The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Back to a Russia-Ukraine stalemate and Mark Carney gets a standing ovation in Alberta

Episode Date: November 28, 2025

To find out how to purchase tickets to the Munk Debate on the Two-State Solution (or to access the livestream) go to www.munkdebates.com Rudyard and Janice start the show with a preview of next Wednesday's mainstage Munk Debate on the two-state solution. What kind of arguments are they anticipating from both sides? How will this discussion resonate in Israel? And why did we feel this was the right time to convene this debate? Rudyard and Janice then turn to the stalemate between Ukraine and Russia. After all of the negotiations neither side will agree to terms of territorial concessions. Should Zelensky accept a modification of the 28-point deal that would lead to the end of his political career? and what are Russia's long term designs for Ukraine and its relationship with the West?  In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice discuss the memorandum of understanding between Ottawa and Alberta in which both sides have agreed to work on approving a bitumen pipeline. We are witnessing a reset of Alberta's relationship with Ottawa and it is astonishing to watch Mark Carney, a liberal Prime Minister, get a standing ovation in Alberta. This agreement will anger British Columbia voters and indigenous nations in the area. Why is he doing this? Can he strengthen national unity? And if this pipeline makes it through all the approval processes and actually gets built, what will the demand for oil be in ten years? To support the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $50 annually, or $1.00 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt.  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.

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full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the 28th of November 2025. I'm Roger Griffiths, Chair of the Monk Debates, joined in. studio by Janice Gero Stein, my co-host and the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Great to see you, Janice. Good to be here, Reddard. We have a big debate coming up. It is a matter of days. December 3rd, we are gathering in Toronto to debate the motion, be it resolved. It is in Israel's national interest to move forward with a two-state solution for prominent Israelis.

Up on the screen, if you're watching this on YouTube right now, past prime ministers, multiple justice ministers, ambassadors to the United States, and elsewhere. Janice, what are you hoping this debate does? This has been such a logjam in Israel for so long now. I think everyone concedes that if there is going to be some kind of solution, some kind of repression between the Palestinian people and Israelis and the state of Israel, it will require an evolution of the dialogue from where it is now, yet many Israelis, because of October 7th, are more pessimistic, less enthused, frankly, outright opposed to the idea of a two-state solution.

How do we get into this situation? You know, it's astonishing, Roger, just to look at the numbers for one minute, you're absolutely right on the Israeli side. Support for a two-state solution is the lowest, it's been, but so is it among Palestinians. When you pull Palestinians in the West Bank, it's very low. Where is it highest? Not surprisingly, in Gaza, but even that is a minority. So we find ourselves in a situation in which there is literally the lowest support, both among Palestinians and Israelis.

And I'm, you know, you're absolutely right, that without recognition of the political rights of Palestinians, political rights. There's no solution to this. They're just interludes between wars, but wars radicalize. And that's what you're seeing. This was a brutal war. And I think that one thing that sometimes people don't visit the region miss is there's trauma on the Israeli side as well as on the Palestinian side. And when that happens, the space for Considering political solution just narrows. Yeah. So I hope this resonates back.

Yes, that's what you hope. But we are a long way, sadly. Yeah. No, I think the reason we're doing this debate is we are a long way, but the debate, the conversation has to start somewhere. And if it has to start in Toronto, Canada, at the Monk debates, well, then that is us putting our platform into service of, you know, an important discussion that affects not just Israel and the people of Palestine, but the rest of the

world, regional security, all the issues that we talk about here on Friday Focus. So if you are listening to this podcast or watching on the YouTube channel and you are a monk donor, you have exclusive ticketing privileges to this debate. You can access tickets that have been set aside exclusively for monk donors. So head over to our website, triple w monk debates.com. Look for the information about how you can order tickets via the box office, all the links and information is provided there. And more importantly, go through your emails because we've been emailing you, Monk donors,

for the last couple weeks, with our ticketing information, and that's probably the best place to start in terms of securing your ticket to this debate. And Janus, the promise, the pledge remains that we're going to allow monk donors who have a younger person in their life, 25 years of age or less, to bring that person to the debate as their guess, because we really

think it's important to get young people out, being part of debate in the public square. And I know you at the Monk School, that's a big part of what you do every day. It is. And it's important to do, Roger, because it's not getting easier. It's getting harder to have these kinds of debates. So really important to do. Yeah, the secret here at the Monk Debates, or maybe it's not a secret, is that over the 15 years of doing this series, it's literally becoming harder and harder to do this series. It's harder to get people to debate each other.

Often, Ricky Gerwitz or managing director and myself run into problems where the environment is so polarized, it's so charged that people feel that they can't appear on stage with someone else because their tribe will literally tear them down on Twitter. And that happens. And that's not an imaginary fear. There are so many ways, really social media and even personal emails like go that are really ugly that make public debate very challenging. But if we can't do it, Roger, we don't have a democracy. You're right. It's quarter our democracy. And I guess that's the other thing that we've noticed here over the last few years, really since October the 7th, is that when the monk debates does debates that touch on Israel or issues like anti-Semitism, wow. Does this get more complicated for us because suddenly the protest culture that's out there that has legitimate elements, but also frankly some illegitimate elements where people are increasingly using violence and intimidation to pursue their arguments in the public square, all that comes back at the monk debates in terms of higher security costs, in terms of trying to figure out how do we have safe, secure, civil, substantive debates in a climate literally where people, want to kind of start throwing things at each other. We've seen some very disappointing, I think,

recent spectacles here in Toronto of, of, again, violence around these issues that we're going to be debating on December 3rd. So needless to say, we've taken all the steps, all the precautions to ensure for a safe, secure debate. But wow, I'm starting to get some gray hairs, Janice, from this job. And maybe this spring we should do an easy topic. Like, cats versus dogs. Does that sound like a good one? I'm all in for that now. The spring debate will be, be it resolved, you know, cat lovers are, you know, 10x smarter than your local dog lovers. Let me just ask you, where do you come down on that one? I'm really clear. Really? I started with dogs as a kid, and I had multiple dogs and I love them, but as an adult, I've had a cat, and I've come to

appreciate cats. I appreciate the degree to which they aren't slavish in their devotion. They are prickly. They are independent. They are in fact less domesticated. Dogs have been domesticated for I think over 10,000 years. Cats domestication is relatively recent. And I think that shows it. I kind of like the independent streak of cats. I am an all dog person. Oh, here we go. All dog. You and I on stage June 3rd. 2026, cats versus dogs and less gray hairs on mine, Ricky Gerowitz's head as we take on our second debate related to Israel. Let's jump into the show, though, now because two topics I want to discuss on this week's program.

One, this utterly farcical piece talk that has kicked off yet again between the White House, Putin, Trump, Zelensky. It is just a dog's breakfast to pick up on our earlier, conversation. And then let's talk briefly. You find some time just talk about pipelines because he had a big pipeline announcement in Canada this week. Janice, but to talk about the Ukraine issue first, this was so predictable, wasn't it? And it goes back to something that you've said time and time again. This White House does no preparation. There is no use of the vast bureaucracy and skill of the State Department, the intelligence agencies, all of in a sense the professional tools of statecraft that actually matter.

And instead we just have a real estate developer from, you know, New York who made his fortune in strip malls, you know, heading off to Moscow to write up 28-point plans that the president seems to endorse. You know, just to take a moment, we often make fun of diplomats and the diplomatic culture. and I can go on at length about all the rituals that diplomats engage in. But to be serious, they really matter. They bring a sense of professionalism. This was off the side of Steve Wittkoff desk, if he had.

And Jared Kushner. And the president says, go, and they go. And I don't think that he knew everything that was in that document. But anyways, what it then became was an invitation to the day. dance and the Europeans rushed from the G20 to Geneva. This is like the third or fourth time they've had to do this. We've seen that. And now we're back at something that I can tell you whether Vladimir Putin will not accept.

All right. Well, he said as much today. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Our prima facie table stakes and Zelensky has said no territorial concessions. Well, there we are. So after this whole wake of panic and round the clock meetings, we're not really any further

down the road. There was one piece of information that struck me as I was reading, you know, this torrential outpouring because it obsessed the Europeans for who all, who want to, you know, think they should be at the center of this and are absolutely miffed that Trump is doing this over their heads. But Dan Drisco, who's the secretary of the army, who was in the army, but left to be an investor. He ran an investment fund of some kind. Very close to JD Vance. Very close to J.D. Vance.

39, so relatively speaking, young to be Secretary of the Army, said something that made me sit up. He told the Europeans that Moscow is stockpiling long-range weapons. Moscow really hasn't done that since the Ukraine war started because they get them, they fire them, they get them, they fire them. But the message really was, look, we're seeing that they're increasingly stockpiling the missiles that have the longest range. And he said to the Europeans that they will use those against Ukraine. So that is the message, frankly, the Trump administration has now sending everyone.

Ukraine's going to cannot win this war. People dispute that. That is a disputable assertion. Let me just make it clear. But that's where this government is. Ukraine can all win. Settle now. Because a year from now, it'll be worse for you.

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dot com yeah so let's take that up seriously i think we all agree that what's happened last week again was utterly shambolic and not really worthy of serious consideration. But I think what is worthy of serious debate is despite how punishing these terms are for Ukraine, and maybe some of the terms could come off, but maybe something like territorial concessions has to remain in order to satisfy the Russians. Do we acknowledge that what you just said, that it will only get worse? We're heading into winter. The Russians have been systematically degrading the Ukrainian power grid, natural gas, supplies, generators, et cetera.

And yes, Europe can insist that they will stand with Ukraine, provide Ukraine with weapons and arms. But the reality is that it's the Ukrainians who are dying. It's the Ukrainians who are facing the winter. And Putin shows no sign. of backing down. So what is your advice? Do you take a deal that is a modification of this 28-point plan now that would probably lead to Zelensky's... The end of his political career. End of his political career. And possibly people worry real instability inside Ukraine

because there are elements of the army, the Azov battalions in particular, who are very pro-national. and are completely against any kind of settlement or agreement with the Russians. You court the risk of all kinds of instability and the potential for vassaldom for Ukraine going forward. So not only do you lose the peace in the moment with whatever plan is struck, but you lose the next five years, the next 10 years to really effectively rebuild your country. Boy, Janice, that is a high, high price to ask, isn't it? Yeah. And, you know, you've outlined how dire the choice is for Ukraine. You know, I don't want to get into the wonky detail here.

But on some points, Roger, the gaps are not as big. For instance, limiting the size of Ukraine's army. This 28 peace point plan said, 600,000. Zelensky agreed to 800,000. Now that's 25%. It's not nothing. But you can see what this last round is done. There's been some effort to close the distance on some of the issues that are strictly Russia-Ukraine. Everything else was taken off the table. So what's the really big stumbling block at this point? There's one on the Russian side and there's one on the Ukrainian side.

On the Ukrainian side, Russia's demand that they see the land, that they have not been able to conquered. And if you look at what, and that's why I said, it's disputable that Ukraine has lost this war, the Ukraine, what the, what the Russian army is conquered in a year is so small in comparison to conquering the rest of the Dombas at such a high price. This is no cakewalk for Russia. Let's just understand. Is it saying possibly a thousand casualties, Russian casualties per square mile? Yeah, that's right. That's a cemetery. That's a, that's, that's, I mean, utterly astonishing, frankly, if we stop over that number, and that number doesn't get as much attention as it should. So that's point number one.

The second thing, and here's where I think Putin's absolutely unwillingness to compromise, denastification of Ukraine. What does that mean? Right? That was an inventing. Well, immediate elections are what the Russians are demanding, which I'm sure would result in maximum Russian pressure to elect. Who votes? Who votes? Do people in occupied Ukraine, such as there are, because the place is largely denuded, frankly.

They're not many. Who votes? Do people in occupied Ukraine vote? There is, boy, there are internal politics, as you just said in Ukraine. There are opposition parties who want elections, even in the middle of a war. there are factions within the military, the risk here toward destabilization of Ukraine, which would, that's what would enable Russia to achieve its objectives far more easily than continuing to fight the war, right?

And that's why this is so hard to solve. I don't think we're going to get it, we will see an end to the fighting. Right. We're going to go through a tough win. So before we get the next topic, pipelines exclusively for our donors on the back after the show, let's just go a little bit higher up because something else happened this week that in some ways I think is not unconnected with this, again, shambolic, ridiculous 28-point plan. Japan has stationed or indicated their intention to station missiles on a Ford Island in proximity to Taiwan. in, ostensibly, in kind of defense of Taiwan as an ally. This is under a new conservative prime minister,

slightly kind of MAGA-light prime minister that has kind of shocked the Japanese. Maggie Thatcher likes. Well, we hope. Maggie Thatcher was a long time ago. I think she was not MAGA, and I think these folks are a little more MAGA. But this has deeply angered the Chinese who have instituted tourism and other kind of embargoes and bans on Japan and are starting to threat. in Japan, Xi called Trump.

Yeah. In a sense, to have Trump lobby the new Japanese prime minister, I assume, to either withdraw these weapons or make concessions to China. I thought that was the kind of sleeper story of the week because it suggests an inclination on Trump's part, not simply to align with Putin, but to align with Xi, to align with line with autocrats vis-a-vis their interests specifically related to the reconquest or intimidation of peoples and places that these autocrats see as lost territory, lost fragments of the homeland. And I thought to myself, wow, if the United States is not only abandoning Ukraine

in Europe, but abandoning Taiwan and Japan in favor of another autocratic leader, we are truly not in Kansas anymore. You know, I read the story from a slightly different perspective, because he hasn't actually done it yet, Trump, to the best of our knowledge, she got about a private conversation with the prime minister of Japan. I read it slightly differently. She knew prime minister, and literally, I think one week into it, Richard, she says any threat to Taiwan would be an existential risk to Japan. No Japanese prime ministers said anything like that. Talk about no ambiguity. That really means we will go to war if you attempt to occupy Taiwan. Well, all hell breaks loose, as you said.

and just to think about some of the lighter moments for a moment. In Taiwan, they're now eating sushi, which they haven't done for a decade, and you see the stands moving. Interesting to me that Chi Chi-Ci-Ping would feel vulnerable enough that he would call Donald Trump to ask for help. That call was motivated by his anger and his concern. Is it vulnerability or is it like Putin and understanding that there's a useful idiot in the White House

who has a predilection for chumming up to autocrats like Putin and G? So it's like, yeah, why not call Donald Trump? He's coming to visit with me. He likes doing me favors. He's impressed about how powerful I am. It's just another card to play in Putin and G's art. to pursue their expansionist claims in Ukraine or now in Taiwan. You know, probably both.

But it is interesting. Instead of just coming out in the forceful way that Chi Chi Pinguine does with the kind of language, the Chinese, you know, the original response from China. I can't remember the exact words, but it was something like her filthy hands. You got over the top diplomatic response. What does he need Donald Trump for? What does he need him for? But he must have thought he's useful, even if he's a useful idiot. Right?

And it's rare, it's very rare record that Xi Jinping reaches out. They usually reach out to make their position clear and make sure there's no misunderstanding. But to actually hint that U.S. intervention with Japan would be how, hopeful. That's not usual for the Chinese. I think it's brilliant, though, for the Chinese, because what it does is test, one of the core parts of the repression between, currently, between the United States and China, which was Trump unofficially saying, okay, we're hands off on Taiwan. We're not going to speak like Nancy Pelosi did about the importance

of T1E's independence. We're back to a one China policy effectively. And maybe even worse, like Ukraine, we're actually kind of a bit indifferent at the political level about the fate and future of Taiwan in terms of unification with China. So I think Xi gets to test a little bit on that. And then second, he gets to scare the pants off the Japanese who basically think, oh, our multi-decade ally, our superpower, who supposedly guarantees our security, is now having called. with the Premier of China about our position vis-a-vis the Chinese, and we're not part of those calls. Yeah.

Well, you know, we're going to have to wait to see if Donald Trump does anything, and who knows if we'll know. But I was... I don't think he can resist, can he? Well. You know, it's all about this kind of peace prize obsession. He'll start talking about how he averted another war between China and Japan and why he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

You know, there's no story he can't tell. But if you look at Japanese public opinion, really, really interesting. And again, you're right that there's something going on with younger voters. Japanese under 40, under 40 are fully in support of her. They're proud of her. They are not hung up on their constitution, which came out of World War II, which requires Japan to stand down and away from the use of military. force, the support for her is over the top inside Japan. She's not going to back down.

No, I don't think so. This is, you know, her party was in deep political trouble. All of a sudden, she has a base now among younger people. She won't back down. Yeah. My final comment, though, is I think Japan needs to be careful. The Chinese have long memories. Japan occupied China. The rape of Nanking was one of the great atrocities committed in the 20th century. China has, you know, has long and painful memories about Japanese imperialism and Japanese military aggression. I think layer that on top of a kind of nationalist China at this moment, a China at home, that's in a lot of trouble economically, and you create the conditions possibly for a miscalculation

between these two powers. Well, you never know, do you think if there's possible miscalculation that Donald Trump might be instrumental here as a peacemaker? I'd say more likely in terms of an accelerant, something that makes those miscalculations more likely, not less. It's like spraying gasoline, right? Exactly, a flamethrower. Let's say goodbye to our complimentary listeners of yours. We're going to join our monk donors for a short chat on the other side just about pipelines to get our quick reflections on the big domestic story this week.

So goodbye to our complimentary listeners and viewers. And in a moment, hello to our monk donors. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday Focus podcast. podcast to get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program. Simply go to our website, www.com. Click on the Friday Focus tab in our navigation on the top right of the site. Make a donation as little as $25 a year or 50 cents an episode, and we'll send you not only the full-length editions of each and every Friday Focus podcast,

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