The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: The US turns its back on Ukraine and a sombre American Independence Day

Episode Date: July 4, 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. Rudyard and Janice open the show unpacking the effect America's pause on military shipments will have on Ukraine's war effort. Putin has managed to drive a wedge between the US and Ukraine, thus removing the biggest obstacle to his maximalist ambitions. Has America officially walked away from Ukraine? And does Europe have the will, the weapons, and the finances to fill the void and give Ukraine a fighting chance in a war that they are losing? In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice take stock of America on its Independence Day and agree that things do not look good from north of the border: a President who shows contempt for the courts and rule of law, and a country that is now spending more money servicing its debt than its military. Both Rudyard and Janice worry for America's short term future under this administration, but both are optimistic that American Exceptionalism can withstand this current moment and save the country from decline. To support 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 Friday Focus for Independence Day, the 4th of July 2025.

I'm Rudyard Griffiths, chair of the monk debates, joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Janice, happy July 4th. And the same to you. This is a remarkable July 4th in American history, isn't it, Richard? Yeah, let's get into that on the show today, the state of America, as it rings in its birthday, heads towards the quarter of a millennium mark. But let's start first by thanking Mark E and Edward S for coming on board as curators here at the Monk Debates. Thank you so much for your

generous support. We look forward to ensuring that you have guaranteed seats at each and every one of our in-person monk debates. Just one of the many benefits of becoming a monk curator, which is a charitable donation here in Canada. If you're a Canadian resident, we had dozens upon dozens of monks supporters. Janice joined this week. We're going to stick all their names in the show notes. Simply too many to read.

It is an embarrassment of riches. So thank you, again, for coming on board as a supporter. But Janice, what I want to start with, there are the attacks overnight into today by Russia on Ukraine. There are some of the biggest attacks in the history of this war. targeting Kiev, and they come during a week when Donald Trump and his administration have indicated that they will now begin to cut back, effectively curtail availability to Ukraine for these missile

defense systems that have been so invaluable up to this point in at least blunting some of the effects of the drone and ballistic missile attacks from Russia on Ukraine. what do you make of this all? So it's a very serious issue for Ukraine. You're very, very serious. There's no way that Europe can replace this drop-off in U.S. assistance. There are two key areas. You mentioned.

One, the missile interceptors, which have been so critical in limiting the damage to the extent that they have. particularly to the city of Kiev, which is surrounded by three patriot missile batteries, but some of the other cities in Ukraine as well. And the second is intelligence. So let me talk briefly about each. The issue is the United States has run low on missile interceptors,

which is astonishing but true, partly because of the Israel-Irault. conflict where missiles have been shipped to Israel now three times to defend against Iranian missiles that are incoming. And the stockpiles in the United States are very, very low. So this is, I think it's important that we understand this because that part of it is not political. It is simply their supply is too well. They didn't think that they would need to resupply to French. at the same time. But boy, is this a cautionary tale for the United States? Secondly, intelligence.

Tactical battlefield intelligence has been so important for the Ukrainians. The United States stopped this once before for a week, and you saw the Russians take advantage. Ukrainians are really, really worried now, Roger. Let's talk American and Russian strategy. you. Donald Trump had a call with Vladimir Putin this week. We don't know a lot about it, but the president did seemingly say to reporters today, Friday, or overnight Thursday into Friday, that, you know, he can't convince Putin of anything. So we've, we seem to have gone from,

I'm going to solve this war in the first 24 hours of my presidency to, I can't convince him to do anything. What do you make of that? And then second, what's Russia doing here? Is it prosecuting the war? Is it trying to set up a kind of maximal position in advance of imminent negotiations? Which of those two? Or maybe it's both? Maybe it's looking for optionality in either direction.

Yeah. For the United States, it's clear that Donald Trump is changing his evaluation and changing his evaluation of his own impact on Vladimir Putin. You don't hear a lot of nasty comments about Vladimir Putin from him, but you do hear an acknowledgement that he can't persuade Vladimir Putin to do anything. Well, the next step would be then, increase your support of Ukraine and join with the Brits and the French and the Germans and the polls. others in Europe who are doing their best. That's Donald Trump has given no indication that he's going to do that.

If anything, whether you're not, I think the bigger worry is he'll just walk away from this. You'll just walk away, move on. He's a person with a very short attention span. He gets tired of an issue very quickly. If he can't address it, and he will, just walk away, frankly. And leave Ukraine to face Russia. in a very unequal fight. For Putin, this is a dream come true, frankly.

The whole strategy, Russia's strategy, has been to drive the wedge between Ukraine and the United States to deepen it because Trump came to office with that edge. And to get to a position where the United States is not resupplying Ukraine, they're there now. Why would they stop? Why would he stop, given that his objective? have been maximalist.

And even this last two or three days, he's done two things. One, he's repeated again, the mantra that he will only negotiate when Ukraine meets his conditions. And implicitly, that means a regime change. And secondly, they announced that Ukrainian children that have been captured are going to be sent to military training to fight on behalf of Russia. This is not somebody who's thinking about any kind of ceasefire or negotiating strategy, frankly. He's empowered.

So at what point do we kind of stick a pin in it and admit, acknowledge, recognize that the United States has walked away from Ukraine? Is that a moment now in the context that these missiles are not being provided, these defensive, interceptors. And Putin is responding to that news with, again, the largest, one of the largest attacks over 500 drones and ballistic missiles on Kiev.

Real scenes of devastation in the city today is bad or worse than anything that is Israeli cities experienced during the 12-day war with Iran recently. So are we at that point now? You know, I did just for comparison, Iran fired 500 ballistic, 500 plus ballistic missiles during that last 12-day round in which Israel opened up. First, Ukraine in one night, 500 ballistic missiles and drones. Now, some were drones, but if we counted the ballistic missiles in the last week, I suspect that they surpass that 500 number title, and the Ukrainians only have so many Patriot Interceptors left.

I actually don't think that Europe is going to walk away from this. I don't think that Britain or France or Poland or the Baltics or the Nordics or Canada are going to walk away from this. So I expect there will be a concern. asserted effort. These people can, these countries can supply only a very, very limited number of these defensive missiles. They don't make them. So, but they can supply artillery ammunition.

Ukraine is ramped up its manufacturing capacity. But Janice, does any of that matter? Look, it's all, I guess it's all part of a piece, but it doesn't matter if Ukraine is, in effect being indiscriminately droned and rocketed by Russia. And yes, NATO can provide a bit more artillery. They don't, as you say, they don't manufacture Patriot Systems. I don't even know what, this is what batteries they have, that they can contribute or donate.

So, I mean, is this all, again, maybe valiant, maybe expensive on the part of Europeans in terms of the costs required to continue to arm Ukraine? but is it all kind of hand-waving in the face of Russian aggression here. And if Europe wanted to be serious about this, isn't the real issue that Europe is unable to consider, probably because there's not a political consensus either amongst leaders or amongst their voting publics,

that they would begin to defend Ukraine by extending, to some extent, their deterrence over all or part of Ukraine. I mean, are we at a kind of binary choice like that, or are we approaching that, given what's going on and given how serious the situation's gotten and given the extent to which in a matter of weeks, it may simply be impossible for Ukraine to defend itself? So let's look back in history for just a minute, Roger, and think about the Blitz in London. months and months of nightly rocket attacks that set part of London on fire. Now, that was at the beginning of a war, not three years into a brutal war, three and a half years into it. But generally speaking, strategic bombing of the kind that you're talking about, whether it's bombs or rockets or missiles, hardened the will of a population.

There's a big rally around the flag effect where people support their least. She saw it in Tehran, actually, where a country was so deeply divided, people nevertheless, when there were civilian casualties in Tehran from Israeli aircraft bombing different parts of the city, they rally behind their leader. Strategic bombing almost never ends a war, right? It's really astonishing. We've seen it over and over. So it's for this reason that I actually don't think. think we are at the end of the war. And I think the Europeans are going to be sufficiently alarmed here. The closer you are to the east, the more alarmed you are. And I think, you know,

Finland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, these countries see a direct and immediate threat to themselves. They're going to do everything they can because. But what is, again, I just go back, what is everything? you can. Sure, you're sending a bit more artillery. The Russians are rolling back the Ukrainian lines on the front. I'm sorry, it doesn't look good. They're now engaged in large-scale rocking, and maybe you're right. Maybe that causes Ukrainian morale to increase, but it doesn't do anything for the security of the people of Ukraine. It doesn't do anything to halt Putin's aggression. In fact, it furthers his war aims for, as you say, regime change and either,

you know, an expansion of the territory that he wants to capture in Ukraine or, you know, the capitulation of Ukraine into some kind of, at best, neutral state, at worst, a kind of satrap, a new satrap to Moscow. So, I mean, the words are fantastic. The defense spending, I guess, you know, helps. But like, where's the beef? And can we just admit that the Europeans are not, they're not willing to go the next step. They're not willing, as maybe Macron has indicated, to put, you know, military observers on the ground to create trip wires that could pull NATO into a direct conflict with Russia. So, you know, I guess my final point here, Janice is, you know, NATO and the European countries can kind of thump their chests and

tell all their populations and tell us all the things we're doing for Ukraine. But Russia's winning, Ukraine's losing, and we're ultimately trying to have our cake and eat it too. Yeah. Look, there's no question that Europe is unable. It's literally unable to step up to the degree that it would make a significant material difference to Ukraine. I don't think anybody. You have to be dreaming of technical not to acknowledge that. I think for the Ukrainian, it's all, and I've spoken to Mamie,

there is a transition from this kind of regular warfare to insurgency and guerrilla warfare. They are preparing for the worst, but they are simply not well, under any circumstances to do a deal with Vladimir Putin, non-Prutin's terms, because for them, that is the worst possible outcome. And that's what you hear from them over and over and over. Well, let's not put a pin in one other thing, Richard.

America, the United States, critical to the defense of Europe, still is, despite all the rhetoric and all the talk and all the NATO summits and all the talk about diversification, the United States is. critical to the defense of Europe today. Yeah, possibly a topic for another show. I'm a skeptic as to whether, you know, after losing a million men and incurring, you know, a million dead and a million casualties to capture four provinces in the Dombas that Putin is suddenly going to march on Berlin.

I think there's a lot that are European politicians who are increasingly being weakened by populism within their own ranks, some of that fueled by by, by, Russian interference, no doubt, but nonetheless have looked to Russia in the threat of Russia as an excuse to engage in widespread deficit spending, to find another reason, to spend liberally in their own economies, to bolster what's been pretty lousy growth in Europe and now going on a generation. So I think there's a lot of convenient reasoning around the so-called bigger Russian threat. The Russian threat, obviously for Ukraine is real existential and of this moment. But I'm a little skeptical about these claims that Europe has to actually worry about Russian invasion.

They have nuclear deterrence. I mean, France has a nuclear bomb. Britain has nuclear weapons. So what's the point? I mean, if you think that Russia is going to march in and be in Paris for Christmas, a kind of reverse Napoleon, then why do you even bother having a nuclear force? I don't have to think that, right there, but you could think about Russia menacing the Baltics. And then what is yours to do? But do you think Russia would attack a NATO country would trigger Article 5 and the existential risks that would result from that when they've lost a million men already injured and dead?

And their economy is sliding towards a deep recession. They're dealing with rampant inflation. This is a greatly weakened Russia three years into this conflict. But the issue is not when Russia do this tomorrow. The issue is for how long is Russia about the weekend, right? If you, you know, I think we're in an interesting point where paying attention to what leaders say is becoming more and more important, not dismissing it, not dismissing it. rhetoric, but actually paying attention to what leaders say. Vladimir Putin has talked over and over and over about Ruskinira, about re-unify the

Russian Empire, about re-establishing. Baltics are part of that, okay? And what deterrents, in fact, of Britain and France really have? Are they going to use nuclear weapons if Russia menaces or sends Russian forces across the borders? Why? Why would they do that? Why would they put London and Paris at risk? And this is DeGle's old question.

And especially if the United States has walked away and turned its back and said, you Europeans, you have to look out to yourself. I'm bored. I'm tired. I'm moving on. Why would London versus use nuclear weapons and risk London and Paris in return? It's a tough question. Well, then why would they send soldiers?

Why would they send tanks? Why would they put their own people? Because they... You're limiting the damage. Then you're limiting the damage to the soldiers and the tanks. That's not putting your homeland. Right. But you know how these things work.

You start with soldiers and tanks, then you escalate from there. And ultimately for both these powers, because Russia has a large nuclear arm power, there is the implicit idea that there is deterrence on either side. But I don't know. I just find it ironic that the doves are now the hawks. The hawks are the doves, European leaders who used to be, you know, adverse would break out in hives that the idea of more military spending are now, you know, pounding their fists for, you know, guns and not butter. And I just, I think it's about a little bit more than Russia. I think it's about European politicians who are worried about populism

and are trying to find ways to spend and spend in a big, big way to stimulate their economies, to stave off internal as much as external threats. I think it's both, I do. I don't think it's either or. I think it's both your point right to say that's a factor driving the decision. You know, the case and point where you and I might look at this and agree, actually, is Friedrich Mertz in Germany, who's a Christian Democratic leader who has come out, probably the most hawkish platform of any German leader in memory. Since the 30s, Merritt's late is hot and is bursting through every spending. But the longstanding, fiscally responsible, cautious Germany has always come to, that's gone.

Right. And alternative for Deutscheland is sweeping their state elections, and the German government is on the verge of banning them as a political party. So lots of moving pieces on the chess board. Let's say goodbye to our complimentary listeners and viewers. Thank you so much for being part of this first half of the Friday focus that we make available to our entire community. We'll take a short break and rejoin our members and donors on the other side to speak about Independence Day. Where is America at as it approaches its 250th birthday? I'm Roger Griffiths, chair of the monk debates.

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