29 – "We haven’t even tried yet" – Military Victory in Ukraine

00:00:00: Welcome to Berlin Side Out, the podcast that takes an expert look at how Germany sees the

00:00:05: world and the world sees Germany.

00:00:07: With me, Benjamin Tallis.

00:00:09: And me, Aaron Gash-Bernett.

00:00:11: Hello, and welcome back to Berlin Side Out, the Foreign Affairs Podcast in association

00:00:19: with the German Council on Foreign Relations that takes a look at how Germany sees the

00:00:23: world and the world sees Germany.

00:00:26: I'm Aaron Gash-Bernett, a journalist and security analyst specializing in German politics

00:00:30: and foreign policy.

00:00:32: And I'm here as always with my friend and co-host, Benjamin Tallis, senior research

00:00:35: fellow here at the Council and head of its action group, Seitan Wenda.

00:00:39: And we're coming to you from a very apt location, giving the theme that we're talking about

00:00:45: today of our special, covering the pillars of Ukrainian victory.

00:00:49: We're very pleased to be at the Leonard & Mary Conference in Tallinn, in large part

00:00:53: to hammer home an important message that Tallinn has, and we think Berlin needs to hear.

00:00:59: And that is once again, that our democratic values and security interests in Europe depend

00:01:04: not on us supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes, as Olaf Scholz has said before,

00:01:12: but with whatever it takes, as our Baltic friends keep reminding us.

00:01:16: The outcome Washington and Berlin seem to favor, as suggested by the drip-drip of military

00:01:21: support, the filling of the bucket of water Ukraine needs with tiny teacups over two years

00:01:26: that Yaroslav Trofimov mentioned earlier this season.

00:01:30: That favorite outcome appears to be stalemate, but here in Tallinn, the goal is victory,

00:01:35: isn't it, Ben?

00:01:36: Very much so, Aaron.

00:01:37: But that means we have to ask the question, what is victory?

00:01:40: What does victory actually look like?

00:01:42: Does it mean overrunning Russia's forces, militarily actually expelling them, kicking

00:01:46: them out from Ukraine?

00:01:48: Or does it mean, as some analysts have recently suggested, changing

00:01:51: Moscow's calculation so that continuing to fight the war is worse than stopping?

00:01:56: And thus victory would mean, in a military sense at least, putting Ukraine in a good

00:02:00: position to negotiate.

00:02:01: But in both cases, how does that compare to where we are now?

00:02:05: And the question we're going to be exploring with our guests today is how do we get from

00:02:08: that situation we're in now to either of those outcomes?

00:02:11: So what is the theory of victory here?

00:02:13: What is the goal and how do we actually get there?

00:02:16: And it's important to ask, can we even still do that?

00:02:20: Is that still actually a viable possibility?

00:02:21: Is victory of either of those sorts still actually on the table?

00:02:24: There are a lot of people around Europe and across the transatlantic area questioning

00:02:28: that.

00:02:29: If it's not, what's holding us back?

00:02:30: If it is still on the table, what have we got to do to actually get there?

00:02:34: And in any case, where does this leave us in terms of Ukraine, in terms of European security,

00:02:39: in terms of NATO, and indeed the future of the free world, given that we are in a systemic

00:02:43: competition where our credibility across the Alliance and across the democratic world

00:02:47: is at stake?

00:02:48: So then we know what our ideal goal is, and that's a goal that we personally share with

00:02:52: our Estonian hosts, but for us to chart a way to get there, we need to know where we

00:02:57: are.

00:02:58: So what is the state of the battlefield situation in Ukraine right now?

00:03:01: So Aaron, at the moment, Russia is advancing slowly and at enormous cost, thousands and

00:03:06: thousands of dead and wounded each month, but they are advancing.

00:03:10: Ukraine is holding on, determined to deny Russia new launching points for its powerful

00:03:14: glide bombs that are wreaking carnage upon civilian targets close to the frontline and

00:03:18: which can be launched from up to 40 kilometers away.

00:03:22: But we can also see that the delay with the US supplemental as well as Europe's failure

00:03:25: to step up in the meantime to actually fill that gap has created a situation where Ukraine

00:03:29: is not only very short on ammunition outgunned by as much as 10 to 1 in artillery fire in

00:03:35: some parts of the front, but also that it's not been able to rotate or rest its soldiers

00:03:39: as much as it would like, which has limited the possibility for it to go on so-called

00:03:42: active defense local counterattacking that would make the Russian advance even more costly

00:03:47: and begin to stabilize the front line.

00:03:50: And that's also because of a lack of some crucial equipment, which hasn't been provided

00:03:54: to Ukraine and which it can't at the moment source locally.

00:03:57: So what we see at the moment is soldiers spread across a thousand kilometers front defending

00:04:01: desperately but not equipped to do so as they need to.

00:04:05: We're also seeing air defense stretched increasingly thin.

00:04:07: Now that the supplemental supplies and the new European packages are starting to arrive,

00:04:11: it will help address some of that imbalance in firepower, but that's mainly going to raise

00:04:15: the cost of Russia's advances rather than and perhaps limit the territorial gains they

00:04:19: can make rather than stopping them.

00:04:21: So the question for this year is how much cost can be inflicted on Russia and how far

00:04:26: can we stop them from getting basically.

00:04:28: According to Jack Watling of Russi, an excellent article of whom you can find in the show notes,

00:04:33: Russia is most likely to be at its most dangerous towards the end of this year.

00:04:37: So there's a temporal dimension to this as well.

00:04:39: And what Jack argues is that the supplemental coming through has bought Ukraine time to now

00:04:44: actually reequip itself, regenerate and reconstitute its forces in a way that would allow it to

00:04:49: move to active defense and even go on the attack perhaps next year.

00:04:55: So that's the situation that some analysts see at the moment.

00:04:57: We're going to hear from our panelists in just a second if they think they agree with

00:05:01: that situation and also to ask how we get to that goal of victory.

00:05:05: So now that we've laid out where we stand, our Pillars of Victory special looks at two

00:05:08: very important roads to victory that we must travel on simultaneously.

00:05:12: One is military as we've been laying out.

00:05:15: One is financial and economic, which concerns proper sanctions enforcement and in particular

00:05:19: seizing 300 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets and transferring them to Ukraine.

00:05:24: We're going to get into that one, that economic bit in part two of our special.

00:05:27: But right now we have some amazing guests with us here in Tallinn to help take us through

00:05:31: what Ukrainian victory looks like on the battlefield and what it is going to take.

00:05:35: Back by popular demand is a guest from one of Berlin's sideouts, very first episodes.

00:05:40: Welcome back to General Ben Hodges.

00:05:42: He is the former commanding general for the U.S. Army in Europe.

00:05:45: He's also been a prominent expert commentator on Russia's war against Ukraine and Ukraine's

00:05:49: fight for freedom.

00:05:50: You can find his contributions and think tanks in media across Europe and the U.S.

00:05:53: Also joining us is Oleksandr Daniluk, the chairman of the Center for Defense Reforms

00:05:56: in Ukraine and former chief advisor to Ukraine's Minister of Defense amongst the many roles

00:06:01: he's held in his career.

00:06:02: He's also an expert in hybrid warfare, intelligence, and whole of society approaches to defense

00:06:06: among other fields.

00:06:07: Welcome to the show.

00:06:08: Welcome also to Ivo Daldar, former U.S. ambassador to the United States.

00:06:12: I'm a journalist and NATO and CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs who has authored

00:06:15: or edited 10 books.

00:06:18: And finally, we have Teri Schultz.

00:06:20: She is a journalist and self-described NATO geek.

00:06:22: That is two traits that I'm saying that I'm very happy that we share.

00:06:27: She freelances for outlets like NPR and German public broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, on NATO,

00:06:32: EU, and foreign policy topics.

00:06:34: Welcome to part one of our Pillars of Victory special.

00:06:37: Oleksandr, let's start with you.

00:06:39: One thing we've heard from Ukrainians we've spoken to about the current defense situation

00:06:43: is that it feels like time has gone backwards, that two years in, we're back to the basics

00:06:48: of needing more air defense to protect civilians and infrastructure.

00:06:52: But as Ben has pointed out on this show before, you don't win a war with air defense.

00:06:56: So what's needed to solve this acutely, focusing on getting Ukraine the kit that it needs to

00:07:02: win to get back on the front foot?

00:07:04: First of all, it's clear that Ukraine is not going to win by ultimate victory in Moscow.

00:07:11: It's completely clear because of nuclear weapons.

00:07:13: It's not possible.

00:07:14: So in this regard, the victory is, first of all, lack of ability to continue fighting

00:07:22: this war, not just military means, but also funds to support the military efforts and

00:07:29: also lack of will.

00:07:31: So in this regard, it means that we have three dimensions.

00:07:34: It's military dimension, economic dimension, and psychological dimension.

00:07:38: And in case of psychological dimension, it's not only population as a whole, but like specific

00:07:44: elites including Putin.

00:07:45: Because for Putin, this war is not a mean, but the goal, because actually as long as

00:07:50: he fights this war, he believes that he can still be in power.

00:07:56: So in case of military dimension, I think that General Hodges can explain it much better

00:08:03: than I can, but at the same time, just few words.

00:08:07: I think that in 2022, we had almost five times, or definitely four times, less Russian troops

00:08:16: in Ukraine.

00:08:17: And it was relatively easy to equip Ukraine to the level we could actually just achieve

00:08:23: that decisive victory on the territory of Ukraine and restitute our internationally

00:08:29: recognized borders.

00:08:31: And at least on the mainland, I think, and to start operation in Crimea.

00:08:35: And that's why assessments of a lot of experts, including General Hodges, were absolutely correct.

00:08:40: It was possible.

00:08:42: And for your understanding, it's still more or less the same situation we had in 2022.

00:08:47: We have half of our armed forces which are not equipped at all because it's territorial

00:08:53: defense forces and they are not used for actually territorial defense forces missions.

00:08:58: So they are used as a proper mechanized infantry, but they are not mechanized.

00:09:02: And part of our mechanized brigades are not mechanized to the level they should be.

00:09:06: So this is actually how we can improve the quality of Ukrainian troops immediately.

00:09:11: Plus, of course, the lack of air force, aircraft specifically, it creates some necessary superiority

00:09:21: Russians don't need to have.

00:09:23: So in economic dimension, I have to say the idea of oil price gap was a big failure because

00:09:30: Russians made two times more money from oil in 2023 than in 2022 just because of growing

00:09:37: prices.

00:09:38: So we should reduce the prices.

00:09:40: And psychological dimension, we need to make this war unpopular for Russians.

00:09:44: And it means that we need to have psychological offensive, at least to reduce the support

00:09:52: of Russian people to this war.

00:09:54: Thank you.

00:09:55: Thanks so much for that, Alexander.

00:09:56: Ben, great to have you back on the show.

00:09:58: Good to see you here in Tallinn.

00:09:59: Thanks for the privilege.

00:10:00: You've been one of the strongest voices for the position that Ukrainian victory is not

00:10:05: only possible, but very necessary and that the route to victory runs through Crimea.

00:10:10: Could you talk us through that about this theory of victory that you outline?

00:10:13: Well, first I have to say I disagreed with the way you set this up, whether it was either

00:10:18: this or this.

00:10:19: And those two sort of scenarios are not exclusive of each other.

00:10:25: And I would also say we have not even tried yet.

00:10:28: I mean, to be honest, my president, the German Bundeskanzler, they have not even said, "We

00:10:34: want Ukraine to win."

00:10:35: And I mean, day one of any staff course is what's the strategic objective?

00:10:40: What are we trying to accomplish?

00:10:41: And instead, we end up with policies that are in search of somewhere to hook into, which

00:10:47: is usually results in bad policy when you have senior people in the administration.

00:10:55: And by the way, I want to be clear, the administration has done a superb job holding 50 nations together,

00:11:00: the amount of money that the United States has contributed.

00:11:03: But that's not the measure of the counts.

00:11:06: What counts is, what are we providing towards what's needed to actually win?

00:11:11: And to do that, you have to declare we want to win, that it's in America's interest that

00:11:16: Ukraine defeats Russia, defeats Russia, which means kicking them out back to the 1991 borders.

00:11:23: There's no need for one Ukrainian soldier to cross the border into Russia.

00:11:27: There's no Ukrainians that want to go there.

00:11:30: But we've got to give them the ability to kick Russia back to the 1991 border.

00:11:36: And so the three things that are needed to do that are, number one, declare that that's

00:11:40: our policy, that it's in America's interest.

00:11:42: I mean, while the Congress was shameful and taking so long, a small portion of the Congress

00:11:47: was shameful in holding up the aid package.

00:11:49: The fact is the president never reached out to the American people except one time and

00:11:52: said, look, people in Missouri, California, Idaho, New York, Florida, it's in our economic

00:11:58: interest.

00:11:59: And plus we don't want American soldiers having to go fight in Europe again.

00:12:03: So we want to best way to keep NATO out of the war is to help Ukraine defeat Russia in

00:12:07: Ukraine.

00:12:08: And then by the way, the Chinese are watching.

00:12:10: So the best way to deter China is for the Chinese to see that the United States is prepared

00:12:15: to do everything necessary to defend what we say are our values, the so-called international

00:12:22: rules based order, respect for sovereignty, respect for human rights, freedom of navigation,

00:12:27: respect for international law, all those things that China, like Russia wants to stomp on.

00:12:32: If we can't do it in Europe, where we have so many advantages with geography and allies,

00:12:39: it will be very difficult to do that in the end of Pacific region.

00:12:42: So that's that's the first thing.

00:12:44: The second thing, of course, and you mentioned Crimea, I think Crimea is the decisive terrain

00:12:49: of this war.

00:12:51: Of course, Putin wants to destroy Ukraine and the idea of Ukraine as a state.

00:12:55: But in real terms, Crimea is what matters.

00:12:58: I mean, it's not with apologies to my Ukrainian friends that live in the Donetsk and Luhans.

00:13:04: He's done nothing to improve that place over the last 10 years, nor will he do anything

00:13:08: to improve that area.

00:13:10: Crimea is what matters because of the ports.

00:13:13: Its ability to dominate the entire Black Sea.

00:13:15: So if we can help Ukraine make Crimea untenable for Russian forces so that the Russian Navy

00:13:23: cannot sail out of Sevastopol, so that Russian Air Force cannot launch attacks from any of

00:13:27: the many bases there or launch drones.

00:13:30: And of course, the huge logistics site at Zhancoi, which supports all of Russia's activities

00:13:34: in the southern part of Ukraine.

00:13:37: Make all that go away.

00:13:38: I mean, there's nowhere to hide.

00:13:40: Every square meter of Crimea is within range of a Tachyms or Taurus.

00:13:45: And the Ukrainians have already proven the concept with just three British storm shadows.

00:13:50: The Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters destroyed and the dry dock.

00:13:55: And my Navy friends are astounded that I, as an Army infantry soldier, know what a dry

00:13:59: dock is or why it matters.

00:14:03: But without that, the Navy, the Black Sea Fleet, can't operate from Sevastopol.

00:14:06: So they've already proven the concept.

00:14:09: So clearly defined strategic objective.

00:14:13: Then you can have good policies about what we're going to provide.

00:14:16: And not this nonsense about, "Yo, you can't use American weapons to shoot into Russia."

00:14:22: That's incredible to me.

00:14:23: I mean, we're saying that at the same time that Russian missiles are slamming into Ukrainian

00:14:27: apartment buildings.

00:14:29: And then the third thing, of course, is we've got to remove all doubt about ammunition.

00:14:33: I mean, it's incredible to me that the combined economies of Europe plus Canada, U.S. and

00:14:39: U.K. dwarfs Russia, whose economy is somewhere close to the sides of Spain.

00:14:46: Why is this even a question?

00:14:47: Absolutely.

00:14:48: And that's something we've argued an awful lot on the show is that indeed it's not as

00:14:52: long as it takes.

00:14:53: It's not even actually whatever it takes because if we don't define the it, then we don't know

00:14:57: where we're going.

00:14:58: And so that's the goal there, which I think this is missed in a lot of the discourse,

00:15:01: which is why we wanted to have this discussion today about victory.

00:15:04: And you're right, but it's not only the Biden administration, the Shots government, as you

00:15:08: mentioned, has also not said clearly that Ukraine should win.

00:15:12: So when you say, "We've not even tried, Ben," I would agree with that.

00:15:16: But Eva, why is it that we're not trying?

00:15:18: And would you share that assessment?

00:15:19: We haven't, well, first of all, great to be on the show.

00:15:22: And as always, I'm not going to improve on Ben's knowledge of Navy dockyards and...

00:15:28: I can assure our listeners, he wasn't even looking at his phone when he was talking about

00:15:31: the dry dock.

00:15:32: So, and I was talking about dockyards, so there you go.

00:15:38: And it makes sense.

00:15:39: But the question is, and by the way, it's not just Shots or Biden, it's Macron as well,

00:15:45: who has said that the defeat of Russia is an existential to Europe, but he hasn't said

00:15:51: the victory of Ukraine is.

00:15:53: And defeat and victory are sometimes defined in slightly different ways.

00:15:58: Why haven't they?

00:15:59: You'd have to ask them, and I certainly don't speak for either of them.

00:16:05: I think part of it is a belief that in order to defeat Russia, you will have to take military

00:16:16: steps that may lead Russia to do things that we don't want them to do, escalate in ways

00:16:23: that we don't accept or could tolerate.

00:16:29: And risks the possibility of us getting directly engaged in this war.

00:16:34: And I think fundamentally, an even larger question that Ben answered is, what does victory

00:16:42: mean beyond the reconstitution of Ukraine's territorial independence and sovereignty based

00:16:53: on 1991 borders?

00:16:55: Victory fundamentally means that war is no longer an option to resolving whatever differences

00:17:01: exist between Russia and Ukraine.

00:17:03: I think part of the debate has been too focused on the military dimension of this and not

00:17:10: enough focused on the political dimension.

00:17:13: And to some extent, I personally see a trade off, although neither Schultz nor Biden, she's

00:17:20: the trade off.

00:17:22: I think Ukraine will be secure only if it is a member of NATO.

00:17:29: And that therefore, the question of security, and by that I mean that it can itself define

00:17:35: its own future as a member of NATO.

00:17:40: Russia will no longer be willing to attack it.

00:17:41: The question is, does that security extend all the way to the 1991 borders or not?

00:17:47: And if so, what do you need to do militarily to achieve the reconstitution of those borders

00:17:54: or not?

00:17:55: Or can you do it politically over time?

00:17:58: That by way is, I think, the debate we should be having.

00:18:00: Because there's two ways to do this.

00:18:03: Militarily you can reconstitute the territory, but then you still have a political question,

00:18:07: what happens to Ukraine?

00:18:09: And I would argue that Ukraine that is not a NATO that has reconstituted all of its territory

00:18:13: is not a pleasant country to have in the middle of Europe.

00:18:17: Give you an example.

00:18:19: If Ukraine has to provide for its own security by itself because it is not a member of NATO,

00:18:25: it will acquire capabilities to make sure that it provides that capability.

00:18:30: And it will behave in ways that will make security more tolerant for it by making its

00:18:36: neighbors less secure.

00:18:38: We actually have an actor on the world stage who's acted like this for the last 70 years.

00:18:42: It's called Israel.

00:18:44: Israel does not have security alliances, not an ally of the United States, although we

00:18:48: just defended them against an Iranian missile attack, which apparently we can do for Israel,

00:18:52: but not with Ukraine.

00:18:54: Don't ask me why.

00:18:57: But secondly, and importantly, Israel has nuclear weapons.

00:19:03: It's ultimately guaranteed.

00:19:05: And wasn't it us who asked the Ukrainians to give up nuclear weapons so we would then make

00:19:10: sure that its border would be held?

00:19:14: And if without NATO, without thinking through how you bring the security of Ukraine and

00:19:19: make it our security, we're going to be facing that question quite apart from whether Crimea

00:19:24: is living hell or unlivable hell for the Russians there.

00:19:30: That's right, Ivo.

00:19:31: And that's actually another way that we're going back to the debates of last year, because

00:19:34: even in a policy brief for DGAP, I argued that very point last year that we will not

00:19:39: make Ukraine safe unless it's in NATO, why the porcupine, hedgehog, Israel options not

00:19:44: applicable, et cetera.

00:19:45: But after the Vilnius summit, we don't see the will to actually bring Ukraine in, and

00:19:50: we don't think it's going to happen at the Washington summit either.

00:19:52: Well, I think that's true.

00:19:55: No doubt about it.

00:19:56: However, the reality is that there is no consensus within NATO on bringing a country into the

00:20:03: alliance that is actively fighting.

00:20:05: And at war.

00:20:06: At Vilnius, we weren't talking about that either.

00:20:08: We were talking about an invitation, which is meaningless, strategically meaningless,

00:20:14: because it is a piece of paper that is as good as a communique that the NATO has issued

00:20:19: for the last 16 years.

00:20:21: The only thing that is meaningful is membership, not an invitation, not accession, not yappin,

00:20:26: yappin, yappin, it's membership.

00:20:29: And the reality is, how do you get to membership?

00:20:31: You need to figure out a way to end this war.

00:20:34: And whether that ends in a war that is defined as victory or ends in a war, it ends the fighting

00:20:39: in a way that says we find this territorial ceasefire for today acceptable.

00:20:47: If the rest then becomes part of NATO, it becomes a trade-off that is worth discussing, at least

00:20:54: to have a discussion that we can have with the Ukrainians, not the Russians.

00:20:57: We can have with the Ukrainians.

00:20:59: And that's the kind of thing that Karen Donfer and I just wrote about in Foreign Affairs.

00:21:04: And I've been arguing since the beginning of this war.

00:21:06: NATO membership is what this is about.

00:21:09: That's why the Russians went to war.

00:21:11: So why don't we make that part of victory?

00:21:13: So, Terry, I'd like to ask you a question about dry docks and attackums.

00:21:17: Great.

00:21:18: I studied up.

00:21:19: Got my notes right here.

00:21:20: I want to follow up on this point.

00:21:21: Terry, in Berlin, just this week, we heard from a senior German government official that

00:21:25: there's even no consensus on getting a divided Ukraine into NATO.

00:21:30: These questions that they raised the comparison to the Minsk period, where ceasefire violations

00:21:35: repeatedly happening, mean that we just can't take that risk.

00:21:39: And we pushed back on this argument, as to be said, but it would be nice to hear from

00:21:42: you where you think the debate stands on getting Ukraine into NATO and how.

00:21:47: Well, just in the half day that I've been here in Tallinn, I've heard both sides of

00:21:50: this argument with some people here, even at the conference, arguing for a formula like

00:21:56: has been promoted by Anders Farrasov, and former NATO Secretary General, that you bring

00:22:01: in Ukraine without having control of Crimea.

00:22:06: Again, as Ben says, Don masks is much less important, but that you allow Crimea to remain

00:22:12: under Russian control and somehow bring in a fragmented Ukraine and help protect that

00:22:20: part of Ukraine, tell Ukraine that you will help reinforce that area on an abrogated Article

00:22:25: Five agreement, which I don't see how you make that happen.

00:22:29: But that's in fact what the so-called Rasmussen plan suggests.

00:22:33: And I brought that up in an on the record discussion today with the Secretary General

00:22:38: of the Estonian Foreign Minister Jonathan Sevioff, and he said, we're not even going

00:22:43: to discuss bringing in Ukraine without Crimea, because as soon as you start doing that, you

00:22:48: let Russia believe that that is not the goal anymore.

00:22:52: So you're stuck.

00:22:53: It's really a dilemma.

00:22:54: And this is it's not surprising that NATO was now 32 countries can't come to an agreement

00:22:59: on that.

00:23:00: You don't even have experts who can speak freely coming to an agreement on this.

00:23:04: What how do you leave Crimea behind as Ben says you don't, you can't.

00:23:08: I always thought the Rasmussen plan was incomprehensible as to how you protect the rest of Ukraine.

00:23:13: When you have Russian soldiers, they're staring right across the border of Crimea is so I mean,

00:23:18: other people are perhaps you can answer that militarily and maybe you can answer that politically,

00:23:23: but it is someone on the outside asking the questions.

00:23:25: I don't see how how either of those make sense.

00:23:28: Let's come to the political dimension of Crimea for a second.

00:23:31: We'll start with you, Evo.

00:23:32: And then please the rest of you feel free to come in on it as well.

00:23:35: Why does Crimea seem to occupy this very interesting psychological space in the minds

00:23:41: of our leaders?

00:23:43: Olaf Scholz is very nervous about hitting the Kirch bridge, for example.

00:23:46: It's one of the reasons that is thought why he doesn't want to deliver tourists.

00:23:51: It seems to occupy this space in our minds and in political minds that the Donbass doesn't,

00:23:56: for example.

00:23:57: What explains this?

00:23:58: This idea that Crimea has a higher escalation risk attached to it than anywhere else.

00:24:04: I think the belief is underscored by our reaction or non reaction in 2014.

00:24:11: That Russia has some form of claim on Crimea that it is more understandable, although continues

00:24:16: to be illegitimate, that it may have on other parts of Ukraine.

00:24:21: There's a history there.

00:24:22: We can go into delvin' the history, but clearly the way that the West, the United States,

00:24:30: Germany, other countries reacted to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 was not of the same kind

00:24:38: as we saw after 2022.

00:24:41: And in fact, the sanctions that were imposed in 2014 only came after the shootdown of the

00:24:48: Malaysian airliner.

00:24:50: And even then, some of us, many of us were arguing for lethal aid to provide it to the

00:24:57: Ukrainians and both Chancellor Merkel and President Obama opposed it.

00:25:03: So this is a longstanding kind of view.

00:25:05: I do want to take issue, whether it's with Rasmussen or Terry or whoever it doesn't like.

00:25:11: It's Rasmussen, definitely.

00:25:13: So I actually don't think that what Rasmussen is saying is that Crimea should not be part

00:25:18: of NATO.

00:25:19: I think what he is saying is that Article 5 should not apply to the territory of NATO,

00:25:24: a position that I would agree with that is if, in fact, you bring in a country, you bring

00:25:31: in the entire country, but how you defend which part of it is something that you politically

00:25:37: decide.

00:25:38: We have done this before.

00:25:39: In the case of Germany, we brought West Germany into NATO in 1955 with the explicit, explicit

00:25:47: understanding that East Germany was not part of NATO, West Berlin was not part of NATO,

00:25:54: and that Germany would not use military force in order to lead to the reunification of Germany.

00:26:00: The United States has a bilateral security agreement with Japan that does not include

00:26:06: a commitment to defend the northern territories explicitly in the treaty, and it doesn't mean

00:26:13: the United States, that the treaty and U.S. recognition does not include the northern

00:26:19: territories.

00:26:20: So the question of how you --

00:26:21: deal with occupied territories if and when you have a country in NATO is a separate,

00:26:28: analytically and frankly politically separate question than whether or not you bring the

00:26:33: country into NATO. If I could just clarify, I think I meant to say that he would say bring it in

00:26:38: before you have Crimea back. Do not wait until Crimea is under control. I'm on the record for

00:26:43: saying that too. I think we should bring all of Ukraine in. It doesn't mean that Article 5

00:26:49: necessarily needs to apply to all of Ukraine, but it could apply only to the territory that

00:26:54: quote is administered by Ukraine, which means that if as that territory changes hands politically,

00:26:59: presumably, the obligation comes with it directly. Right. And this, I mean, NATO without Article 5

00:27:06: is not the NATO that anyone wants, quite frankly speaking. It's not the NATO that's worth what

00:27:10: we know NATO to be. But Ben, in Berlin, I'm not saying you have NATO with Article 5. That is not

00:27:16: a NATO and an article and the argument that some have made that Article 5 should only be, you know,

00:27:23: air defenses or something like that is equally ridiculous. You need to have a real Article 5

00:27:28: in which you defend whatever territory it is that you declare you will defend. Indeed. Now,

00:27:32: Eva, let me just come to what you said a second ago because you mentioned Berlin. Now, again,

00:27:37: this is not something that the Germans are considering at the moment. Across the political

00:27:40: spectrum, there's nervousness about this. There are some who we work with closely from our action

00:27:44: group, Titan Vendor, who have been very clear about getting Ukraine into NATO. But Ben Hodges,

00:27:49: there's not a lot of support for this in Germany. And that's a little bit ironic,

00:27:52: given the historical parallel that Evo just drew and the fact that even though there was a special

00:27:56: status for Berlin, there were American soldiers stationed there and their job was to be willing to

00:28:01: die in order to act as that tripwire defense to bring others in. What's your take on that?

00:28:07: Well, Germany needs to regain self-confidence, first of all, and not be afraid to be bold and

00:28:13: step forward. They've been hiding, maybe it's too harsh, but hiding behind their history.

00:28:20: There's a pacifist streak, and it's also pretty convenient where they've been for the last several

00:28:26: decades. And so they have not done what accepted responsibility as the most powerful economic

00:28:33: country in Europe and potentially could be one of the best armed forces in Europe. So this is

00:28:40: about political will. Chancellor Schultz, I think, is unwilling to provide tourists,

00:28:44: really because Germany has no nuclear weapon. The French and British have nuclear weapons,

00:28:49: the United States does. And I think Chancellor Schultz is very concerned that Germany could

00:28:54: somehow end up in a conflict and then would be threatened by Russia without Germany having its

00:28:59: own nuclear deterrent. So this is where the United States, this is part of declaring what does victory

00:29:05: look like, where we should make it very clear, first of all, we're going to give Ukraine everything

00:29:10: they need to win. In Germany, don't you worry, the US nuclear shield is sacrosanct. So that

00:29:15: remove that as a concern that Chancellor Schultz has, of course, Chancellor Schultz has his own

00:29:21: left flank. He has to deal with as well. But look, I have to say, there is so much time and

00:29:26: intellectual energy wasted, in my view, on what are parlor games about. Well, you know, if you divide

00:29:32: up this part, or we can figure out a way to get around it, what happened to saying this is in our

00:29:37: interests. And you combine the economies and militaries of all the West, the 50 nations already,

00:29:43: dwarfs whatever Russia on its best day could ever muster. Why are we scared to actually win

00:29:51: something? If it was correct, I think there is a concern about Russia escalation, which really

00:29:56: means Russian use of a nuclear weapon. And while, yes, they have thousands of nuclear warheads,

00:30:03: clearly they don't care how many people they killed, including their own.

00:30:05: They're not going to use a nuclear weapon. There's, I would say, almost zero chance that

00:30:11: they will use a nuclear weapon, because there's zero benefit to using a nuclear weapon. It's only

00:30:16: the threat that makes us all kind of stutter step and halt and like, oh, I don't know.

00:30:21: Right. And this is exactly the political blackmail backed up by the nuclear cyberattacking that we

00:30:26: overcame in the Cold War, because we believed in ourselves and we get the correct collective.

00:30:30: This is where it's got to be American leadership. The administration has got to do this. And then

00:30:36: I think other allies that care about these values will feel more confident in saying,

00:30:42: absolutely, I can tell you what, if Ukraine fails, Poland is not going to hide behind the

00:30:45: Vistula River. They're going to move into Western Ukraine. They're not going to sit there and wait

00:30:49: for the Russians just to keep coming. Romania has already said they will protect Moldova.

00:30:54: So if Ukraine fails, you've got potentially two NATO countries that will take steps to defend

00:31:00: their interests. And there'll be a few more million refugees, Ukrainians heading into Germany. So I

00:31:05: don't understand this reluctance to act decisively, defeat Russia in Ukraine, and it will solve European

00:31:12: security problems for decades. I don't know why we're scared of that. We've been arguing the same

00:31:17: on the show repeatedly. Well, obviously, we're all not very compelling in our arguments. We need to

00:31:22: break through the booth of a bubble. And this is what is behind the question before. How do we

00:31:27: actually get over this reluctance there? Because, Ben, you've just echoed points that we've been

00:31:31: making that Elliot Cohen's been making about this need to declare that victory is in our interest.

00:31:36: This is about European security, and European security is in Americans' interest, it's in

00:31:40: Germans' interest, and yet that's still not breaking through. And, Alexander, you talk about

00:31:45: this whole of society approach to defense, which has become very clear in Ukraine. What lessons

00:31:49: can Europeans actually learn from that? What do they need to know about what happens in these

00:31:54: situations as Russia is created in Ukraine to understand the threat that they're actually under?

00:31:59: I think that I will answer a completely different question if you don't mind. So, I think that what

00:32:03: is actually super important is how to neutralize this nuclear threat problem. And I think that

00:32:11: there is a very easy way to do that. And we need just two countries, US first and UK second, who

00:32:19: signed that agreement with Ukraine in 1993, according to which Ukraine abandoned third nuclear

00:32:25: arsenal in the world. And Russia actually signed it as well, and respected all of our borders,

00:32:30: including Crimea. So, that's why we didn't have any territorial disputes with them,

00:32:35: so they have no justifications. And it should be a very simple step. The US should say that,

00:32:41: like, guys, nuclear option is not acceptable. And Ukraine has actually this security agreement

00:32:47: with us. If you use any nukes against Ukraine, you will be nuked by us. This is very simple. And

00:32:53: I absolutely fully agree with General and he's absolutely right. Russians are not going to use

00:33:00: any nukes or even conventional weapons against NATO. They actually reduced all of their provocations

00:33:05: they had, you know, for many, many years, because they are scared. So, that's why this is step one.

00:33:10: Step two, from NATO in Washington, we need to say that it's not like we are going to support

00:33:16: Ukraine for as long as it takes. It should be a very clear message. Like, every step to escalate,

00:33:22: every additional penny in the Russian budget to support Ukraine will mean that NATO will give

00:33:28: Ukraine three, five times more, immediately. Just immediately. And that should be, again,

00:33:32: security agreement between Ukraine and NATO. And it will make no sense for Putin to, you know,

00:33:38: to continue fighting this war. Because, like, again, in the beginning, he was reluctant,

00:33:43: he was not sure, and he dared to invade Ukraine just because of the fail of deterrence, because

00:33:48: the West wasn't actually solid enough, right? And the same story was the total war approach.

00:33:53: So, for more than, actually, six months, Putin was sitting and thinking about what to do. And only

00:34:01: after he saw that self-limitation, self-censorship of the West, he decided that it's actually possible

00:34:09: to win. And he actually just increased that, you know, number of troops and started that

00:34:14: industrial mobilization as well as recruitment of that, hundreds of thousands of people.

00:34:19: So, it should be very clear message in Washington that Russia is not going to win, and Russia has

00:34:25: no capabilities to win. And nuclear option is not on the table anymore.

00:34:30: Teri, I want to come to you about that, because we've heard around the table this entire episode

00:34:34: about the value of U.S. leadership, and also the fact that the President's communication

00:34:38: on this has been a bit lacking. We had one big speech about it, as you referred to earlier.

00:34:44: You know, rather than ask about what, you know, could have happened or should have happened,

00:34:49: can the President and the administration come back and turn this around and basically communicate

00:34:54: to the people, this is in our interest, this is in the American interest as well as European

00:34:59: interest. And if he can, how does he do that in your view? So, what I see is the effect at NATO

00:35:06: and in Brussels, also across town at the European Union, of the U.S. not having done that. So,

00:35:12: somebody who lives in the U.S. could probably, and analyzes U.S. politics for a living, could

00:35:16: probably answer that a bit better than I could. But I can definitely see that this is something that

00:35:20: European countries are worried about. And in fact, I just asked a Baltic leader, you know,

00:35:28: why haven't the populations in the U.S. under threat of, for example, a Trump presidency and

00:35:35: what that might do to decimate NATO? Why haven't they mobilized as they did when they wanted

00:35:40: their countries to become members of NATO? You know, in the early '90s, when you had the Baltic

00:35:45: populations, the Polish populations, very much taking an active political role to get these

00:35:52: countries under Article 5, you have not seen them now activate themselves in the United States

00:35:59: against the Trump threats to NATO. And I was told that they've assimilated now, and they no longer

00:36:05: feel that that's their battle. So, I'd be interested in Evo's take because he's there in Chicago,

00:36:10: with plenty of Poles and Lithuanians, and why doesn't the American population

00:36:16: identify with the need for a strong NATO and the need to protect Ukraine?

00:36:22: I mean, it's a very important question. NATO has become politicized in the United States,

00:36:28: and that is one of the consequences of the Trump presidency.

00:36:32: Pew has just done a recent poll, which has been stunning. And we at the Chicago Council do polling

00:36:37: on NATO and have shown that for a long time. Overall, Americans are very pro-NATO. They have

00:36:43: a positive attitude towards NATO. So, the question that Pew asked is, do you have a positive or

00:36:47: negative attitude toward NATO? 60% said positive, 30% said negative. But, here's the but.

00:36:53: Conservatives are Republicans, 59% negative, 39% positive. Liberal Democrats, 85% positive,

00:37:05: 11% or so negative. So, you now have the full politicization of NATO in the United States.

00:37:12: I would urge the Baltic leaders to talk to their diasporas, I would, anybody else,

00:37:18: about the importance of Ukrainian leaders and others to actually understand that there is a

00:37:24: threat to their homeland's security, including the United States, because a weakened NATO is not

00:37:31: good for the United States. I think the administration should be making that case much more strongly.

00:37:36: I agree that the administration seems to think that if Tony Blinken gives a speech in Kiev,

00:37:41: by the way, very good one, that that is maybe better than the guitar. Maybe better. Yeah, well,

00:37:48: that's a different story. But giving a speech in Kiev or indeed, as he did in Helsinki a year ago,

00:37:54: or the president did in Helsinki and in Poland a year ago, that they are then speaking to the

00:37:58: American public. They're not. This is a speech that needs to be given in Missoula. It needs a

00:38:04: speech that needs to be given in Lubbock, Texas. And not a speech, engagement in a different way.

00:38:10: But it is a conversation that needs to be had with Americans on a day to day basis. I know Ben,

00:38:17: for example, that's one of the things you're doing. You're talking to Americans about NATO,

00:38:22: about Ukraine, about what matters. But for some reason, governments are incredibly bad. And this

00:38:29: is not just the US government or this particular administration. Just governments are incredibly

00:38:34: bad, talking to their own people about what it is that they are doing when it comes to foreign

00:38:40: bonds. Well, we sit here in Tallinn, where the government has not been bad at doing that,

00:38:45: just to the south in Latvia and in Lithuania. We see some of the clearest communicators we have

00:38:50: in Europe, real leaders showing leadership. And all of us around the table have been saying,

00:38:55: should, should, should. So what are the obstacles that we have to overcome to get from should to did?

00:39:01: You know, in 1940, January 1942, Churchill came to Washington, DC, and US Navy ships were still

00:39:09: on fire in Pearl Harbor from the Japanese attack. Great Britain had suffered two and a half years

00:39:14: of loss after loss after loss after loss to Nazi Germany and to Japan, Empire Japan. And no Americans

00:39:22: wanted to get involved in a war in Europe again. In fact, half of America's population were first

00:39:26: or second generation European immigrants did not want to go back. But yet Churchill and Roosevelt

00:39:33: recognized what was at stake, huge stakes. And they agreed had to defeat Germany first. And then

00:39:41: they, because they couldn't afford to lose Great Britain for the war effort for geographical reasons,

00:39:46: and also they would need the resources of the British Empire to eventually defeat the Empire

00:39:51: of Japan. So these two leaders agreed on a strategic priority, Germany first. And then they

00:39:57: could turn to their populations. And this is there was no internet. I mean, it was radio and

00:40:02: newspapers, and they could talk to their population and say, look, this is what's at stake. We're

00:40:06: going to have to mobilize our industry. We're going to have to grow armies, navies and air forces

00:40:11: to defeat the threat. And there was no reason for optimism. But yet they had the clarity

00:40:17: and understanding what was at risk. And then they had the willingness and ability

00:40:21: to communicate to their populations as if they were adults. And then one year later at the Castle

00:40:27: Blanca Conference, and that first conference was the Arcadia Conference. One year later in January

00:40:32: 1943, Castle Blanca Conference, again, not much reason for optimism. I mean, you know, continuing

00:40:39: to lose or had not been able to turn the tide yet. And now they come up, they decide on a strategic

00:40:46: outcome in state, unconditional surrender, no bullshit. We want to get into a better negotiating

00:40:53: position with Hitler, okay, or we'll let him keep parts of Europe. No, unconditional, we're going

00:41:00: to crush Nazi Germany. We're going to crush the empire of Japan. And your historical parallel,

00:41:08: which is which is great, suggests there's another historical parallel and an opportunity. I mean,

00:41:13: you want to talk about opportunities, the historical parallel I've been thinking about is 1999.

00:41:18: The last time NATO had a summit in Washington, which was the 50th anniversary summit in Washington,

00:41:23: we came there to celebrate the new members, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, who had just weeks

00:41:28: before gone there. But Tony Blair came to that summit after giving a speech in Chicago of all

00:41:36: places and went to the Oval Office and spent three and a half hours talking to Pleasant Clinton about

00:41:41: the war that NATO was then engaged in in Kosovo. And it wasn't going well. The air war was not

00:41:47: achieving what it was supposed to achieve. Remember, that war was supposed to be over in a couple

00:41:51: of days, you know, the bombing and the Serbs would leave. Well, they didn't leave. And they had a

00:41:56: very serious discussion about a ground invasion, which NATO didn't formally agree to. But informally,

00:42:03: General Clark, the SACCUR was tasked by the NATO Secretary General to begin planning for a ground

00:42:09: invasion. And we now know that that discussion had two consequences. One, there was serious planning

00:42:15: for a ground invasion. It might have happened. And secondly, the Russians read this and said,

00:42:19: oh, my God, we don't want to have that. That happened. We don't want NATO having a ground

00:42:24: invasion in, quote, "our part of the world" and started seriously engaging in a negotiation,

00:42:30: which then led to the end of that war, not the end of the conflict, which by the way, still goes on.

00:42:39: Washington offers that same opportunity. And in some ways, although we will look back at the six

00:42:45: months, and you can argue two years, but certainly the six months that we didn't support the Ukrainians

00:42:51: as a critical turning point, what's happening in Ukraine today in terms of the bombing of cities,

00:42:59: what's happening on the ground in the Kharkiv region and other regions, is posing the question

00:43:04: for the first time, oh my, first time since the beginning of this war, oh my God, Ukraine may lose.

00:43:09: You can't have a NATO 75th anniversary summit and not address the possibility of that losing.

00:43:15: And so I think there will be leaders, and maybe Macron, and maybe the Baltic leaders,

00:43:20: it may be Tusk, it may be others, Sunak, who all of a sudden decides that maybe this is his way

00:43:26: to win an election. Who knows, it's not going to be Jor, Olaf Scholz, but it will be somebody who

00:43:32: will say, we need to have a serious discussion here at this summit about how we're going to achieve

00:43:37: what we need to achieve, which is to make sure that Ukraine wins at this war. And this is an

00:43:45: opportunity to do that. Will it happen? Nobody's talking about it now because nobody wants to talk

00:43:50: about it. That doesn't mean it won't happen. This is not what the Secretary General gets to say.

00:43:54: These are individual leaders who will come to a meeting and make, and lead in a way that, frankly,

00:44:01: on this issue, as in so many other issues, they don't until they do.

00:44:06: Right. And this is the point. You're never given opportunities to lead. You take them.

00:44:10: And this is about creating that moment. And that's where I think some of those leaders I mentioned

00:44:14: before from these smaller NATO states who have been incredibly clear-eyed about this in the

00:44:18: beginning, have a chance to rhetorically take the lead on that. Working against that is the desire

00:44:25: for unity and lowest common denominator, unity, which is of course what the Biden administration

00:44:29: and the Schultz government are pushing for, and are really making an effort at that.

00:44:34: Note to our viewers in Germany or our listeners in Germany, it's interesting that the assessment

00:44:37: of Rishi Sunak doing something is higher than that of Olaf Scholz doing something.

00:44:41: And personally, I put the chances of Sunak doing something at zero.

00:44:44: It actually is in grandstanding, which is what most leaders have been really good at.

00:44:49: That's what undermines unity. What is, is using the opportunity of a serious conversation.

00:44:55: That's what Blair did. Blair did is he sat down with his good friend Bill Clinton,

00:45:01: and he convinced him that they needed to think about it differently. That's the kind of leadership

00:45:06: you need. And actually, we may have someone, the new NATO Secretary General, who can do it quietly.

00:45:11: That's the kind of people that you need in order to do this. Yes, it would be great if

00:45:17: Olaf Scholz did it. Frankly, it would be great if Joe Biden did it. But they're facing political

00:45:21: issues that are bigger right now. I mean, you'll come off of a debate with Donald Trump

00:45:29: two weeks before the NATO summit. And so his view is a little different. So you need leaders like

00:45:36: that. You do. Now, Terry, let me come to you on that. Well, you had a leader who could walk in and

00:45:41: make people change their mind, and his name is Volodymyr Zelensky. And at every NATO meeting,

00:45:48: you have the Zelensky effect. You're not getting this until he walks in and he walks out. And

00:45:53: suddenly, you know, there go the tanks. There go the F-16s. There goes more air defense.

00:45:59: But he's not a member of NATO. And remember how he was humiliated at Vilnius when he came in and

00:46:05: dared to ask for more and was told that he wasn't grateful enough. And we all heard those stories

00:46:11: about how he was humiliated for this kind of saying, we need more of this. We need more of that.

00:46:19: Because he didn't do it quietly. He did it through Twitter, which is not the way in which

00:46:23: you get your stuff done. So again, Tony Blair didn't do that. Do you blame the man for doing

00:46:28: everything he can? I mean, honestly, for trying to get there anyway. Terry, I am not blaming him.

00:46:32: I'm talking about if you want to have effect, you can do it by doing it publicly and feel good,

00:46:38: or sometimes you can do it quietly and not take the credit. Fair enough. I'm not a diplomat for

00:46:43: obvious reasons. But he's the guy who was making people change their mind. And it hasn't gotten

00:46:49: anyone where they need to be right now to help Ukraine win. And indeed, it shouldn't be about

00:46:52: us begging for the or having to be begged to do this. This is in our interest. That's the point.

00:46:57: It's our interest. And it should be easy for the president of the United States to explain to

00:47:02: voters why it's in our interest. You know, a disruption of Ukrainian food supplies to the

00:47:09: world jacks up American food prices. It affects prices everywhere. I mean, basic economic things

00:47:15: like this. So the president with 50 years of political experience ought to know how to speak

00:47:22: to voters about these kinds of issues. And I'm just dumbfounded why he and his team have been

00:47:27: unwilling to do that. One more economic point. I'm an ammo geek in addition to a NATO geek.

00:47:32: And I cannot fathom why this ammunition, this need for ammunition, where so much of the money

00:47:38: goes to ammunition manufacturers, European weapons producers, you know, ramping up production puts

00:47:44: more money in the producers pockets, the governments know that there will be a long term need for this

00:47:49: and still joint procurement has has stalled. It doesn't work. That's right. And there's a link

00:47:53: to it in our show notes to an article by Moditz Schularik, the German economist who heads the

00:47:57: Keel Institute for World Economy talking about how Germany can actually solve its economic woes

00:48:01: and its military woes in one fell swoop by taking the kind of actions Terry just mentioned.

00:48:07: Before we finish up, I'd like to come back to the point of leadership that you were talking

00:48:10: about earlier, Eva, and I will take a little one issue with one thing that you said, which is that

00:48:14: you don't get anywhere by shaming people. You know, when we look at Germany, yes, shame sometimes

00:48:20: works. The shame will continue until the policy improves. So one aspect that I'd actually like

00:48:26: to bring up in terms of where the government, German government at the moment is getting a

00:48:30: certain amount of shame. Alexander, you talked about resources, the simple, easy fact of resources,

00:48:36: the reality is, is that we're currently sitting on a $300 billion war chest in frozen Russian

00:48:43: assets that we do not have the political will so far to use. And Germany is one of the big

00:48:47: laggards on this particular question. So let's just ask this in terms of, you know, when you

00:48:54: look at resources, this war chest, if we actually decided to seize this, if we actually decided

00:49:00: that we were going to try to win, really try to win, as Ben was saying earlier, what are some of

00:49:05: the military implications of actually having those extra resources? What could you do with that?

00:49:09: I have to say that 300 billion of US dollars of Russian resource would change the situation on

00:49:16: the battlefield, you know, immediately, just immediately. It would be more than 10 times

00:49:20: more stuff for Ukrainian armed forces. And again, most of that stuff would be actually bought in

00:49:26: your countries, which is good for your economies. But at the same time, it was like several good

00:49:32: historical comparisons. And I would love, you know, to give you one more. So we're looking for

00:49:37: that role model to win this war. And it was actually, I believe, one of that wars, which,

00:49:45: to some extent, could be considered as that role model for this war. It's Vietnam War. So,

00:49:51: like, despite of that public, you know, like, like traditional, you know, reaction, everyone

00:50:00: believes that that was guerrilla warfare and other things. But in fact, it was North Vietnam,

00:50:05: controlled by North Vietnamese, you know, government fully supported by Soviet Union and

00:50:10: China, with the most modern at that time, aircrafts, the most modern AD systems, the most modern,

00:50:16: you know, ATGMs and a lot of other things, including 17,000 Russian troops on the ground,

00:50:22: including some Soviet pilots, some Soviet crew for AD systems, etc. Ukraine doesn't need actually

00:50:28: that personnel because Ukraine is actually very good in using that systems itself. Pretty often,

00:50:36: actually, it's not worse than our Western colleagues. So that was a combination of two

00:50:42: factors, one of them, like the most modern weapon given to North Vietnam by Soviets and Chinese.

00:50:49: And in parallel, it was a huge, you know, psychological political warfare operation

00:50:55: in the US to make this war absolutely unpopular, as well as the campaign in other countries,

00:51:00: not just in NATO countries, but also in the countries of the global south. This is exactly

00:51:06: what we have to use in Ukraine. And this is how we're going to win. And there is no other option,

00:51:12: but we also have to be honest with ourselves that peaceful coexistence with people like Putin,

00:51:18: Patrushev, Shegu and others, it's not in interest of the next generation. So it means that we have

00:51:24: to finish this idea of peaceful coexistence with pure evil in the global world. So it means that

00:51:32: we have to create the preconditions for liberation of Russia and countries like Russia,

00:51:37: because otherwise our kids, our grandkids will be indentured.

00:51:41: Right. And this is, as Terry mentioned, Volodymyr Zelensky has been one of the great communicators

00:51:46: of these issues. And speaking to Congress back in December 2022, he said exactly that this is

00:51:51: about the world we want our grandkids to be able to live in. Is that a world of freedom or not?

00:51:55: And we have to be able to connect that to our populations in order to put the pressure on our

00:52:00: politicians to step up and actually do the things that all of our expert guests have said we should

00:52:05: today. Thank you, Ivo, Alexander, Ben, Terry, for joining us today in Tallinn. It's been a pleasure

00:52:10: to talk to you all about this and about how we pave the way to Ukrainian victory.

00:52:14: Thank you very much to our panelists for joining us today. Discuss the military

00:52:17: dimension of Ukraine's victory. Stay tuned for part two of our Pillars of Victory special,

00:52:21: which we alluded to just now with that question about 300 billion in frozen Russian assets,

00:52:25: where we discuss how to win on the financial front. Till then.

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