Putin-Ukraine Escalation: Lessons from an Obama Pentagon official & a NY Times columnist - with Evelyn Farkas & Bret Stephens
Is it too late to deter Russia from invading Ukraine? It certainly seems that way. And while it should be obvious that it does matter, at least as far as US interests are concerned, we are struck by how many pundits and political actors are questioning the stakes. We have received these questions in response to our recent episodes on the Russia-Ukraine crisis – the conversations with Walter Russell Mead and Richard Fontaine. On this episode, we attempt to answer them by calling on two experts, who come at global affairs from somewhat different perspectives. Dr. Evelyn Farkas had a direct role in the US response to the Russia-Ukraine crisis of 2014. She was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, Balkans, Caucasus and conventional arms control. Prior to that, she was Senior Advisor to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Special Advisor to the Secretary of Defense for the NATO Summit. Earlier, Dr. Farkas was Executive Director of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. She was also a professor of international relations at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College and is now president of Farkas Global Strategies.
After Dr. Farkas, we’ll be joined by Bret Stephens of The New York Times. This is part II of our conversation with Stephens. In this episode, we talk to Stephens about the Biden administration’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, pivoting off President Biden’s troubling press conference.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] Many Americans just don't understand that if Putin gets away with getting control over Ukraine, he's not going to stop there. He's going to try to have control over other parts of the former Soviet Union. He's going to try to continue to weaken NATO. He does not want democracies challenging him and his autocratic system.
Is it too late to deter Russia from invading Ukraine? It certainly seems that way. And while it's obvious to me that it does matter, at least as far as U. S. interests are concerned, I'm struck by how much people are posing versions of this question. Does it really matter? What are the stakes of a Russia invasion of Ukraine?
In fact, these are some of the questions I've received in response to our most recent episodes on the Russia Ukraine crisis. The conversations we had with Walter Russell Mead, and [00:01:00] before that, with Richard Fontaine. So on this episode, we attempt to answer These questions by calling on two experts who come at global affairs from somewhat different perspectives.
Dr Evelyn Farkas served as a top defense policy advisor in the obama administration Evelyn was deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia ukraine eurasia balkans caucuses and conventional arms control Prior to that she was senior advisor to the supreme allied commander europe and special advisor to the secretary of defense for the nato summit Earlier, Evelyn was Executive Director of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism.
She was also a Professor of International Relations at the U. S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College and is now President of her own consulting firm, Farkas Global Strategies. After Evelyn, we'll be joined by Brett Stevens of the New York Times, our return guest. This is [00:02:00] Call Me Back.
And I'm pleased to welcome former Top, a top Pentagon official in the Obama administration overseeing U. S. defense policy for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, Evelyn Farkas. Evelyn, thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks for having me, Dan. Um, you have had a long career. Uh, not just in the Pentagon in the Obama administration, but also a range of tours from the Senate Armed Services Committee to working on the ground in Europe with NATO leadership and I can go on and on, some of which we went over in the, uh, introduction to this episode.
Just to get started here, can you lay out what you believe to be the stakes in this escalating crisis? Is the stakes between the stakes for us between Russia and Ukraine? And the stakes for us between Moscow and Washington. I mean, I think the stakes are the same in the sense that what Vladimir Putin is doing is challenging the international order.[00:03:00]
What you have to understand, I guess, if you can, is how Vladimir Putin thinks. He wants to make sure that he can preserve his autocratic political system and the associated kleptocratic economic system, which is very corrupt. In order to do that, he feels that he has to have All of the states around Russia, especially those that made up the former Soviet Union, because he's also a bit of a Russian imperialist, he wants them all to have the same system.
He doesn't want people in Russia looking across the border and seeing a successful democratic Ukraine. So, he believes that he has the right, also again, hearkening back to this Russian imperial vision and the Soviet experience, to a sphere of influence. Well, Dan, we got rid of the sphere of influence after World War II.
Because sphere of influence is when you have no international rules of the road, that, you know, like, might makes right. And sphere of influence led to the competition. That led to World War One and World War Two. After [00:04:00] World War Two, we set up the U. N. Charter, the U. N. as an institution, and we said that borders cannot be altered by force.
Okay? And granted, we've had lots of wars, but we haven't had global wars. So this system has worked to keep us safe. But Vladimir Putin, especially when he went into Ukraine and he annexed Crimea, that was a real, um, game changer. Because that was the first time since Hitler that borders in Europe had been changed using force.
When he said Ukraine now belongs to Russia. And believe me, there are plenty of other leaders in Europe and elsewhere who would love to change borders using force. And, and get rid of the UN system. But that's what keeps us safe, and if I could just for one second, you know, pull you back to your own personal experience, um, in Iraq.
If you recall back at, even before you were there, later, in 1991, we went to war with Iraq. Why? The reason was because Iraq went in and occupied Kuwait and said this is part of Iraq now. Now, yes, we [00:05:00] had economic interests at stake, oil and all that, but we went to war to push Iraq out of Kuwait, to say you cannot alter international boundaries using military force.
That bedrock principle is what really matters. So, two questions on that front. So, some, I think on the fringe, are arguing, well, you know what, if Putin goes into Ukraine It's, it's not pretty, it's probably not good, but it's not really our problem, as though Putin occupying even just a piece of Ukraine is where it stops, that if he is not deterred, that let him, let him, let's just kind of concede part of Ukraine, and that's where this ends, and we get back to our business and he gets back to his business in our respective backyards.
You, I think, believe that there's no way that's where it stops. That's correct. So, right now, what he's done, he already, in 2014, as I [00:06:00] said, he seized Crimea, then he started another war in Donbass. And he thought that those two things would be enough for him to take control, political and economic control, of the Ukrainian government again, because don't forget in 2014 the reason he went into Crimea and into Donbass, this other part of Ukraine, was because the Ukrainian people went to the street and they scared their leader, who was a Kremlin crony pretty much, out of the country.
He fled to Moscow. Why were the Ukrainian people going to the street? Because they wanted to join the European Union. They saw their Polish neighbors who they were used to actually being less strong economically. They saw them as wealthier and they said, wait a minute, we want, we want to live like that too.
And a lot of them were younger people. So, so in essence, what's happening here is that Vladimir Putin. In 2014, 2015 said, I want to reverse that. I want them to come back into my fold, not into the European Union. Again, because he doesn't want a flourishing democracy in Ukraine. That he views as a threat to his [00:07:00] regime.
The Russian people have already demonstrated that they are watching. And if they see that they can achieve a better life because the Ukrainians can, they may well want this for themselves. And so, so 2014, 15 didn't work. And that's why Putin's trying again. So, some foreign policy hands, both some, although not all, obviously, in the Obama, in the Biden administration, and certainly many on the right, are basically arguing the great power conflict of this century is going to be U.
S. and China. It's going to be Cold War II. And any distraction from U. S. versus China is bad for the United States. And so, it will undermine our strategy with China to get bogged down. with an escalating crisis with Putin. Putin and Russia are a sideshow. That's absolutely, well that's wrong. Um, it's wrong because Russia has been [00:08:00] threatening the United States actively, I would say for sure since 2016 when they started interfering in our domestic politics.
When they started interfering in those elections in 2016. Teen through Facebook, through, you know, stealing information and weaponizing it, exacerbating the differences that exist already in our society, but making them worse. And then continuing to do that, they, they started to threaten, and of course all the cyber attacks, they started to threaten our democracy.
We can't ignore that. The other thing is, as I said, this international order, our alliances, they keep us safe. And finally, if we don't stand up to Vladimir Putin. Don't you think the Chinese the next day are gonna turn around and say, Well, those guys are weaklings? Let me see what I can get. I mean the Chinese are watching very closely to see how we react to Russia And in fact, they've said well, we kind of agree with Russia.
There shouldn't be a NATO, right? So that that to me is the is the biggest concern as it relates to China is just like [00:09:00] how how? While they're assessing if they are assessing assuming they are when to strike against Taiwan I got to believe the combination of how we withdrew from Afghanistan and then if we don't If we just let Putin roll into Ukraine, those are important data points in how they, uh, and how they assess their next move.
So I just think this is all, this all has massive signaling effect. Um, in 1994, Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum, which, which as you know, Ukraine yielded something like 1, 900 nuclear weapons. On its territory and Russia agreed to and I quote respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine and to and then I quote again to refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine So this was a very important agreement Why was this agreement so important Ukraine and it?
It feels to me like it's now in tatters, or on the cusp of being in tatters. Yeah, it's an interesting agreement because you had the [00:10:00] nuclear powers. The other signatories were the United States and the United Kingdom. And then France and China decided not to sign the Budapest Memorandum, but they had side agreements.
So interestingly, they're also sort of implicated in this. The nuclear, the major nuclear powers said to Ukraine, if you give up your nuclear weapons, because we were worried about loose nukes and, you know, nuclear proliferation, proliferation of material, and Ukraine was a poor country and, you know, if, but we basically said you don't need them for your security because we'll guarantee your security.
Of course, again, Russia now has gone back very hard on its word. And the implications are bad not just for, you know, the credibility of Russia, but frankly, the credibility of the nuclear powers who said that we would come to Ukraine's defense because we haven't sufficiently come to the table. We have helped them, but I think we need to continue everything we're doing to include fighting at the United Nations for a peaceful resolution [00:11:00] of the situation in Crimea.
Henry Kissinger famously said Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe? That's a great quote. So, NATO, you work with NATO, NATO has 30 members, but only something like 10 of which are fulfilling the requirement to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense. So at best, in this situation, it seems like we, the US, want to defend against Russian aggression more than Europe does, or Putin has successfully sowed divisions.
Within Europe and between major countries in Europe and Washington and the United States. What's going on? Why, why don't we have, you know, like Kissinger's line, Who do I call to work with Europe? Like, Europe feels like a mess to me in this crisis. And when you were in the Obama administration, you were dealing with a similar crisis in 2014.
Did Europe [00:12:00] seem as dysfunctional? In, in responding to this kind of aggression, I mean, look, Dan, there have always been divisions in Europe. There are divisions in the United States too. So, you know, I mean, I understand you can call the White House and I guess you, you get someone in power, but you can also call over to Capitol Hill, but not to minimize what you're saying.
Of course, there are differences among the allies. And certainly those frontline allies, the ones on the border with. Russia have been more concerned about Russia than the Western European countries. The other aspect of it, of course, is the reliance on Russian natural gas in particular, but also oil. Um, that does impact the willingness of the Western Europeans to confront the Russians.
There, there are also commercial interests, trade involved, and then in Germany's case, certainly with the Social Democratic Party, there's a history of kind of thinking that they need to find a way to get along with Russia. It's a more of a political cultural thing. But at the end of the day, nobody likes [00:13:00] what Russia is doing in Europe.
I mean, nobody likes it. They may not be responding exactly the way that we want, but nobody likes it. And if Putin does launch some other incursion invasion attack on Ukraine, you will find that Europe will be united and there will be transatlantic unity. Really? Even from Berlin and You, you, you have hopes for Germany.
Yes, I have hopes for Germany. In this, in this crisis, not generally. Yes, you know why? Because even in the last two weeks, we've seen some movement. So where the, the um, foreign minister from the Green Party, they're pretty hard firm on Russia. They understand clearly what, what Putin's up to and what he's capable of.
She spoke out very clearly. on the Russian threat, and she may have even said something about the Nord Stream Pipeline. The Chancellor was hesitant, but then finally said something that, yeah, we will have to reassess the Nord Stream Pipeline if the Russians take further military action against Ukraine.
So, it's not, his [00:14:00] statement wasn't quite as strong as I would have liked, but there was a statement, and again, as I said, I think if there's further aggression by Russia, There will be further statements coming out of Germany, and so I'm, at this point, I'm, I'm optimistic. Writing in the Financial Times, uh, Megan Green of Harvard's Kennedy School said, quote, she wrote, quote, Russia's already heavily sanctioned.
And she goes out to, go on to explain there's no discernible improving effect on Russia's behavior. as a result of sanctions that they've been subjected to over the years, including during the Trump administration. And we, there's still cyber attacks, there's still the assassinations of Putin's opponents abroad, there's still obviously extremely aggressive, uh, clampdowns on domestic civil liberties, uh, inside Russia.
What's the case at this point for sanctions? Is Putin actually afraid of sanctions? Here's the thing. We have been very incremental [00:15:00] and cautious when it comes to sanctions. We, the United States and the Europeans. There is a huge space between the sanctions we put on Russia and the kind of sanctions we have on Iran and North Korea.
Okay? The sanctions the Biden administration is contemplating now are serious sanctions. And I believe that they've communicated even in concrete terms to the Russians what those sanctions would be. So they likely include Uh, cutting off access to, uh, to sovereign debt, uh, servicing, including past sovereign debt.
That would hurt the Russians. They likely include blocking access to the West by Russian banks, major Russian banks who support the Russian government. Uh, uh, spare bank, VEB and VTB for example, they, they may well also include keeping Russia off of the Swift interbank transfer system. Obviously, more sanctions on oligarchs.
They probably don't include [00:16:00] sectoral sanc sanctions because we'd have to find a way to provide, you know, oil and gas to the Europeans. In that case, they are much stronger than what we've done so far. We should have implemented these harsher sanctions, frankly, earlier. Now, now we are contemplating them and threatening them, and I would imagine it, it, it has to make the Russians stop and think, but I don't think that they are sufficient, and so everything we're doing to, to show the Russians that if they roll into Ukraine, it will be militarily painful, That is actually, I think, more important.
And in 20, the last time you dealt with this crisis like this firsthand as a, as a policymaker in, in the Obama administration, can you just explain, like, the internal debate about how aggressively to crank up sanctions? What, what was the resistance to these kinds of more aggressive sanctions that you're talking about?
Well, you're always worried about the impact on your own economy, on your own markets, and certainly, [00:17:00] We were always doing everything lockstep with our European allies because the Europeans do so much more business with Russia. If you want the sanctions to have teeth, to hurt, then you have to, then you have to implement them with the Europeans.
And so the Europeans, of course, you know, they go along with some sanctions, but they didn't want to take the pain. You know, when I brief, I'm also a consultant, um, as you know, and when I brief investors, you know, I tell them often like, look, Sometimes, you have to be willing to accept some pain because you are protected by the rule of law and democracy in this country.
And, if it's too much pain, then go to our government and maybe they can help you alleviate some of it. But, at the end of the day, we need to put sanctions on Russia. We need to make them feel the pain, even if sometimes You know, our own companies have to absorb some of the shock as well. We had Walter Russell meet on, uh, a couple of weeks ago and he just made the point if we are laying out very aggressive sanctions, very punitive sanctions that we would put in place, Republicans are doing this.
Democrats are [00:18:00] doing this. I want to go, I want to go through some more of these sanctions in a minute. If Putin is not afraid of these sanctions. What good is it imposing sanctions, saying we're going to impose sanctions on him after he goes in, goes in farther to Ukraine? Like, because you, then to your point, like, Europe has to absorb a lot of pain.
We potentially have to absorb some pain at a time of inflation, tightened supply chains, rising oil prices, etc. So, if, if Putin's not afraid of sanctions And we impose all these sanctions, and he goes in, and we and Europe are suffering economically. I'm just trying to imagine where we are at that point.
Well, we don't know that he's not afraid of sanctions. I just worry that it's not sufficient. So I would, you know, again, pile on all the deterrent military action and also diplomatic deterrent action. You need, you must punish him so that he doesn't continue and they will hurt and they'll hurt other people [00:19:00] besides Vladimir Putin himself.
And that matters. You know, they'll hurt the oligarchs around him. You also need to demonstrate to other would be. transgressors of international law, that this is what we're capable of doing together. Um, the Republican, the House Republican Study Committee has put together, which is a committee of about 150 conservative lawmakers, they've put together the, what they're calling the Putin Accountability Act, which has something like 30 co sponsors right now.
Uh, the bill's been sponsored by, uh, Jim Banks, congressman from Indiana. And It really goes after Putin personally. And, you know, Josh Rogin writes in the Washington Post, One thing we do know that Putin cares about is his own illicit fortune. The US government has never really tried to go after the people who launder Putin's allegedly stolen billions and profit from his gangsterism.
And then he goes through about how That, that this house committee is pushing the Biden administration to do this now [00:20:00] and not wait for Putin to go into into Russia, but really impose the pain on him personally, his personal financial fortune and that of the people around him. Yeah. There are some sanctions, Dan, that we can sanction action that we can take now, that we should take now, and I would agree with that.
That, that's a sanction we can take that's not going to hurt us. It's not going to hurt our European allies. It's going to make a strong statement towards the Russian people. Look at your irresponsible, corrupt leader. Um, and so I think it could help, um, create some turmoil for Putin in his backyard. So that kind of sanction makes sense.
The other sanctions I would hold off on, because again, you're threatening them, you know, in an attempt to get him to stop and think twice, him or the people around him. In 2018, the Trump administration authorized special forces to, to confront, um, I don't even know what to call them, uh, [00:21:00] security contractors, let's call them that, in, Russian security contractors.
Yes, the Wagner group, yeah. And I don't know, you know, 300 different reports, something like 300 of these, of these, uh, Russian security personnel were either killed or injured, something, at least over 80 killed, based on public reports. What did, what was Putin's reaction to that? Because that was, I mean, confronting confronting Russian forces, even if they were sort of informally tied to the Russian government, to the Sovereign, uh, confronting, uh, Russian forces was pretty aggressive on the battlefield and with real casualties.
And how did, how did Putin respond? Well, what happened was that the, so the, the place where our troops are is of interest to the Russians because there are There's oil there and they would like to have access to it under some sort of arrangement that they would probably make with Assad. So the, the Americans are in a [00:22:00] strategic area there.
There are other reasons why it's important, but that, that is one that would appeal to contractors who might make money there, aside from for their military mercenary activities. The Wagner group attacked the special ops, the special operators there, and that's why the special operators lashed back and killed hundreds of them.
I mean, I think it was more than a hundred, maybe even more than two, but in any event, it was more than a hundred. And the lesson there, I think, was, was, was understood because I haven't seen any accounts of Russian contractors or Russian troops, you know, trying to attack Americans. If you attack Americans, they will, they will fight back in self defense.
So I don't think that Vladimir Putin wants any kind of kinetic engagement, any kind of war with the United States or with NATO or with any of our allies. And he does understand what Article 5 means. And the Russian military is not a match for NATO. So you, [00:23:00] uh, about a little over a week ago, President Biden seemed in his press conference to concede that there would be some kind of Russian invasion, small, but an invasion of Ukraine, and that there was, you know, the body language and the, and the language, uh, suggested, at least the administration's view, was there was little we could do.
To prevent that now, since then you, and when we, in, in this podcast, we're also hearing from Brett Stevens, who, who was weighing in on that. Um, exchange at the press conference, but you since then have come out quite publicly for uh, uh, a pretty, uh, aggressive approach. Some of the items you've alluded to in this conversation.
Can you talk about like what prompted you to come out so publicly and what kind of reaction you got from folks on Capitol Hill, folks in the administration to what you're proposing? And actually, first, first tell us what you're proposing and then talk about why you did it and what the reactions have been.
Yeah, so what I [00:24:00] proposed in this defense one piece in particular was that we undertake a firm united response against Vladimir Putin, that the president provide the highest level of military support to Ukraine. I can't recall if I put in there about air and maritime defenses, but certainly subsequently I've, I've mentioned that, and I do believe it's important, but that we provide.
Assistance to Ukrainians so that the Russians will know that it will cost them that we sanction Russia and just be clear so so to make clear that the Ukrainians have the resources to this is not going to be a cakewalk for The Russian military that the Russia will know. Wow. The Ukrainians are actually really armed here.
They have the capabilities to fight, right, right. That they will lose lives. That the Russian, that there'll be Russian body bags going back to Russia. And, and the reason for that is, of course, in 20 14 15, we saw that it had an impact on the Russian government. [00:25:00] So, so I, so that was part of my argument, the part.
The real reason I mean, the part of the argument that I put last was that President Biden needs to go to the United Nations and organize a coalition of the willing now a coalition of the willing to undertake diplomacy, not not to force Russia militarily to leave, as we did with with Iraq In the case of the Kuwait annexation, but because it's a similar situation, we need to, we need to mount as, as energetic a diplomatic response to this one as we did to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Again, I'm not calling for military force because Russia's a military, uh, nuclear power. We don't want to engage in war with Russia, but we should put the full force of global pressure on them because they are challenging the international order. And this is the part I think that many Americans just don't understand that if Putin gets [00:26:00] away with, if he gets away with getting control over Ukraine, he's not going to stop there.
He's going to try to have control over other parts of the former Soviet Union. He's going to try to continue to weaken NATO. He does not want democracies challenging him and his autocratic system. Uh, the administration has, the Pentagon has recently said that they would deploy 8, 500 U. S. troops on heightened alert, quote unquote, for possible deployment, I guess.
But it would be under the NATO response force. And what that means in practice Again, I'm quoting Josh Rogin here as well from the Post, is that the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe would have to request their deployment from NATO itself before they could carry it out. So we're sending, we would be sending U.
S. troops to NATO, but those troops couldn't be deployed without the 30 member, you know, North Atlantic North Atlantic council giving, uh, voting unanimously to [00:27:00] approve the use of our forces. Does that worry you that like our forces are subordinated to some system now that's up to 30 countries to decide if they're used?
And does that also just create a bureaucratic mess if we're in the middle of a crisis that if Putin went in to Ukraine, we're sitting there having these like debates and discussions in Brussels about how to get 30 governments to vote to allow U. S. troops to be deployed. It doesn't concern me because what I'm hearing out of the administration is that that They're, they haven't taken anything off the table that they could send additional U.
S. forces by, you know, just on, on our own without the NATO request or the NATO umbrella. I think doing it as part of the NATO response force demonstrates again that it's the full force of NATO, even if it's not a large military force, right? So I think there's political advantage to doing it under the NATO umbrella, but we're not tied to that operationally.
I want to, um, [00:28:00] I want to just ask you one question before, before we wrap here, which is your own, so you, you've been a long time policy wonk, I say that not, not, not in any pejorative way, uh, in the Russia slash Ukraine slash European. sphere. And, um, you don't just come at it as a, as a wonk or an academic, uh, although you have a lot of experience in both, but also your personal story, your family's history.
Can you just tell us just briefly your family's history in Hungary and, and how you kind of growing up came to care about these issues? Yeah, so my parents were born in communist Hungary. In 1956, there was a revolution to try to kick the Soviet Union out. I mean, they literally had tanks in there. They pushed the tanks out.
The Soviets left, but the problem was that the Soviets were coming back. The United States did not want to get involved in a war to rescue Hungary, so my parents fled. And I'm, I mean, [00:29:00] I ran for Congress in New York in 2020, and I told the story of how they left with nothing. My mother had a sandwich in her pocket, you know, literally that's it, can you imagine?
And she was only like 17 years old. So they came to the United States with nothing, but what they came for was You know, political freedom and an economic opportunity. And I was born in the States. My first language is actually Hungarian. I went back and visited my grandparents in Hungary. I knew very much, I knew what it was like to live in, under communism.
You know, my parents would say, shh, don't talk in front of that lady because she's the spy in the building and she'll tell on your grandparents. And I knew that something horrible would happen to my grandparents. So, you know, knowing that there are these other systems of government, um, I grew up in America really grateful, first of all, that my parents were welcomed here and they did have, they got educations in the United States and they were able to, you know, achieve kind of the American dream.
And so I feel very strongly [00:30:00] about our democracy, because I do think you have to work for that every day. And certainly I feel that the international order is, you have to pay attention to it, because outside actors can also And I think as Americans, since we're the greatest power in the world, still militarily, politically, and economically, we have a responsibility to stick up for those smaller countries and those peoples who want to be democratic when they're being pressured militarily with, by people like Vladimir Putin and his, and his vast army and navy.
Hopefully the administration is taking your counsel here. Uh, at a minimum, I think, uh, our listeners would agree you, you, you've helped provide a crash course in why this matters and why it's not too late. So Evelyn, thanks for joining the conversation. Thanks very much, Dan, for the opportunity.
As listeners to this podcast, you know Brett Stevens, and this is part two [00:31:00] of our conversation with him. In this episode, we talked to Brett about the Biden administration's handling of the Russia Ukraine crisis, pivoting off President Biden's troubling press conference from a couple of weeks ago. Here's my conversation with Brett.
I'm pleased to welcome Brett Stevens back to the Call Me Back He's a fan favorite. This is technically his third appearance, uh, on the, on this, uh, podcast and Brett, I want to talk to you about. Ukraine, which you have written about a lot, uh, in the times and have been a keen observer of developments there.
And I want to quote from President Biden's press conference, his almost jaw dropping press conference. And, and let me preface it by saying One could argue early in the administration, early in the Biden administration, they did some important things as it with, as it related to, uh, Ukraine. The White [00:32:00] House froze the withdrawal of American forces from Europe early on.
That, that had begun under the previous administration. They'd expanded the sanctions against Uh, Moscow, tough sanctions already in place from the Trump administration and, and the president had dispatched defensive weaponry to Ukraine, not the offensive weaponry and technology that the Trump administration had dispatched, but nonetheless had done some important things.
And that's where we were at the beginning of the Biden administration. Now I want to quote or play tape from Biden, President Biden's press conference, where he says, quote, My guess is he will move in, referring to Putin. He will move into, uh, Ukraine. My guess is he will move in, and then he said, I don't think he's made up his mind yet.
If he invades, Putin that is, if Putin invades, it hasn't happened since World War II, which is actually isn't true, parenthetically, just a little fact check here, uh. That, that, uh, Putin invaded the, the Crimea. Putin invaded Ukraine seven years ago when 2014, [00:33:00] right, and, and, and integrated Crimea into Russia.
But I'm just, it was just factually incorrect what he said. And then Biden goes on And says, I mean, it was almost like he was sort of ruminating. He says, it's one thing if it's a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, but if they actually do what they're capable of doing with the forces amassed on the border, meaning the Ukrainian border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine.
And then he was asked, President Biden was asked, Are you saying that a minor incursion by Russia into Ukrainian territory would not lead to the sanctions that you have threatened? And Biden says, Well, that's how it sounded like, didn't it? So that was President Biden in his press conference talking about what's likely to happen in Ukraine.
What was your reaction to what he said? Well, I mean, my reaction was to imagine what Vladimir Putin was thinking while listening to that. Um, which is that this is an adversary who's simply not serious about stopping [00:34:00] me. Um, who is going to be twisted into knots like, uh, Carter over the invasion of Afghanistan or something like that, um, trying to, uh, reach a common position with American allies, uh, because he doesn't quite understand, um, you know, what's, what's most important to reach a common position or to take a, a, a tough stand, who's prepared to accept it.
Uh, um, further, uh, further, uh, Russian seizure of sovereign Ukrainian territory the third time in seven years, um, and who's just not a serious president. You will have noted that immediately afterwards, or at least a few hours after that press conference, the administration was being forced to, uh, walk back, uh, walk back some of what, uh, Biden had, uh, had said.
So The result is that it or the impression is already at the [00:35:00] moment of crisis when supposedly all the talking points have been carefully studied and written out by the principles of government that you have a shambolic decision making process led by a president who hasn't gotten his messaging Straight, hasn't gotten his thinking straight and, uh, where it's unclear whether he's, uh, thinking very much at all.
So why do you think the administration has landed at this? approach, even if it's being corrected to some degree, what is going on inside the administration decision making? Well, I wish I knew. Well, what, what, what, what could, I mean, I wish, but this is, give them the benefit of the doubt. I know it's hard because it seems, as you said, so shambolic, but what if you were to give them like their due, what, what, what are their options here?
Maybe they're dealing with a narrowing set of options and they're stuck. So let me try to off the [00:36:00] cuff. Put the best possible gloss on on the Biden administration's shambolic Ukraine policy, uh, and I would say that they are very keen to maintain a united, um, NATO front, especially given that Germany has a new NATO More ostpolitik, uh, uh, social democratic, uh, government, potentially inclined to take a very different view of, uh, of Russia than the United States will.
And so they would rather sacrifice, or they would rather Uh, gain diplomatic currency in NATO, even if the cost, even if the price of it is, uh, losing, uh, trenches of, uh, Ukrainian, uh, Ukrainian territory. Um, so NATO, NATO diplomatic unity trumps all, I guess, is the nice way of expressing this, uh, uh, [00:37:00] this policy.
Um, but it's. It's essentially a nonsensical policy because achieving this diplomatic victory with NATO, that is to say, having some kind of united front against Russia, um, ultimately simply puts, uh, NATO in a strategically much worse position. Uh, strategically worse because Russia has been emboldened. It will be able to have achieved, uh, objectives in Ukraine at a relatively minor, uh, and diminished cost, uh, from the West.
It demonstrates the transatlantic unity is becoming, uh, a fig leaf, uh, and an increasingly, uh, um, uh, torn, uh, uh, torn, uh, fig leaf. It makes Eastern Ukraine, uh, European frontline NATO states extremely worried about about their future. And, um, it shows that A Putin [00:38:00] strategy of confrontation, aggression and naked and extraordinarily bald threats against the West works.
So on every level, it's catastrophic. What I have said is that the Biden administration should be sending C fives, um, and C 17 in formations to Kiev delivering, uh, uh, Every kind of weapon that can bloody the Russian army, even if it means Ukraine loses the war that at least can deliver a real black eye to, uh, uh, to Russia just to give Putin a, a sufficient 10 percent quest point of doubt in his mind that this is going to work.
Then the United States So you would, you would cut off all these diplomatic talks, the talks in Geneva, the talks in The talks, the talks are themselves a concession. The talks are okay. When a [00:39:00] country goes and threatens to invade a neighbor, it should not be rewarded in the coin of diplomatic entente and potential concessions from the United States So this is built up Putin in a sense because he suddenly like looks like a superpower or dealing directly with the u.
s And he and and there's a chance that he could win some let's imagine this thing comes off Without a russian invasion, it will only do so if the united states makes certain kinds of concessions One concession that's been bandied about is the idea of re entering the international or the immediate intermediate range nuclear forces agreement of 1987 the inf treaty, but we got out of the inf treaty because russia was nakedly Violating the treaty.
Um, so we're going to reward russian violations of a nuclear treaty uh by uh Re entering into it Because they were so gracious as not to invade their weak and vulnerable neighbor. That's that's a staggering. That's a [00:40:00] staggering thought. The other thing that I wish Biden would do is he should send, even if it's over the objections of Germany and other countries, he should send division level forces to each of the Baltic states.
enough tripwire forces that Russia will know that if it invades Ukraine, NATO's, the, the threat from NATO on his Western flanks will grow, not diminish. So you wrote in the times quote, it would be to America's globe, referring to a potential invasion of. Ukraine from from Putin you wrote in the Times it would be to America's global standing what the Suez crisis was to Britain's at least Pax Britannica could in its twilight give way to Pax Americana But to what but what does Pax Americana give way?
So can you, first of all, explain the significance of the Suez Crisis? It began in October of 1956. Why, why was it so important to what [00:41:00] some may argue was the beginning of the end of the British Empire? Well, the British Empire was in a sense a shell of itself when, when, uh, uh, Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal, triggering an effort by France, Britain, and Israel to retake the canal.
Uh, leading to the debacle of Eisenhower, who was trying to curry favor, um, a month before his reelection with the anti colonialist forces of the third world to, uh, strong arm Britain into relinquishing its position, leading to the downfall of the government of Anthony Eden, uh, the humiliation of Britain and its conclusive diminishment as one of the members of the big three that had the victors of the, uh, of the Second World War.
The point of all that there's a long history. It's an interesting history. Um, the point of all that it was the moment when [00:42:00] Great Britain got kicked so hard in, uh, It's pants. If I'm being diplomatic here, um, that it knew that it was even if it was going to be a country in the world, it wasn't going to be a power on the world stage.
Now, when that happened for Britain, you had a big, strong America that was prepared, you know, as Kennedy would say a few years later to pay any price, bear any burden for the sake of freedom in the world. There is no great liberal Alternative to American power that's ready to pick up the pieces if the United States decides that it doesn't have the will or the wherewithal to stand up to people like Putin or Khamenei or Xi Jinping in China.
And what happens after Pax Americana is That the dictatorial powers of the world will understand it's open season, that they can hunt their weaker neighbors, whether it's Taiwan, um, [00:43:00] or the Baltics, or, uh, potentially, uh, even Israel in, in the Middle East, and that the United States will not be coming to the rescue of these embattled democracies, uh, around the world.
And, uh, if that happens, we're in a really dark place in the world. Uh, you You wrote a book a few years ago, uh, that I would argue is somewhat prescient. On this front. I would say it was more than somewhat. Okay. So, so, bring it. Like tell me, tell me what you, um, just, so the, so the book is called America in Retreat.
We'll post it in the show notes. America in Retreat. The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder. So you wrote this book during the Obama administration. Right. It was published in 2014. I remember I held a book party for you. You did it was a very nice book party Glad you remember. Yeah, so so just briefly.
What did you argue [00:44:00] in that book? And what has come to pass? I argued in the book that the United States risked under president obama, um, uh repeating the mistakes of the 1920s and the 1930s when we decided We wanted, excuse me, we wanted no part in policing the peace that had been arranged after world war one.
And that our withdrawal from the game of. International power politics is what ultimately led to the rise of the fascist dictatorships in the 1920s and 30s and the catastrophe of the Second World War and that American policy under Obama and as I predicted under an isolationist Republican president, I had a whole chapter in there called Republicans in Retreat, which I think anticipated the Quasi isolationist drift of the GOP and now under Biden [00:45:00] is moving in just that direction because we don't have, among other things, a kind of an intellectual architecture for why American power is indispensable not only for the sake of little Latvia or little Israel or little Taiwan It's indispensable for our own security and prosperity And that was that was the essential argument of the book and and I think seven years later Although I was wrong on some of my predictions.
I think the overall thesis has been pretty well vindicated. I agree one thing it requires To reverse this, this direction we're heading in, in both parties are political leaders who are running for office and who are in office to lay, to explain to the American people why these, why these, um, these battles are important.
And why these challenges are important and unfortunately we we have very [00:46:00] little of that Leaders explaining the stakes if you if you want to if you want to do what you're advocating for instance Vis a vis russia and ukraine We need a leader who's willing to actually explain to the american public what the stakes are and we don't have people explaining the stakes You know, look the american people are right to be uh skeptical in the sense that Tremendous blood and treasure was invested into two, uh, nation building programs after 9 11 in Iraq and Afghanistan, um, which, um, you know, ended in, for the most part, in sand and ashes.
Now, I would argue they ended in sand and ashes because of Not the decision to enter those countries, but rather the decision to leave them And leave them in a way that made them made them vulnerable to to Catastrophe or to political political setbacks but I understand and I think it's [00:47:00] important for any of us who are on this side of the argument to reckon in a Excuse me.
My throat's a little dry to reckon in a Thoughtful and serious way with with that critique that 20 years of effort, uh, didn't take us, uh, didn't take us very far. There were there were serious mistakes again in thought and execution made by those of us who thought, I think, a little too breezily that getting rid of dictatorship was the hard part when, in fact, that was the easy part.
Um, uh, but there are equal and I would say far graver mistakes among those who think that the United States can retreat to some kind of, uh, North American fortress and, and be safe in the world. Uh, and we can't, and it's, uh, I think we are, we've created an intellectual climate that's facilitated that kind of thinking, and it's going to, uh, lead to harms.
On that [00:48:00] grim note, which I totally agree with, uh, we will end the conversation. You've been very generous with your time, Brett. We hope to, uh, have you back. Like I said, you are, our listeners say more Brett, so, uh, you know, we'll, you won't be canceled. Thank you, Campbell and the kids. It's more than just Campbell and the kids.
We got, we got a lot of fans who are, who are, who are asking for more Brett and you won't be canceled on this podcast no matter what you say, no matter how provocative. So uh, keep up, keep up the important work and stay in touch. It's an honor to be on the show and it's always good to see you Dan, even virtually.
Great to see you, thanks. That's our show for today. To follow Evelyn Farkas, you can track her down on Twitter. At Evelyn N. Farkas. F A R K A S. And to follow Bret Stephens, you can track him down through the New York Times Opinion page, or on Twitter, at N Y [00:49:00] T Opinion. Or, at the Sapir Journal, which he edits, at Sapir Journal, S A P I R G O U R N A L.
Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.