The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members Pod, Ukraine Crisis Special Edition: Season 2, Episode 8

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

This 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 is a special edition of the Munk Member's podcast focusing on the extraordinary series of developments in Eastern Europe that have culminated with Russian troops entering sovereign Ukrainian territory to occupy much of the East of the country. Janice and Rudyard discuss what could happen next in this high stakes crisis. Is this a stalemate in the making with Russia now in possession of two Ukrainian provinces and Europe willing and able to accept this outcome? Or, will Putin push for a full scale invasion? And, finally, what are the geopolitical, long-term ramifications of the last 72 hours for China? For the future of collective security in Europe? For the entire liberal international order? 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.wmunkdebates.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. Hello, Monk members. Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. you're welcome to this, a special edition of our Monk members podcast. We're coming to you early this week on a Tuesday, not our regular Friday, because we have to dig into the big events of the last 24

hours that has seen the Russian Federation enter into the sovereign territory of Ukraine, deploying troops ostensibly under a peacekeeping mission. So, where are our? are we at in this high stakes crisis? Is this the opening stage of a series of cascading events that could lead to worse and more? Or are there the outlines of some kind of repression, some kind of deal that's going to freeze this crisis in its current context? To unpack all of this and to get her up to the minute analysis and insights, it is once again my great pleasure to welcome on the Monk members podcast, my regular interlocular Janice Groh Stein. She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs and internationally renowned author and scholar. And I'm just fascinated

to know, Janice, what is the key takeaway that you think listeners should extract from the last 24 hours of kind of world-shattering news to understand what could happen next? Here's the big picture, Rudyard, regardless of how the rest of this story unfolds, we have already seen a game-changing event in Europe that will affect all of us. Russia sent tank forces across the Ukrainian border. even if you accept his frame of reference that these are two independent republics, that self-declared independent republics that were formally part of Ukraine, he sent forces across the border unilaterally, not even with the fiction of being asked for help, frankly.

And this rocks the European security. system to the core. It pulls Canada and the United States back into Atlantic security problems. Again, it divides resources that the West can use when it deals with China as well as Russia. And frankly, not to sound too apocalyptic. This is the nail. in the coffin of a dying liberal international order. That's the big picture. Wow. I'm going to love unpacking all of that with you over this half hour that we're going to spend together focused exclusively on the crisis in Ukraine. Let me try a counterargument. I'm not saying I subscribe to this, but just to try a counter argument. And, you know,

stock markets are an interesting barometer. They don't necessarily be much beyond the next 24 hours. But right now, what's fascinating the day after, I would agree with you, this really important geopolitical event, what's happening? Golden oil prices are falling. Risk assets. Yeah. Tech stocks, the speculative part of the market is up. The market seems to be saying maybe looking at the Biden administration's initial response and some of the responses out of Europe, which are kind of a bit wishy-washy, that maybe this is. the beginning of the end of this crisis that we have in a sense once again let Putin take a nibble

of the cake. He's got his little slice, these two republics. He's moved his troops in. We're going to gently slap him on the wrist with a few sanctions to provide some political cover to our respective governments. But effectively, we're going to do something, Janice, that I think you so eloquently reminded us about on past programs. We're going to do what great powers do, which is carve up little powers to suit whatever their political interests and agendas are at the moment. So why isn't, why isn't the market right today? Why isn't the market saying, you know what, this is effectively over?

We're letting Putin do this. There'll be some symbolic gestures and actions, but effectively the conflict is now frozen and it's back to, I don't know, the pivot to Asia. It's back to figuring out what the heck to do with skyrocketing inflation. This story is on the back pages of our newspapers, not on the front pages in the months and weeks to come. You're clearly right, Roger, that you get a really surprising market reaction. And let's focus on one of the indexes that should not have moved the way it did, which is the oil markets and the futures market. in the oil markets.

You know, the markets are mysterious, is all I can say. Because coming out of yesterday, one of the few surprising events, I did not expect Germany to do what it did. The new chancellor of Germany, Olaf Schultz, came out and said, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is on hold. Now, he didn't have to do that yesterday. In fact, he's way ahead of the United States. States and many of the other partners in NATO. And yet Europe depends for its oil and gases. We both

know, 40% of its oil and gas comes from Russia, and they are having the worst winter in living memory. Oil and gas prices in Europe are up 500%. It's 500%. Let's just stop. over that one when we're complaining about inflation here in some European markets and imposing real hardship on people. So how the oil markets can be this confident, because that's what they are. They're saying we are confident that Vladimir Putin is going to stop with just this nibble. But just just to build on this because it's fascinating. I mean, are they confident not just because of Putin's behavior and you're right the Russian government has clarified today that they see the borders of these two break away provinces now is not being their normal territorial borders which

would be behind Ukrainian military lines but their current borders as established by the conflict but beyond what Russia is doing are markets reacting to what I thought was the rather I don't know flat-footed response on the part of the Biden administration to say, okay, we're moving forward with sanctions, but the sanctions are on these two provinces. I mean, they probably have the combined GDP of Oshawa, Ontario. It's truly, frankly, it's just, it's cognitively disruptive in terms of a president who just days ago was saying, as soon as Russian boots touch Ukrainian soil, severe and, you know, sizable sanctions will immediately follow. It seems like the West has moved the goalposts.

The West has now effectively said, we're going to let you have these provinces. We're going to give you a tap on the wrist with a few light sanctions. And please, Vladimir, take this, you know, back down. Let's do a deal. Isn't that what's happening? You're right, Roger, that what is coming out of Washington and London and other NATO allies sends the message, well, we have almost normalized for the loss of these two Ukrainian provinces. The real game is, does Putin go further?

And so we are holding back. We are trying to provide an incentive for Putin to stop with what he's got to be satisfied with his nibble. And if he, that's really what they're saying. And if he does that, we will not go any further. But, oh, by the way, we've got a menu of really draconian sanctions if he goes to. But what is our credibility, though? Because who's to say that Putin doesn't it?

I mean, Putin looks, again, regrettably brilliant in this. situation because he's gotten another slice of the pie at a very low cost and who's to say that he doesn't do this deal and then what happens janice two to three years from now yeah when he's back out there again and he's assembled his his army and i don't know he's he's threatened a land bridge to calingrad or some other you know a slice of the cake into the former uh eastern europe that he sees as his security zone, his buffer zone vis-a-vis NATO in the West. I mean, this looks a lot like appeasement, doesn't it? Well, it certainly, let's just talk about what Putin said yesterday and how he looks, by the way.

You know, fortunately, that speech was broadcast and Putin's speeches are never short. But what you got in that speech, and I took a way. two things from that speech. First of all, looking at him, this man is furious. He is so angry. He is furious. And I think it's very important for everybody who's making decisions right now to remember that about him. He's a really angry, angry man who wants to overturn the status quo. And that's, that's not a recipe for deal-making, frankly. Secondly, what he said, he went right back through history, and blamed different predecessors, including some of the icons of the Soviet Union, for allowing the Republic of Ukraine to be created within the Soviet Union.

And he made the most extreme claims, frankly, that, you know, Ukraine was always part of Russia. He gave no indication of a willingness to stop. This was not a nipple speech, number one. Number two, let's look at what's going on. If this were his strategy, he was going to nibble and stop, we would see some drawing down behind on the Russian side of the border. After all, these tanks have met no opposition. There's no resistance in the streets. He doesn't need 170,000 other forces behind him.

Those forces are still on knife edge. So I think for the stock market or anybody else to assume this is over, is that. the most and glossy in optimism. Yeah. I don't think it's over for now, frankly, much less two or three years from now. Let's pivot to the bigger consequences because you're so good on the larger geopolitical picture and effects. Just before to do that, though, I do recommend to listeners to do what Janice and I did,

which is listen to the entire one hour speech. I did that last night in bed. Wow. Did you sleep? Did you sleep, Roger? Well, this was my takeaway. again, just it is fascinating because a world leader spending an hour. And it showed for me two things. One that his ego is, is satiated by showing the Russian people this ability to master a file.

So he jumps from intricate analyses of Russian history to the contemporary security environment in Russia, naming precise weapon systems and how they're deployed to a whole series of conversations that have happened over the years with different presidents and leaders. I mean, he has been there since the 90s, so it's interesting he has this historical perspective on this period. But the reason I was a little bit hopeful that maybe this is a nibble is I came away from the speech with a sense that, yes, there is a Russian domestic audience that he was speaking to, but there was also an international audience.

This is somebody who wants to be understood amongst his peers. He wants fellow heads of state. The larger climate of global opinion matters to him. He isn't a Leshenko or some tyrant banging on a desk, incoherently ranting about, you know, some grievance or cause. This is a man who, who I think genuinely is concerned, about global public opinion and perceptions of him as a world leader. And I wonder if that isn't a sliver and an opening to try to de-escalate this situation

and possibly do what great powers do, which is to do a deal on these provinces and say, OK, Putin, you got them. Ukrainian military stand down. Ukraine is partitioned. It's effectively Finlandized at this point. We're not going to deploy any more. forces into Ukraine. In fact, maybe we'll pull our forces out and keep them out in order to keep this situation cooler rather than hotter. Your take on that? So I watched the speech,

Rudyard, as well as Listen to it. I really agree with Richard. Everybody listening should try to make some time to watch the clips and listen to the translation. And I agree with you, but draw different conclusions. Okay. This is a man in control. He is not a Lukashenko banging on a drum. He's not even Nikita Khrushchev who comes to the U.N. with a shoe.

He takes a tooth off, right? And bangs on him. He's a man who is totally in control. But he is raging, raging with anger about the humiliation that in his view has been inflicted on Russia. So, yes, he cares what other people think about. But primary for him is to reverse the humiliation. If he wanted to send the signals yesterday that he was open to a deal, it would not have been

45 minutes on why all of Ukraine is a fiction. There never was a Ukraine. So I would be. This is a man obsessed. This is an obsession. This is an obsession. You're right. And this maybe means why it doesn't stop here and why appeasing him at this moment is dangerous.

Well, I'm not sure about that. So let's separate that because the Biden administration made one big decision right out of the gate here when this started. When the mobilization started in the fall, they were not sending U.S. forces to Ukraine. Now, that's the, I think, everything else follows from that. And I think it was the right decision. But then they promise severe and swift sanctions the moment Russian boots entered Ukrainian territory. Well, it's happened and there ain't no swift or, well, they may be swift, but they're certainly not severe. No, they're not. And you remember Biden's one slip of the tongue in that two-hour-long press conference? Nobody should ever let Joe Biden have a two-hour-long press conference in which she said, if there's a minor incursion, there would be division among the. allies. So Putin, you're right, put his finger on the sweet spot, which is causing the greatest

amount of disruption inside NATO right now. Italy, Austria. Everybody's. They're all squirming. They're all squirming, right? And that's really good. So Putin's a very good tactician, a lot of great strategist, but a really good tactician. Here's the paradox. The more aggressive, have he been, the more unified NATO would be. So he chose the nibble. He's going to stop and wait and see for the NATO allies. It's a real problem. If you slam the sanctions on right now and you go for it, well, why wouldn't he go further? He's already experienced the worst. Why wouldn't he go further? Because this is the perfect moment for him to climb down with his genius tactician, you know, reputation intact and can return to the Russian people and say, hey, I've done it. I've taken these

historic lands. It was interesting in his speech. He talks about historical Russia versus Soviet Russia. So he sees Ukraine. And again, it's part of this mythology of Ukraine as the birthplace of the Kievan Rus, the original tribes that formed the ethno type of, you know, Russians today. And this is where their religion, they were all baptized in the river. I mean, this stuff. doesn't get more kind of mystic and nationalist than this. He can go back and say, we now have this territory. I've succeeded. Army returned to your barracks. But is that not a good outcome for Ukraine? That is, relatively speaking, a good outcome for Ukraine. It's a good outcome for Ukraine. But is it a good outcome for Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, everyone else that he's going to

say, okay, that piece of cake tastes really good. It was almost as good as the Pekiso cake. in Georgia in Ossetia, you know, the pieces of cake that I seem to be enjoying every, you know, five to seven to ten years. What's the next piece of cake? Well, that's why I think this is a game changer. And that's why I started our discussion today. Well, let's go there. Let's go to the big geopolitical effects. If you are living in Latvia or Lithuania or tiny Estonia, to 2 million people in Estonia, all Baltic states bordering Russia that were part of the former Soviet Empire and only officially got, you know, a chief full sovereignty when the Soviet Union collapsed. Even if you're Poland that has a terrible history, both with Germany on the one hand and with Soviet Russia on the other,

they are looking at this week. it doesn't really matter whether he goes any further or not. They saw the same furious man, you know, revisionist who wants to redraw borders and restore Russian glory. And that's a game changer. There's no going back from what happened. You look, in fact, to Germany. And to me that really is the swing vote in Europe.

Germany has spent 40 years. building bridges to Russia. It was the leader in Ostpolitik. It, you know, it was key in crafting a peaceful reunification of Germany with Russian support. Its whole identity, almost as a modern country, has been that has kept the door open to Russia out of the gate. Last night, literally, it said, we have put this pipeline, which is wholly financed and owned by Rashfield, and which Germany really needs to supply its markets, put it on hold for now. Now, yes, you can walk that back a year from now, as you rightly said, rather than 18 months from now, but they're reacting with, oh, my goodness,

this peaceful Europe, this post-war Europe, do you remember the Mars-Vinus discussion? that Donald Runds fell one time, he said, was scorn, you know, where Mars there, Venus. But there was some truth to that. Europeans believe they had ended war in Europe. They had ended the practice where you set your army in across somebody else's borders. That is shattered. That is in tatters today in Europe. There's going to be increases in defense spending.

There's no question about it. The United States is now going to be pulled back into NATO as an active member of NATO. And you and I have not yet fully talked about the fact that Shigi Ping issued a statement of friendship when Vladimir Putin was there for the opening of the Olympics. We've reversed the Nixon-Kissinger game. Okay, under Nixon and Kissinger, the opening to China, the United States reached out to a then smaller China, smaller than Russia, less powerful, and it was two against one, fundamentally. It's now a very powerful China, much better disposed to Russia as a result of the heightening tensions with the United States. And the United States and Europe, the readout of liberalism that's left in the world, are facing powerful adversaries in the East and in the West.

This is a very, very tough world, Roger. That's really what happened yesterday. All that became plain to see, as we said. Yeah. Well, to build on that, I think you're, I would share that assessment. And I think it's, there was that phrase, you know, the peace dividend, coming out of the end of the Cold War, especially the countries of Europe, but Canada too, we're able to take all of the, not just financial expenditures, but the kind of societal energy and impetus is and reallocate them to this project of globalization, this idea that we could interweave and interconnect with each other and through mutual interdependence, we would both satisfy our own. interests, increase our own prosperity, and grow the prosperity and interconnectness of everyone else. And that peace dividend in no small part was fueled by the end of the Cold War, by the end of

this existential crisis. This has gotten us through, you know, 30 plus years of, frankly, an anomaly in almost world history, a period of remarkable, yes, there have been wars and conflicts, but of genuinely, especially for the West and its experience of the world, a remarkably stable period of time. And I have to wonder if this isn't, again, as you say, a very explicit reminder that the peace dividend is over, that we are now as a society going to have to reallocate hard resources, dollars, but also mental energy, the kind of impetus of intent, is going to shift away from a variety of issues which are vital, like climate change, for example, to a return to a Cold War mentality that we have real and urgent collective and individual

security needs that now have to be met. And they will become paramount. They will use up a lot of the oxygen in our democracies and on our public balance sheets. And it really is something to mourn here. It's to mourn the end of an era and the beginning of a new phase that frankly doesn't look particularly kind to, you know, so-called middle powers like Canada that are now going to be squeezed between these two big blocks that you've just outlined, a Sino-Russian block and an American-led block where these respective blocks are going to use their power to say, with us or against us. They will apply military, technological, economic coercion to shore up their respective blocks so that they can face off against each other in this new, renewed era, a return of history to great power politics. You know, there's no question, Roger. The easiest phrase that's, and it's grim. I feel grim this morning, as we can say, there's, there's,

non-optimistic spin I can put on this. The phrase that sums up what you were just saying, and I agree with you, is great power rivalry is back. These last 30 years were anomalous. One of the major powers collapsed. China was just beginning its rise. So those years from 1990 until 2020 were anomalous years. They were years that we don't normally see, and we had the good fortune to live through them and enjoy all their benefits. They're over.

They're clearly over, and we are back in a world of great power politics where a great power walks in and choose up two provinces in a neighboring country, and the rest of us, frankly, stand by and watched. We watched when the Soviet Union did that to Hungary, in 1956. We watched when they did it to Czechoslovakia in 1968.

The United States was so powerful at that point. We've always had to respect great powers, and you don't mess with them, but it is an ugly world, frankly. And even more concerning in all of this, Richard, is that China is the dominant power in Asia, for all intents and purposes. Russia now the dominant power in former in eastern Europe.

What's left of the core here is central and Western Europe and the United States and Canada. That is what is left of the liberal international order. That is a tough, tough, tough world. Let's put one more on the table here just while we're engaging in all this gloom and doom this morning. You know, our Gigi Ping opened the Olympics with Vladimir Putin standing by its side. They had just had a very good meeting and issued a long document, 5,000 words on all the things that they agreed on. Shishy Ping has got to be saying to himself, well, if Ukraine is part of Kiev and Roos. And by the way, the Ukrainians will tell you that Russia is part of Ukraine, just for the record here, that Russia was,

born in Kiev, okay? And that argument goes on to this day. But she's, Pink's got to be saying, well, if Ukraine is part of Russia, well, what is Taiwan? Part of China. And if it's okay to send forces into a province that you claim was yours and, oh, by the way, the oligarchs around you are sanctioned and just the people who, perpetrated the invasion in those two provinces are sanctioned and then pause because we don't want you to do anymore. Well, maybe taking back Taiwan not such a bad idea. Yeah. Right?

That's the world that we're living in now. So much money, so much effort, so much of human resources are now going to go into deterring further Russian action. Chinese action. Talked about climate change. You know, we're coming out of a pandemic. You would be the first one to say that governments have spent to the bottom of the barrel here and that those chickens are going to come home to roost. Where do we find the resources for significant increases in defense spending and investment in probably what is the biggest existential threat to everybody, climate change? This is going to be a a very, very tough world.

Janice, if I mean, let me just end on a personal question. You've spent, you know, a storied career searching, in a sense, in a variety of contested and difficult places like the Middle East for peace, for theories and ways of understanding big problems like this that lead to outcomes very different than the one that we're seeing unfold right now in Eastern Europe. What is your feeling about the kind of world that, you know, your children and grandchildren are now inheriting a world that you and others have kind of toiled in again for decades to try to bring about outcomes that are different than what we're seeing

today. You know, Richard, I said to you just before we started the broadcast, this is not the kind of world. I hoped that I would leave to my... two sons, frankly, and my grandchild. It is a really demanding, tough, and a hard world. And as Canadians, we're not used to living in that world, frankly. You know, one of the most frightening things that I saw over the last three or four days was just before Putin gave that speech yesterday two days ago he supervised and had him self-photographed supervising the launch of ballistic missiles in Russia clearly conveying to the United States and everybody else. I am a big power. I have the largest numbers of nuclear weapons in the world along with you, the United States. Don't mess with me

because if you mess with me, this can really get out of control. We are back in that world where might counts. It doesn't make it right, but might count. And a lot of the optimism of the last really 40, 50 years with a slow bill to putting in place rules of the road and norms and arms control. agreements, painful time-consuming hard work to make, you know, international politics just a little less rough gone. And it was very interesting to listen to the president of Finland. I don't know if you caught the very sobering interview that he gave actually in which he said, we're not going back to the Cold War, we are going back to something that is colder than the Cold War, because really,

20 years into the Cold War, we already had some arms control agreements in place with Russia. There was already a conversation that was started. You know, President Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev, realized how to escape the world was and started to put that tough, hard process of of building some agreements. We have nothing with Russia right now. We have nothing. President Trump walked away from the biggest one because Russia was violating. But just think we are in a world where there are no agreements on rules of the road with Russia. Yeah, sobering stuff. Well, Janice, thank you so much again for your analysis and insights. This is just such a timely conversation. I know our members will just greatly enjoy having this conversation and being up to the minute,

informed and insightful on, again, these really important events. This is more than just a, I don't know, a do no more kind of standoff in Eastern Europe. I think Janice is absolutely right. We all owe a lot of time and reflection to what is going on, and the portents is big. it's large. It will have impacts for many, many years to come. So let me just before I go, just a reminder to Monk members, we're going to do a slightly different program for this Friday's show. Instead of Janice and me in conversation, we're going to bring you a really interesting, fascinating discussion with James Stravarez. He's the former Supreme Allied commander of

NATO forces, a storied Admiral in the U.S. military, someone who's written 11 books and has a PhD in international relations. And Janice is going to be interviewing him on Thursday night about this remarkable global moment that we're in. And we'll have that interview for you in lieu of Janice and my regular conversation on Friday. Janice, I know you're looking forward to the interview. Couldn't be more timely, Roger, than to have a former Supreme Commander of NATO with us. That is the epicenter of all the discussions that are currently going on now.

Excellent. Well, stay tuned for that conversation this Friday, Monk members, and then we'll be back to you next week with our regular programming. Be well, be safe. We'll talk to you soon. Bye, bye. 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.w monkdebates.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.