, reaction from the global South, where he's

He's had a lot of support, a reaction from the Chinese where he's had support. And the United States, from what we know, has been very clear that it has conveyed to Putin the kinds of consequences that would result if he were to use nuclear weapons. He has achieved what presumably he most wanted through the nuclear saber rattling, and that is the West NATO, the United States, refraining from intervening. directly in the war. And that is what those nuclear weapons do for him. They keep the West from coming in directly and from fearing a NATO-Russia war. But he'll fear a NATO-Russia war as well. He's having a hard enough time in his war against Ukraine. A war with NATO on Putin's part

would be absolutely disastrous. So, Emma, let's hear you on this, because I mean, James paints a reassuring picture, at least to me, that the saber-rattling, really isn't about the ultimate use of nuclear weapons. It's much more about keeping NATO out of the conflict. And as you've said, Emma, this has been a boon for NATO. The massive destruction of Russia's conventional forces here, further creating this imbalance between NATO's capabilities and Putin's. Why, again, doesn't all this suggest that really punishing Russia here, putting off negotiation so that he bears the full price of this conflict isn't the right course of action. So I agree that I think Putin's actions here have been in many ways self-sabotaging.

But I don't think that this is a question of rewards. I do think as well that the risk of nuclear use is relatively low, but it is higher in this crisis, I think, than it has been in decades. And the war in Ukraine recalls to mine some of the crises of the early Cold War, whether it's the Berlin crisis or the war in Korea, where there is this doubt about whether one site or the other will engage in nuclear weapons use because the stakes to them seem high enough to do so. And that is a situation we've not been in in many years. And it's a very dangerous one because the thing that we learn years later from historians who went to the archives is that those

crises, both sides typically did seriously consider the use of nuclear weapons. So I don't think we can necessarily eliminate the nuclear threat. And I think this is the wrong way to frame it, is thinking about it as we are rewarding Putin for making nuclear threats. I think the correct way to think about this is the way that we thought about it for many years during the Cold War, which is there are places where it is credible for America to threaten that we will use nuclear weapons ourselves, or we will retaliate if there is nuclear use. There are plenty of places, mostly inside NATO where I think that threat is very credible. Ukraine is not a place where that is credible. We have already committed not to intervene in Ukraine. And so I don't think talking about rewarding Putin

here is necessarily the way to think about this. I want to remind our listeners that you are listening to our debate today, be it resolved. Putin deserves a dead end, not an off ramp in the Ukraine. I greatly appreciate this conversation. Emma and James. James, I want to pick up on something you said at the outside of the debate, which I think is worth us spending a little bit of time on. And that's the notion that, you know, this war is happening against the backdrop of what we commonly refer to as the liberal international order, a set of covenants and understandings about how state should act. And therefore, maybe this is a moment where issues of justice should be, I don't know, calibrated in such a way that we acknowledge them, vis-a-vis conflicts, possibly in the past,

where notions of larger objectives, larger principles and ideas were pushed aside in the name of real politic, in the name of a negotiated settlement that brings an imperfect peace, but a piece nonetheless. Is that an accurate assessment, James, partly of why you think notions of justice should factor into our discussion as to whether Putin faces a dead end versus an off-ramp in Ukraine. Well, I mean, the resolution for this debate was whether he deserves a dead end. I think he deserves a dead end, whether or not we can achieve that is a whole other issue. But I do think we should be talking about justice because the, I mean, you have a Russian government that is committing genocide against Ukrainians. You have just to see what these towns have gone through under occupation,

these, you know, and mass murders in Buccia and the kind of torture and assassinations we're hearing about in Gherzan. I mean, you can't just ignore the kind of war crimes that. have taken place, the deportation of Ukrainian children to be raised in Russia and to try to make them Russian. And I think, you know, a bigger issue with respect to the liberal international order, or just any kind of international order that we can imagine in the UN system that we have, that system was founded in reaction to what occurred in the 1920s and 1930s and early 1940s, to prevent powerful, large states from using their military to waltz across the border and take territory from smaller, weaker neighbors.

That is the interest that is held by states around the world in the international system. And it's why so many countries have supported, for example, the resolution against the annexation, the so-called annexation, the nonsense annexation, of these four Oblos regions in eastern Ukraine, following on the unlawful annexation of Crimea in 2014. When it comes to big countries just walking across, sending the military across the border and annexing territory, countries around the world are pretty united in opposition to that. Thanks, James. Just to build on that, Emma, many people might say, well, look at the Iraq war.

There was a moment where the United States invaded another country. Yes, albeit a dictatorship, an autocracy, overthrew the government. Statistical, detailed statistical analysis suggests, you know, over 250,000 civilians killed in that conflict. I guess my question to you is, to what extent are these discussions about justice kind of relativistic? It's a question of your perspective, where you look at, this war from? And is it the perspective of the West looking at the war? Is it the perspective of the rest

of the world? There were many American troops that committed war crimes in Iraq who were never effectively brought to justice even by their own government. I mean, to be clear, I think what Russia is doing in Ukraine is orders of magnitude worse than anything we saw from the worst incidents in the Iraq war or in other U.S. interventions during the war on terror. But the fact is that the U.S. has done many things to undermine the, you know, so-called liberal order over the years. We have also violated these rules. And that is part of what makes me skeptical that the liberal international order is really a thing at all, that it has anything, any power independent of U.S. backing for it. And I have, I tend to think as somebody who's a realist that the liberal values that the U.S. you know, holds dear, that the rules that we have built world order around in recent years,

that these are fundamentally a function of US power and our willingness and ability to actually enforce them. And if that is the case, if that is true, then yes, justice is very important. We should be thinking about ways to bring those responsible for these brutal acts in Ukraine to some kind of justice. But we also have to think about what is possible, right? What is possible under the constraints of power? What is possible under the constraints of reality and what the US can actually do? And it seems to me that, you know, given the costs that we're talking about, costs that are being born not just in Europe, but they are being born in the global south by people who are seeing food prices spike, fuel prices spike, that these costs may end up being too

high for us to push towards some full campaign of justice that sees Russia get absolutely nothing at the end of this war that sees a Versailles-style settlement imposed on them. I don't think that's feasible. And that is a big part of why I think we do need to be looking for some kind of off-ramp before that. Let's before we go to closing statements, just talk, pre-pognosicate a little bit if you play along with me here about what this winter could entail. regarding our resolution today, be it resolved, Russia deserves a dead end, not an off-ramp in Ukraine. James, you know the argument that Russia now, thanks to a successful Ukrainian advance, has been forced back onto the other side of the Denapur River. There is a feeling, a possibility

that there will now, in a sense, be a stalemate militarily over the coming winter period and increased pressure for negotiation, both on the Russians, and there are a variety of players that are leading on them, possibly the Chinese, but also on the government of Vladimir Zelensky. There is, again, suggestions possibly that the Biden administration has an interest in furthering, an opening a dialogue between itself, Ukraine, and Russia around a resolution to the conflict. What do you think is likely to happen over this winter and where will we be in this conflict 12 months from now? Well, the winter is not going to last 12 months. So I think there's the question of this winter and where we will be in the spring and then where we'll be a year from now.

It's also worth noting that there have been conversations between Ukraine and Russia and between the U.S. and Russia on particular issues. Ukraine and Russia have engaged in prisoner swap. So they have had to, they have had to negotiate those. The U.S. and Russia have had conversations on the Russian nuclear threats and on efforts to get U.S. citizens, Brittany Griner, and Paul Whalen returned home. So there haven't, as far as we know, there haven't been a negotiation since the spring on an end to the war. But there have been communications between the different sides. I think what we're likely to see during this winter is a pause in the fighting as each side. regroups. I don't think that means we're going to see lots of pressure on either side. I don't think the United States and its partners are going to pressure Ukraine at this point. And we'd want to see

if Ukraine can continue to gain militarily. And I don't think that Putin will respond. I mean, if there is pressure, I don't know that he will respond. So I think what we're likely to see is at least lower levels of fighting as the two sides were group and a resumption of the fighting in the spring. And I think if you're asking about a year from now, I think in one form or another, this war is likely to be going on at that time. Thank you, James. So Emma, a similar question for you and maybe just a slight twist. Our resolution today assumes the extent to which an off-ramp is a possibility because the Russians and Vladimir Putin would accept it. I guess there is an argument, I'm sure you're familiar with it, that his entire regime, his entire political apparatus is,

in a sense, wagered in this war. And he, in fact, may be the last person who wants to negotiate his way out of this. Anything short of a demonstrable victory effectively means the end of his rule of Russia. So there is a concept that's written about by people who write about war termination and autocrats where they talk about gambling for resurrection. So the idea that autocrats who find themselves losing a war in a very difficult situation are liable to take riskier and riskier steps because of the only way to save their regime. And I do think we are seeing some of that from Putin right now. We're seeing extremely negative noises out of more hawkish corners inside Russia against Putin himself. We're seeing those big steps to announce annexations to go to Mass

mobilization. And so I do think that there is a concern here that Putin certainly will not be willing to accept a very obvious visible loss in this conflict. And I think also, you know, to what Jim was saying about the current situation, you know, Ukraine is still making gains. The energy costs in particular have been pretty muted because it's such a mild winter. So I think right now we're in a situation where, you know, continuing to support Ukraine, continuing to back them as they make gains is probably a good thing and is probably for the best. But I think come the spring, we do enter a period of much more uncertainty, right? We don't know whether Putin's gamble is going to be correct, whether this mobilization will actually allow him to push back, to halt the Ukrainians,

or even maybe push them back. You know, we don't know whether there will be fatigue in the West related to Ukraine arms or funding. I mean, even the midterm results here in the U.S. You know, seem like the, you know, the Republican potential majority in the House might push against funding, even if it's less likely than it seemed a few weeks ago. So there's all these variables at play. And for this reason, I think, you know, even if we're not sure whether the Russians will be willing to negotiate, whether Putin will be willing to negotiate, I do think that it may be time to think about, you know, when do we try to lock in the gains that Ukraine has made, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs put it the other day. When do we think about locking in the gains?

Because we might fear that something worse might happen if we wait longer. Thank you, Emma, for that. Let's go to closing statements. And James, if you'll play along with me, I'm going to ask you to go first. So the resolution today that we've been debating, Putin deserves a dead end. not an off-ramp in Ukraine. James, you've been arguing in favor of it if you could give us your two minutes summing up. I want to come back to some things Emma have said about Putin's inability simply to declare victory and go home.

And, you know, my point that he's had plenty of off-ramps during this war, because I do believe he could have at multiple points during this war, given how much of the narrative he controls in Russia, that he could have declared victory and ended this war because he could have argued that he was protecting the populations in eastern Ukraine and he could pursue a settlement. And if he did that, he would be putting tremendous pressure on President Zelensky to agree to an end of the conflict. And pressure because President Zelensky will face a population.

as I said, that's not going to want to see Russia occupying any Ukrainian territory, given what they do on it. I also think it's important that we recognize the uncertainties within Russia. Emma seemed very certain that we're not going to see Russia collapse. We're not going to see a leader that would replace Putin, who might be friendlier toward the West. I agree that we can't count on any of these kinds of things as we think about the Russia's future, but I don't think we should be certain about anything regarding Russia's future.

We don't know what would follow a Putin regime. We don't know what the consequences are for Russia over the long term of having engaged in this disastrous war and what it means at home for the Russian government in the long term. So I think it's important that we continue to put pressure on Russia and that we do what we can to support Ukrainian efforts. If there is to be a negotiated solution, we want it to be one that is as favorable to the Ukrainians as possible, and that will ensure that there are measures taken that can be monitored and verified in order to prevent Russia from simply regrouping and doing this again in the future. Thank you, James, for those closing remarks. Okay, Emma,

you're going to get the last word today in our debate. Be it resolve, Putin deserves a dead end, not an off-ramp in Ukraine, you've been arguing against our motion today. Let's have you sum this debate up for us. Thank you. And thank you, James, for your remarks as well, because I think this is a very difficult conversation, right? There used to be an old Latin saying, which I'm going to butcher, which was something like fiat justiciya peri at munus, which basically means let justice be done, though the world perish. And that's fundamentally the debate that we're having here, is whether we should be viewing our end goal in the war in Ukraine as justice, as peeing Russia back for all of the horrible things that it's done, or if we should be looking for something

that we can all live with that is perhaps not ideal, that perhaps does not necessarily do justice, but is possible and plausible. And so I guess I argue, fundamentally would argue, that our goal should not necessarily be justice. It would be wonderful if we can do that. We should try it incorporate it where we can. But our goal should actually be a stable settlement of this war that doesn't produce future conflict, that doesn't simply cause another war five years down the road. And to do that, I think that means that both sides in this conflict, Ukraine and the West and Russia on the other side, need to be, you know, if not happy with the results, then they at least need to to accept the results. But I do think we should be guided by what is possible rather than by

absolutism. And that means that policymakers should be looking for openings when they arise that might let us find that stable settlement that can end this war. So basically don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and try to think about the ways that we could bring this conflict to an end that's better for everybody involved. Thank you, Emma. And thank you, James, for a civil and substantive debate. It indeed is a difficult and emotional issue. And many people have understandably strong, heartfelt views on this question. Both of you have brought, again, your considerable experience and insights. And I think this conversation really has just been in service of what we're all about here at the Monk Debates, which is civil and substantive dialogue.

So thank you, James. Thank you, Emma, for coming on the program today. Thank you. Well, that wraps up today's debate. I want to thank our participants, James and Emma, for a terrific one-on-one. I learned a lot. I hope you did too. Please send us your feedback or reflections on this episode. You can do that right now by sending an email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com. Also, a reminder that our members-only podcast is yours free to listen to any time. On this podcast feed, you could find it in your favorite online app or go to our website,

triple w monk debates.com and look for Friday focus. Each and every Friday, you'll get our in-depth analysis of the world as it is, bringing that to you as part of our membership package at the Monk Debates. Thank you for spending some time with us and lending your time and attention to our efforts to restore the art of public debate. one conversation at a time. I'm your host and moderator, Rudyard Griffiths. The Monk Debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk charitable foundations.

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