The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Season 2, Episode 3

Episode Date: January 21, 2022

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving 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. This week's Munk member's podcast explores two big stories in the news this past week. First, what should the world make of the last week of threats and diplomacy by Russia, the United States, NATO members and Ukraine? Are we closer to a Russian invasion? Is there still time to find a negotiated settlement and if so what would this look like? Second, financial markets are selling off as investors start to realize central banks are serious about fighting inflation by raising interest rates. What would higher borrowing costs in 2022 mean for Canada with an economy over reliant on the sky high housing prices? What are the risks of higher interest rates to the fragile COVID-19 economic recovery? To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. 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.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.W.Munkdebates.com and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Monk members, Roger Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this, our regular Friday Monk members-only podcast. This is our regular program providing you with some insight and analysis into the week that was a look ahead in terms of the events and trends that are shaping this exceptional moment that we're all living through together.

Our guest, as always, on these programs is the irreplaceable Janice Gross Stein. She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, International and Renation. author and scholar, and she's all ours for the next 30 minutes. Well, maybe not quite 30 minutes, Janice. You and I tend to push it a bit. I think our listeners are tolerant of that, but it's just so much to talk about these days. Thank goodness for these tolerant listeners, Rudyard. And also, thank you for all the mail we got with people. We're moving into the subject we're going to talk about, but people actually gone engaged and estimate how likely this situation is to escalate. So thank you, everyone. Yeah, and enjoyed a lot of those counter

arguments where people kind of question their own reasoning, picking up on our dialogue with Stephen Pinker, the Monk Dialogue that's now on this podcast feed. You can access that. It came out this Wednesday, the entire Monk Dialogue with Stephen Pinker on your Monk Debates podcast feeds. So, Janice, you ended last week with a prediction or not I wouldn't say a prediction, but a inclination that invasion was less likely than more. Has anything changed your mind over the ensuing seven days? I think you were at a 60-40 calculus. Has that shifted for you?

Have those goalposts moved? You know, I was hedging my bets. 60-40 is not exactly a bold estimate where I'm way on on a limb here, Roger. But two things have happened this week. One that really struck me are the reports that Russia was evacuating family members from its embassy in Kiev. They don't really do that unless they are expecting serious trouble. I can only think back. They've done that maybe once or twice, and it's always been when things are on the edge.

So you have to take that seriously. Secondly, they are about to start military training exercise. And I put these in quotes with Belarus, which opens up a new front, certainly through which they can harass Ukraine. And that's worrying. But I am sure that there is, I'm sure, that's too strong. I am reasonably confident that there will not be an attack in the coming week. I think diplomacy is still in play.

President Putin is scheduled to go to Beijing for the opening of the Olympics, which is 10 days away. My sense is if I had to commit myself that nothing will happen until after that, which gives two weeks for talks to continue. Great point, Janice. I hadn't thought of that. You know, Xi and Putin are tying up in an increasingly tight way, militarily, economically. You know, probably the last thing Xi would want is his Olympics to be overshadowed by a Russian ground invasion of Ukraine. She would be extraordinarily displeased with Vladimir Putin without to happen. And let's face it, she's a senior partner here.

So my sense is that we will see this play out. certainly for another two weeks. And I'm not yet convinced that Putin has fully committed to an invasion. And again, let's talk for a minute, Roger, about what we mean. There are at least two varieties. One would be to invade, but stop at the two eastern provinces. That would still be a game for Russia because they're not currently right up against those borders. that's one scenario, the second scenario, which would be an entirely different one,

if Russia really plan to reoccupy all of Ukraine. Now, that's an entirely different scenario. And we don't know, really. He certainly has military forces on the ground, and they're increasing every day as we watch it. And there's some great photos of these deployments that are now coming out from satellite pictures. where the preparations to do something big are certainly continuing all the time. I just remind listeners that Putin invaded Crimea on the last day of the Sochi Olympics.

So maybe you want to circle the last day of Beijing Olympics on your calendar. And history will rhyme for us. That would take us to the end of February. That's cutting it close. And I wonder how long this fever pitch can keep. up. James, what were your thoughts on how the Americans handled this over the course of the week? It was, frankly, a tough week for the Biden administration on this file. The president gave a somewhat incoherent, prolonged news conference, implying somehow that there were divisions within NATO's

European allies about, you know, the extent of the response on that, more minimal invasion that you've just outlined, the kind of Donbass region to the east of the Ukraine. And reports today Friday as we record that the Americans have agreed to allow their other NATO partners, Estonia, Latvia, to deploy Stinger missiles, advanced anti-aircraft missiles, the same that were used by the Mujahideen against the Soviets, funded by the CIA, into Ukraine and that these missiles will take a couple weeks to deploy. So I'm confused here, Janice. On one hand, we have, you know, kind of rhetoric from the president, mudding things up.

Blinken, the Secretary of State is obviously still pushing for a diplomatic solution. And then we get the news at the end of the week, you know, talk about poking the bear, guess what? You're giving powerful anti-aircraft missiles in a matter of weeks to the Ukrainian army. Am I right to be a little whipsod by the American response? You are. Let's start first with the president. You know, Biden has a 20-year-old reputation for what we call foot-in-the-mouth disease, He's not hoof and mouth disease, but foot in the mouth disease. And when he was vice president, you know, the Obama people devoted enormous energy to keeping him in the lane and trying to avoid these extemporaneous comments, which just come out of Biden because he talks too much.

That's really the issue. He's not disciplined in what he says in public. And he rambles and he talks too much. And did we see that during the press conference? The reason they'd let him go, Rudyard was to project an image of strength and stamina that the president could sustain himself through this. This was the longest presidential news conference that I can remember. And it was painful because a lot of it was rambling, frankly, in the way that he does. Now, he made one real mistake, which you've just talked about, where he said, if it's just a small incursion over the border, well, that's one thing.

And every alarm bell went off in Europe over that one. And the Ukrainians exploded. And Biden's team has walked this back three times. But frankly, damage is done. People pay attention to what the president said. The second more interesting thread in that, I was mesmerized by how rambling the presentation was, frankly. I felt like saying, stop, stop, stop. was when he talked about divisions in Europe.

Now, that is a real issue that we probably haven't talked enough about. And let's pay attention to two big players in Europe. I'm not going to talk about the United Kingdom because they have this shambolic disaster of a prime minister. There is a palace revolt brewing there. And how long he stays in office, frankly, is anybody's guests? I mean, there's just a Shakespearean drama. unfolding in London in real time. But President Macron, now the President of the European Union, did the gallous thing that France always does, grabbed that presidency and spoke up and said,

Europe must chart its own course, and we will move forward with strategic autonomy. Well, what does that mean when we're on the edge of a crisis of this sort? So Blinkett said, no, no, no, there's unity among our European allies, but really, is there? And then the Germans who are frankly right at the sharp end of the spirit because of gas and oil supplies that come from Russia. We've been talking a lot about supply chain problems. We see some stress grocery shelves for a whole variety of reasons, but the Russians have been slowing down their gas and oil supplies to Europe for the last couple of months. Their prices are rising in Europe. The Germans depend on Russian oil and gas. And they are not going to be in a hurry to impose really stinging sanctions

on Russia, and particularly they are really worried there will be pressure not to approve the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. There's a massive commitment by the Germans, Angle, Merkel, spoke with strength but looked the other way and developed that pipeline. It's just waiting approval from a German regulator. So Biden actually hinted at an underlying truth. This mantra, we're all united in Europe and there's never been as much solidarity in NATO. Let's look again. You know, I've heard also that, you know, in terms of mismatch, there are some of the Baltic

States, maybe Poland too, that are actually wanting to take a much more aggressive line, which could include deploying their own troops into Ukraine to support the Ukrainian military. And I guess that's a little bit what we talked about last week, these ladders of escalation, that we think something is going to happen one way, and that we see a series of moves on a three-dimensional chessboard. But then the fog of war sweeps over that chessboard and suddenly you're kind of moving around and bumping into each other in the dark. Am I wrong that the risk of confusion, the ladder of escalation has gotten steeper. We haven't climbed on it yet, but I feel like a certain amount of trepidation here that we are entering into a series of big known unknowns. We have mismatched allies.

We have a president who has the lowest approval ratings of, I think, any president at this point in his first term. We have Putin, as we've talked about coping with his own kind of weakness, which is really a domestic weakness of the Russian economy and the Russian hands, so to speak. All this genus suggests, if you look back at history, you are a student of history, that combustible set of, factors and issues that historically, dangerously, has the potential to ignite something bigger. I agree with you, Richard. And the worrying elements here are, frankly, we have a relatively weak president of the United States right now domestically. You're right to say this has been a really tough month for President Biden. Secondly, in order to manage, a crisis like this and prevent

unwarranted escalation. You need to keep your allies really tightly organized. Now, to encourage the Baltic states to transfer Stinger missiles over the border is, I think, one of the

most foolish things that we could do. The reason being that Putin has argued over and over again, right, that the presence... No new weapons systems. No new weapons. Well, this Let me just take a, it's not a tactical cruise missile or something like that, but it's still,

it's still a provocation. Well, let me put it. Let me put it this way, but it's not a game changer in Ukraine because the Ukrainians have other anti-aircraft missiles when it went to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. They had nothing. And so in this case, what we'll do is force Russian airplanes to fly a little higher. It's not a game changer. but that's not how the Russians are going to look at it.

They're going to say, told you so. Yeah, it's a propaganda victory for that. That's right. These NATO forces in the Baltics just on our borders, push came to shove, they transferred weapons to the Ukrainians. We've always told you this, and this is what's happening now, we have to push those NATO forces back. If I were blinking and the Secretary of Defense, I would be saying to the Baltics,

hang back, hang back, whatever equipment will come. It will come from further back in Western Europe. This is a very, very unwise move, frankly. You're absolutely right. Just before we go on to our second topic of the program, where are the outlines of a deal here? Because I guess that's the other feeling I had this week is that the deal was slipping away. The Americans have, you know, drawn in response to what were a series of Russian demands that, you know, couldn't be met. for instance, veto on, you know, future NATO membership that withdraw of all NATO forces from, you know, the former Soviet republics. You know, I think we all understand that Putin didn't expect those to be met with approval, but he must have thought that there was something

that could have been responded to on the part of the American. So what, do you have any idea of what that was and are the Americans willing or able to offer it? Well, let's make two points here, Roger. Putin's already won a huge prop of a end of victory. Right. Everyone's talking about him. Everybody's talking about Putin, right? And the United States, which was pivoted on Beijing and pivoted on Asia,

oh my goodness, pulled back and focused on Vladimir Putin, who's getting more attention now. And we're getting, you know, comments coming out of Washington. This is the most serious crisis. This will be the largest invasion since World War II. So here's the irony. Putin wins as long as he does nothing. The longer he can pull this thread, but he can't do it forever.

He's only got till the middle of March because that goes around them freezes. And his tanks can't move. So the really interesting question is, what's his next move? he needs to get something. So Blinken and the others have put two proposals on the table. They're going to have to do more. One is that they will ban intermediate range missiles, and that's something that obviously will matter to the Russians who are worried

that some of the hawkish NATO members on his borders will attack. Secondly, they're talking about more long-term arms control arrangements. Let's take that up a notch. here are some of the wilder proposals that are floating around Washington right now. One is that there's a big conference on European security and then Russia is invited

and plays a leading role in that conference. Because after all, what's the goal here for Putin? That he be recognized as a powerful player with a real voice in shaping European security. The most far out, and by the way, these proposals are coming from mainstream people writing in places like foreign affairs. That is not the wild, raunchy west, frankly.

Well, let's just admit Russia to NATO. Should have happened in the early 90s. It's not too late. Let's put an offer on the table. Now, that one, I think, has about 0.001. But there is developing now an openness to what A recognition, the United States has to do more. And what more can that be, frankly? So just one, my final comment here is that's the NATO idea isn't as crazy as it sounds because what it would do is it

would give Russia a permanent veto over the expansion of NATO without NATO or the Biden administration having to humiliate themselves and sign some kind of treaty saying that Ukraine will never join NATO. So it gives the Russians what they want. I guess it kind of stymies NATO. Forever. Does it turn it into a version of the UN Security Council where absolutely nothing happens because there's this perpetual kind of Russian.

You know, think about this way, Roger. What if you had a crisis in the Balkans of the kind that we had 20 years ago, the Serbs against the Kosovarians or the Bosnia, acts, NATO's real role is to keep order in Europe. Well, if you have the Russians inside, that gets a lot more complicated than it did before. But I think there's a bigger picture here. Russia has to have a voice in European security. It is, in fact, a major power. And the big mistake was humiliating Russia and not recognizing its historical in Europe. I know that's a popular thing to say.

It's a realist. It's a realist view. And I think many people appreciate it. And it's probably one that we need, we're not to agree with. But let's remind ourselves that there's a realist perspective here that Russia, you know, has 3,000 plus atomic weapons. One of the most more than China, more than China. Yeah, one of the most powerful conventional militaries in the world. We have to acknowledge that. And we have to acknowledge that. And we have to acknowledge that. they have real security interests and they have the ability to defend or pursue those interests, you know, whether we like it or not. Janice, when we come back from this short break, we're going to dig into, I think, the other big story, which is captivated people this week, the growing effects of the response to rising inflation on the part of central banks around the world. We're seeing some moves in stock markets, bond markets, oil prices. Things seem to get becoming.

a little destabilized. So we're going to talk about what that all means and where it could be headed for Canada and Canadians right after we come back from this short break. You've been listening to a sample of the Monk Members Only podcast. To access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www. Wunkdebates.com. Once you've joined as a member, go to your membership profile to access the rest of this episode and all of our Monk members podcast. Thanks for listening.