The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Staring Down the Barrel of a NATO-Russia War

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

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 dedicate the entire Friday Focus episode to the very dangerous showdown taking place between Putin and the West. In what could be the tipping point in the war in Ukraine, western powers are contemplating giving Ukraine permission to use their long range missiles to strike deep within Russia. Rudyard and Janice worry that in Zelensky's desperation he is forgetting that nuclear powers like Russia get to play by different rules to restore credible deterrence. Is the West prepared to enter into a NATO-Russia war? And why are western leaders not taking these potentially civilization-ending decisions with the seriousness they require? And finally, how did get to this dangerous precipice of history? In an era of dual use technology, we would all benefit from less hubris and more humility. 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. 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. Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast. Rudyard Griffiths here, the chair of

the Mug Debates, joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs we're recording Friday focus today on the 13th of September 2024. Well Janice, a lot of different issues to dig into this week, but let's start with the headlines of the last 24 hours. We're seeing the potential now for I don't know what you call it a tipping point, a turning point, a decision point in the Ukraine war with regards to a possible essential. escalation of the conflict vis-a-vis permission this time to the United Kingdom and France from the United States to use powerful long-range Western NATO-made cruise missiles to strike targets deeper inside Russia, a consequential meeting coming up in the next week between Starmer, the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Joe Biden presumably to make a decision on this issue. What's been making the news the last 24 hours are statements by Vladimir Putin, indicating in quite clear language that this development should it happen,

and should these weapons be used inside Russia to strike targets deep in Russia, Putin would see this, as he's communicating now, as an act of war. And going further to say that this would, fundamentally change the current nature of the conflict and that quote russia would need to take steps as a result what do you make of all this is it a significant event in the very complicated and at times bewildering history of this multi-year war roger it is a an event as far as I'm concerned. And this decision comes at a time when Ukrainian forces are under real pressure in the Donbass. The Russians have advanced on the ground are just a few miles

away now from a key logistical hub in the Donbass, through which railway and supply lines run. So part of that is what you're hearing in Zelensky's desperation. The second event in the last week that's changed the context are the increasing use by Russia of glide bombs. So these are bombs that are fitted out, especially to glide from a distance. Russians have moved their aircraft out of range of current missiles, and so they can send these bombs over cities and they've done it to Keeve and these bombs explode and cause, really extensive civilian damage. That's what is pushing this forward. So Biden has a really tough call to make. You got it exactly right, Roger. This is not permission to use American missiles.

So we're in a dance here. It's Britain and France pushing the United States to say, Okay, that Zelensky use British and French missiles. Would I do it? And I'm going to go out and a limb here. I would not. And the reason is, the use of these missiles, deeper into Russian territory, do not solve the glide bomb problem, contrary to a lot of this discussion. those aircraft are so much further back that even these longer-range missiles would not solve that problem.

They would not solve the problem that Ukrainian forces are facing on the ground in Donbass. So this is, in a sense, an attempt to take the war deeper into Russia and target military installations and military supply lines. and therefore really cause one logistical problems for Russian forces, frankly, dubious because they just pull them back farther, but more important to bring the Russian, to bring the war home to Russians and to Putin. That's the key to me, and it's that part that worries me. As you and I have said repeatedly, Russia is a nuclear power. it is not a sustainable strategy to humiliate a nuclear power on its own territory. And I think we are approaching a critical turning point because Ukraine's forces are so much at risk on the ground in the Donbass.

Vladimir Putin is threatening, as you said, and people who disagree with me, and there are many, many, many who do. I probably in the minority here. People who disagree with me say Russia has threatened repeatedly. It's bluffing. But there will come a moment when Vladimir Putin can't bluff anymore if there are attacks on Russian territory proper. I think we're in a dangerous game and we're being lulled by the fact that he has bluffed before. Yes.

a lot of different things to unpack. I just want to remind our listeners of that amazing lecture that we provided you I guess over a year ago at least by Steve Kotkin of Stanford who made the point back then that this war was not winnable by Ukraine because Russia's infrastructure, its military and war machine

were not going to be subject to large-scale bombardment, let's say as, Germany's military industrial complex was in the Second World War or Japan's or any number of countries that you lose wars not simply on the front lines. You lose them by having your capacity to fight destroyed. And I think Steve Cockins was quite prophetic because he since predicted what's happening now, which is Ukraine is losing this war. Russia has a large advantage of men and material, vast stockpiles from the Cold War, which these glide, bombs come from and they number in the many, many thousands.

And I think this is all happening, Janice, in a different way than, let's say, that fateful spring in 2022 when Russia was being pushed back out of Dombas and we were worried about the potential for a use of a nuclear weapon by Russia. In fact, it turned out later, according to American administration reports, that that risk was not insignificant, during that period. No. And you know, Roger, it's worth while talking about that October scare because people tend to dismiss it.

But we have more and more evidence now that when the Ukrainian counteroffensive on the ground began to succeed, that was the moment of greatest danger. So, you know, there's no risk of any kind of serious escalation as long as Russian forces are succeeding. is when they begin to fail, when they begin to feel under a threat that the risk grows. Now, what happened? But just to play off you there, my point is that now that Ukrainian forces are failing, the boot is on the other foot.

That's right. Instead of Russia taking the risk that it could have done that October, it's now the West egged on by Ukraine. Understandably, I get it why the Ukrainians want to NATO-wise this conflict. They would like nothing more than Russia to engage in a shooting war with NATO because it would bring NATO forces into the war on their side. This is arguably not as stated but an explicit element of Ukrainian policy and objectives at this point. So now the danger of escalation, I guess is what I'm trying to get at clumsily, Janus, is it's shifted to the other

side. It's now us, NATO, the West Ukraine that are reaching in the same way that Russia was reaching in October 23. And again, I think we're coming up to these red lines. We're pushing against them. And as we've discussed so much on this show, like many things, life isn't fair.

Russia has a large nuclear power. And nuclear powers get to play by different rules. They get treated or they should be treated in different ways. And again, that's not right. It's great if the world didn't work this way. But the reality is that at a certain point, just like Israel's conflict against Hamas, at a certain point, Russia will have to restore credible deterrence. It will have to give its words meaning because if it constantly backs off after it asserts something, and this time Putin asserted things in pretty clear and concise language, then it loses deterrence for the next exercise.

escalation. So Janice, is that what worries you? It's what worries me right now is that we're we're eroding credible deterrence on either side. And at a certain point, and I think it's Russia first, they're going to have to act to restore that, to restore in a sense the big stick, to restore the big threat so that it feels that in this conflict, which for it isn't just a conflict with with Ukraine because remember these missiles would be guided by NATO military satellites and data. The firing coordinates for these missiles would be inputted by NATO technicians who would have to program these missiles to fly to their target sites

which again had been acquired by Western satellite imagery and technology. and guided to those sites by those very same satellites. So at a certain point, I mean, it starts to become a bit like how many angels are ahead on the head of a pin. Like it starts to look like NATO is in fact a war with Russia. Well, that's the fundamental risk here. And that's why this is such an agonizing decision for Joe Biden, frankly. You know, he's junior ally is desperate.

and you rightly said, Roger Jolensky has every reason to be desperate. So you have to make, in that sense, a pragmatic decision. You have to look at things. And that's what Biden has been very, and his team have been very, very good at. So they have to look at things on the ground. What difference does the benefit of doing this

outweigh the risk? Because we frame this as a competition in deterrence. I've seen lots of things go over the brink. when we framed them that way, because people compete over their reputation. They go to war to preserve their reputation. And let me just say one other thing in this calculus. Putin's army is stretched, okay? He does not want to have to undergo a further mobilization.

The long-term economic prospects for Russia's economy are being compromised by these war. He's just gone an infusion of missiles, frankly, from Iran. So he is now locked into a group of allies, Iran, North Korea, that is not what I think Vladimir Putin has dreamed about for the future of Russia. He's the compromise the future of Russia. So if you're Joe Biden, what are you worried about here? You're worried that this escalation would in fact natalize the war. and that's the language that Vladimir Putin used yesterday. He said this effectively means that NATO is at war with Russia.

And that for Putin would be sufficient grounds for escalation. And even in their official doctrine, that would be official grounds for escalation. So how is Biden and the team trying to split the difference here? One, it's not all of NATO. And it's not us. It's not the United States. We're not authorizing this. only British and French missiles.

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