The Paikin Podcast - World on Edge: Russia Attacking Europe, NATO, and a Nuclear Saudi Arabia

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

In this episode of World on Edge, Janice Stein and Steve discuss the NATO summit in Turkey, the “Trump whisperer” Mark Rutte, why Turkey matters to NATO, Article 5, Germany’s steep increase in defence spending, and growing concerns that Russia could attack Europe. They also discuss Trump’s changing tone on Zelensky and Ukraine, the strength of Putin’s position within Russia, how the Ukraine War ends, and the nuclear agreement between Saudi Arabia and the United States. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail]  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, everybody. Steve Paken here. Have you ever been to a NATO summit? I have not, but I know someone who has and did attend the gathering earlier this month in Turkey, the NATO summit and a nuclear Saudi Arabia. Coming up next on the Paken podcast. Always delighted to welcome back to the Paken podcast for this time's adventure called World on Edge. There's Janice Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. And Janice, first of all, great to see you again. I'm glad you got home safe and sound from your adventure in Turkey,

which I want to find out all about, because question number one is obvious. How do you score an invitation to the NATO summit in Turkey? So full disclosure here, Steve, the only people who get in the meeting room are world leaders. So the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defense, the Prime Minister. But around the summit meeting are, as a series of parallel meetings organized by different groups,

the Munich Security Forum, the Halifax Security Forum. And so you get a collection of NATO experts who come, and they're very close to where the meetings take place, and the reporters wander in and out, and the leaders wander by occasionally just say hello as well. And did any leaders wander by and say hello to you? No, they did not. No, they did not.

Well, that's got to be disappointing to go all the way to Turkey and not get to say any of the ministers? Well, I did get to see the one visual display that I think people around the world got to see, which was Donald Trump's arrival in anchor where they closed off all the streets. And the last two blocks, they stopped his car. and gathered behind it a phalanx of cavalry, horses, and riders, and into the city came the president of the United States with an enormous flourish. To be serious, for your second, Steve, it was really interesting that President Erdogan went out of his way to provide what Donald Trump likes best. well i was going to say it would be so unlike the president to make that kind of a rival you know as in as in a conquering emperor arriving at a world meeting you know he always

likes things so understated and um and sock yes yes yes he does here's a little mischievous question to get us started here if you let's say let's do some blue skying here let's say somebody from the american delegation came up to you and said professor stein the president actually saw you on the Paken podcast the other day, and he liked the cut of your jib. Would you come and brief him for five minutes? If you got that invite, what would you tell him? That is really a great question, Steve, because that's what Canadians sometimes get is five minutes.

And you're asked that question when you're hanging out with NATO experts from Turkey and the UK And so the five minutes is no leader succeeds without allies, given the challenges that we face today. So here's the state of the allied relationships. And it's not good. You move from Ottawa to Paris to London. It doesn't really matter wherever you go. It's not good. And effectively, allies have two choices.

Tell you the truth, which you don't want to hear. And your team doesn't want to hear. And Albrecht Colby doesn't want to hear. His Undersecretary Defense for Policy or flatter you. And the one line loves it. And the one line summary of history, leaders who surround themselves with flatterers always fail. Well, I'm recalling my days taking Latin back in Hamilton back in the 1970s. And my recollection was even Julius Caesar when he was coming into Rome on his chariot,

had a slave behind him whispering in his ear, you're only human, you're only human, you're only human. Donald Trump, I suspect, Janice, if he got that briefing from you, would say, well, if you're so smart, how come I'm president and you're just teaching at the monk school in Toronto? What would you come back with after that? Well, I would say that's a really good point, but I never wanted to be president. I wanted to study people like you and understand what makes some presidents great and other presidents fail. It is really a serious problem when a president is surrounded by people whose job it is to tell him what they think he wants to hear. And that is really true right now.

Now, one of those things, which you might find interesting, Steve, there is a very, you know, he comes to Ankara and there's a broadside right at the beginning, as there always is. And then he goes into the leaders meetings and they cut to me on a broadside. An attack, an explosion of rage, a blast, right? And he did that. From whom? From Donald Trump. He did it. You're saying, okay.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's pretty well what you expect. He raises the temperature. The Turks actually changed the whole schedule to suit him because they know he can't pay attention for too long. So instead of a two-day meeting with the two dinners, it was one dinner and a four-hour meeting the next morning. And you're smiling and you should be because you see exactly what they're doing. Well, everybody who walked out of that meeting said, he was charming.

He listened. He didn't explode. He was polite to everybody. So there are two Donald Trumps, and I think it's important for people to understand this. There is Donald Trump, the performer. It's performative. Because it is not that this president can't control himself.

He can when he wants to, at least for four hours at a time, he can't. And what the public sees is not what leaders always see when they're with him. Yeah, I was going to say, in fairness, he's an 80-year-old man and traveling halfway around the world. So he would be fighting Jack Leg, which is tougher to do at that stage of life, as I don't have to tell you. But having said that as well, I'm a big fan of Bill Maher. And I do remember when Bill Maher got invited to go have dinner with the president. And he said the same thing, that privately, away from the cameras, he can be an awfully charming, well-behaved guy.

guy. And, you know, Bill Maher asked him, why can't Americans see this guy instead of the buffoon that you portray when you're so often in public? And, you know, that takes you into a whole different realm. It does. Let me ask you this. The Secretary General, sorry, go ahead. He wants, just the relief, I mean, look how low the bar is. The relief among the NATO leaders that the summit didn't blow up, that he didn't leave early. As he's done from the two, you know, the two G7G20 summits, so he held him, he walked out. You know, both times he left early and one time he left and a half. So here's the bar for a successful summit. Does the president stay till the end?

We'll shorten the summit. Well, I wonder if credit is due for that to a guy named Mark Ruta, who is the Secretary General of NATO, and who is nicknamed the Trump Whisperer because he somehow knows how to deal with this guy. What do you think? So, again, huge controversy around Mark Rota. And I think with probably this is the story of two marks. there is Mark Ruta on one side and there is Mark Carney on the other side. Now, neither, what I'm going to say doesn't really capture in a fair way what either of them does. But this is how NATO allies think about it, right?

There is Mark Ruta, the NATO whisperer who flatters Donald Trump. And here's a strategy, Steve, wait him out. That's fundamentally what it is. Just keep him from taking a wrecking ball to. NATO. We were two and a quarter years or whatever it is, two and a half years away from January 2029. Wait him out. And if you have to flatter him, who cares? What matters is that NATO survive. There's a lot of criticism inside the alliance. It comes from the Danes, you know, who are very upset about Greenland and want a more aggressive posture, want NATO allies to take on Donald Trump in a much more

forthright way. That is not what it does. The other than a spectrum is Mark Carney, who is frankly, a rock star. Wherever it is really incredible. You know, it's been a while since we've had a rock star prime minister globally. You could say Justin Trudeau was in the first few years of his leadership, but for different reasons than Mark Carney. More to do with his profile than his intellectual heft. Yeah. than the positions he took whereas with Mark Carney, it's the substance of the positions he took.

And just everybody wants to see the prime minister. And what did he do? He stood up at Davos and called out what he thought was a new, frankly, predatory United States that put the alliance at risk. If you took a private poll,

NATO countries would be with Mark Carney, not with Margaret. And so there's a fierce debate going on inside. What is the strategy like for the next two and a half years? Well, maybe they're like good cop, bad cop. Maybe it's a tag team. Yes, you need both. You need both.

You need the two marks. And so that was the language that everybody used. This is the summit of the two marks. Gotcha. Okay. So you've already established that the thing did not explode and he didn't leave early. certainly all of the coverage emerging from this was that it was a quote unquote successful summit as a result. What in your view was the most important thing to emerge from the summit?

It's very interesting because it's not necessarily what was on the agenda. Steve, what was really so obvious and in many ways so important was the enhanced role of the president of Turkey, President Erdogan. You know, Trump said before he came, I'm only coming because I like this guy, because I have a relationship with him, because he's a good friend. How much truth there is to that? Who knows?

Well, Trump does see him as a role model, right? I mean, he does. He does. He does. His fellow authoritarian, if I can put it that way. Yeah, and let's talk about that for a second before we go on to talk about why Turkey really matters to NATO in the future.

Erdogan, you know, arrested. Lots of your folks before the summit journalists who he is, you know, this is an authoritarian regime. There's no question. And so you put in jail anybody that you think will make critical comments about the entrepreneurs or anybody who will protest on the streets before you come. And Turkey in its sense is the new model of soft authoritarianism. There is opposition, Dairdine, but it's inside his own party. That's where the opposition field really is. It's inside the party.

It's not outside the party in any meaningful sense anymore. But yet, let's look at Turkey's role. It is probably the most strategic geography in NATO right now. It's on the Bosphorus. Inside Turkey itself goes one of the most strategic geography. choke points. It is Turkey for a long time, but now increasingly so, very active in the Middle East. Turkey is a mediator between Russia and Ukraine. This is the 21st century Turkey that sees itself as playing in Europe, playing in the Middle East. Well, you've got to hand it to them. I mean,

they are at the key point in that neighborhood, right? Right, situated Europe, Asia, Middle East, they're right there. Right there, right there. And so if you think about NATO, this is, you know, these are the same Europeans, Steve, that would not admit Turkey to the EU. That's one roadblock after the other in the way of admitting Turkey to the EU.

Why? For two reasons. One, because it were 90 million, poor people, and they didn't want that. but the other and they're open about it in private, it's because they're Muslim. Look at NATO. That, the fact that Turkey has all these relationships in the Muslim world,

that it is on the eastern flank of NATO, it makes Turkey an absolutely critical partner, critical member of NATO. And it is no small credit to the president of Turkey that the summit went off without a hitch. No question of that. And we'll be back right after this. Welcome back to Gloves Off Season 2,

eight brand new episodes about the threat to Canada's sovereignty and how middle powers can thrive in the new world disorder. I'm Stephen Marsh. Last season, the show was about surviving. Since then, Canada has emerged as a prominent global force. And that's why the question this season is what cards do we hold and how do we win? The gloves come off on Canada Day, July 1st. Get it wherever you get your podcasts and watch on YouTube.

All right, let's follow up with this. The NATO members all apparently reconfirmed their commitment to Article 5, which is the, like the so-called three musketeers thing, all for one. Yeah, including Trump. That's what I want to get to. This is the three musketeers clause where it's all for one and one for all. And, you know, an attack on one is an attack on all of us. Do you think that given American leadership today, anyone really believes that? No. No. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and. And that's, you know, in a sense, the problem that Mark Rutter really faces within NATO. I don't think any European believes that the United States would come to their defense if Russia launched a conventional war. I think it's very different to Russia were to use a nuclear weapon, a tactical nuclear weapon.

That's a whole different order of problem. But, you know, there's a lot of discussion in Europe about what the Russian army looks like when this war with Ukraine is over. And it's a really fascinating discussion, Steve. What's the strongest army in Europe going to be whenever the war with Ukraine ends? The Ukrainian army. Just think about that. The Ukrainians will have the strongest battle-tested, battle-hardened army in Europe, much more so than England, France, Germany or any of the traditionally great European powers.

And they're on the front line with Russia. And having discovered this new asymmetrical way of conducting war where the other guys got better military, but you've got smarter stuff. Well, that's right. And it's a mixture of the two. You need both. And it's not one of the other. It's both.

The second thing that is being discussed in Germany and the Germans who were present in force talk about this. The Germans will outspend both France and the United Kingdom together. Their combined budget of England and France will be dwarfed by what Germany intends to spend over the next five years. Anybody concerned about that? Everybody.

I mean, usually when Germany rearms in a big way, as they did twice in the last century, the outcome is not great. Everybody's concerned about it. And what's so interesting is the Germans know that everybody worries about it. They're not happy about it, frankly. But should they worry? I mean, Germany is obviously a different country today than it was in the last century.

Germany in 19, you know, the Germany of 2026 is so different from the Germany, 1936 that it, and Germany more than any other country in Europe has undergone profound domestic changes. as a result. They, more than any other country, confronted their role during the war, frankly, and the atrocities that were committed. So there's no rational reason to worry about this. And it clearly serves the interests of the Baltic states and Poland and Romania and all the border states alongside Russia to have a powerful well-armed Germany.

So we should welcome this. but that's not the subtext. Okay. Well, let's stick with Germany here. People have memories. Yeah, yeah. The German defense minister did say last month that, quote, we must be ready to fight. Yeah. And that all 32 NATO partners agree that Russia could have the ability to invade a NATO partner country in 2020.

Now, what kind of a splash did that make at the conference? astonishingly enough, Steve, that is the consensus among defense experts in NATO. There is the expectation that the war with Ukraine is going to either wind down and, you know, be a frozen conflict, where the lines that are currently there, but will ultimately wind down because it is bleeding the Russians at this point, and it's bleeding the Ukrainians in terms of manpower. So when it winds down, what happens? the Russians have also, you know, we talk about how Ukraine is innovated and it's an astonishing story. It is really an astonishing story.

But the Russians have kept up. They've innovated in return. And the Russians will have a large army that is innovated, ready for battle. And there's real fear is the only way I can describe it. It's palpable fear. Steve, in Poland, in Sweden, in Finland, in the Baltic states, that Russia could attack Europe within four or five years. It's almost impossible to, I mean, there's no rational reason Russia would do it.

But there was no rational reason for Russia to do what it did with Ukraine either. Well, that's what you wonder. How do they not learn the lesson of the last four years against Ukraine? and they can actually imagine repeating this same foolishness? So this is what Europeans think the Russians might do, which is different. We don't know how Vladimir Putin thinks about it. One of the discussions that went on along the periphery of the summit was the intelligence warnings that the United States provided right before the war broke out, right?

they went to the Brits. The Brits believed them. They went to the French. Macron did not. He said, it's impossible. It would be such a stupid thing to do. There's no way that Russians will do it. How could they not have learned the lessons?

The Germans didn't believe it. And the most striking thing of all, Steve Zelensky didn't believe it. Until four or five days before the war actually started, he dismissed all the intelligence warnings. He said this was just a bluff. It was an attempt by Russia to coerce Ukraine. So we have a history here where nobody believes, the United States believed, Ukraine is, you know, the United Kingdom believe, we believed in Canada. But very few countries believe.

So we have a history here where Russia attacking, using military force inside Europe, makes no sense to anybody. So we assume it must make no sense to Vladimir Putin. Well, we were just wrong in 2022. And so Europe is preparing to fight. There's no question. And without the United States, without the United States. Yeah, if it's a conventional attack. Let me follow up on the Zelensky.

And just add one other sense there. Okay, sure. You know, that's what the defense, that's what the message is. Leave out a hexa. for all kinds of reasons. I personally leave him out. But right underneath him is a man called Elbridge Colby, known as Bridge, to everybody,

who is a hardliner on these issues, has been a hard line. He has a thought through position, which I personally disagree with, but it's a serious thought through position that Europe has to assume full responsibility for its conventional defense. What they can count on, It's the U.S. nuclear deterrent, but the United States is shifting its perspective to the Pacific.

Europe is rich enough and strong enough that it can defend itself. And he says it over and over and over to them. And they hear it. And we'll be back right after this. Chanis, let me follow up on the Zelensky angle here because I think one of the certainly least explicable things that has transpired over the last couple of years. and this is why I need your expertise to help explain this, is that maybe the worst moment I ever saw in the Oval Office in my lifetime was the way Donald Trump treated Volodymyr Zelensky when they had that meeting in Washington.

You know, you don't have any cards. And they just humiliated them in a disgraceful fashion. And yet we hear that at the NATO summit, they got along like long-lost pals, and it was a very cordial meeting. Can you explain what went on there? Yes. that moment, I think, is much etched in everybody's memory. Steve, it was something else.

None of us had ever seen anything like this. Volensky's made a tremendous effort to build his relationship with Trump. He learned you put on a jacket, you flatter him, you do all those other things that everybody else does. And, you know, McCone has helped. actually tutors Zelensky over the years of how you get along with Donald Trump. But that wouldn't do it. What's done it is the fact that for the first time

since the fall of 2022, when Trump was not present at the time, says the first time now, Ukraine is having success on the battlefield. They fought Russia to a draw. And Trump is impressed by the, drones and by the innovation. And all of a sudden, the lechcon off for him and Mark Wurta has really pushed this.

Oh, Zelensky's the winner. I always back winners. Yeah. And that's what's leading to the change in the tone. He does not want to be on the losing side of this. The last thing he wants is to put himself in the position where he's back Putin. and Putin is tied up and not. And already you're hearing,

and I think this is part of it too, you're hearing, oh, there's some similarities between Putin and Trump. They both got themselves stuck in never-ending wars that they can't win. Trump hates that. He just hates it. Well, if you look at the facts, it's not untrue.

I mean, as we sit here taping this, I think it's almost, ever since the so-called ceasefire in the Middle East, it's been, what, 12, 13 straight days of attacks by the Americans on Iranian facilities? So there's no ceasefire there, obviously, anymore. And remember that when Trump went to Angra, one of the things was that ceasefire was timed in part because, you know, he was going to get a ceasefire. He wanted to do it before the anchor meeting because he knew the subtle criticism that was going to come at him from every European ally whose energy, you know, supplies were all disrupted

with the straightforward moves, frankly, closed. I mean, the Europeans are roiled about this. Not a single European leader truly supports this war, Steve. There's no question. How strong do you think Putin's position inside Russia is today, given how poorly the war has gone against Ukraine, given all of the events in the Middle East, and given that the president of the United States doesn't seem to be best buddies with Vladimir, sorry, Vladimir Putin anymore. Look, this is the toughest moment in the war so far for Vladimir Putin. The wars come home to Russia. That's effectively, and this is to the credit of Zelensky.

It's to the credit of Fedorov, who just lost his job as Minister of Defense in Ukraine because it was a really nasty political fight between the chief of the general staff and the minister of defense. Not unknown to happen, even in Canada, Steve. But they have taken the war of Russia. There are missiles, you know, setting oil refineries on fire, just on the outskirts of Moscow. There's black smoke. Inflation is higher than it has been. And he can't, he's already spent, you know,

he's deficit financed up to the limit of almost of his capacity. The economy's terrible. The opportunities for young people are terrible. The only thing that is this now is going to the army, and many, many young Russians do not want to do that. In fact, they're being dragged off the streets to join the army. Well, it's a death sentence. Yes, it is.

I mean, you're just sent to the front and you die. Exactly. Your cannon fodder in a stupid, pointless war. Yeah, and your family, the only reason some young people are doing it is villages are getting. This is an astonishing story. Villages are getting together. They pick one guy. He goes.

When he's dead, the bonus that comes back to the family of dead soldiers in Russia is shared in the village as a whole. That gives you a glimpse, right? of how bad it is domestically for Putin inside Russia. But we know governments are, for governments to fall, and this is a bitter lesson. Somebody in the military has to turn against. The president, that's true in Iran, that's true in Russia. It is always true.

Somebody, a group of colonels have to take over. It is always from within the, the, the, there is, What is characteristic of rationale is what I call grudging silence from among the public. But that will not be enough to bring him down. You know, where's the next prognosis who's going to march on Moscow and say enough is enough? And meeting receptive colonels who will join that. It's the only way this works is a military coup, just like that's true in Iran. You know, that's what the United States absolutely missed.

In order to bring down the regime in Iran, you have to have allies inside the Revolutionary Guard who are going to turn on their own and say, we're done. We're done. Well, that's how they got Marcos out in the Philippines 40 years ago, right? You needed the defense minister and the Secretary of State and everybody to say, okay, that's it. Time's up. We're done. We're not going to waste his country's assets forever. Now, mind you, Janice, we had Bill Browder on this show a few weeks ago.

And, you know, he knows Russia really well. Very well. And he said, and he knows Putin very well, and he said, Putin will never negotiate. You know, this moral may come to an end by some kind of, you know, just lack of inertia. Or no, by complete inertia, rather, as opposed to, you know, it'll just fizzle itself out. But you're never going to see a negotiated end of the war. Do you agree with that? Yes.

I completely agree. It's a very deep ideological commitment he has. He will never back off. I don't think, I think that it is exactly that. It's going to wind down, and that's what I said earlier, Steve, it'll be a frozen conflict. But Vladimir Putin will never openly admit that he was wrong. It would probably be the end of his presidency, see if he did. And by the way, somebody made exactly the same remark to me about Donald Trump,

as we were talking about trade negotiations. And he said, they'll never end. They'll never end. You'll get an agreement in the next day. Something else happens and it reopens. You have to understand. It's never over. Janice, in our remaining moments here,

let's just focus on this rather extraordinary development that happened in the Middle East last week, namely an agreement by the United States and Saudi Arabia to allow the kingdom to enrich uranium to a point where, I guess outside observers are saying this will allow the kingdom to develop its own nuclear weapons program. What do you make of that? I don't fully agree with that, Steve. This is an agreement to establish a civilian nuclear program, right? Number one. Number two, what's causing the concern?

Because the United States has done many, like other countries, have done it as well. We saw can do reactors, right? So that's not the issue. Here's the problem. There is an additional protocol that the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency has pioneered, which provides for SNAP inspections, which is critical to make sure that the uranium,

the uranium is only enriched up to 3%, which cannot make a nuclear weapon with, and that is not diverted. That's real. And the United States and Saudi Arabia did not include that in their deal. That's what's causing the concern. But what's the answer? from the United States, they have very stringent protocols.

We have to see. We don't have the agreement yet. They have very stringent protocols, bilateral protocols that they've signed with the Saudis that will provide, not for inspections, because the IAEA guys need that protocol before these international inspectors can go in. But there are observable measures that the Saudis have to take. that will prevent a breakout to higher levels of enrichment. That's where we are in the controversy.

We have to see the actual agreement before we can make a judgment. Because I would presume that America's strongest ally in the region, namely Israel, would raise all kinds of hell if the Americans were going to enable Saudi to have a weapon. They are already raising all kinds of hell. They are objecting vociferously, right? So why do the Americans do this? So first of all, there is a personal relationship between Trump and MBS, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Let's not leave that out and all the cryptocurrency deals that flow between these two families.

That's a big one. Second, the Saudis have these negotiations been going on four years. They started long before the Biden administration. but they did have that protocol for SNAP inspections in. Here's the issue. The Saudis are going to do this. So do you do it with the United States? Do you do it with Pakistan?

Do you do it with another nuclear supplier? As Mark Carney says, we take the world as it is, not the world as we wish. And I think that's a really important point when we think about this. Thirdly, the Saudis are very worried about the Iranian nuclear. clear program. They're watching this war in the Middle East. And they've always said that if there was any chance that the Iranians could break out toward a bomb, they would follow suit. This is laying the groundwork. But as far as we know, up till now, this is squarely within the civilian sector. Okay, very good. Janice, standby for a second. We're going to do a little housekeeping here and

then come back and say goodbye. But first off, we do want to thank those. you who have been very generous to us on our Patreon page. That's patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. We've got some web exclusive videos there, some extra interviews. I think we have one up now with Todd Smith, who's a former Minister of Energy for the province of Ontario. Todd Smith quit Doug Ford's cabinet. In fact, he quit politics altogether because he loved the nuclear business. And when Doug Ford shuffled him out of energy and into education, he just quit politics. and he decided to go work to sell nuclear reactors around the world, and he has a fascinating new career now in that.

So we have an interview with him up on our Patreon page that you may want to check out. Patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. And thanks to Jamie Hoffman from Waterloo, Ontario, who went on to our Patreon page and is a generous contributor to us now as well. All of our shows are archived at stevepaken.com. Janice, I want to wish you, first of all, a very happy August. We are going to give you the month off. And we will see you again in September.

So take good care. Peace and love, everybody. And we'll see you next month.