Welcome to a special edition of dialogue on the unfolding crisis in Ukraine.

I want to thank you for joining us.

My name is Trevor Brown, I'm Dean of Ohio state universities John Glenn College of public affairs, and I'm going to be moderator-ing our conversation today.

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Now, just a little bit about this series and what to expect.

They dialogue is!

A collaboration between public media and the John Plan College of public affairs, that's developed into a robust speaker series featuring top names in be the, politics, and current affairs discussing the issues affecting our community and our nation.

Our topic today is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Something, and event that has captured the attention of the world.

Both world leaders and citizens around the globe.

Joining me for our discussion is doctor Scott Smith son, lieutenant colonel U.S. army, retired, professor of Geo strategy NGO strategy economics, whose career in the army involved providing strategic guidance to decision-makers about security threats around the globe.

And Dr. Liu can Ahmed weigh, professor of political science, global science, and public pot of C at the University of sarong Toronto.

A -- who's dedicated much of his career to authoritarianism and democracy in Russia.

Claude Scott , Lucan, thank you for much for joining us.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank.

You >> This is a complicated event and a multi layered situation.

I have many answers to questions ask and answer .

I know the audience will have many questions as well.

We're going to do our best to help explain what's happening, identify the implications, and look to where things might go from here.

I want to try to organize the conversations in three parts.

First, to try and get an understanding of what's happening now and where the conflict might go.

Then, seconds, we're going to explore the implications for geopolitics, the relations between specific individual nations, and multilateral organizations like the UN, the EU, and NATO.

And finally, in the third part, we'll finish by speculating what this means for the state of democracy, autocracy, and the liberal world order.

So let's start then, with our current state of the invasion.

I'm going to start with you, Claude Lucan.

As someone who knows the history of Russia and Ukraine's history over the last decades -- , were you surprised by Putin's invasion of Ukraine, as well as the timing and the scale?

>> I would say yes and no.

I think, and mostly.

Yes in terms of why this invasion is conceivable, those of us who have stealth time in the region and have lived in extended periods of time in Ukraine as well as Moscow, is that many of the Moscow elite really to not understand Ukraine and really do not understand that there is a separate Ukrainian nationhood that is quite strong.

I've always been struck by they are sort of delusional quality of their attitude towards Ukraine.

And also, they are territorial designed on Ukraine.

So that aspect of it is, and clearly, it is not surprising, and clearly, Putin's invasion as he made clear in his speech on February 21st, is part of that tradition of great Russian power.

This is a crudely imperialistic Act that we haven't really seen in many decades.

At the same time it's also surprising, because Putin was someone who everybody thought, and rightly so, was fairly cautious.

This is someone who had cared deeply about his public image, he would sort of, anything that sort of, pension reform, that was at all disrupt his image, he shied away from.

Furthermore, while he has shown in 2008 in Georgia and Ukraine in 2014, his willingness to engage in military action, there is all sorts of -- parts of the former Soviet Union that were our Lee Russell file, I'm and he could make the plausible claim, I think some, ain't your jaw and also Crimea in the Ukraine, that there is at least a possible case to be made that those populations might have supported Russian actions.

And this is a really radical break from that, it clearly very risky.

He's going in regions that even by his own, you know, measure, I'm sure, western Ukraine, are clearly very anti Russian.

In that sense, it is quite a surprise, so it's both, yeah.

>> Great, thank you, Pam Lucan .

Scott, I want to turn to you.

As a student of security threats around the globe.

I have you been surprised by the resilience of Ukrainians, both the citizenry and the military?

And what explains how Ukrainians have been able to adapt we respond to what is reportedly and overwhelming superior military force?

Them >> So Trevor, thanks for that question.

And Luke, and for your open comment as well.

So I think we're really seeing is we said before, a true sense of a unique Ukrainian political identity.

And that identity is manifest in that you have a certain higher society that is willing to resist on purpose to defend those moral and political principles that are tied to that identity.

Right?

And so, I think one of the things you seen that maybe separates the events of 2014 to what we're seeing now is in the last seven years, Ukraine in partnership with many countries, including the United States, have really tried to reinvigorate their security institutions.

But also, alarming and awakening their entire society about the challenge from Russia.

Just last year, Ukraine changed their constitution to make sure that every citizen knew they had a constitutional responsibility to resist any invasion or occupation.

So that the seed corner of what we're seeing manifest right now is a combination of a unique Ukrainian political and identity, and evolution of Ukraine's domestic politics, the role of its citizens, and how countries like the United States and others to include NATO, have been building up this capability for Ukraine in ways that really is changing and fundamentally challenging the assumptions of what the Kremlin thought would be an in an out blitzkrieg type operation.

And it's nothing like that at all.

Thanks, Scott.

I'm going to turn back to you.

As a student of Russia, and perhaps, of Putin, what do you think success looks like for Putin and for Russia, and what do you see as Putin and Russia Scholes with this intervention?

>> Well, I think it's original goals are very clear.

He's stated explicitly he wants to eliminates Ukraine at a nation, he wants to take over Ukraine.

And it's clear, as was mentioned, that he expected the Ukraine to fall like a house of cards.

And obviously, that has not happened.

So it's really hard to know, you know, there is no plan be right here.

That's part of what's so terrifying about this event.

It's obvious that's one, Putin really is not genetically capable of compromise at this point.

He's clearly set his entire legacy on this war.

At the same time, it's also extraordinarily clear that Ukraine will never submit.

So really, what you have here is quite terrifying.

It's a recipe for a very long, drawn out, extraordinarily bloody and catastrophic war.

That's really, when I think about it, that is what keeps me up at night.

I cannot see how this ends.

Outside of an unlikely event, like a military coup in Russia.

>> Trevor, can I add one thing to that?

So, Lucan earlier talked about this series of half frozen conflicts that Putin initiated going back in 2008 up until recently.

In each of those, his geopolitical objectives and games were not necessarily maximalist.

He wasn't looking to go into Georgia and take over the entire country.

With the projection of force into Syria was not about to completely bring in complete control of Syria back to the establishment, only key locations.

But what's key about this invasion, is that it's nothing but maximalist objectives.

It's all or nothing.

As Lucan said, he has enough force right now to close into major urban areas, to try to isolate Ukraine from -- other portions and neighboring countries, but not enough to combat a resistance.

And it's getting to exactly what's Lucan is saying we're seeing right now, it leads you to where there is no suboptimal outcome for Putin.

He either has to win or nothing.

There is no half measures like in 2014.

We are not in a 2014 Crimea space.

This is a completely different scenario right now.

>> This is, both of you, there's no way to use the term success for Ukraine.

But what does the pathway to some kind of peace look like for Ukraine?

Is there any scenario that allows for Ukraine to return to stability as a sovereign nation?

>> I think certainly, in the long, turn in some ways, this is a rebirth of the Ukrainian nation.

All this, who study and don't know anything about Ukraine, knew that western Ukrainians would do anything they could to resist Russian incursion.

That's not a surprise.

But what's really kind of invigorating and inspiring is places like -- and places in the south of Ukraine, this is supposed to be Putin's base, and yes, the Russian military's been able to go into those territories, but there are daily protests.

They're openly waving the Ukrainian flag right in front of their faces of Russian soldiers, and so people in this city are doing this, this is the south, this is the quote on quote pro-Russian part of Ukraine, you can only imagine the rest of the country.

>> Scott.

>> Trevor, just to build off Lucan's point, one of things you see is if you start contentious policies, there's usually a series of factors that have to be in place for any type of resistance to win, to be successful.

And we see all those manifest in Ukraine right now.

We have a cause that people are willing to fight and die for, it's a cause that is exclusive that's not exclusive of anyone in society, so you have a major role for women.

Women as moral authorities, women active players.

And you have a central figure that the resistance can rally around.

You absolutely have that right now in presidents Alinsky, in ways I don't think anyone, especially those in Moscow, we're counting on.

>> So we have a question in the chat.

Interpret this as the sort of maximalist question of what this Putin hope to gain?

Maybe interpret this at the more micro level.

In the near term, what is Putin trying to gain in Ukraine?

What resources?

What are the specific strategic targets that he's after?

I'll start with you, Scott.

>> So I'll maybe take, I'll throw a few things out there.

One, from an operational perspective, if you worked in the area that's Russia was able to cease and claim in 2014, Luhansk, Crimea, those were all obviously connected.

And the reason why the city Mariupol is so key, it's because if Russia takes, that you can now connect these areas that Russia has gained control over and seized in 2014.

So there is that element.

Another objective is to get to Kyiv and taking Kyiv.

My concern is you look at this and say nothing of the fact that in the south of expanding Russia control to try to block Ukraine's access to the Black Sea in totality, is huge.

Americans are kind of re-learning geography right now, in the country next door to Ukraine, Moldova.

Moldova is technically neutral, but there's a sliver of Moldova, another frozen conflict, in an area called trans niece drug, which is garrisons by Russian troops.

So Europe Biloxi to try to tie together all these different garrisons and movement makes the ability of processing a war of little easier.

And last, and certainly not least, the ability to circle these major cities and then be able to bomb them into submission it's similar to what we saw in Brasilia, the Chechnya and war in the 1990s, and unfortunately in Syria, with the bombing of Aleppo.

The other aspect of this bombing, what it does is you weaponize wartime refugees.

So in 2015, the heavy Russian bombing in Syria was a huge challenge to European unity and the idea of a -- western Europe.

It's impacted the domestic politics of this country and really caused a huge crisis for the EU.

You could see something similar going forward right now , the challenge I see in the long term is how do countries like Poland, like Slovakia, who are doing raising things to welcome in, I think, the estimates are up to 2 million wartime refugees, what does that look like six months from now?

Seven months from?

Now what's are the demands it will be on public policy, institutions, and mechanisms to make that sustainable while this resistance fights back overtime to regain Ukraine for Ukrainian?

Lucan, I'm gonna turn to you now now the scout has introduced western nations.

Our principal responses been rhetorical, to be clear, to be certain, objecting to the moral disgrace of this, militarization of European powers, Germany perhaps most significantly, and the supplying of armaments to Ukraine.

But also, and this is the one that has been given the most treatment over the last few new cycles, is economic sanctions, which is increasingly ratcheted up.

Someone who studies Russia knows its history, maybe you can walk us through with the intent of those sanctions are and how likely they are to succeed given the targets in Russia.

>> Well, I think, it is useful to put the sanctions and context of a situation in which Russia has the last three years, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, increasingly become integrated into the European economy.

The obvious one's energy, but obviously the banking system, my own experience, I remember going in the 1990s to museums and Paris, and it was the first time I saw translations of these , the forums you get at the museum, in Russian.

Suddenly, they had Italian, French, and whatever, Russian.

Russia has become in a sense that country.

So an initially a thought that's a good thing.

That's a good way to transmit our values to them.

But of course, what we've discovered, there's also a flipside.

That is it becomes that much more costly for us to sanction them.

That was a fear that many people initially had, was that given the fact that something like 50% of energy of Germany comes from Russia, and the Italy and other places, that there would be a tremendous resistance to impose severe sanctions.

And, that is partly why I think Putin went in.

He sort of took that for granted.

Look, the European union has been incredibly divided with Brexit, and the eurozone debt crisis, it is a model of dysfunction, I'm just gonna go away in, and your post replicating about this and nothing will ever happen.

But something really remarkable did happen.

Some people have attributed this to Zelenskyy's speech, midnight, when he said this might be the last time you see me alive.

I think that affected people.

This was the first time you have two core elements that facilitated quite extraordinary sanction response by Europe.

The first, if there is never been a black and white conflict, this is one.

The moral clarity of this conflict is stunning.

This was completely unprovoked.

The second part is that suddenly, Russia is clearly x the Texas sentinel security threat to Europe.

Mostly in Poland, obviously in Hungary which has a direct experience of being invaded by Russia and the Soviet Union.

I think we have a mini Cold War developing and what this does, on the positive and, is motivates really sacrificed on the part of the European leaders to do what is necessary to make it hurt for Russia.

I think that is usually important.

The question is, what is the impact?

Clearly it has been successful, the ruble has collapsed , they won't even open up the stock market, they are terrified.

There is talk about sanctioning Russian oil.

I never thought we'd get.

There SWIFT, the ability to make banking transactions have ended.

Given the fact that you have literally somebody who's mentally unstable, who is completely isolated, it is very unlikely in the short term he's gonna be affected by this.

I think there are two reasons why this is still could be a success.

When is the first time, in modern Russian history, you have a real wedge being driven between the interests of the league as a whole and Putin.

After 2014, there were some sanctions, but still Russia as an economic actor was able to function as normal.

This is really the first time, we are in uncharted territory.

When hopes for a coup.

That is still very unlikely, but at least possible in a way that it wasn't two weeks ago.

>> So Scott, I want to turn to you, someone described the ratcheting up the economic sanctions which were in place.

There were sanctions in place after 2014's invasion of Crimea, Crimea, but these are of a different order.

And they are clearly a causing economic pain in Russia.

Russia has established a pretty generous sovereign fund trying to make themselves impervious to sanctions , but U.S. and Russian powers have found ways to skirt those, exiting Russian banks from the SWIFT system, and others.

Some would characterize a package of sanctions as a nuclear attack in economic terms.

Some of the language coming from Putin suggest he is interpreting as such.

Is that a fair characterization?

How significant are this particular sanction regime?

>> So, that's a good question.

As we have been saying, this is a landmark shift in the way Europe is engaged with Russia.

Many of the different areas that people saw as red lines, that would not be crossed, have been crossed.

It is changing the calculation of how these European countries are going to engage with Russia going forward.

So a great example would be Germany.

So for the longest of time, whenever there was a question of -- with Russia, the question of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would set energy from Russia around Poland into Germany, would kind of we touched.

In fact the Germans, surprisingly to many, said we are not going to engage with Nord Stream 2.

We know that this would cause significant economic disruption within Germany.

We also see a marriage of Geo economic considerations driving geopolitical calculations.

The new chancellor of Germany, a week ago made this landmark speech, race and for the first time really since the end of the Cold War, Germany was gonna spend in excess of 2% of GDP on defence, so called the native, NATO standard.

-- something a he's that's not a coalition that would never talk about these things.

But this decision is a major, major change in the shift of geopolitical dynamics.

Not regionally in Europe, but globally.

So I do think these are very strong economic measures, and when I think the other thing we have to think about to Trevor, is not just we see in the public sector and what is happening in our diplomatic circles to engage economic instruments that are controlled by the state, but what is happening in the private sector .

And how the private sector is responding to this.

It was all over the news yesterday.

McDonald's will suspend operations in Moscow.

Many of you who have ever been to Moscow and have been to red square, you can see the first McDonald's that has opened in the early 1990s.

I use that as an example of it's not just governments that are reacting in an economic sense, but what is happening in international trade.

For me, the long term question is, how long would domestic political constituencies not just in our country, but in other countries, stomach the cost of these major significant disruptions of global supplies and can we wait this out.

Who's time on the side of?

It's time on the side of Russia?

Or his time on the side of the west?

>> Lucan it looks like you want to weigh in there.

-- >> This is a marathon.

This is not a sprint.

I do worry about, it is easy in this first flush of these weeks with the shock and awe the, the outrageous highest, one does wonder how long is, are Europeans willing to put up the sacrifices.

I will say however, in a sense we are helped by Russia strategy which is to obliterate these massive humanitarian acts, a bombing hospitals.

The more he engages in this kind of activity, it will clearly remind Europeans that they have a real security stake in this conflict.

It is not just Ukraine.

It is Russia and the world.

It is something that directly affects their lives.

So that's one hope, that they won't sort of forget the long term implications of this conflict.

>> Lucan, my follow-up and it is amplified by question that is offered by the audience.

Walk us through that in the equivalent of the Russian population.

How long can they hold firm?

What is the likelihood that their identity as Russians as opposed to Europeans perhaps and their fealty to Putin, how do we anticipate that these sanctions, and other pressures will influence that dynamic?

>> Well that's the million dollar question.

That is something we do not know yet.

As you can imagine, there aren't a lot of great polls yet, public opinion polls, I think it is more so than ever before, responses to polls will be affected by fear.

So we don't really know.

There has been one poll, conducted on February 20th to March 1st, I think it shows 65% of Russians thought that this action was in the interest of Russia.

Which on one level seems high, on another level seems rolling around the flag effect.

When you think of Crimea in the context.

We have this other element which is a lot of Russians have personal connections to Ukraine, so that is what makes this conflict distinctive.

In that sense it becomes much harder to completely block out information.

From Ukraine.

It makes it harder for them to hide.

It this is rather grandma's live.

You are bombing gremlins apartment essentially.

I cannot imagine he's gonna be able to hide that the way he can hide what's went on in Grozny and Chechnya and Syria.

On the other hand, we just don't know.

Putin's average support has been in the 70s.

>> And so he has a big base.

We just don't know how long that's gonna.

Last >> This is moving now into part two, which is more the geopolitics of this will start by staying in the region.

This is a question for both of you, but we'll start with you Scott.

We were on the one hand all surprised by Russia's invasion.

On the other, hand there's a story that can be told by harboring clear signals about preparation from Crimea to Georgia and -- before that, and Syria, and the Crimean peninsula, and the Donbas and other areas.

Some navy would argue that this is the return of Russia as a geopolitical superpower.

What's your assessment?

>> This is a great, great question.

When I would say, and I would offer is that Russia never went away as a great power.

They were latent power.

They had significant challenges in the 1990s.

But the actual potential of Russia was always there , and I would argue the same with the way we think about China.

For the last 20 years, when the United States and the west has focus, with legitimate reasons, on countering violent extremism in the Middle East and other parts of the world, America's adversaries, competitors, look for weaknesses, looked for where there were issues in the west, try to find other opportunities.

I would argue for the last ten or years or so, you've seen that limit testing.

You saw 2014 in the Donbas, you see it and South China Sea today.

You see it in the cyber realm.

It was on a trajectory where I think you would get to the point where you would see an invasion like Ukraine, because there hadn't been any significant rollback.

That's where I really kind of see this playing out.

Russia has always identified itself as a great power regardless of if it was the Soviet Union, if it was czarist Russia, other different kinds of combinations.

Another thing that is important to think about, if we look at the Grand stretch of Russian history for the last hundred years, change has always followed significant military defeats or reversals.

Reordering of Russian society.

Reordering of the elites.

I was talking to someone about the October revolution wasn't really for men in the mediately by the Bolsheviks, but they co-opted the revolution and ended up taking Russian into the direction of the Soviet Union.

But that was because, it happened in part of how poorly Russia did in World War I.

So the same could be said about weaknesses shown the Soviet model on the heels of Afghanistan, but we also have to know Russia is a big country.

It has a lot of resources.

It sits at the great strategic said, the great heartland, the geostrategic pivot of the great Asian land mass.

That has not changed and it did not change when the wall came down and the Soviet Union disappeared.

>> Lucan, what's your perspective on return as Russian as a power, or a latent power that's always been there?

>> I have a couple things to say about that.

First of all, I think before my answer, I want to states, which should be obvious, this was not inevitable.

There's a little bit of a tendency to go back in Russian history and see expansionism, I've heard people say that this is sort of inevitable, that pressure was going to invade because of historical ties.

This was Putin's decision.

Everything we know is that this is about Russian power structure, which is not much, which is that this is incredibly controversial.

Without a situation which Putin has enormous policy discretion within the Russian elites, I don't think he would've seen this kind of risky innovation.

A lot of Russian generals had some anticipation of what would happen.

In terms of the return of great power, I think on the morning, or the night of February 24th, I think that was the question.

Could this have gone in a very darker direction, if Russians had been easily successful and done it without facing costs, you could have seen a situation that encourages his actions to sort of further expand into Europe, and also encourages China with regards to Taiwan, right?

But instead, thankfully, what you've seen is in some ways, the opposite.

Which is that first of all, the action was enormously costly, which means no one is going to want to follow Putin's example.

Right?

This is actually been, I think, very good, and furthermore, it's going to dramatically weaken Russia as a geopolitical force.

Your right, there are some facilities, it will always be a big country, it will always have natural resources.

It will certainly always have a big army.

In that sense, it's constant.

But relative to what it was three weeks, ago I'm almost certain Europe is going to become much less dependent on Russian energy them.

You've already seen that the army has been discredited , I see a real weakening of Russia's geopolitical power, at least in the short and immediate.

>> Scott, some Lucan mentioned and mentioned earlier Europe's broad least pendants on Europe 's dependence for them on Russia for energy.

He also mentioned the Nord Stream 2 hype line.

What are the pathways for Europe to disentangle from that Russia dependence, and sort of timeline that for us?

Obviously, it's not the flip of the speech, but what are the stages in which Europe could disentangled its energy markets and other trade relations with Russia?

>> This is a great question and it's timely, because just yesterday, the head of the European union just announced a new policy that by 2030, that you will be completely no longer reliant on Russian energy.

Now, to do that will take an approach of obviously, diversifying where it's get energy from, but what types of energy.

For example, one of the questions being asked right now is, will there be some countries in Europe that will be more willing to entertain nuclear energy in ways that they hadn't?

For example, another country we haven't talked about much so far but has been a major factor here as well, it's France.

So France relies heavily on independent nuclear energy capability partially for this reason, to not have and reliance.

A country that is of Europe but not part of the European Union anymore, United kingdom, has announced that by the end of this year, they will no longer imports any energy sources from Russia either.

As a percentage, it's not the 30 or 40% of maybe what a Germany or a Netherlands currently has, but you will see that slowly over time, I believe.

This is going to have, this is going to cause some trade-offs.

You know, there are green movements and others who want to see a change in energy consumption are going to have to make some tough choices.

It's the convenience of some of the fuel that they are going to be getting is not going to be as easy as it was before.

And what does that mean for cost, how does that impact manufacturing?

Does that create new vulnerabilities long term?

Almost immediately after, the bee pee, shell, said they were going to divest their 15 or -- in Russian oil or gas companies, China's now saying they're interested in buying those still.

How does the west ensure that the ways in which -- geopolitical Russia not come across from my long term systemic challenge of what is happening?

I'm >> So, Lucan, it's got just mention China, and he mentioned China earlier.

There's been considerable reporting earlier on how you Russians relationship with Ukraine has trained its relationship with China.

Others have characterized that relationship as highly asymmetrical, with Russia on the pathway to becoming a vassal state of China.

How do you characterize that relationship, and how do you see offense in folding in realtime and influencing that relationship?

>> That's a really essential question, China is obviously, as much as the world has sort of united against China, China is the big country that has not.

He is clearly investigated a lot vested in the relationship between Russia and Putin.

I'm not sure the characteristic of this relation is, there is his characteristic anti Americanism that's rooted in this friendship, but on the other hand , you know, Russia is a pretty small economy.

The Chinese economy relies extensively on western imports that western, that Russia cannot replace, and I think with these sanctions, it really puts a strain within the Chinese elite.

I mean, you saw, and some people notice this bizarre incidents where a week or two ago, a billboard in front of the Canadian embassy, very pro-Ukrainian billboard appeared before the Ukrainian embassy in you in China, and that would not happen without some official okay.

What's going on?

We don't know what's going on within the Chinese elites , but there is clearly conflict.

I think a lot, you know, in terms of how this conflict ends will depend on what happens in this debate within the Chinese elite, because if the Chinese elite is really interested in the settlements, they are in a position to really enforce Russia more than anything else, you know, to force Putin to do this.

As I alluded to, the Chinese economy is ten times the size of Russia's.

In the context of sanctions will be really unable to survive without Chinese support.

So I think we're all waiting to see how this debate plays out within the Chinese elites.

>> Let's talk about another play major player.

Scott I, want to come back to you, and we move into the multilateral world.

So, NATO.

>> Four letter acronym, we hadn't thought about much until recently.

So Germany's pledging to militarize and laid out why that's so, so important.

It's also noteworthy that both Sweden and Finland have become to say we are reconsidering our relationship to NATO.

The Baltics are already part of NATO, so there's another geographic region in play where Russia has a considerable amount of securities concerns.

What's the likelihood of future conflict that becomes a direct conflict between NATO countries and Russia?

So this is a great question.

I think the idea is, President Biden has made this very clear that defending NATO that is the and ultimate red line I you see that the United States and other natural countries are distributing -- [inaudible] leaders miscalculate all the time.

So both what I call an independent vertical escalation, can be a major concern.

[inaudible] But without a doubt, this conflict has unified NATO in ways that we have not seen since -- the only time they article five of NATO has been -- [inaudible] it's gonna be very interesting to see where NATO goes.

[inaudible] This is the first time that NATO will have released a new Kunce -- [inaudible] >>, Scott I'm, I'm afraid we're getting some feedback on your audio.

If you don't mind logging off and logging on.

Audience, forgive us for the disruption, but hopefully that will become clear here in a minute.

Lucan, I would be interested in your thoughts on the significance.

You were mentioning earlier the emerging cohesion of NATO.

What do you see the likelihood of a conflict between NATO and Russia?

Sorry.

I think that is a real concern.

There was a lot of talk recently about a no-fly zone.

You can certainly understand why the Ukrainians want there to be a no-fly zone.

But at the same time, just the obvious fact that no fly zones have been applied in contacts in Iraq, Bosnia, against much weaker military's, and I think that is why the west is right to be careful.

I do worry, inadvertent confrontation.

I'm guessing, although you never know, that Putin is not gonna invade the Baltics.

Short of that, you can imagine the situation in which the Russians are targeting supply lines from Poland's, and inadvertently go into NATO airspace, or inadvertently bomb a NATO truck or something, so there are many opportunities for inadvertent exclamation.

I think it's right to be concerned.

One thing I have learned in studying eastern European for 30 years, is that it can always get worse.

We should not forget that as awful as it is now, there are so many ways in which this conflict can get much much worse.

>> So Scott, let's see if your audio has improved as ask you this question.

What's more or differently should the United States be doing?

I should point out that you are no longer in your role of providing that direct strategic guidance.

Hopefully of a bit more freedom to offer a more candid view.

What again do you think the United States can and should be doing to influence this series of events?

>> So Trevor, thanks for the question, hopefully the audio -- >> The audio sounds great.

>> Okay, I think with the United States should continue to do is what we are already seeing, which is a major, major emphasis on diplomacy and the reliance on allies and partners to provide a cohesive and unified front against Russia's provocation.

First off.

Second, I think the United States far from the domestic sense, is President Biden will have to continue to give these fireside chats if you will on the cost that Americans are gonna help to absorb , mostly of the gas, line but also in other areas, to sustain this effort.

-- this is a marathon.

This is not a sprint.

The other thing the United States will have to think about from a military perspective is how much does this current issue, this crisis, change the way the national security establishment was thinking about our national security strategy.

Every administration, when they are elected and take over the White House, they create their own unique national security strategy, National Defense Strategy, kind of what the pedagogue does.

If this is gonna be a long term -- how do we assure that America's military footprint is sustainable and doesn't do to us what's happening to Putin's military right now, which is getting fixed in a certain area.

More, and not having freedom of action to think about other major geopolitical issues, from the Indo-Pacific, to the Middle East which is still relevant, to obviously things we don't talk about enough of my opinion, security and stability in the western hemisphere.

>> So Lucan, we've got a question from the audience.

Do you think Ukraine fully realizes the need to recognize all who are fleeing Ukraine?

Especially those of color?

>> I think, I don't know about the Ukrainian government, but I think it is clearly there was some problems, I'm not sure with the extent, medical and other students of a African descent, had trouble crossing the Polish border.

It's completely unacceptable.

We have to recognize that.

I don't know with the scale is.

But yes, this is an important issue which we must recognize and ensure that that doesn't happen again.

>> Thank you for that.

Good question and the response.

>> I want to turn to the future of Liberal governments.

And we'll come back to you Lucan.

-- talk about the likelihood of regime change in Russia and if that were to come to past, what do you think Putin's exit from the scene would mean for the trajectory of Russia?

>> Well a couple of things.

Coups are always unlikely, as much is I , mass revolt -- often what happens historically is that cruiser in the category of popular unrest.

It might be in the context when you have severe economic discontent, protest, and then forces around Putin, to use that as an excuse to have a coup.

I think it is pretty unlikely.

It is definitely possible.

It is not something you different to rely on.

I think in the short-term method it happen given the cost of war, I think it is almost certain that that would contribute to a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

question is with that lead to democracy in Russia, and that is much less unknown.

I think opposition in Russia is very weak.

I had that I have much less certainty off.

But certainly I think our best hope of a peaceful solution is a kind of , some sort of coup in Russia.

I want to then also talk about the broader implications for the political west.

This invasion has occurred in the context of what I would think of a really democratic move lace for the last ten or 15 years, with the rise of populists in Hungary and Poland, Russia interfering in the U.S. election in 2016, Russia becoming creasing the active in elections in western Europe, and until now, you have had muddled response.

People white Meyer, like Merkel in Germany, a kind of facilitating hungry within European union so the European People's Party, assuring that -- wasn't punished.

You really have a massive dysfunction within European Union.

I think The optimist pardon me says that this the optimist part of me might be the jolt to the -- liberal world we really need to sort of remind people of why these values are important.

So far, the signs are incredibly encouraging.

You have unity in sense of purpose, that is something we have not seen within Europe in I don't know how many decades.

So I think this may, ironically, as I said, the night of February 24th I was thinking, this could have gone in a very dark direction.

At least, we see the possibility that we may actually see this as an inflection point leading to the reinvigoration of the liberal world.

>> So, Scott I want to ask you the same question, but in a different way.

Lucan Skip enough the more hopeful perspective.

What if Russia were to quote unquote succeed in Ukraine, and establish itself as a power in Ukraine, up as Europe begins to intrench a bit from the immediacy of the conflict ?

But do you see as the potential impact on the world order, as Lucan was describing?

>> In many ways, I agree that even if Russia's sub nominally successful in a conventional military sense, this is still buttress the west and democracy and I think, globally, and the reason why I think we also believe this, is because while we've talked a lot about Europe, we see a lot of democracies in the Asia Pacific region coming out and being very, very vocal.

Japan, South Korea, Australia, just to name a few.

In seeing this attack on a political system, many have taken for granted, as we said earlier, this is definitely worth fighting for.

>> Some let's talk about the United States and our role in this.

Where certainly, to this point, both of you have mentioned the United States, but largely it's been a conversation about Europe and its relationship with Ukraine, with Russia.

But we've obviously been an active participant in that part of the world for decades.

You know, Russia has long signaled it's fear of NATO's emergence right on its border, and we have been unclear, particularly, with regard to Ukraine.

So we played a role, to some degree, in contributing to Putin's paranoia.

And also, at various times in our recent history, we have pronounced that's democracy is the end of history, essentially.

That it is the way the world should move .

From the George W. Bush administration, he was very prominent in saying that U.S. foreign policy should be to promote democracy abroad.

In more recent years, we've stepped back from that commitment.

I'd be curious to each of you, what would your guidance be to the dated states, its leaders, and it's citizenry, about that role of the United States in promoting democracy and that liberal order around the globe?

I'll start with you some.

>> First of all, I'd like to say something briefed about NATO.

This discourse that somehow NATO is responsible for invasion, I'm not saying that, but a lot of people are.

This is clearly, I think, in my view, this is a red herring.

Russia had already precluded and membership by occupying portions of Crimea and it's really unimaginable that NATO would incorporate a country that has contested national borders with a nuclear power.

That was already, in my view, off the table to begin with.

I think NATO is simply an excuse to put the West under pressure.

>> What should the United States role be in promoting democracy and the liberal world order?

I think we went through a period in which that was sort of stated policy in the last two presidential recipients in particular, Obama and Trump, we started to step away from that full-throated commitment.

What's your sense of what that role should be for the United States government?

>> I'm of two minds.

I think, I graduated from university, but about in the 1990s, the height of the optimism of Iran democracy promotion.

Unfortunately, the invasion of Iraq, fair and unfair reasons, discredited the whole idea of democracy promotion.

I do think that one, it is important to reinvigorate that.

Democracy is truly a universal value.

People share a lot of the population.

I think we have to approach it with more modesty than we have in the past.

Rather than sort of the old 1990s model that we knew, Trevor, of sort of, we have the right answer, you adopt what we think is the right answer, it's more about a discussion of a common problem.

We have, in the United States and Canada, I'm from the United States, but we have issue with democracy that's trying to work out how to have a dialogue on how to make democracy work.

It has to be, yes, you need democracy promotion, but it also has to be much more modest and discourse oriented in the back and forth that has been in the past.

>> So, Scott, I'm going to turn the question over to you and ask you to look at this through the frame of your role as a former military adviser.

What does the future of the world look like from a geopolitical strategic sense, if the world is promoting democracy and expanding versus contracting?

>> Well, this is a good question.

I kind of see, and really, if we had this discussion in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, I would give you the same answer, which is your having really two emergent camps or philosophies of governance and economics.

The United States kind of lead, Jeffersonian pluralism, with love a fair economics, versus state driven, more control of society model that we see from Russia and definitely from China.

And so COVID-19 in many ways amplified great power competition.

You are seeing that play out right now with how countries our, I hate to say it, but taking sides in trying to figure out what's does Ukraine mean in it of itself, but also for their own forms of governments?

There's a famous phrase from Richard Hasse, president of former relations, that foreign policy begins at home.

I think if we look at the events in the United States in 2020, one of the point we discussed earlier, we definitely have a democracy deficit that we have to strengthen.

At home, but also, when we think about how democracy work with each other.

You are seeing that happen.

The United States greatest asset, and really the West's greatest asset, is the consolation of alliances and partnerships that we have.

Those are built on trust and mutual respect and common interests.

So there is an interim mental utility of democracy that matters in geopolitics.

It's something that we can't divorce ourselves from.

There is a reason why certain countries that are not part of that cluster together that and to not have their own alliances, right?

China doesn't have an ally.

Russia doesn't have an ally.

It has countries that are influenced by them, right, or seeing this with a question of how much is Belarus going to concede to what Russia is asking versus pushing back?

What's happening in other parts of Asia as it relates to how China's interpreting things?

So again, no matter how this conflict ends, you're going to get these competing global systems.

The question is which are going to be the most resilience, which ones do people want to see they have a future for themselves, but also future generations, and what's worth fighting for?

Ukrainians, it's absolutely worth fighting and dying for them, and many of the West are having to ask themselves that question in the ways they haven't had too since the early 1990s.

>> Unfortunately, that's all the time we have.

We could go on, and I would love to go, on for another hour in this really invigorating and informative conversation.

So let me thank our panelists, Dr. Lucan Ahmad Way and Dr. Scott Smithson for helping us understand the crisis in Ukraine.

It's been a really engaging discussion, and thank you all in the audience for your really informed and inquisitive questions.

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