The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Plans to end the war in Ukraine and momentum for Mark Carney

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates' weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus. Rudyard and Janice start the show by reacting to the big news announced by Trump's defense secretary this week: Russia gets to keep the Donbas border region, no pathway to membership, and no security guarantee from the US. While Putin's aggression is being rewarded, it's fair to say that we are witnessing the end of the liberal international order and the return of 19th century imperialism: the mighty do what they want, the weak do what they must. What lessons will China and Russia take away from America's abandonment of Ukraine? In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to Canadian politics and how Trump's volatile first few weeks in office have influenced voters north of the border - specifically who Canadians view as the best leader to respond to threats from the US. Can Pollievre's disruptive agenda get support in this new political reality? Or is Mark Carney's calm, steady approach what Canadians are looking for? To access full-length editions of the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.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.

The following is a complimentary excerpt of this week's edition of the Friday Focus podcast by the Monk Debates. To access full-length editions of each and every episode, along with all kinds of great additional benefits and perks, become a donor to the Monk debates. You can do that for as little as $25 a year, and you'll receive each and every year 50 Friday Focus episodes at full length. It's all available right now on our website. in just a few simple clicks. Triple W. The Monk Debates.com. Look for the Friday Focus option in our navigation bar, the top right of the website.

Make your donation, and we will send you each and every Friday a link to listen to the full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Roger Griffiths here, the chair of the Muck Debates. Welcome to this, the Friday Focus edition for the 14th of January, 2024. I'm joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. How do we find you, Janice, on this snowy Friday with more here, at least in Toronto, set to come over the weekend. This has been quite the winter.

You know, I thought this was over. Redyard, I took global warming very seriously. I was wrong. It's all I could say. This was an old-fashioned snowy, wintery week. It sure was. Well, a lot of news to dig into, as always. We are in the proverbial whirlwind from Putin to Gaza to more tariffs.

It's all happening. It's all wall to wall. Let's start first, Janice, with the conversation, the 90-minute phone call that happened this week between President Trump and Vladimir Putin. Two big takeaways, one not unexpearlane. but the president seeming to sidestep his European allies and, in fact, the government of Ukraine to engage in what seems like not simply the openings of a peace negotiation, but some pretty specific terms that I think surprised a lot of people, at least if this was our opening position, we now seem to be acknowledging that Russia will keep its territorial gains, not just in Crimea,

but in the Donbass and that there will not be a pathway to NATO membership for Ukraine nor American troops at any time deployed in Ukraine to enforce any kind of subsequent derivative security guarantee. What do you make of it all? So, Roger, let's start with the second point, which is completely accurate. Frankly, there is continuity between the Biden and the Trump administrations. Although Biden people don't say in public what Trump did say on that call, there was never going to be a pathway to NATO for Ukraine. The Biden administration talked about that privately.

Trump has said it publicly. Nor were American troops ever going to be deployed. In fact, nor were NATO troops, despite the fact that Macron flirted with that occasionally. And the reason for that, Redyard, is the fear that the war would escalate were those things to happen and that there would be much greater risk of the United States and then while it's being pulled into a land war with Russia. That was off the table. So the big change really is the first point you mentioned. Russia gets to keep what it seized illegally by force. Now what that doesn't do is and that's why this is why the fighting is so. so fierce as we speak.

It doesn't talk about the territory that Ukraine has occupied in Russia, that little salient in Kursk, where there is the bloodiest fighting of the war going on right now, because Olensky hopes that is a bargaining chip. Russia is taken back 60% of it, but 40% still remains in Ukrainian hands. Can he trade Russian-occupied territory in U.S. Ukraine for Ukrainian occupied territory over the border of Russia. I'm not overly optimistic here. Beyond that, the bigger issue, and here's where I think the gap is between Trump and Biden, what does the security architecture of Europe look like after this is all over?

Putin has ambitions there too, and that's why the Europeans are terrified right now. Look, I think many people had hoped that Ukraine would reclaim territories. I mean, we were providing long-range missiles to, for instance, attack Russian forces in Crimea. And, you know, there was a lot of rhetoric during the Biden administration about pushing Russia out and restoring Ukraine to its 2014 borders, let alone its 2020 post-COVID borders that were invaded by Russia. I mean, has Trump simply done us all a favor of actually expressing the reality on the ground? And as odious as some people may find this, as disappointing is to see an aggressor, in a sense, be not, if not rewarded, at least allowed to take a significant swath of another country, despite, again, the tragic deaths of hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of this war. Are we simply looking at real politic here, Janice?

And a lot of this, again, not pleasant, not what we would have wished, but it's probably more like the way the world is as opposed to how we might want it to be. You know, this takes us right into the territory that you and I've been talking about. The ends of the liberal international order. the return of 19th century imperialism, which I believe is where Trump's head is, frankly. And Putin's right there, too. Big powers, the mighty do what they want, the weak do what they must, and that's what the world looks like. I think the jury will be out for a long time on this one, Roger, because the real question is not only going to be that, frankly, let's be blunt, Putin's aggression is being rewarded. That's what's happening here.

They paid a very heavy price. The Ukrainians have paid an astronomical price for the fighting, but the fighting will stop on the lines where the armies were meat. So military forces being rewarded. What are the implications 10 years from now, 15 years from now? What lessons does Xi Jinping draw from this? Does Putin stop here? or does he take away from this?

Sure, you'll be met with a lot of rhetoric. But you know what? The United States and the Netherlands, they don't stay that course. They get tired. They linge out. It depends a lot on what China and Russia would eat into this.

I don't think we can judge this in a short time frame. Can't we, though, as Canada, who is facing again this week, more 51st state rhetoric from the president on Thursday. He, in remarks to reporters in the White House, indicated, you know, there were a lot of Chinese and Russians up around Canada, and we needed their protection, and we weren't able to protect ourselves and any some kind of strange aside that, you know, people are getting killed up there. You don't know what really to make of it. But look, if you want it to be slightly more sinister about this, you would say that by allowing

Vladimir Putin to have his conquest of eastern Ukraine, Trump is setting up a permissive structure for possibly his own territorial, you know, expansionist, imperial, imperial, agenda. And look, I don't know if that's the Panama Canal or Greenland. I'd hope Canada would be the last on that list. But it does, Janice doesn't not create for Trump an allyship with the likes of Russia and China, the other great powers, who clearly, you know, don't have qualms about being an imperial power about not only talking about, you know, some make China great again, make Russia great again, make America great again, but following through on that with territorial conquest in the case of Russia, eastern Dombas, in the case of China, the big known

unknown of Taiwan, and now in the case of the United States, Panama, Greenland, and Canada. You know, I have taken seriously after the first Mar-a-Lago meeting where he talked about Governor Trudeau and the 15th First State, kind of left that one off. But ever since I have taken it really seriously, and he comes back to it over and over and over again. This is not a passing thought for him. And I think Canadians would be foolish if they don't take this seriously. and they're not alarmed by it. And they don't. It's like the whole argument that he's, you know,

he's not serious about tariffs. Well, this week, he was serious about tariffs. He didn't wait. They started on Thursday even before there were any negotiations. I think he fits exactly into the mode of Vladimir Putin. That's part of the reason they have this romance, this friendship between the two of them, because he's much more like him than he's unlike him, frankly.

And the fact that there will be a deal over Ukraine is not a surprise. What is really worrying are, as you just rightly put it, how that encourages Trump in some of his ambitions, how it encourages Vladimir Putin to have a long view of history here. and Xi Jinping, who's watching it all, and thinks about the South China Sea and Taiwan, as he watches this relationship develop. This is a very dangerous, first of all, different,

different and ultimately dangerous world that we're in now. Let's take a break and say goodbye to our complimentary listeners here. Rejoin our monk donors on the other side of a short intermission. And let's talk about how Canada is dealing with all this. You've got a liberal leadership underway, debates coming up. Pier Polly have major speech on Saturday that's being billed as a kind of reset, a reframing of his bid for the premiership.

So let's talk about how Canada is future-proofing itself or not for this remarkable moment that we find ourselves in back after this short break. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday Focus podcast. To get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program, simply go to our website, www.w. The monkdebates.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,

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