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Today's Topics:
1. Vivek Menezes: Ukraine and the Lessons of History (Dhaka
Tribune) (patrice riemens)
2. Missing beginning ... (Vivek Menezes, Ukraine) (patrice riemens)
3. A Realist Take - Emma Ashford (Brian Holmes)
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2022 18:31:16 +0100 (CET)
From: patrice riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>
To: nettime-l <nettime-l@kein.org>
Subject: <nettime> Vivek Menezes: Ukraine and the Lessons of History
(Dhaka Tribune)
Message-ID: <991056595.2271172.1647624676043@ox-webmail.xs4all.nl" target="_blank">991056595.2271172.1647624676043@ox-webmail.xs4all.nl>
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Original to:
https://www.dhakatribune.com/op-ed/2022/03/18/ukraine-and-the-new-world-order
Ukraine and the New World Order
By Vivek Menezes, St Patrick's Day, 2022 ;-)
We have seen precisely this before, and Europe is doing it all over again
It may be a universal sentiment -- some scholars credit it as ?unattributable? -- with reverberations of its wisdom in everything from Plato to the oeuvre of ?Piano Man? Billy Joel.
In our contemporary reading, however, the phrase mostly refers to the two World Wars instigated in Europe in the first half of the 20th century, that wrought unimaginable destruction across the planet. Everyone was affected, and even here in the subcontinent -- which was mercifully spared the brunt -- there are locations like Kohima (*) which witnessed epic carnage of the kind no one in their right mind might want to revisit.
So difficult then, for any student of history, to watch the West tie itself in knots while hand-wringing impotently over what exactly to do after Vladimir Putin?s Russia has invaded Ukraine. We have seen precisely this before, and Europe is doing it all over again nonetheless.
In his daily video address on March 16, Ukraine?s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called Putin ?a war criminal? while directly addressing the Russian people with the pointed question, ?how does your blockade of Mariupol differ from the blockade of Leningrad during WWII??
Zelenskiy?s thrust is clear -- there is no difference.
He is implying that Russia will eventually break itself apart in the face of heroic resistance, just as the Wehrmacht foundered, weakened, and retreated from Leningrad despite its all-out siege that famously extended for ?two years, four months, two weeks, and five days.?
In fact, that kind of result is highly unlikely.
Either the Russians will methodically grind through Ukrainian defenses, to an inevitable military victory (which cannot possibly be delayed longer than the extent of the coming summer months). Or, it?s possible there will be a cease fire, which may be close after both sides say they have already agreed on the main elements to compel truce.
That happenstance -- which we must pray will occur as soon as possible -- will still leave major questions, each one loaded with ingredients for resumed conflict.
Paramount amongst these is the problem of Putin himself -- can he be restored to the kind of status quo that existed just a few weeks ago, as just another ?normal? world leader? Can the likes of Biden -- who just recently called his counterpart ?war criminal? -- afford comity after this supposed point of no return?
Even more important, but perhaps less immediate, is the nature of settlement imposed on the region. Will Russia be forced to retreat to pre-war positions, and will future generations of Ukrainians be allowed substantial freedoms to pursue their own destiny?
There are fiendishly difficult conundrums, with endlessly thorny implications. Thus, for just one example, it should not be lost on anyone that the costly settlement forced upon Germany at Versailles in 1919 directly laid the ground for the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Whatever happens next, it?s already clear that the old world order -- inequitable, exploitative, flawed, and bloody as it was -- has been effectively demolished. We already live in another paradigm altogether.
As the highly perceptive geopolitical analyst Bruno Ma??es wrote in The New Statesman earlier this week: ?We now live in the middle of a great recession? where ?American power is everywhere retreating, leaving behind vacuums that others strive to fill.? (**)
In Ukraine, that decline ?is magnified by the incipience of European power, creating a combustible mixture, a propitious landscape for a war of worlds. [Here] the end of the American empire is taking an even grimmer form than in Afghanistan: A war of genocide whose declared goal is the extermination of Ukrainian nationhood.?
What?s next?
Martin Wolf laid out one set of scenarios in the Financial Times, starting with this summation: ?A new world is being born. The hope for peaceful relations is fading. Instead, we have Russia?s war on Ukraine, threats of nuclear Armageddon, a mobilized West, an alliance of autocracies, unprecedented economic sanctions, and a huge energy and food shock. No one knows what will happen. But we do know this looks to be a disaster.?
Wolf says that after the battle Austerlitz in 1805, William Pitt the Younger said, presciently: ?Roll up the map [of Europe]; it will not be needed these 10 years.?
He concludes: ?Russia?s war on Ukraine has similarly transformed the map of our world. A prolonged bout of stagflation seems certain, with large potential effects on financial markets. In the long term, the emergence of two blocs with deep splits between them is likely, as is an accelerating reversal of globalization and sacrifice of business interests to geopolitics. Even nuclear war is, alas, conceivable. Pray for a miracle in Moscow. Without it, the road ahead will be long and hard.? (***)
Vivek Menezes is a writer and photographer based in Goa, India.
(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kohima
(**) https://www.newstatesman.com/podcasts/world-review-podcast/2022/03/why-russia-gambled-on-ukraine-with-bruno-mac%CC%A7a%CC%83es
(Free limited registration needed/ paywall)
(***) Martin Wolf in FT: paywalled
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2022 18:41:04 +0100 (CET)
From: patrice riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>
To: nettime-l <nettime-l@kein.org>
Subject: <nettime> Missing beginning ... (Vivek Menezes, Ukraine)
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Sorry, something went wrong in the c+p process ...
The beginning of Vivek M's op-ed is:
On a plaque at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, is this by George Santayana: ?Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.?
Cheers to all all the same
p+7D!
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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2022 13:56:28 -0500
From: Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>
To: a moderated mailing list for net criticism
<nettime-l@mail.kein.org>
Subject: <nettime> A Realist Take - Emma Ashford
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The following is the most comprehensively rational viewpoint I have read
about the war in and against Ukraine. It's an interview, freely accessible
and better listened to than read, but following nettime's text-filtering
vocation and the desire not to have an archive full of dead links, I'm
pasting the transcript below in addition to one of the links where you can
listen. Obviously rationality has many limits, one of which is national
viewpoint - it would be great to have realist takes from other countries
than the US. Nonetheless, I think anyone can get a lot from this. Here's
the link and transcript:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-realist-take-on-how-the-russia-ukraine-war-could-end/id1548604447?i=1000554460053
A Realist Take on How the Russia-Ukraine War Could End
The Ezra Klein Show
New York Times, 3/18/2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-emma-ashford.html
I want to begin today by taking a moment and getting at the theory of
how we?re covering Russia?s invasion of Ukraine on the show. There is no
way to fully understand an event this vast, where the motivations of the
players and the reality on the ground are this unknowable. There?s no one
explanation, no one interpretation that can possibly be correct. And if
anyone tells you they?ve got that, you should be very skeptical.
But even if all models are incomplete, some are useful. And so each
episode has been about a different model, a different framework, you can
use to understand part of the crisis. We talked with Adam Tooze about the
economic framework, with Fiona Hill about Putin?s stated aims, with Fareed
Zakaria about the great power conflict frame, and the Russia-China
relationship with Masha Gessen, and with Timothy Snyder about the competing
histories driving Russia, Ukraine, the U.S., and Europe.
But there?s one model that a lot of you have emailed asking us to
cover, a model for foreign policy that gets called realism. Realism is ?
and I?m simplifying here, but in part, realism is about simplifying.
Realism is a political framework that understands international relations
as a contest between relatively rational states for power and security.
It?s pretty structural in that way. It sees the actions and activities of
states as quite predictable, given their role and needs in the
international security hierarchy.
In its blunter forms ? and there are a lot of forms of realism ? it can
be much less interested than other frameworks in the ideologies of
individual leaders or the values they profess to hold. It wants to be
structural, not personal or individualistic.
In this case, there?s a particular realist analysis that has caught a
lot of people?s attention, which is John Mearsheimer?s model of the
conflict. Mearsheimer is a very famous realist scholar, and he had a speech
from a few years ago arguing that the crisis in Ukraine is largely the
fault of the West for opening NATO to Ukraine, and that we did that despite
Russian warnings that it was a red line, and through that, pushed them into
a corner that led to this invasion.
That is an analysis that has gone very, very viral. It?s very, very
controversial. I want to say that I?ve learned an enormous amount from John
Mearsheimer over the years, and I?ve learned from him in this crisis, too.
And I do think there?s truth in what he?s saying and a genuine danger to
the West?s professions of perfect innocence, our unwillingness to
scrutinize our own actions.
Where I think he errs, to be honest, is in suggesting there is all that
much truth in what he?s saying. It just, it denies too much agency to
Putin, who, obviously, could have made decisions differently here, to
Ukraine?s leaders, to Ukraine?s people, to luck, to contingency. I?ll note
that this week, President Zelensky said Ukraine would not be joining NATO.
He said that that was a, quote, ?truth, and it must be recognized,? end
quote. Him saying that did not end Putin?s war.
But for all that, I?ve wanted to have a realist perspective on the show
because looking at this war through the realist lens is valuable. And so I
asked Emma Ashford to join me. Ashford is a senior fellow in the New
American Engagement Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and
Security. She?s what?s called a neo-classical realist. She begins with a
structural, state-based, power-based analysis of realism, but then opens it
up to more influence from domestic politics ? the psychology of individual
leaders, the messiness of reality.
One thing this kind of analysis will get you that some of the others
don?t is a way to think about negotiations and settlements. Putin may be
motivated by all kinds of things, by imperial tendencies, by isolation, by
ideology, by nostalgia for the Russian Empire, by a desire to mark his own
place in history, by these mystic philosophers that he reads we talked
about with Timothy Snyder.
But he?s also motivated by the normal concerns of state security and
power. And if the other sides of him cannot be bargained with, perhaps that
side of him, the realist side of him can. And maybe if you try to work with
that side of him and take that side of him seriously, maybe you empower it,
and you can chart a realistic path out of this war.
Now, maybe not, maybe not. But maybe. I will say this was somewhat
unexpectedly, because realists have a very pessimistic reputation, this was
the most hopeful of the conversations I?ve had on this war. And because
things are moving very quickly, I do want to note that I recorded this on
Tuesday, March 15. As always, my email is theezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Emma Ashford, welcome to the show.
emma ashford
Great to be here.
ezra klein
So what is foreign policy realism? And what makes it realistic?
emma ashford
It depends who you ask. Realism is a word that can mean many, many
things to many different people. In Washington at the moment, everybody
from Bob Kagan, commonly known as a neoconservative, to John Mearsheimer,
describe themselves as realists. But I would say at the biggest level, a
realist is somebody who views the international system as a fundamentally
unchanging place, where states act on their interests, where there aren?t
really rules or norms that constrain states, and where security concerns
are always paramount.
So people disagree a lot on the details, but that?s kind of the very
big picture. You shouldn?t confuse realism with being realistic, although
the two often go together. It?s much more about that notion of sort of
unending competition between states in history.
ezra klein
I find a lot in realism very appealing, but one of the things that is
tricky to me is that the analyses that I hear from realists seem to be
distinguished in that they view states as acting upon strategic interests.
And values and identity and some of what you might imagine as the softer or
fuzzier motivations are cast a bit to the side. But then if you know
people, if you cover politics, if you watch the behavior of individuals and
states, that doesn?t seem very realistic. People are often very
non-strategic. And they are pursuing other goals or poorly pursuing
strategic goals in ways that backfire.
emma ashford
So some of the big realist theories, the ones that you?d get taught in
any sort of IR 101 class, those are very predominantly structural theories,
right? Their states are these billiard balls knocking about the
international system at one another, and there?s nothing else to it. But we
all know that isn?t how the world works. You know, that is a model of how
the world works. And so there are a number of more sort of nuanced theories
of realism that basically say, well, these structural incentives, the
security threats that states face, those are the most important thing.
But domestic politics can matter. The personalities of individual
leaders can matter. And sometimes leaders make the wrong choices. And what
realists would say is it?s not that states can?t act in ways that go
against their own interests, it?s that if they do that, the international
system will punish them eventually. So realism is, in some ways, sort of a
self-correcting system. It does allow for those things to feed into it, but
you?re right that some theorists do tend to focus very heavily at that
structural level and miss out on a lot of really important insights about
the world.
ezra klein
Well, let?s talk about one of those theorists. So John Mearsheimer is a
very famous realist foreign policy scholar. I?ve learned a lot from his
work over the years. He?s had this very viral and attention-grabbing
analysis of the situation in Russia and in Ukraine, where he says that
Russia?s invasion of Ukraine is fundamentally the West?s fault. So can you
describe his argument and tell me what you think he gets right and what you
think he gets wrong?
emma ashford
So John Mearsheimer is a very well-known international relations
theorist, one of those people who has managed to bridge that divide from
being an academic superstar to being sort of in the media all the time as
well. His argument, as he puts it in an essay in ?Foreign Affairs,? I think
it was back in 2014, is basically that through constant expansion of
particularly NATO into the spaces of the former Soviet Union, the West
effectively pushed Russia into a corner and forced it to lash out and to
seize Crimea in 2014 and to invade the rest of Ukraine.
There is some truth to that account, right? I think John oversells that
story, however. So and he looks at it in a very mono causal way, right? So
for him, the only really important factor here is that NATO expansion that
has pushed Russia back. And he sort of overlooks a number of the other
nuances in the situation. So certainly, we have this big structural story,
where Russia has been systematically pushed out of European security over a
couple of decades.
We?ve seen the Russians get increasingly unhappy about that. But
equally, you know, that didn?t force Russia to start a war in Ukraine. The
Russians retained the culpability for that decision. The structural factors
help us to understand how we got where we are today. I think where
Mearsheimer goes too far is in basically assigning guilt to the West based
on that history that he?s telling.
ezra klein
Let me try to balance what I find helpful in this account and what I
find difficult about it. One thing that I find helpful is that, obviously,
the West, the U.S., Europe, we are going to want to present ourselves as
blameless, as having done nothing to cause any of this. And of course, we
have had our roles in creating Russia as it exists today, both in literally
constructing it with the economic advice we gave and the different
agreements we have made, but also in creating the context in which Vladimir
Putin is acting.
On the other hand ? and you got at this a bit ? it seems to me that
this account, one, completely underwrites the agency of Putin himself. A
hundred percent clear he did not have to do this invasion. It seems like
most of the elites in Russia thought he wouldn?t. So whenever something is
that contingent on the ideas of a singular actor, I think it?s hard to call
it structural. I think it?s hard to say we pushed him into a corner, and
they had to do this, and they predictably did this.
But the other thing that?s tricky about this is if you are looking at
Putin as a rational strategic actor who?s worried about, say, the size of
NATO, I think it?s pretty clear that invading Ukraine is likely to
strengthen NATO, or at least, that was a plausible thing that it could do,
and it has. Or he?s very worried about the long-term power of Russia, and
he?s already operating under sanctions from 2014, launching an invasion
that is going to further sanction and isolate his economy, which is not
good for Russia?s long-term power. That?s at least a judgment call, to say
it lightly.
And so I don?t know how you can look at the choices Putin is making and
the strategic decisions, judgment calls that he?s making, and say this is
all structural or all set into motion in any kind of inevitable way by
Western actions.
emma ashford
I mean, there is a level of inevitability here in that if you go back
to the 1990s, and you look at some of the realists who were arguing against
NATO?s expansion ? in the ?90s, people like George Kennan, people like
Brent Scowcroft ? you?ll see them, arguing that eventually, if the U.S.
kept expanding NATO, something like what happened over the last few weeks
might happen, right? That we would start a new conflict with Russia in some
context. No, not the details, but the broad strokes are right.
And so that is where, again, where I think the structural picture does
have a lot to tell us about how we got here today. But the problem with
just looking at the structural picture is, it does overlook a lot of these
other relevant factors. It?s not just a story, as Mearsheimer puts it,
about NATO expansion. What triggered the Maidan Revolution in 2014 in
Ukraine was actually European Union ties for Ukraine.
And to some extent, for the Russians, it?s more about the trajectory of
the states in its what Russians call ?the near abroad? in both political
and economic terms, right? They?re worried about Ukraine or Moldova or
Belarus or any of these states pulling away from Russia towards the West in
a very zero sum way. So it?s not just NATO expansion, even though security
concerns play a role. Mearsheimer?s analysis also overlooks some of Putin?s
own personal history and grudges, right?
If you look back at the way that the U.S.-Russian relationship unfolded
in the post-Soviet period, the 1990s were an extremely difficult, hard time
for many Russians. The impact of shock therapy proposed by the West,
supported by the U.S., was really harsh for many Russians.
And it?s obvious that Putin, in particular, bears grudges about this.
When we look at him talking about these things, that stuff is, obviously,
playing into his decision-making calculus. So I think the structural
factors are how we get in the place where Putin may end up making the
decision that he made to go to war, but other factors clearly played into
his calculus.
ezra klein
And so one thing that I find very useful in realism, including some of
the more simplistic versions of it, is I think of it as a little bit like
rational actor models in economics, which is a land I?m more familiar with
in foreign policy, where they have this quality of, obviously, being
incomplete, but they?re revealing even so. And so it seems to me it?s
healthy for us in the United States to ask the question of, assume Vladimir
Putin is a rational actor. Assume he is motivated by reasonable strategic
considerations. Then what? What would that imply about how we should have
treated him, or what would that imply about how we should treat him now?
emma ashford
Yeah, it?s funny you say that because, actually, the theories of
neorealism ? that is to say, the very structural version of realism ?
actually came out of some of the economic theories about behavior of firms
in the markets. And that?s where Ken Waltz, one of the grandfathers of
realism, actually got some of his ideas. So this is very much based in that
same rational actor model.
And when we come to thinking about how it impacts actual leaders in the
real world, I think you?re right that it?s helpful to think of this as an
imperfect model of the world. It?s a good way to understand why states
often act the way they do, but it?s never going to predict what?s going to
happen, and it?s never going to perfectly account for all the factors at
play. And so one of the things that I think is really important in the
context of Russian decision-making in this crisis is that I fully believe
Putin is a rational person. I fully believe that he?s making rational
decisions.
But like many actors in economics, that rationality is constrained.
It?s constrained by the information that he?s getting, the people that he?s
getting advice from, and in the kind of personalistic dictatorship
symptomatic of the Russian system, Putin is making decisions that may seem
rational to him, but are not necessarily rational when viewed from the
outside. And back to your example from earlier of this crisis may end up
expanding NATO, not shrinking it, I think that?s one of those trade-offs
that I think Putin has probably been receiving bad information or making
poor assumptions about prior to this crisis.
ezra klein
But what if we then decide now, what if we were to decide, he is
rational, he made some miscalculations, but he?s fundamentally a strategic
actor, who can be reasoned with on those grounds? Even if these other
imperialistic, nostalgic, et cetera, ambitions exist in him, that these
also exist in him. If we were to treat him as that, what is the
prescription? What off-ramp or approach to him does that offer?
emma ashford
I think it?s the approach that the Ukrainian government is already
taking, which is to try and find some kind of negotiated settlement to this
conflict. The Ukrainians and the Russians have had three or four sets of
formal meetings so far and a bunch of informal contacts, and we have
actually seen the two sides come a little closer together.
As the Russians have done incredibly poorly in this conflict, far worse
than we would have anticipated, as the Ukrainians have done better, we?ve
seen the Ukrainians modify their position from what they said prior to the
war, you know, that they wouldn?t accept neutrality. They?ve come back from
that point. We?ve seen the Russians, to some extent, modify their position,
now saying that they?re talking a lot less about regime change, for
example. They?re not even talking about demilitarization in the same way
anymore. Now they?re talking much more about Ukrainian neutrality and
potential territorial gains.
So this fits into how a rational model of conflict resolution works,
which is to say that the war reveals something to the parties that enable
them to come to the negotiating table and hammer out a ceasefire or hammer
out a peace deal. And this won?t be easy, but I really do think it?s
basically the only option for improving the situation, rather than heading
to somewhere worse.
ezra klein
I have had a lot of conversations about Russia and Ukraine recently,
and that is one of the first optimistic things that I?ve heard from anyone.
So I want to hold on it for a minute, your view that we have actually seen
some moderation in positions.
emma ashford
It?s been relatively moderate moderation, for lack of a better word.
We?ve been in this war about three weeks at this point. And over that time,
the Ukrainian positions shifted almost immediately. Within, I think it was
a few hours of the invasion, Zelensky offered to talk to Moscow about
neutrality, right? So the Ukrainian position there shifted very fast. The
Russian position has been much, much harder to discern, not least because
we?re trying to cut through the fog of Russian war propaganda and Sergei
Lavrov, who?s always saying outrageous things.
ezra klein
Sergei Lavrov being their ambassador?
emma ashford
He?s the Russian Foreign Minister, well known for being somewhat of an
internet troll in his approach to diplomacy. Really, really likes to stick
it to Western diplomats and point out hypocrisy and not act very
diplomatic. But if you look at the statements that have been made by
Russian government officials, you look at what?s being said on Russian
state T.V., you do start to see this shift, right?
So the aims that were announced at the start of the war or what the
Russians are calling the security mission, the aims that they announced
were the demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine. Obviously,
Ukraine doesn?t need to be de-Nazified, but that is what the Russians have
been using as a euphemism for regime change. Those have basically gone
away. And to the extent that the Russians now talk about demilitarization,
they?re talking about it more in the sense of the war has destroyed a chunk
of Ukraine?s military industrial complex and their ability to build up
their military forces.
So, again, there?s been some moderation there, and they?re no longer
talking about the regime change part at all. So, again, this is discerning
from public statements what they might be thinking, but it does seem to me
that we have seen some movement from even the Russians over the last few
weeks. And I don?t think we?re quite there yet, but give it another couple
of weeks, and that might be the point where we have an opening for
negotiations.
ezra klein
And how about the United States and Europe? Because one thing I see, at
least in our politics around this, is we?ve moved from, I think, a quite
realist stance, where the attitude was, it?s a shame that Russia might
invade Ukraine, and we?ll slap some sanctions on them, but it?s really not
something we?re going to get deeply involved in, certainly not in any kind
of direct military way.
But the way the invasion has played out, the way that Ukraine has
inspired many in Europe and in America, what people are seeing on the news,
what they?re seeing on social media, it does seem to me, in a lot of
different respects, the positions in the U.S. and Europe, at least
politically, if not among politicians, have hardened. Do you think that?s
true?
emma ashford
I think that?s true. And not to undermine my optimistic point, I do
think that one of the biggest obstacles to finding some kind of peace deal
ceasefire here may actually be Western opposition to lifting some of the
sanctions on Russia. Because I don?t see the Russians necessarily agreeing
to a deal if it doesn?t come with some sanctions being lifted, perhaps
freeing up some of those frozen central bank reserves or something. And
it?s not clear to me that people in the West are necessarily going to
accept that.
I mean, I do think what we?ve seen over the last few weeks is the White
House continuing to hold to a very, very strict line on the use of military
force, which is to say, it is not being considered. There will be no no-fly
zone. The U.S. will not have troops in Ukraine, but we will defend members
of NATO, that is to say countries under the Article 5 provision of NATO.
But in other realms, we have seen the U.S. position and the European
position go further than I think we would have anticipated before this
crisis started. So the sanctions went from, I mean, severe sanctions, but
severe sanctions that are somewhat precedented in their use. And then
within about 72 hours of the start of this conflict, they shifted to a form
of economic warfare more analogous to something we haven?t seen since the
1940s.
It?s kind of the same with arms shipments. We saw those initial
shipments before the conflict, but the fact that Ukraine has managed to
hold on as long as they have has actually encouraged countries to send
more. And then we?ve seen governments sort of get in over their skis on
some of these things like the debate over whether we would send old MiG
planes from Eastern Bloc members of NATO to Ukraine. And that ended up
foundering on politicians basically couldn?t figure out a way to do it
without too much escalation risk. So I think you?re right. The attitudes
have hardened. And I think there is still that escalation risk hiding in
the background underneath all of these decisions that are being made.
ezra klein
I want to put a pin in escalation risk because we?re going to come back
to that. But I do want to ask for another moment about the hardening of
positions. So we have these really devastating sanctions that we?ve imposed
on Russia. And there are exceptions around energy sales in particular, but
at this point, we?ve destroyed their financial system.
A lot of key players in both their commercial and financial
architecture have simply pulled out. I mean, Visa and Mastercard aren?t
working in Russia anymore. Citibank, Citigroup is pulling out of Russia.
These things have gone even beyond what the sanctions themselves were
potentially doing. And it is a little hard for me to imagine the kind of
deal that Putin could make where it would be a dirty deal with Ukraine.
Because if he?s going to stop an invasion that he believes, over time, he
would win, it will probably be because he got quite a bit of what he wanted.
But given how we have framed Putin in the international system now in
our moral cosmology, the idea that we?re going to have him wall Ukraine off
from NATO and possibly hold on to a fair amount of territory in the east,
and then just go back to treating Russia normally and lift the sanctions,
even as he made all these gains, it?s hard for me to imagine the domestic
politics of that working out in the United States and Europe.
emma ashford
It?s going to be very, very difficult for policy makers to do it. I
don?t think that means they shouldn?t try because I genuinely do think that
? I mean, it?s too late for off-ramps, but not finding a way to resolve
this conflict results in worse outcomes, worse outcomes for people inside
Ukraine, potentially worse outcomes for Europe, more broadly. And so again,
I think it?s going to be unpopular, but I do think that there?s going to
have to be some sanctions relief in exchange for actually ending the war.
And I will note that as horrible as that sounds, that Putin is getting
some of what he wanted. He?s probably going to get Crimea as part of Russia
as part of this if this happens. But as horrible as that is, he?s also not
getting what he actually set out to do. I don?t think we?re at risk anymore
of Ukraine completely losing its sovereignty. Three weeks ago, I would have
told you that was a very high probability.
So the effort that the West has poured into this, the sanctions that we
have put on, they have had some impact. The weapons have helped the
Ukrainians to resist the Russians. The sanctions are hitting hard. And what
we need to do now is rather than just letting those sanctions go on
forever, we need to use them as an instrument to try and improve the
situation again. So we need to offer a carrot now that we?ve used the stick.
ezra klein
Can you say more on believing that Ukraine isn?t in at least as much
danger of fully losing its sovereignty? Because that has remained closer to
my base case, but I?m taking the conventional wisdom from two weeks ago,
and you?re following this more moment to moment. Why don?t you think that
will happen? I think the model a lot of people have is that the Russian
forces are so overwhelming that if they simply maintain a commitment to
grinding through Ukraine, eventually, they will simply win.
emma ashford
You know, I think that is possible, but I think there are also
increasing questions about how long the Russians can stay in the field,
keep up this level of progress without, at least, some kind of ceasefire to
sort of recoup and sort of re-fortify themselves. Several weeks ago, the
presumption definitely was that the Russians would roll over Ukraine quite
fast. And even a couple of weeks back, you know, the assumption was that if
the Russians didn?t do it fast, they would do it in a very slow, grinding
fashion. I think that there is certainly an element of truth to that, right?
One of the scenarios, one of the ways that this could go is that the
Russians basically increased their bombardment of the major cities. They
bombed Ukraine into rubble. But that doesn?t necessarily get you the
political objectives. So we have already seen the Russians try to insert a
puppet government in a couple of cities in east of the country ? doesn?t
seem to be going very well. We are no closer to sort of the actual
Ukrainian government collapsing, having to flee, leaders being assassinated.
So if regime change is their goal and the destruction of Ukrainian
sovereignty, thus far, at least, the Russians are doing a very bad job, and
it?s not clear if they?re going to be able to complete that job. So then
the other path then is that the Russians are doing badly enough. It doesn?t
mean they?re going to lose in the long-term, but it means that they may be
unwilling to pour more into this conflict. They might be willing to settle
for something less than the absolutist gains they were going for at the
start. And this is how peace settlement, peace negotiations work in almost
all wars, right? It?s rarely that one side loses and another side entirely
wins. It?s almost always some kind of compromise because future fighting is
more costly than giving up on your absolutist gains.
ezra klein
This is where I think it is at least interesting to imagine Putin as a
strategic actor. Because I think a model of him that is consistent with a
lot of the information we have, if not all of it, is that he believed the
Russian identity in Ukraine was a lot stronger than it was. He believed the
Ukrainian military was a lot weaker than it was. He believed the Russian
military was a lot stronger than it was. And then the actual war has
undermined many of these beliefs.
And so now he?s faced with a situation where he?s not going to preside
over a lightning invasion that topples Ukrainian government and has at
least a substantial portion of the population cheering in the streets.
You?re dealing, no matter what you do, with a Ukrainian population that now
hates you. And you?re going to be trying to do an occupation of a very,
very large geographically and population wise country, when your economy is
shattered.
And, you know, Putin is somebody who has had very strategic and, in
many ways, correct criticisms of America?s foreign policy adventurism and
the way it would weaken our country and the way we would not be able to
hold territory, like in Afghanistan and Iraq, that we thought we?d be able
to hold. He clearly understands those ideas on some conceptual level. And
so if he?s even minimally strategic at this point, he?s got to be looking
for some option here that isn?t an unending occupation of Ukraine because
he doesn?t, it seems to me at least, have the troops, the morale, or the
Treasury to finance an unending occupation of Ukraine in a way that doesn?t
severely hurt Russia itself. Is that too optimistic about either the
situation or his state of mind about it?
emma ashford
It?s possible it?s too optimistic, but I do think that this is one of
those interesting cases where we have this very insulated, personalistic
dictator. He?s obviously been receiving bad information. One of the few
things that can really cut through that system is his ability to look on
the internet, to turn on the news, and he can see that things aren?t going
well. And so reality has a way of intruding onto that bubble in the context
of this conflict.
And you say that Putin maybe is thinking about America?s interventions
and how we got bogged down. I would wonder if he doesn?t also have on his
mind the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which you know, happened when
he was a young man, ended up costing the lives of many young Soviet men,
and was, again, an utter debacle for that country. And so he knows the
costs of occupation. And Ukraine is incredibly important to Russia, to
Putin personally. He may believe that the cost will be worth it. But if he
is offered a relatively attractive settlement, it might be enough to
overcome that inclination. And so again, this is a deal with the devil. And
this is why nobody likes realists. But what I?m saying is that in the grand
scheme of things, this will be better for everybody than long-term
sanctions that end up eviscerating Russia while Russia destroys Ukraine.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ezra klein
Let me then turn the lens a bit more on us and talk about maybe some
other people who don?t like realists. So this has been a moment where
liberal interventionists and neoconservatives are saying, see, we were
right all along. This is what happens when America backs off. In The
Journal commentary, John Podhoretz wrote an article called,
?Neoconservatism, A Vindication.? And his argument there is that neocons
believe the Soviet Union was evil, that it could not be restrained through
negotiations. It had to be deterred through consequences and American
strength.
And he writes, quote, ?At the current moment, deterrence is what
America lost in the years before Vladimir Putin took the gamble of going
into Ukraine. And it is deterrence we need to restore. That is why this is
a neoconservative moment.? Is he right?
emma ashford
In the last few months, we have been trying to deter Russia from going
into Ukraine using a variety of threatened economic responses. But we
didn?t admit Ukraine to NATO. And we never made a commitment to militarily
defend Ukraine. So from that point of view, military deterrence hasn?t
failed in Europe. Putin has not threatened states that are actual members
of NATO. And I just have trouble believing this argument that it?s because
America wasn?t strong enough that Putin is acting the way he is now.
Realists like myself are actually, in many ways, making the opposite
argument. We are arguing that because the U.S. has pushed so far into the
areas, particularly around Russia, but you could make the same argument
about China, that that is when we are starting to see those states push
back because they?re worried about the extent of U.S. gains in their
region. And so that?s a very different argument. And to me, the current
situation really seems to sort of support that, rather than necessarily
supporting the notion that Putin is reacting because America is weak, in
some way.
ezra klein
I?ve heard you say in other interviews that the situation we?re in now
is a result of 30 years of liberal interventionist foreign policy choices.
But that now that we?re in it, all the liberal interventionists are coming
out and saying, see, you just didn?t listen to us. Can you say a bit more
about that? How do you see the big foreign policy picture? And who should
come out of this a little strengthened in their analysis?
emma ashford
Well, it?s easy for me to say, because I?m on one side of the debate. I
think my side should come out on top. But the fact is that what you just
said is something I have seen happening. People who spent 30 years after
the fall of the Soviet Union, arguing that the U.S. goal should be to
expand NATO, to expand the European Union, to focus on pushing liberal
democracy and human rights in Eastern Europe, that these would be the
things that would make Europe safer and more secure. It?s not at all clear
to me that those claims have been proven true in any way.
Indeed, what I see is kind of the opposite. The states that have made
it under the NATO umbrella, they?re in a better place than they would have
been otherwise. But states like Ukraine ? and this could also apply to
Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, right, all of those states that are kind of
caught between Russia and the West and have been placed in this position
where it?s kind of a zero sum choice, whether you move towards the West or
whether you retain your historical ties to Russia, to me, that is what has
provoked this crisis at a large level.
And so for some liberal internationals to turn around and say, well,
this is what we warned about all along, that Russia was a bad actor, and so
we?ve been proven right, to me, rather, ignores the concerns about security
that Russia has been expressing for 30 years. And again, it doesn?t, in any
way, justify the Russian invasion, but they have been expressing the same
concerns since the 1990s about NATO expansion, about the future trajectory
of Ukraine and other states, and about the fact that Russia has been
effectively excluded from the European security environment. And to me,
what the current crisis shows is what a state that has been excluded from
the security environment in any legitimate sense, what they end up doing as
a result of that. And that?s a very realist approach to this crisis. But I
think the evidence bears it out.
ezra klein
One critique I sometimes hear of that argument is that it robs
countries like Ukraine, Poland, or others, of their own agency, and that
they have wanted to become more Western. They have wanted to come under a
different umbrella, or at least, balance the powers threatening them
against each other. You can make a very similar argument about countries
that are near to China and that are thinking about how to balance the
pressures of a rising China and the various American stratagems to balance
China?s rise.
And on the other hand, there is this concern that America is putting a
lot of countries into this weird no man?s land, where, on the one hand, we
are encouraging them and giving them opportunities to westernize and come
closer to us, but we are not committed enough to them to defend them
against the consequences of a Russia, a China, or others, becoming
aggravated and deciding enough is enough. How do you balance those out?
emma ashford
So I?m arguing from the point of view of U.S. security, right? I fully
acknowledge upfront that that is my bias, that is my viewpoint. So I am
concerned about the notion of NATO expansion for U.S. security and, to a
lesser extent, for the states that are already inside NATO. And I do think
there is a tension, right? The security of the states that have joined NATO
inside Eastern Europe, their security is probably more assured than it
would have been otherwise.
But some of the best scholarship on this subject on the question of
NATO?s expansion basically concludes that NATO?s expansion was good for
those states in Eastern Europe because it gave them the security guarantee,
helped them bolster democracy at home, helped with things like civilian
control of the military and stuff like that, but it was bad from the point
of view of the U.S. and other existing NATO members during the Cold War
because it added a new level of security commitments that would be hard to
defend and that pushed us right up against Russia?s border in a way that we
weren?t before.
So, I mean, I don?t think there?s necessarily a contradiction there. It
depends on whose point of view you?re looking at. I will say I think the
debate inside NATO about NATO?s open door policy has become problematically
ideological. The notion that NATO?s open door is a sacrosanct principle
that we cannot give up is not actually how it?s written in NATO?s founding
documents. Article 10 of NATO?s charter actually says that the states that
are members of NATO can, by consensus, invite other states to join them if
it would improve the alliance?s security. That?s all it says. It doesn?t
offer a right for all states to necessarily join this military alliance.
And that has long been a concern that many realists have suggested about
NATO expansion is that treating it as a club that states can join if they
want and they have a right to do so necessarily weakens the alliance more
broadly.
And you know, I think you mentioned Asia. With regard to Taiwan and the
current crisis, I think one of the lessons that we can say about European
security over the last 30 years is, we haven?t been as creative in Europe
as we have been elsewhere. The ambiguity that the United States has over
Taiwan with the One China policy is probably part of the reason why we
haven?t seen conflict over that. And Europe is maybe a place where we need
to get more creative in thinking about middle ways that don?t necessarily
involve NATO?s membership for everyone or NATO?s membership for no one.
ezra klein
So let me try to wade into this very tricky territory because I know it
bedevils all of foreign policy forever. You were saying you begin from the
perspective of U.S. security. I don?t know that?s where I begin or even
where most people begin. I have some miasma of U.S. security, of values I
believe in for the world, and then also some recognition, I hope, of our
limits and the commitments we will and will not make.
And I think the criticism of the position you?re laying out here is
that NATO?s open door policy is not 100 percent a security policy. It?s
somewhat a values policy. We want countries to become more democratic. We
want them to become part of the liberal infrastructure that we think of as
the West. But obviously, we don?t always live up to our values. And
whenever we begin talking about them, accusations of hypocrisy fly fast and
furious. And most of them are warranted. So how do you think about the
tension between the values we have and the commitments we?re willing to
make?
emma ashford
It?s a difficult conversation. I think realists often get this rap as
being immoral or amoral. And that?s not really true. There are lots of
realist theories out there, particularly the classical realists who are
writing in the aftermath of the World Wars. You talk a lot about values and
how they apply. And the way that I like to think about it is a quote from
Hans Morgenthau, who?s one of the fathers of American realism.
And he basically says ? and I?m paraphrasing ? politicians cannot only
pursue what they think is right. They have to be constrained by an
understanding of what is possible in specific time and places. And that is
how I think of U.S. interests. So I think of what we can achieve in the
world, how does it impact Americans here at home, and does it spread our
values, does it uphold our values. That is the tertiary consideration that
comes into play if it is something that we are able to do without hurting
American security or prosperity too much at home.
And the other way you?ll sometimes hear this argument framed is in,
well, realists want to give Russia or China sphere of influence. And that?s
immoral. I don?t think that?s the right way to frame this at all. I?m not
saying that Russia has a normative right to control Ukraine. I think that?s
a terrible notion. I do think that Ukraine, though, is a place where
American interests are relatively small, Russian interests are much bigger,
and we do not have an interest in getting in a larger conflict with Russia
over that. So the spheres of influence idea, that is where the constraints
of what is possible without harming American security and prosperity,
that?s where they come to play.
And so from my point of view, the notion that we have repeatedly told
Ukraine that we would let them in NATO and defend them, and now we?re not
doing it, to me, that is almost more immoral than saying upfront, this is
too much of a risk for us. We will not defend you. You need to find another
solution, like the Finns did during World War II, like the Austrians did
afterwards.
ezra klein
This gets at something I find very frustrating in foreign policy
conversations, which is that they have a very heavy overlay of aesthetics,
in my view. The people who claim that they are pursuing American security
often seem to me to have very fuzzy or underspecified definitions of
American security and how it will actually play out. The people who claim
to be motivated by values often seem to me to be perfectly fine with
tremendous levels of hypocrisy in America?s foreign policy values and who
we do and don?t help and what disasters we do and don?t focus on.
I hear a lot about the Ukrainians who could die in Russia?s invasion.
And properly so, I?m hearing much less about the Afghans who might die from
starvation in the coming months from the Yemens who are caught in a war
that America has helped to finance through our partnership with Saudi
Arabia. And that creates, I think, this question of whether or not the
stated goals actually fit the preferred means. Something that you?ve pushed
for in foreign policy is a belief in restraint. Can you talk a bit about
why you think more American restraint would be better for more American
security or for American values? Because I think the assumption is if we
care about something, we should be doing more to achieve it. But the
argument you?ve made and that some others make is that if you actually look
at our history, maybe we should be doing less.
emma ashford
I think people underestimate the extent to which American foreign
policy, since the end of the Cold War, has become incredibly expansive, and
in particular, expansive in a very military sense, though we?ve also seen a
lot of expansion on things like sanctions, expansion of some U.S.
alliances, like NATO. But American goals have become just far more
universal than they were during the Cold War.
Now, during the Cold War, we often said similar things, right, that we
were standing for all liberal democracies everywhere, but I think
policymakers during that period fundamentally understood, again, that we
were constrained by that superpower competition, that there were places
where we maybe couldn?t do anything. And there were places where we didn?t
want to act because we didn?t want to antagonize the Soviets. And a lot of
the history of the Cold War is both sides, both superpowers, sort of
dancing right up to that line to try and avoid a bigger conflict, while
still hurting the other side.
In the post-Soviet period, since the end of the Cold War, instead,
American foreign policy has become defined much more as, why aren?t we
doing more? What else can we do around the world? Everything from the
invasion of Iraq, the war on terror, we?re not just going to go and destroy
the Taliban in 2001. We?re also going to end terror. We?re going to spread
human rights. We?re going to educate Afghan women. And there are a lot of
U.S. foreign policy objectives during this period that look like that.
And I think the logical endpoint to that is some of the debates that
we?re seeing today over Ukraine, it?s people on cable news saying, well,
why don?t we just set up a no-fly zone over Ukraine? And the answer is
because Russia is a nuclear power. And we don?t want to get in a shooting
war with a nuclear power. But 30 years of America focusing less on whether
an action in foreign policy is good for U.S. security and more on whether
we can do it, what we should actually do, whether we should do more, I
think that has brought us to a place where our foreign policy debates is
very problematic.
ezra klein
I think this is actually a very interesting moment in that because two
tensions strike me as being really pitted against each other. I would say
that in American politics, since George W. Bush?s presidency and the many
foreign policy disasters of it that we?re still living through, I?ve been
thinking recently about how defined Joe Biden?s presidency and foreign
policy has been by Bush era initiatives, withdrawing from Afghanistan for
one, but also to the extent you believe NATO?s expansion is a contributor
to this crisis, that was done under George W. Bush over the objection of
both his own advisors and many of the European countries.
So we still, to some degree, live in George W. Bush?s foreign policy
world and the aftermath of his decisions. But I think since then, there?s
been under Obama, under Trump, under Biden, in different ways, among all of
them, much more skepticism of putting American boots on the ground, much
more of a sense of the limits in what we can do in terms of occupation,
nation building, in terms of what the American military can do. But that
has, rather than leading to a lot of restraint, I think led to a search for
ways of exerting our power that feel to us like they are not war. And so we
have very, very aggressive sanctions policies. You talk about the
enthusiasm in Washington for setting up no-fly zones. We like to do a lot
of arming of people now, so we?re arming Ukrainians, but that?s obviously
been a consistent theme in our foreign policy in recent decades.
Are we fooling ourselves about the degree to which we are now at war
with Russia, or at least, the degree to which Russia sees us as a direct
combatant? I mean, are we fooling ourselves that they don?t understand our
sanctions now as a kind of economic war, that direct arms provision from
NATO won?t potentially escalate into a shooting war? I worry that we?ve
drawn a line in our own mental conception of American actions that might
not be the line other people draw.
emma ashford
I think that?s pretty accurate. I think there is a ? I mean, call it a
pathology in American foreign policy thinking today that sees almost
anything the U.S. does abroad as not war, as peaceful, if it?s not dropping
a bomb. We see that in all these calls to do more in Ukraine. The fact is
we?re already doing a lot for Ukraine. We are arming the Ukrainians. We?re
sending them all kinds of aid. We?re authorizing emergency loans. You know,
this is not on the scale of lend-lease, but this is equivalent to that
process from the 1940s.
And then, on the sanctions side, we have sanctioned Russia in a way
that is comparable probably only to Iran in the modern era. Iran was not an
economy like Russia?s. And we have placed sanctions on Russia. Again, the
closest examples that I can think of go back to the 1940s and the 1930s of
states engaging in that level of warfare against another state. And so I
think we?re underestimating how damaging those tools can be, how much we
are involved in this conflict, and how others might see it. Now, I?m a
little more reassured today than I was a week or two back. I don?t think
the economic steps that we?ve taken so far are going to lead to escalation
necessarily. In the absence of further steps, I don?t think the arms are ?
again, I don?t think they?re going to lead to escalation, as they stand
right now. But I think in both cases, further steps could quite easily
prompt a Russian response of some kind.
On the financial side, we could see some sort of Russian cyber attack
on the U.S. financial system or some sort of asymmetric response from them.
On the issue of weapons, the weapons are a tempting target for the
Russians. We know that last weekend, the Russians struck an airbase just
inside Ukraine from the Polish border that was reportedly being used as a
mustering zone for foreign fighters coming into Ukraine. And so, again, the
risk of a miscalculation by one side or the other, say the Russians strike
a convoy just on the wrong side of a border or something like that, could
quite easily spark a larger conflict. And I think we?re underplaying the
escalation risks of the things that we?re already doing, even as I think
Washington has rightly ruled out the no-fly zone idea because people
realize how escalatory it would be.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ezra klein
Do we underrate the degree to which sanctions could backfire or turn
Russians against us? And I say this for two reasons. One is that I think
we?ve seen it in other countries. And particularly, if we believe that
Putin has a lot of control over what Russians see in the media, the way
that an American and European-led sanctions regime leading to total
economic devastation of Russia narrativized by Vladimir Putin, the idea
that is going to turn Russians against him as opposed to us may not be true.
But I also was thinking about an email I got from a listener who is a
Russian expat and is somebody who doesn?t particularly like Vladimir Putin,
but is furious about the sanctions because, to them, we are destroying the
lives, the savings of all these ordinary Russians who had nothing to do
with it. And what they hear in the media conversation is an almost glee,
like a do more. Like, why can?t we harm Russia economically even more
expansively? Get the oil blocked.
And I want to note, I have some of those same impulses, and I have them
because I want to see Russia stopped. But to the extent it doesn?t stop
Russia, the country, but what it really does is make it much harder for
individual Russians, particularly those trying to go abroad, particularly
those in danger from this regime, who have nothing to do with this war, to
the extent what it does is it destroys their savings or makes them
inaccessible, then is that really going to achieve our goals? Or is that
just going to turn a lot of Russians against us and cause a lot of human
suffering? Nick Mulder, who?s written this great book on sanctions,
mentioned in an interview how many Russians who are trying to flee Russia
right now, they can?t access a lot of their money because of Visa and
Mastercard pulling out. And so they basically can?t get out. Have we told
ourselves a story in which our sanctions are targeted and logical that?s
not actually true?
emma ashford
I think we?ve been telling ourselves this story for years now. Russia
is, I mean, an order of magnitude more powerful sanctions than we?ve seen
in recent years. But you know, as somebody that?s worked on sanctions,
there are so many cases where American sanctions have started out as these
very careful, calibrated, targeted sanctions, just focused on elites or
just focused on those with ties to militias or terror groups or something
like that, and then over time, the sanctions sort of slowly grow and get
bigger and bigger. And there?s more and more.
And eventually, you end up with it can be very hard for ordinary
citizens in those states to trade with other countries, right? So in some
of the worst cases in places like Iran, we?ve seen difficulties obtaining
medical supplies, right? The U.S. government at one point had to facilitate
a humanitarian channel because no bank would allow companies to trade with
Iran just to do that trade.
So we do, I think, underestimate the effect that sanctions have on the
average person in the state. We think they?re targeted sanctions, it?s
fine. But they don?t stay targeted. On the other hand, I think we also
overestimate the extent to which they actually hurt those in charge. So in
the 2014 case, after Russia seized Crimea, we put on all these big
sanctions onto Russia. And you know, one of the things that the Russian
government did was it provided bailout funds to the oligarchs that were
specifically sanctioned under those authorities.
So the Rotenberg brothers, for example, who are sort of oligarchs with
some Kremlin ties, they got contracts to do infrastructure projects inside
Russia to make up for losing some of their business through U.S. sanctions.
So sanctions can, in many cases, actually bolster those in charge. And
again, the Russian case is qualitatively different right now because it?s
so big, but it would not surprise me if there were not some folks around
Vladimir Putin saying, we can use this to our advantage. A Russian economy
that is more insulated from the West will be to our advantage. And they
might be right from the point of view of their narrow clique in power.
ezra klein
The other problem with believing you have a very targeted approach to a
war is that you might be wrong. And you?ve been writing about the
possibilities for escalatory spirals that don?t come from the intentions of
any side, but come from mistakes from fog of war, from policies creating
feedback loops that people aren?t anticipating. What, right now, do you
think of as more plausible pathways for escalation than we are giving them
credit for?
emma ashford
I think we?re seriously underestimating the risks of arms transfers.
Now I don?t necessarily advocate ending the arms transfers to the Ukrainian
government, but I do think we should acknowledge that it?s going to get
more difficult. And also, in a scenario where, say, the Ukrainian
government has had to flee Kyiv or a scenario where we?re talking about an
insurgency, I think there are a number of cases where the Russians might be
tempted to strike at those shipments. And just for a variety of technical
reasons, the easiest place to do that is when the shipments are being
assembled on the soil of NATO member states. So that is one potential area
for escalation.
Another one that I?m concerned about is, you might call it freelancing
by member states of NATO, or just states striking out on their own and
doing different things. So one thing that we?ve learned today is that a
couple of Eastern European leaders are actually planning to visit Kyiv to
talk to Zelensky in person. And that?s incredibly risky, right? This is the
era of Zoom. And instead, they are going to fly or drive into a war zone,
surrounded by tanks where they could be killed. That is the kind of
escalation risk that I worry that states might be taking on their own
without necessarily having the backing of the full NATO alliance.
So there?s a lot of these scenarios. And they all involve some
misperception, misunderstanding, accidental escalation, firing that kills a
number of NATO troops on the border, something like that. But anyone who
studied history can tell you, that is how war starts. So this is not
something that is out of the realm of possibility.
ezra klein
There?s a lot of fear right now about nuclear weapons being the
endpoint of escalation. But at the moment, I think something we?re
under-rating and which you gestured at earlier is massive cyber attacks.
And this is something that every security expert I?ve spoken to for years
says we are nowhere near prepared for. We don?t really know how we?d
respond to them. We know we have huge vulnerabilities and all kinds of
critical infrastructure and financial infrastructure. They are not hardened
at this point. We know Russia?s been looking at these vulnerabilities for a
long time.
So if Russia wanted to begin striking back at the U.S. and Europe in,
more or less, the terms we?ve struck at them, that might be how they go
about it. Can you talk a bit about the risks of cyber attacks here and what
might be the potential lines that get crossed leading them to happen?
emma ashford
Yeah, so I mean, I?m going to start by saying here that I?m not a cyber
expert, so I?m mostly telling you what others have told me. But I think
there?s two interesting things that pop out in this crisis on the cyber
front. One is that we have seen remarkably little use of those techniques
by the Russians. They took down some government websites and servers in the
first days of this intervention, but they?ve really not engaged in any
large scale use of it at all.
And the most likely explanation appears to be that despite all the hype
over the years, cyber network exploitation is actually not as useful for
battlefield use as many people think. So that one?s interesting. And I
think the cyber scholars are watching that. And it will be interesting to
see, going forward, if Russia steps up its use of that over time.
The other area where I have been hearing a number of calls for the U.S.
to engage in cyber attacks. And I think it?s interesting that the White
House clearly views that as far more escalatory than some of the other
steps we?ve taken ? the arms, the sanctions, et cetera. Because the calls
to use cyber techniques to strike directly at Russian infrastructure, stop
Russian trains, make it hard for Russia to fight the war in Ukraine, those
seem to be viewed pretty clearly as making the U.S. an actual party to this
conflict.
And so I find that interesting. And I also wonder if that is part of
what is, at least at present, constraining Russia on that front, that they
are worried that a direct cyber attack would imply that they consider the
U.S. a full party to this conflict and that the U.S. might enter in a
conventional military sense. So the story of cyber in this conflict is
really interesting in that it just hasn?t been as relevant as we might
think. So I?m more concerned these days about the sort of conventional
escalation risks, rather than the cyber ones.
ezra klein
Let?s talk about the nuclear ones for a minute because that?s on many
people?s minds. So you?ve said that, quote, ?nuclear escalation is
possible, should the United States or its NATO partners intervene in
Russia?s war against Ukraine.? That?s coming out of Putin and Sergey Lavrov
being very, very clear about that. Something I see often, as people hear
that and as they see us back off in the face of Putin?s nuclear saber
rattling, is, well, if we just back down whenever he suggests that, don?t
we just encourage more of it in the future?
If he?s taken the stance that he?s willing to do this and everybody
else is taking the stance that we?re not willing to risk it, doesn?t that
create a kind of imbalanced field that could get you into a worse threat
space five, 10 years from now? How do you think about the gamesmanship
around nuclear here and how the Biden administration has approached it?
emma ashford
I think the Biden administration has approached this largely correctly,
which is to point out the reality that the U.S. has extended its nuclear
umbrella to a number of states in Europe that are members of NATO. We
haven?t done so to Ukraine. And so I concur with what they?re doing. And I
think it?s actually the correct approach, which is to say, we?ve made a
very clear decision that we?re not willing to risk a nuclear exchange for
Ukraine. That?s why we didn?t let them in NATO in the first place. And
escalating now where it might bring that risk of nuclear exchange is, in
some ways, just undermining those previous decisions.
I think that calculus would look very different if we saw, say, a
Russian invasion of a Baltic state. And that is a product of those
decisions and the fact that expanding NATO meant expanding the U.S. nuclear
umbrella. We do have to remember, I think, again, that all through the Cold
War, we were constrained by the notion that other states had nuclear
weapons and that we didn?t necessarily want to take them on head-on as a
result.
That is one of the reasons why the Cold War has so many of these proxy
conflicts and why after the big crises of the 1950s and the 1960s, Berlin,
Cuba, et cetera, why we see the superpowers resort to proxy conflicts far
away from Europe and to arms control and confidence building measures on
the European continent, right? They were trying to avoid getting back into
that kind of crisis because both sides knew that it could end badly.
And so I just have real trouble with these arguments that say that
Putin is committing nuclear blackmail, and we must push back against him
and engage in brinksmanship, because that is, in effect, asking us to put
the whole world under a nuclear umbrella in a way that we have never done
historically.
ezra klein
There have been a series of rounds of, I think it?d be going too far to
call them peace talks, but negotiations of some sort between Ukraine and
Russia during this conflict. There are more that began on Monday. How do
you understand where that is right now? Should we take that as serious? Is
that something both sides simply have to do for international support? What
is your assessment of the talks we keep reading about, but also reading
about them going nowhere?
emma ashford
I think they are necessary. And in many ways, I actually think the
Ukrainians are doing the right thing when they didn?t necessarily have to,
in going ahead with these negotiations. I think, in fact, the Ukrainians
could have received quite a lot of Western support if they?d simply said,
we will not talk to the Russian aggressor. I think they would have found a
fair amount of support in various European capitals, in particular, for
that.
I take their willingness to engage in talks as that they are willing to
try and find a solution here that doesn?t necessarily involve either
complete capitulation by Ukraine or a complete withdrawal by Russia. And as
I said a little earlier, one of the things that we have seen during this
process is, it seems that in the first round of talks, the Ukrainian and
Russian delegations just showed up and sort of read one another statements.
But now what we understand is happening is that they are actually
talking about some of these issues. And there are going to be some issues
that will be very difficult to resolve. The status of territories in
Eastern Ukraine, the ones that Russia now claims as independent states,
Ukraine obviously claims as its territory, that?s going to be tough. But if
the Russians have, indeed, backed off of their demands for regime change or
power sharing in Kyiv, and the Ukrainians are willing to talk about
neutrality, which it seems like they are, you know again, I think we?re
starting to see some movement there towards an agreement that both sides
might be able to accept.
And I think that the key here for the U.S. is going to be encouraging
those talks without necessarily taking a position. And at the end, when it
appears that there is more hope of a deal, coming in to talk about what
sanctions relief might be involved in this with the Russians, but letting
the Ukrainians take the lead because this is Ukrainian security at stake.
It is their deal to make.
ezra klein
I want to end by, in a realist way, looking at some of the other big
powers that are involved in this conflict that are rethinking or changing
their policy stances in relationship to it and might come out from it
changed. Let me begin with Germany. How would you describe the role Germany
is playing and the way Germany is changing?
emma ashford
There?s been a sea change in German security policy in the last three
weeks. The Germans went from being, basically, the most reluctant large
member of NATO to offering to spend more than 2 percent of their G.D.P. on
defense and committing extra funding to get up to that amount over the next
four years, at least, initially.
Now, it?s still an open question the extent to whether that?s going to
be easily translated into actual military capabilities. It?s going to take
a lot of different things ? the Europeans coming to some kind of agreement
on how to spend this new money, what strategic direction to take. It?s
going to take the U.S. not parachuting in and dominating those talks.
But I do think we?ve gone from a place a month and a half ago where the
notion of Germany as a geopolitical actor was relatively unthinkable to a
place where now Germany, as part of a broader Europe, might actually be
able to act as a power center in coming years.
ezra klein
How about China?
emma ashford
China has been put in a very difficult situation in this conflict, and
I say that not that anybody should feel sympathetic for Xi Jinping, but
China is trying to walk a very fine line here, not repudiating its sort of
increasingly close partnership with Russia, while not angering the U.S. too
much by doing things like helping Russia circumvent sanctions. And again, I
defer to China experts on this, but my feeling is that China is not going
to be able to sustain this balancing act for long.
The Russians have now requested Chinese assistance. We don?t yet know
whether that will take the form of weapons or just of what Washington calls
non-lethal aid, which is to say, blankets, meals, et cetera, for soldiers.
But it?s going to be increasingly hard for China to sustain this notion
that they are not taking sides in this conflict. In fact, we may have
already crossed that point.
ezra klein
And finally, because I?ve been a little surprised by the role they?ve
been playing and the stances they?ve taken, India.
emma ashford
Yeah, the Indian position is really interesting. So one of India?s
biggest arms suppliers is Russia. In fact, at the start of this crisis,
before the war actually happened, Vladimir Putin took a trip to India, had
these smiling, happy pictures with Narendra Modi. And that relationship has
been relatively close in recent years. When you add to that the fact that
the Indians import something like 80 percent of their oil from overseas to
fuel what is a giant economy, you can see why the Indians are concerned
about potentially losing access to Russian markets, right?
They?re concerned about losing access to Russian oil, losing access to
food supplies. There?s various precious minerals and metals Russia exports.
And India also, obviously, has this long history of non-alignment. And so
this came as a surprise to many in Washington, who are more used to the way
we?ve been talking about India in the last few years as a democratic
bulwark against China, right, part of America?s democratic alliance in the
Indo-Pacific. But actually, India is very much sort of a third party apart
from this conflict. It?s not taking either side, and it is showing that it
is definitely still willing to work with the Russians in the commercial and
trade space insofar as it benefits India.
ezra klein
I think it?s a good place to end. So always our final question, what
are three books you would recommend to the audience?
emma ashford
So you actually already mentioned one of the books I was going to say,
which is Nick Mulder?s new book, ?The Economic Weapon,? which is a really
excellent overview of the rise of sanctions as an economic tool, in
particular, because he goes back further than many histories of sanctions
do. He doesn?t just go back to the 2000s or even into the ?70s. He goes all
the way back to the first World War and talks a lot about how the concept
of sanctions developed.
And I think as we move from the targeted sanctions of the post-Cold War
period back to something approaching that economic warfare, this is a
really helpful book for understanding we?ve done this before. What happened
last time?
A second book that I would recommend is Mary Sarotte?s ?Not One Inch,?
which is a very recently published history of U.S.-Russian relations in the
post-Cold War period. So NATO?s expansion, but not only that ? she
basically looks at how the U.S.-Russian relationship went from actually
being in a very good place in 1991 to being, basically, dead today, and how
steps by both the West and Russia created this sort of long running, large
scale security spiral, like we just talked about, to bring us to where we
are today. So that?s a really excellent book.
And then the third book is a little older. I would recommend Chris
Clark?s ?The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.? It?s a
wonderful history book for those who haven?t read it about the origins of
the First World War. But one of the things I think Clark does incredibly
effectively in the book is show the perspectives of all the main actors and
show that really nobody wanted a war, and certainly nobody wanted a World
War. Yet, somehow we ended up there anyway, step by small step.
And in the context of Ukraine, of the escalation risks that we?re
talking about, I think ?The Sleepwalkers? is a really valuable comparison
piece for thinking about the ways in which small steps result in really big
outcomes.
ezra klein
Emma Ashford, thank you very much.
emma ashford
Thanks for having me.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ezra klein
That?s the show. If you enjoyed it, there are a few ways you can help
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
?The Ezra Klein Show? is a production of New York Times Opinion. It is
produced by Rog? Karma, Annie Galvin and Jeff Geld; fact-checking by
Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker; original music by
Isaac Jones; and mixing by Jeff Geld. Our executive producer is Irene
Noguchi. Special thanks to Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski.
March 18, 2022
Produced by ?The Ezra Klein Show?
As we enter the fourth week of Russia?s invasion of Ukraine, many of the
possible pathways this conflict could take are terrifying. A military
quagmire that leads to protracted death and suffering. A Russian takeover
of Kyiv and installation of a puppet government. An accidental strike on
Polish or Romanian territory that draws America and the rest of NATO into
war. Or, perhaps worst of all, a series of escalations that culminates in
nuclear exchange.
But one possibility carries a glimmer of hope. This week, Ukrainian and
Russian negotiators began talks on a tentative peace plan ? one that would
involve Ukraine abandoning its attempts to join NATO and promising not to
host foreign military bases or weaponry, in exchange for Western security
guarantees and a Russian troop withdrawal. We?re still far from any kind of
definitive settlement ? and there are legitimate concerns over whether
Putin would accept any kind of deal at this point ? but it?s a start.
****
emma ashford is a senior fellow with the New American Engagement Initiative
at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and a member of the
school of foreign policy thinking known as ?realism.? Realists view
international relations as a contest between states for power and security;
they tend to focus less on the psychologies and ideologies of individual
leaders and more on the strategic self-interest of the parties involved.
It?s an imperfect framework but a useful one ? especially when it comes to
analyzing what it would take to achieve a successful negotiation or
settlement.
So I invited Ashford on the show to help me think through the different
trajectories the conflict could take ? and what the West can do to make
de-escalation more likely. We also discuss John Mearsheimer?s argument that
the West?s effort to expand NATO bears responsibility for Putin?s invasion,
why Ashford isn?t particularly worried about the possibility of Russian
cyberattacks on the West, how Western sanctions blur the line between war
and peace, whether NATO?s efforts to supply Ukraine with weapons might
backfire, why sanctions might not hurt Russian elites as much as Western
leaders hope and how this conflict is changing the geopolitical calculus of
countries like Germany, China and India.
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