100 Days: The Tide Turns Towards Putin
After the 100-day mark of the 2022 Russian war against Ukraine. we assess some grim facts of this war, and try to understand how they should inform what to expect in the next hundred days.
Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Centar for a New American Security (CNAS), returns to the conversation. Richard is a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. CNAS is a bi-partisan foreign policy think tank in Washington, DC. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] What has happened is that the Russians have redeployed, regrouped, and adapted. To something that is far more favorable to their style of war and their geography and what they tried to do in Kiev Seemed so unlikely because no one could figure out how it would be successful and it turned out that That's because it wasn't going to be successful What's going on in the east is much more like the Russian way of war which is very artillery dependent Their supply lines are a lot shorter to Russia than they were before.
They're a lot more secure than they were before. And this is the kind of, uh, war that Russians know how to fight better than the kind they tried in the beginning.
We just passed the first 100 day mark of the 2022 [00:01:00] Russian war against Ukraine. Here are a few things we know so far. While some analysts had feared that extending NATO to Central Europe and the Baltics would provoke Russia, In a sense, the opposite is true. It was Putin's invasion that actually accelerated NATO expansion and catalyzed some countries that had historically shied away from being under the NATO umbrella.
For starters, just look at Finland and Sweden. And then there's Germany. whose new government has abandoned the post World War II limitations on its military. Based on new commitments made by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the German military is poised to be one of the more important militaries in Europe and beyond.
In the U. S., there's an encouraging bipartisan consensus on supporting Ukraine. Look at the recent vote in the Senate on the 40 billion military and humanitarian aid package. Or read the interview that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell gave to the New York Times on May 21st. Well worth the [00:02:00] read.
We'll include it in the show notes. Then there's the reality that Russia has faced the toughest sanctions imposed on any major economy since World War ii, and so far there do not appear to be any major cyber attacks in the context of this war. And the Ukrainian military has performed surprisingly well, as we've talked about from time to time on our various episodes.
The Russian military has suffered major setbacks with disproportionately high casualties, including among senior generals, as Fred Kagan chronicled for us in a recent conversation we had here. And yet, there's a growing sense That the ukrainian military morale is facing its own challenges. That is a newer development For example, there's this reporting from the washington post and I quote reports of ukrainian troops refusing to fight and surrendering en masse Previously confined to russian state television have made their way to western media [00:03:00] in a video uploaded to telegram on may 24th Members of the 115th Brigade 3rd Battalion announced that they will no longer fight due to a lack of military equipment and proper leadership.
We are being sent to certain deaths, said one of the Ukrainian volunteers. According to the Post, we are not alone like this. We are many. This was one important insight among many in a recent piece I read by David French in the Dispatch. David's piece gave me a lot to think about. So as we pass this hundred day mark, we'll assess some of these grim facts that he refers to and try to understand what the next hundred days could look like.
And to help us make sense of it, Richard Fontaine of the Center for a New American Security returns to the conversation. Richard is a member of the Pentagon's defense policy board and is in regular contact with the Biden administration's national security team. He's a former top advisor to Senator John McCain and the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he served on the NSC and at [00:04:00] the State Department in the George W.
Bush administration. This is Call Me Back,
and I'm pleased to welcome back to the podcast my, uh, friend Richard Fontaine, who we always bring on to the, uh, into the conversation when we're looking for some good cheer. Uh, so Richard, thanks for coming back. Thanks, I always know I'll be invited back when there's, uh, trouble in the world, so I guess I'm pleased to be here.
It's like a, uh, it's like guaranteed lifetime employment. Right. Um, so the reason I, uh, the reason I wanted to, I had like a sense of urgency, I texted you the other day about coming back on, was Two reasons, really. We just passed the 100 day mark since, uh, since Russia's invasion into Ukraine, the invasion on February 24th.
And you and I have talked on this podcast in the past about how there was Uh, tremendous and almost inspiring, uh, [00:05:00] nonstop coverage, almost minute to minute of the, of the, of the war and, and the, and the West seemingly to, seeming to root for the Ukrainians and cover every single development with great concern.
And, and the world seemed to be captivated by this war. And I Uh, I've always felt that there's a point at which the, the, the intense coverage in this modern media day age drops when it drops, it drops hard where I saw it drop was on March 27th, which you may remember was, uh, the Academy Awards when there was a, uh, when there was like an altercation on the stage and then suddenly that became the new, uh, that, that sort of supplanted all the, all the coverage of geopolitical events in this case of war, and then we were consumed with sort of as the return to the silly season.
And there are other issues. Yeah. being covered right now. I don't want to, I don't want to, uh, suggest there are other important issues, but this one is extremely important. And, so we've passed [00:06:00] 100 days. It seems like The West is in the world generally is paying less attention. And then there was this piece I read which Confirmed my concerns or not confirmed, but but certainly was consistent with my concerns There's a piece by David French in the dispatch In which he wrote the tide at the title is the tide is turning toward Russia It's time to face some grim facts about the war in Ukraine That's the title of the piece which he wrote about a week ago, and I just want to quote Um, David writes that, and I'm quoting here, I write none of this to denigrate Ukraine's early victory or the cost of Russia's early defeats.
I write none of this to say that Ukraine should sue for peace. Instead, I write to help us focus our minds on what a long war could look like and the necessity for creative and imaginative thinking to help Ukraine stop the Russian advance and reverse the fortunes of war. He goes on and says, when Russian forces retreated [00:07:00] from the outskirts of Kiev, meaning early on, leaving hundreds of shattered vehicles in their wake, and we all remember those images of the, of the, of the abandoned You know assets, uh, there was a there was a flare of hope that we were watching the beginning of the end of russia's invasion of ukraine instead he writes Instead david french writes.
We may have merely witnessed the end of the beginning a long war looks likely And while the biden administration deserves credit for its indispensable efforts to help stave off an early russian victory The strategic challenge only grows more difficult. So Are we? Is what David French is writing here correct?
Are we, are we only in the early of the beginning, is this war of attrition that we, this war that we thought would be over and we were inspired early on, that it would have this sort of flash of lightning response to Russia actually setting into a long war of attrition that is going to become part [00:08:00] of our new normal?
Yeah, it is going to be a long war. I think you can see that by looking at the objectives of both sides, such as we know them, Putin does, uh, evinces no, uh, change in what he would like to accomplish in Ukraine. Uh, the Ukrainians certainly, uh, wish to defend their territory against, um, Russia seizing it.
There's no negotiations going on. Um, one side or the other is not about to impose a dramatic defeat as the Russian tried to do at the very beginning and failed spectacularly. Uh, and so what you have is a, basically a 1000 kilometer long front in the east. In which, uh, there's a, just a tremendous intensity of fighting going on between the Ukrainians and the Russians.
And, uh, this is the Russian way of war, [00:09:00] very artillery heavy. Uh, the Ukrainians are. Defending themselves valiantly, but both sides are taking very big casualties and, and killed in action and, um, and, and it's moving back and forth incrementally. Uh, so I think there's, this is, you know, we may have passed the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end to paraphrase a great war leader.
Sure, sure. Right. So, so what did we get wrong about the beginning when there was all this enthusiasm? About the, the, both the incredible Ukrainian military response, which most military analysts didn't, didn't expect. And then the complete, what seemed like the complete collapse of the Russian military, including Russian generals getting killed in action.
And, uh, you know, these considerable setbacks. It seemed to [00:10:00] be on one trajectory. So what, why wasn't it on that trajectory? Like what, what did we get wrong? Well, personally, I thought it was going to be a long war from the beginning. So, um, and, and I did not, uh, think that, you know, the Russians were going to just, you know, take their ball and go home after they failed around Kiev.
And, and so I think all the signs pointed from the beginning to a long war of some kind. What has happened is that the Russians have redeployed, regrouped and adapted. To something that is far more favorable to their style of war and their geography and what they tried to do in Kiev Seemed so unlikely because no one could figure out how it would be successful and it turned out that That's because it wasn't going to be successful They try to lightning grab special operations forces Forces were going to land at [00:11:00] this airport just outside the city.
They were going to move in, decapitate the government, uh, you know, isolate Kiev from, uh, from the rest of the country, move those armored personnel carriers and tanks down from the North and the whole thing. And, and, you know, it's again, it's spectacular fashion. We saw how that failed. Russia clearly is not good at that, but it's never been good at something like that.
That's not been the Russian way of war. And of course the Ukrainians, both civilians and. Uh, military personnel fought and defended with huge bravery and Zelensky stayed and rallied his people and rallied the world and everything else. What's going on in the East is much more like the Russian way of war, which is to say, uh, very, very artillery, um, dependent.
So bombard cities, towns, villages, uh, to the point where there are few, if any, civilians left. Uh, only after you've been able [00:12:00] to bombard the other side either into submission or to flee or to make the, uh, place in the territory in like, in which you'd like to move, uh, permissible. Do you move your, your troops in and that's a very slow, incremental, you know, maybe a mile or two a day kind of thing.
Their supply lines are a lot shorter to Russia than they were before. They're a lot more secure than they were before. And this is the kind of, uh, war that Russians know how to fight better than the kind they tried in the beginning. And in terms of, what do you estimate is the number of Russian casualties in Ukraine so far?
Roughly. Yeah, probably. Well, casualties, it's hard to say. I mean, killed in action, the numbers seem to be around 15, 000 or something that NATO and other sources, I mean, the Ukrainians, quote, a higher number than that. But I, so it's hard to say, but by any. Accounting, they've lost more in a hundred days than they lost [00:13:00] in the entirety of their war in Afghanistan that spanned a decade and over the entirety of the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over 20 years.
And about a third of our, of our, of our total casualties since, say, the Vietnam War. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's a devastating loss, but that said, the Russians also conscript. You know, something on the order of 125, 000 new troops every six months. And so, um, if you, if you are Vladimir Putin and you care, not a wit about the safety and security and lives of your own soldiers, nor, uh, the derivative effects of all those you've displaced and the food crisis around the world and everything else, then you've got, uh, you've got human capital, so to speak, to work with.
So. But, uh, but yeah, it's a shocking level of loss and. Why hasn't that contributed to a [00:14:00] more significant impact on morale of the Russian military? We, we were told early on that morale among Ukrainian military was high, Ukraine, uh, Morale among Russian military had reached its limits at best and certainly with these kinds of casualty numbers And when you put them in perspective like you just have comparing them to other wars including Russia's own war in Afghanistan And and by the way, I'm reading now that there's Ukrainian morale problem.
Yes Ukrainian military So does that you're based on your what you're seeing and reading and hearing there is a Ukrainian military morale problem Yeah, not as great as the Russian morale problem. Um, the Russian route problem has been and remains significantly higher than the Ukrainian one. Um, but to, you know, be in a forward position and be bombarded relentlessly from the air and definitely is not, uh, not exactly great for morale.
And so the Ukrainians, although they are obviously defending their own territory, [00:15:00] um, you know, it's, it's, uh, It's, it's created some morale problems there as well. Uh, and again, you know, the part of this turns on who's doing the fighting. If you know, folks are from the West that have come out and now are fighting in the plains or in the villages of the East, then that's a little bit different than when, you know, you're repelling a grab on your capital city.
So you say the, the Russian form of what fighting certainly in the East is, is more familiar to students of Russian military history. So that's a point that David French also makes in this dispatch piece, which I'll quote from. He says what we're seeing now, quote, fits. Patterns in Russian's warfare dating back more than 100 years.
After early battlefield humiliations, the Russian military regroups and turns back to its strengths. Firepower, manpower, and willpower. It doesn't always win. [00:16:00] It regrouped from early losses in World War I, yet still lost, but its history in the Winter War with Finland, its apocalyptic confrontation with Nazi Germany, and even the arc of the First and Second Chechen Wars show that it has no reluctance to apply overwhelming firepower and take immense losses until its enemy cracks.
Is what we're looking at now comparable to the war against, um, Nazi Germany? Yeah, it is, uh, more or less, this is a Soviet Russian way of the war, but the part about they do that until the enemy cracks suggests that the enemy always cracks and it doesn't, so the Russians, of course, did not actually defeat the Finns in the Winter War.
I mean, they extracted a territorial price, but who would have thought that, uh, Finland, which I believe at the time had a population of three million, would repel, you know, Joseph Stalin's Red Army. And they, they kept a hold of their Their territory [00:17:00] and their sovereignty, of course, in Afghanistan, the Soviets went home having not achieved their objectives and having taken losses over a long period of time.
So it doesn't it's not always successful. Uh, in Chechnya, it was more or less, um, I mean, they leveled the capital city of Grozny said, you know, within 24 hours, uh, all civilians must leave there by, uh, by logic, anyone who remains is a combatant. So therefore can be targeted. Um, and so that worked in the sense that they destroyed their own, one of their own cities and.
Um, but it's a very brutal, very, uh, drawn out, very, uh, munitions intensive, very firepower, artillery, rocket, uh, intensive kind of warfare. Um, the other thing that the, the Russians are doing, which again is, is a page from some of their previous playbooks is, uh, with respect to the population [00:18:00] and the, and the areas they're, they're seeking.
So they've set up these filtration camps. Uh, to try to discern who the Ukrainian nationalists might be, the patriots versus those who they can work with. And they're deporting huge numbers of people into Russia, huge numbers of Ukrainian civilians into Russia, including, uh, local officials and things, replacing them, abducting them and replacing them with, with loyalists or with Russians themselves and so forth.
Uh, in, in terms of its naval, in terms of Russia's naval strategy. You know, the Russian Navy controls the Black Sea. What is the implication of that? I mean, French has written about this. Others have written about this. That just Russia's ability to just maintain a total blockade of Ukrainian ports for You know, as, as far and as long as the eye can see, uh, and, and which obviously has impact on food [00:19:00] supplies and a whole range of other, uh, supplies that Ukraine depends on.
How, how, how dominant is Russia in the Black Sea? And is there anything that can challenge that dominance? Russia's completely dominant in the Black Sea. Um, I mean, the, the, the Russians, I believe, would like to take Odessa if they could. They don't have Odessa. This is the major port on the Black Sea that the Ukrainians have over there in the west on the southwest portion of that.
They don't have the strength to do that by land. And I don't think that they can do an amphibious landing to take Odessa, although they'd like to, uh, the Ukrainians by sinking the Moskva a few weeks ago show that they can attack ships in the Black Sea with anti ship missiles, but they've also mined the areas around the coast.
But the upshot of Of all this is that, you know, with a naval blockade, they either have to withdraw the blockade or someone has to break the [00:20:00] blockade. Ukrainians can't break the blockade and the Russians show no willingness to, uh, to relieve, uh, the, the pressure that the blockade is imposing. And so there's no commercial shipping going in and out.
And, you know, if you add Russian and Ukrainian wheat, that's about a quarter of the world's grain supplies. And you're seeing huge spikes in commodity prices, as anybody fills up the tank in their car knows. But the food crisis is going to be acute. Uh, it already is, but it's going to get worse and worse.
Was the steel factory chapter a turning point in this war? Well, I mean, what it allowed the Russians to do was really consolidate control of Mariupol down in the southeast. What the Russians, you know, I It's always hard to say exactly what, what an overall objective is, but his objective, I think, is still the key, even what he [00:21:00] believes to be the Russian portions of the Ukraine at a minimum and, and, you know, uh, annex them or, or, or at least not have Ukraine exist as a, as that part of the country.
Um, but among the sub objectives was this land bridge from Russia to Crimea and by taking the area around Mariupol, I mean, if you froze the conflict today. Given where the lines are, the Russians would have that land bridge to, uh, to Crimea and they're already trying to act on that. So, for example, there was a canal that brought brings water into Crimea and after the seizure of Crimea, you know, years ago, the Ukrainians basically blocked that.
So, uh, the Russians just turn that back on and cleared it so that it can bring water into Crimea. So there's things like that where, um. You know, you will have a, you would have a contiguous, uh, amount of land, uh, territory that would [00:22:00] go from Luhansk down to Donetsk down to Mariupol across and down to Crimea at a minimum that the Russians would have control over.
So that, that was, that was part of the, what was, you know, the steel plant was a turning point in a sense that it was. basically a battle for the areas around Mariupol. When you think of all the, when you consider all the ways that Ukraine could regain some momentum, you know, one, one necessary, but not sufficient path to regaining momentum is U S NATO and more broadly Western.
Military support meaning not direct military engagement, but but western military supply support you and I were talking offline about the importance of the 40 billion dollar appropriation in Congress to, to, uh, assist Ukraine. Although you, you were not as, um, [00:23:00] bullish on what the significance of that unprecedented mill, uh, package represented.
Well, no, I am bullish. I just think that that is likely to represent the peak, uh, rather than, uh, you know, One point on an ascending level of assistance to Ukraine. I mean, 40 billion is a tremendous amount of money. There's a huge financial aid package. Part of that, uh, that is not just the military side, but I mean, the billions that we, uh, Americans have provided already and the billions more that will be included in that package, uh, you can pass a lot of things now.
Presidential drawdown authority, which gets kind of wonky quickly, but this is basically drawing down things in the U S military inventory. Or looking to one of our allies that has some weapons that they can pass the [00:24:00] Ukrainians and then we can backfill them with something else that's kind of akin to it.
So that process, I mean, we're not close now to the limits of that process, but we will get to the limits of how many javelins exist in the world. How many? Uh, you know, pick some of these various, uh, you know, weapon systems, how many exists in the world and, and that are, can be passed to the Ukrainians without cutting into the stocks that countries believe they need for their own security and things like that.
So there's a long way to go until we get to that. Um, but I guess it's my point about the 40 billion being the peak is commensurate with your point about the ebbing focus. Uh, of the world, uh, on this, I mean, it's still on the front pages and the front of everybody's minds, but it doesn't completely dominate everybody's minds.
It doesn't completely dominate the front pages the way it did just a couple of weeks ago. Uh, one, [00:25:00] one, uh, issue that, that some have written that was sort of like a microcosm of the Biden administration's dilemma, uh, in, in how to support Ukraine was the issue of the, uh, of the multiple launch rocket system.
MLRS. So before we talk about the issue, can you describe the MLRS and, and why it's, why is, as a, as a weapon, it's so important and would be so important to Ukraine. And then we'll get into why it's controversial, but yeah, so the MLRS is a mobile rocket launcher, so it can, uh, drive around and shoot off rockets, but, but, and depending on which rockets you have in there, then the range of those things, it is a precision guided munition.
So you, you can aim it quite precisely at things. Um, the administration is. providing the Ukrainians with HIMARS, which are [00:26:00] basically each one is the equivalent of a 500 pound bomb. So this is no small capability. Uh, you can shoot it, you know, tens of miles and with precision hit some target with again, the equivalent of a 500 pound bomb.
Um, which would give the Ukrainians the capability they don't currently have because if you look along these lines, um, the Russians are able to bombard the Ukrainians with artillery from positions that the Ukrainians are not able to strike back against. And so, uh, that would expand their ability to do it.
Although again, the stocks of those things are going to be limited and, you know, and they have to be trained up on them and everything else. I don't, that doesn't take Fred takes weeks, not months, but, but it does take some time. And so now, uh, we'll talk about why it's controversial and what, how the administration has gone back and forth on, on what to do about the MLRS.
Well, I think the administration has worried [00:27:00] from the beginning about where, if anywhere, the sort of red lines of escalation would be for the Russians. Now, that sounds in a way ridiculous given the intensity of the fighting in Ukraine to talk about, you know, Russian restraint or escalation. But it is the case that the war is In Ukraine, not outside of Ukraine, really, and, um, the administration has, I think worried that if you provide rocket systems to Ukraine with very long, um, strike capabilities, you know, not just tens of miles, but 100 miles, 150 miles, uh, than the Ukrainians, which start shooting those into Russia itself.
And with some uncertain, uh, kind of reaction from, from the Russians. And we, you know, Hasn't, [00:28:00] and Putin has also made, has established some of these weapon systems as red lines, meaning Well, and these are the kinds of things that the Russians have actually worried about all along. I mean, this is the crazy You know position that Putin has got himself into which is he's worried about he's been worried about nato Missile systems like this on his borders in ukraine for years and only by invading ukraine Does he now got to have these things, you know close to his borders?
Well, okay, you know, i'm sorry you got What you asked for in a way, um, but, and, and you could debate whether, you know, it's a prudent, uh, concern about, you know, shooting missiles into Russia and potentially expanding the war in that way or not. And there's no easy answer to that, but I think the administration has come down on the side of keep the war in Ukraine, give the Ukrainians everything you can possibly give them to defend themselves in Ukraine.
But don't [00:29:00] try to. Uh, expand the war into Russia itself. But it, you know, that's one argument. The other argument is no one's trying to expand the war into Russia, but Ukraine does need the capabilities, certain capabilities to defend itself, which. You know, obviously bear some risk when you give them those capabilities, but if you don't give them those capabilities, how do you reconcile that with the reality that we're talking about earlier, that we're settling in for a really long struggle and it's a struggle that plays to Russia's strengths historically.
So advantage Russia in this current war of attrition, the way it's being fought, at least as how it's being fought in the East and. And, and then square that with denying the Ukrainians more advanced capabilities to defend themselves. Like, you're in touch with the administration regularly, so how do they reconcile all of this?
Yeah. Uh, so the, I mean, so that's, that's one of the counterarguments, right? Just give, basically give them this [00:30:00] because they need this to defend themselves against artillery that's being launched from Russia. Although I think a lot of the artillery is being relaunched by, um, by Russians in Ukraine. So that would not.
You know, it's got to be covered by a prohibition on the range of these things that would reach into Russia but But you know, it certainly does reduce their ability to potentially target Weapon systems that are coming after them you know, I think it's they're part of this is a Is a it's just a bet I guess on What additional firepower and sort of capability this would actually give to the Ukrainians.
I mean, how much, how much difference would it make if they were able to go after targets in Russia versus all of the many, many, many targets that are currently in Ukraine? And then what is the risk on the other hand, that [00:31:00] we would believe that engenders with, you know, Putin doing something that he otherwise wouldn't do in a way, it's just a judgment call.
It's, it's almost impossible question to ask, uh, to answer. But I think the administration's come down at least for now on the, on the side of, you know, give them the systems they can use to go after. Russian targets in Ukraine as opposed to Russian targets in Russia. Russia has Russia's proposed allowing grain exports out of Ukraine's port of Odessa in exchange for lifting of some of the Western sanctions.
Now that's not going to happen, or at least that, that kind of agreement that has a narrowing of, of sanctions on Russia. That's not going to happen anytime soon. That said, At this, you know, as we're talking about the world is paying less attention to the war. Could you start to see [00:32:00] some of the Intensity around the need to maintain the sanctions also wither a little bit.
Yeah, you could. I think not yet. I think as you get closer to the winter, you will because you'll have a harvest that either will or won't happen in the fall. So you're going to have a major impact on food supplies this fall. And then, of course, as winter sets in and people use more natural gas in Europe.
Uh, that becomes a crunch and you may have the fatigue factor that, you know, you started by talking about fatigue, maybe the wrong word, but the, uh, you know, certainly we're not at the white hot, um, information environment, political environment on this, that we once were. Now that said in Europe in particular, this has had the effect of almost kind of a 9 11 style thing.
So, uh, What do you mean, explain? [00:33:00] Well, just in the, in the very dramatic reorientation of, of threat perceptions and, and national security posture. So, uh, you know, if someone asked in October or November of 2001, would the United States sustain a global war on terror at sort of maximum, you know, effort and, and exertion for years?
You could say, well, we might get tired. Well, it turned out we didn't, you know, well, we did, but it took. A couple of decades, not a couple of years. So in Europe, uh, in particular, uh, this I think has had a, an effect like that. I mean, you know, Sweden and Finland, I mean, Sweden has been neutral for 200 years since the Napoleonic wars.
And suddenly it's not going to be neutral anymore. It's going to join NATO. I mean, Finland has been militarily on a non aligned since for a very long time. It's going to join NATO. I mean, the German reorientation is very significant. I mean, Germany fulfills its defense spending commitments. So have a.
Third biggest defense budget [00:34:00] in the world after, uh, the United States and China, I mean, bigger than Russia, bigger than Japan. Um, and, and so, you know, and, and even there, the sanctions, I mean, they're, they said they wouldn't do swift and they did swift. They said they wouldn't do coal than they did coal.
They said they wouldn't do oil. Now they're trying to do oil. And now you just rewind on Germany. Say that again. If Germany fulfills its 2 percent of GDP, right. Yeah. So, so the Germans have pledged, uh, that, but all, and then a hundred billion euros this year, right. As a supplemental spending, but if, if, uh, what, if Olaf Schultz's commitment to defense spending is enacted as promised, they, the germ Germany, Germany will have the third biggest defense budget in the world.
And that, in terms of how they're talking, it's one thing to make that those budget commitments, which is impressive, but then the question is, how do they actually spend that? And do you, do you actually think [00:35:00] that, that is the, the, the appropriations within that budget are going to be towards? Firepower, weapon systems, armed personnel, or will it be a lot of softer stuff and all sorts of administrative Pensions.
Pensions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Funding, you know, administrative funding programs, so it's, so it's a, it's a high, it's a high top line number, but it doesn't actually mean that Germany suddenly has a very powerful military. Yeah, it's, it's, it's hard to say, but I think they're They're likely to come down on the side of capability.
Now, they've got a huge readiness problem to deal with before they get to additional capability. I mean, the, the Bundeswehr is just not been, uh, in a, in a, even a acceptable state of readiness and in many ways over the past number of years. And so they've got to put money into that. Uh, and then they can start to buy new capability and things like that.
That the question in my mind is, is less, do they sort of, Spend it on, I don't know, [00:36:00] social programs, masquerading under. a defense budget or something like that, but rather this commitment was made in the first weekend of the war when it looked like Russia might really take Kiev and might really capture Ukraine.
Right. And really, and really bump up. You know, farther west on the eastern borders of some of these countries that, that border Ukraine. And so we, the Russian military, as brutal as it is, has showed itself to be far less capable than almost anybody thought. Uh, including Europeans, including Americans, including Vladimir Putin himself.
And so over time Does that actually diminish the perception of threat that sparked this major commitment of increased defense resources in the first place? That, I, I just don't know. I mean, it is, I think part of that is going to turn on, uh, how this war turns out over, you know, the balance of this year and also a perception of what Putin [00:37:00] really wants.
And I think As long as Vladimir Putin himself is in charge in Russia, then that's going to engender a certain threat perception. It's just not going to go away. But where, where that floor is, is, is hard to say at this point. I will want you to come back on another time to talk about Iran. So the, this question is not really about Iran, but it is sort of about Iran.
You get to do all the fun places. I know, well, you know, that's, you, you equal, you know, right. Um, does, Does this our situation in our standoff with russia? Is, how big a factor is that in the, what seems like the death, or the, or the near death, uh, approaching death of a return to the JCPOA, return to the nuclear, Iran nuclear deal, that, that basically at the end of the day, Russia was such a big player in these talks, and the idea that Russia was going to be a custodian of Iranian Nuclear assets in the context of some final agreement and it's just so [00:38:00] preposterous To imagine Russia playing a key role in all of this in the in in in Vienna over over the Iranian nuclear talks at the Given everything we're talking about right now.
Yeah, I don't think that's the big issue I mean for at the beginning it was a bit because the You know, Sergei Lavrov and the clever Russian diplomat said, well, if the United States is going to relieve sanctions on Iran pursuant to Iran's reentry in the JCPOA, then of course you have to relieve sanctions on Russian trade with Iran, meaning you have to lift sanctions on us, including the ones you just imposed.
And the administration was like, no, it actually doesn't mean anything like that. Uh, and, and Russia doesn't really have support for that position. The bigger issue with the JCPOA is the designation of the Quds Force as a foreign terrorist organization, which took place in the Trump administration. And, uh, you know, is on the books as of [00:39:00] now, and the Iranians are saying that re entry in the JCPOA, part of the price of that is the lifting of the designation of the Quds Force as a, as a, uh, as a So getting, getting them lifted from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list.
Yeah, and, and, you know, that, that, um And relieving them of all the sanctions that are associated with it. Yeah, and that's problematic for two reasons. One, they are a terrorist organization. So there's just a certain, you know, evidentiary kind of fact based thing. And then there's the political aspect of this, which is Right.
To be complete congressional backlash. Yeah, and, and so And then, of course, you also have the other thing, which is that, you know, from the beginning this was supposed to be And the United States and the Iranians stuck to this before, uh, to some great criticism from critics of it, which this is a nuclear deal.
This doesn't touch Iranian behavior in the region. It doesn't touch support for Hezbollah or Hamas or the Houthis [00:40:00] or any of this other kind. It wasn't a negotiation about all this, that the designation of the Quds forces and FTO is not a nuclear issue, but the Iranians themselves are linking a non nuclear issue.
To a nuclear issue. Well, if you want to open up that door, well, there's a lot of things that we would like to see. The Iranians change on and so that's been the impasse where they are now. I want to just in wrapping up. I have Two two questions for you. They're connected. The first is so we're talking to you just past the hundred day mark of this war I'm I'm telling our listeners now that you are committed to coming back on at the 200 day Mark as much as I hope there's not a 200 day mark but I am curious what you think the What we'll be thinking and talking about at the 200 day mark just generally and then How confident are you in these next hundred days that the Ukrainian army can hold and [00:41:00] what I mean by that is Should we be worried?
We talked a little bit There's been plenty of public reporting about the breakdown of morale among the Ukrainian military. Should we be concerned in the next hundred days? that the Ukrainian Army just collapses, starts giving up, starts fleeing. I mean, it would be such a. Incredible contrast to what we've seen in the in the first couple of months, but um, given the public reporting and again, I know you're in touch with with administration officials that are following all of this much, much more closely than the press.
How worried should we be about that in the next 100 days? I don't think it's likely at all that Russia will overrun Ukraine, that there'll be a collapse of the Ukrainian military. You're not going to see in Ukraine what you saw in Afghanistan, for example. Right now the Russians are in possession of about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, if you add it all up.
Donetsk and Luhansk and down around Mariupol and Crimea and the whole thing. [00:42:00] So if before it was, they had the Netherlands. Uh, size territory because of Crimea and the areas in the east of them and the Donbass. Now they've got the Netherlands, Belgium and our Netherlands. Yeah. Belgium and Luxembourg. So, so they got more than they had before.
Definitely. Um, and they could get. Some more in the east or they could have some less in the east. But I think that's ultimately what this is going to be about over the next 100 days is, you know, a certain number of miles west or a certain number of miles east. It's not going to be. Can you make another grab for Kiev or can you get Odessa or can you take portions of the west or or see some collapse of the government or the military or something like that?
The one. Kind of military dilemma that the Ukrainians may have is that the Russians are still trying this encirclement strategy in the east. So they're, they're up in the [00:43:00] north around the Hans they're, they're over in the, in the east and they're down in the south and what they would like to do is to surround the Ukrainian military.
They are in force of capitulation. I think it's very unlikely that they can actually pull that off militarily. Uh, but that's what they would like to do. So, I mean, the, the, I think the, the, the unexpected bit of uncertainty here would be if they were able to do that, then you would see a, probably see before that happened, a Ukrainian retreat further West.
But even then you're talking about, you know, moving the lines. In a fairly confined area in the east, I think over the, over the next 100 days or the next, probably the next 200 days or even beyond that, I mean, you know, that that part of the world has a lot of frozen conflicts. If you, in a way, you could have an unfrozen conflict here.
It's, you know. Uh, a huge amount of brutality and, and cost and, and, and humanitarian harm and, and, and [00:44:00] everything else, um, but without much real change, uh, in, in the lines and, and who controls what. Alright, so you didn't protest my, uh, locking you in for, for, uh, coming back on in, um, in just short of, uh, another hundred days, but hopefully, uh, we'll, we'll have you back on sooner to talk about.
You know happier trouble spot. Yeah, exactly. We should talk about The u. s. India relationship. Yes, or the strengthening of NATO and the transatlantic allies Or or who would have thought? These have these Europe is stability in European democracies right Macron reelected Yeah, Draghi actually hanging in there and the Italian government Uh, you know, obviously, as you said, while the German Chancellor's had some defections, the government there is holding.
So in the midst of all this chaos and economic pressure, these German [00:45:00] governments are, seem to be pretty firm. I mean, I'm just, I'm grasping here for something for us to, um, to, uh, talk about. Of course, our download numbers will like plummet when we get into these topics, because they're not, may not be that interesting to our listeners, but they'll be interesting to us.
Yeah, exactly. Well, nobody ever reads a newspaper and says I love that article when it said not anything bad happened It was just like, you know things kept going in a Decent, gradual positive direction, . Right. So there you go. Alright, Richard, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it and uh, we'll, we'll get you we'll back on again.
No doubt. Thanks for having me.
That's our chauffeur today. To follow Richard Fontaine, go to cnas.org. That's cs.org or follow Richard on Twitter at rh fontain. That's at RH F-O-N-T-A-I-N-E. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan [00:46:00] Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.