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Mircea Geoana: From Communist Romania to Deputy Secretary General of NATO | E61 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Mircea Geoana: We all have heard of NATO. But what does NATO actually do? The business of NATO used to create the foundation of peace, security and stability for our nation to thrive. Every facet of human activity has a security dimension to it. And NATO has a fantastic we have, I think, in the DNA of this organization, the capacity to adjust to an evolving security environment.
• 0:22
  Mircea Geoana: There's no dimension of human activity, from business to technology and from space to cyberspace, where NATO doesn't have a say and an added value to bring.
• 0:38
  Randall Kaplan: Welcome to a Search of Excellence, which is about our quest for greatness and our desire to be the very best we can be to learn, educate and motivate ourselves to live up to our highest potential.
• 0:47
  Randall Kaplan: It's about planning for excellence and how we achieve excellence through our incredibly hard work, dedication and perseverance. It's about believing in ourselves, and the ability to overcome the many obstacles we all face on our way there. Achieving Excellence is our goal and it's never easy to do. We all have different backgrounds, personalities, and surroundings. And we all have different routes on how we hope and want to get there. My guest today is Murcia Juwanna Murcia is the Deputy Secretary General of NATO and has had a distinguished career as a politician and diplomat for more than three decades. At the age of 36. He became the youngest ambassador in Romania is history when he was appointed as the ambassador of Romania to the United States. He later served as president of the Romanian Senate, Romania as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Romania as Deputy Prime Minister. In 2009.
• 1:36
  Randall Kaplan: He narrowly lost the election to be president of Romania. When he received 49.67% of the vote, Murcia has served as a board member of several organizations, including the World Economic Forum, the Aspen Institute and the European Council on Foreign Relations. In addition to his political career, he is also a published author and has written several books on Foreign Policy and International Relations.
• 2:01
  Randall Kaplan: Welcome to a Search of Excellence.
• 2:02
  Mircea Geoana: Thank you for having me, always a pleasure to be back in LA,
• 2:05
  Randall Kaplan: great to see you. It's been six years since we last got together. And I appreciate you being here. Let's start with family. I always start with our family because our family helped shape our personality, our values in the preparation for our future, I want to know about the influence your dad has he served in the military, who was a discipline and your mom as well. And I tell us about your background and the influence they had growing up and why you had a report card from your dad.
• 2:29
  Mircea Geoana: Listen, I was born in communist Romania. And for the ones who have not lived in the communist bit difficult to explain what kind of society we're living in.
• 2:40
  Mircea Geoana: And my family, like, in all our cases, played a huge role in in my education, my formation. My dad was in the military, but he was educated as a civilian, he was in an engineer by training. And then he joined the military after he graduated, so he's sort of a hybrid civilian military kind of person. So and I still I still, you know, think of him with great fondness and he helped me a lot. My mom used to work. For the transportation company in Bucharest, everything in common is Romania and communist countries were public owned. So there was no private sector. So when you think of people like us coming from that part of the world, you should think that the transition from Communism to capitalism and from dictatorship to freedom was was a pretty big, big transformation. So they educated me well. I think they they taught me to be hard working to study. For us going to school was the only way out. There's no other way you could, you're going to start a business because there was no private sector. So the only thing we had to do is learn, learn, learn, learn. And this hunger for learning is still with me at a relatively more advanced stage.
• 4:03
  Randall Kaplan: You're active as a kid, you're an athlete, you played basketball, we played football in the snow. You love tennis you played What else were you doing as a kid? And were you thinking about your future and your teenage years and what you wanted to do back then?
• 4:17
  Mircea Geoana: No, it was you know, childhood is beautiful everywhere. Because you know, you're a kid. I remember, you know, you know, fighting, you know, kids from other streets and neighborhoods, sometimes quite actively, lots of sports.
• 4:36
  Mircea Geoana: I remember being in school, we had classes in the afternoon. So in the morning, I was going to play tennis, semi professionally. I went to school in Indiana. I was playing basketball, semi professionally, lots of sports, lots of school.
• 4:51
  Mircea Geoana: I was also very lucky to I was I was playing in my high school's basketball team in the high school soccer team. And then I went to college. I even if I was an engineer by training, I went to play for the School of Architecture, and basketball because I was courting my future wife Mihaela. So yeah, sports, school sports school. We did a lot of sports in back in the day.
• 5:19
  Randall Kaplan: So Romania became a democracy in 1989. When you were 31 years old, you're 64 years old today, you have half your life of communism, what was it like growing up in communism?
• 5:32
  Randall Kaplan: And can you give us some specific examples of things that you did like and things that you didn't like,
• 5:37
  Mircea Geoana: mentioned, when you were a kid, and even a teenager, you know, life is life, you know, why friends and going to school and trying to date girls, you've accepted our invitation, it was not always self evident. But as I grew older, I started to feel the pressure of oppression, that there was a pressure of oppression, India, I remember after having met me while I'm been engaged with my with my with my wife, I tried to get a visa to travel in the West, every single summer. And every single summer, the same reply came back to me in a sort of a grayish, ugly postcard in my in my in my, in my mailbox, or my barber flat in Bucharest, and saying your request for travel has been approved, that was typed and by hand negatively, every single time it was this negative, negative, negative, negative. So all my all my let's say young years, I dreamt of the West. I speak many languages, we have good education in our systems, we I speak many languages I that's something we do, we did. So the moment when companies collapsed, my first reaction is to try to go and see the words that I was, you know, dreaming about so much. And I went to school in France for two years, very good public administration schools. And then I became ambassador. So you know, what I learned in life.
• 7:11
  Mircea Geoana: Beware what you wish for, because now I'm traveling too much. And I have too little time to spend with family. But the change of a system was was was immense, and is difficult on the splendid American that with all the imperfections of the American system, you've been living in this system for centuries. Imagine, you know, a nation like Romania or others in my part of the world that we had in 10 years, let's say between 3019 38 and 1948 10, different constitutions, different constitution 10 different political regimes. We no way this geopolitical earthquakes have a direct implication on our countries. In a way probably Romanians are the most adaptive citizens in the universe. Just because in a way, our history has always been earthquake, earthquake, geopolitical, earthquake. And that's when we discovered freedom. Finally, we try to hold on to this because we know how important it is to live in freedom and democracy.
• 8:16
  Mircea Geoana: When you don't have it, you appreciate more. When you're accustomed to it, you start to say, okay, we can live without that. No way. Freedom is everything.
• 8:27
  Randall Kaplan: What made you want to come to the west? Were you as a kid? Did you read about the West? And what was it about United States that said, I want to go there,
• 8:35
  Mircea Geoana: there was a fascination with America, all over communist Europe. And I remember, I was in high school, and we had an English teacher, wonderful lady. And she was, you know, teaching us British English with proper British accent. And every summer, the summer break, we came back with American accent because you're listening to music, and even watching movies. In communist Romania, the VCR tapes, remember those things? Ancient history and label VCR machine. It costed in communist Romania as much as a car because they were smuggled. So even if we're not allowed to do this, we still were watching music and I think the soft power of America is just incredibly powerful everywhere. So we'd ramped up the West I also dreamt up of Western Europe, France, Italy, the name of Romania come from Rome. So we are one of the five Roman sticking languages in Europe, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. So we are the Eastern brothers and sisters of this family, that the Roman Empire basically created in Europeans indirectly around the world. And you have a couple of Italian Americans here.
• 9:59
  Randall Kaplan: What Do you think today, you came to United States for freedom democracy, just to see the West and how we lived here? It was sort of a dream to come here. What do you think of the millions of people today trying to get into the United States from Mexico and all these other countries? Who are under tremendous pressure on their homeland? Should we let them in? Or are they just never gonna, you
• 10:24
  Mircea Geoana: know, I'm a political person. And I know how difficult such a conversation really is. Because America is a melting pot, by definition, it's a land of immigration, immigrants. And you're proud of that. And you should be proud of that of your diversity of the fact that you could really unite so many different nations and cultures and languages, into into an American into an American, you know, proposition for societal organization. But also the when there is too much, there is always a reaction. And that's why to manage to be true to the original proposition of America, that everyone that is seeking for freedom and looking for a better life, they should be welcome. But in real political terms, there's not always very, very easy and you create sort of a counter reaction from the ones already in America. So I wish luck to the American politicians to try to solve this problem is not going to be easy. But when I was coming to America, and while I was studying in France, after the fall of communism, it was not only the idea to discover the West, because I dreamt about it, it was always a source of inspiration, how to rebuild my country back home in Romania, because everything was to be rebuilt. Democracy didn't exist, the institutions of Parliament, the institutions of the Supreme Court, institutions of democracy, the checks and balances, rebuilding the economy, on private sector on capitalist. So this was a huge transformation. We call it a transition from a communist system to capitalistic system.
• 11:58
  Mircea Geoana: And this is a neverending story, as America is evolving. We also now trying to get to the next stage. So yeah, visiting is nice. Learning is a lot. But the real question for me as a leader, how can I transfer back home, the best ideas from the West, but not to trust to transfer them in an uncritical way, but to do it in a way that will fit my culture that will feed my reality that will feed you know, retain also the history of my land and my people. So it's a fascinating experience and journey.
• 12:36
  Randall Kaplan: You mentioned university, you you're highly educated, I think probably the 99th percentile you went to Polytechnic University, University of Bucharest, you have a master's in law degree from there, you went to like coal, I'm not going to be able to pronounce it right. But now the university in France, which is the equivalent
• 12:55
  Mircea Geoana: of the, let's say, Harvard Kennedy School, the best European public administration school, and then
• 13:00
  Randall Kaplan: you got it from HD as well as economics. So that's a lot of school. My question to you is, is education necessary to our success in our future? And if so, how important is it?
• 13:13
  Mircea Geoana: No, that's how I was educated. And I don't see myself, you know, stopping from learning. Of course, the grease, that's great. My very curious person, I like to learn to learn new things. And I've always looked to new challenges.
• 13:30
  Mircea Geoana: Sometimes, especially for the young ones, it seems that there are other shortcuts to success than education. And I would say that even they are and America is a is abundant example of people making up to the top without necessarily having formal education. So I don't insist on formal education, I insist on ongoing process of learning new stuff. And you can learn new stuff, not necessarily going to school, if you go to school less perfect. And the more complex the world is, the less sufficient formal education becomes. So understand the young one, they say, Okay, I don't want to spend you know, I don't know how many years is also very expensive in America.
• 14:15
  Mircea Geoana: Unfortunately, education is in Europe. Public education is dominant. So what I'm saying, never be satisfied with yourself. That's my lesson. And if you can go to acquire education in a traditional sense, perfect, that's great.
• 14:37
  Mircea Geoana: But even if you don't go through that avenue, never, never be satisfied with what you know.
• 14:42
  Mircea Geoana: Because you always be challenged, because things are moving so fast. So my appeal to the young ones. Formal education are not learn, learn, learn, learn, and you can learn by you know, just by By experimenting new things, or you can go to school or get a crash course, many things online today. So never, never be satisfied to what you know, there's never going to be enough.
• 16:06
  Randall Kaplan: Your daughter went to Penn, as you know, a lot of entrepreneurs in the world and people want to start their businesses, especially young people right out of school. A lot of people think I don't need to go to school to have my own company, my son for awhile said, Dad, I don't know why I need College, I'm gonna start my own company. And I said, Okay, Charlie, well, where are you going to live? So I started thinking about going to school, and he came around, but what do you say to all the people who are dropping out of school or saying, I really don't need this, I'm gonna start a career, right, right after high school, I have an idea for a new company, should these entrepreneurs go to school? Or should they just start and pursue their dreams,
• 16:46
  Mircea Geoana: I believe that there is no universal recipe for success. So if you have a drive in yourself, and you find it a very early stages, and you and you choose to start your own, you know, you know, your new startup or whatever idea, go for it. I'm not saying we should, they should. I'm just saying that at a certain moment, in time, you'll feel the need of having a little bit more consolidated foundation for knowledge. And even your instincts for business are great. And even the temptation and the invitation for success quick, in America is the norm.
• 17:19
  Mircea Geoana: Don't be satisfied to what you know. Because you will need to be bring your business to the next level. And for that level, probably you need more things that you can acquire empirically, through life experience, or structured way through education. So I'm just saying the same the same mantra for me and this is true for Ana for our daughter, our son, Alex went to stern, to NYU, the business school. And sometimes they use what they learned in school, sometimes they don't. So sometimes there is a question was what's easier for me to spend long years of hard work and exams and everything else and that huge competition. But I would say, learning how to learn. And understanding that learning is not just a formalized process is, is a process you can have every day by reading a different book, we're meeting new people. So my strong plate for the young ones, choose whatever avenue you want to choose. But never believe you know, enough. Because no one knows enough. And you need to absorb more knowledge in a formal or informal way. Anyway, don't don't. Don't think that if you're successful in the first years of your career, is the end of life. No, life is long, hopefully. And you'll be challenged, and you need to know more things and more people to thrive.
• 18:49
  Randall Kaplan: I think there's another huge benefit to going to college, which is the social aspect. I know I started 18 I came out at 21. And the person I started with and the person that I left with are just enormously different people, you make friends, some friends, I'm still I mean, I probably have five great friends from college. I've learned from so many of my classmates as well. It made me a better person and better professional as well.
• 19:13
  Mircea Geoana: Yeah. That's also a great social network. And I know that on on Garrett, RPS and future future husband, I think they are so you know, part of this of this fraternities and sororities and friends and they traveled now they started to have weddings. And yeah, you're right. Going to school is also giving you access to lots of friends, that probably they would would you all your life.
• 19:40
  Mircea Geoana: And that's that's great.
• 19:44
  Mircea Geoana: Emotionally, but also, socially, because you never know when you need someone who knows someone, right? Because in the end, life is also about social connections and if somebody's answering your phone or your email or not. So yeah, that's that's that's that's a great point.
• 20:01
  Randall Kaplan: All right, let's talk about NATO. NATO is a military and political alliances established on April 4 1949, was created to provide collective defense against external threats, particularly the Soviet Union. During the Cold War. It started with 12 members now up to 31. Members, Finland is the latest. There's a billion people living in NATO countries, and more than 50% of global GDP is from NATO countries. NATO has a$1.1 trillion budget. We all have heard of NATO. But what does NATO actually do?
• 20:36
  Mircea Geoana: We take peace, security and stability for granted. The business of NATO is to create a foundation of peace, security and stability for our nations to thrive. Look at the approach His word Russia started against Ukraine and our nation, and kids like our kids, dating and social app and, and having normal lives, all of a sudden, nothing was was interrupted brutally. So NATO is the business of ensuring the foundation for peace, for security for business for family. So that's, we are the if you want, we are the insurance policy, you know, policy for all our 1 billion citizens from Finland, the newest member, and hopefully Sweden pretty soon we are looking forward to receiving our Swedish friends. And these two countries are very interesting, too, as an example, why nations want to join NATO.
• 21:33
  Mircea Geoana: You mentioned that in 1949. Next April F 75 years since were created, why countries want to join NATO why Romania was trying to join NATO, why is an ambassador for a minister I raised the flag of my country to become a new member of NATO, I'll never forget this is because the belonging to this club of democracies, united by the values and also by the sacred, vow to defend each other like musketeers, One for all and all, one is nothing short of formidable. And I'm very, very heartened to see that in the American public. I've seen some polls, that 80 plus percent of Americans that believe me, there is a great thing. Because Americans also because the largest country, NATO, they also see it's good to have friends and allies, especially in such a complex world. With so many challenges. It's good to have friends and allies, and NATO is just that peace, stability, and the foundation for everything else we do.
• 22:33
  Randall Kaplan: Can you give us some specific examples of things that NATO has done even this past year, and maybe in the past five years, some some highlights of tangible things that?
• 22:43
  Mircea Geoana: Listen, of course, we are in the business of deterrence and defense, that's the bread and butter of what we do. But the definition of security, for economic security, the resilience to cyber space, to AI and big data, to quantum to biotech to human enhancement, should I go on, every facet of human activity has a security dimension to it.
• 23:08
  Mircea Geoana: And NATO has a fantastic we have I think in the DNA of this organization, the capacity to adjust to an evolving security environment. Of course, defense, as we as we know it from the movies, you know, with fighter jets, and you know everything else. But we are in fact, in the business of looking to every facet of security, supply chain, energy security, undersea cables, we are now starting in NATO new unit to look into critical undersea infrastructure. So let's give the example of Google the Lord, the largest owner of undersea fiber optic cable in the world.
• 23:46
  Mircea Geoana: And we talk we work with with industry as well to say, Okay, where is the most vulnerable point? You've seen the pipelines, Nord Stream one and two being sabotaged a few weeks back? So what do you think of NATO think of, of course of hardware. But think also a lot of climate change security, we have begun on climate change in insecurity, especially in the Middle East and every other place. So think of NATO as a sort of a, you know, I said, policy insurance for security.
• 24:15
  Mircea Geoana: There is no dimension of human activity, from business to technology, and from space to cyberspace, where NATO doesn't have a say, and an added value to break.
• 24:28
  Randall Kaplan: aside about the Russian invasion, which is the largest conflict since World War Two in December 2021 100,000 Russian troops, essentially surrounding Ukraine on three sides two months later, on February 24 2021, Russia invaded Ukraine. We all knew that the war was coming. We tried at the last minute to prevent Mr. Putin from going over the brink. Did NATO just stand there and watch it happen? And what could you have done to prevent this?
• 24:57
  Mircea Geoana: Listen, we tried hard at the very last minute to to dissuade Russia from going in that direction. We knew that they would do it. I would say for the first time ever, American intelligence, British intelligence and allied intelligence were also shared publicly, of course, curated.
• 25:15
  Mircea Geoana: But nonetheless we use it as a strategic communication tool for the first time ever. And secondly, I remember in January 2021, just a few weeks before the invasion, we had the last week called the Russians to NATO headquarters in a sort of a NATO Russia Council, which was the format of discussing issues. And we tried to dissuade them from doing that. I think they were they they had their minds made up much, much earlier. I think they had the minds made up when they started 2008 To invade Georgia in 2014 When we occupied Crimea, and unfortunately, Donbass eastern Ukraine, so I think they were basically already convinced for the wrong reasons that the only way to defend our interests is to basically disrupt that also had a very interesting, Mr.
• 26:09
  Mircea Geoana: miscalculation, and I'm still wondering how happens, it's a relatively it's a country that has a tradition of geopolitics, it was still is an empire. So at least we develop a sense of strategic common sense if you want, and they got it wrong.
• 26:27
  Mircea Geoana: They thought that here will be falling in a few days, they thought the Ukrainians will not fight for the freedom. They really thought their own propaganda that the West is decadent, and America is decoupled from its European allies. They believe that will not be able to really help Ukraine and also impose sanctions. So I just this is the only thing I still don't comprehend. How can you get it so dead wrong. And I have one explanation as a Romanian who has lived in communism and the last years of Ceausescu, the dictator that, you know, led the country for many years, especially last year that Ceausescu, there is a model of only of Yes, men around the leader. You don't bring bad news to the leader, you're afraid of bringing bad news to the leader, I think he was put in words, and probably still is living in a sort of a bubble, where his own reality is, in his head, the reality outside of the Kremlin.
• 27:33
  Mircea Geoana: And I think in a way, having too much power and being having, you know, so much, so much fear from the others from being told the truth, I think it was the number one explanation for this. For this decision that basically went wrong on all fronts. For him, he said that he's doing this to stop NATO from enlarging you know, the Sweden for our American friends, thinking Sweden has been a neutral country in Europe. So from 1812, after the Napoleonic Wars, they've been a neutral country, a proud neutral country in Europe, Sweden for two centuries. And they said no more NATO and our borders, and I have a Finnish border, which is, you know, 1300 kilometers long. And Sweden, a formidable country, with great technology, with great democracy with great education system, like the fence coming and joining our ranks, so they got it all wrong. And I think it comes from the way in which the leadership is basically living in a in a different parallel reality than the world that we're living in
• 28:45
  Randall Kaplan: talking about miscalculated had over 200,000 soldiers that are wounded, you have Western sanctions, which has helped cripple the Russian economy, you've got all Western companies leaving. What are people in Russia starting to say to themselves, they must know people who are going to the front lines and getting gunned down. You're reading in the newspaper about people just charging against machine guns and just getting mowed down by machine gun fire? Are people in Russia going to eventually say, Hey, this is crazy. Is it going to be maybe an uprising there?
• 29:23
  Randall Kaplan: Or is Putin just saying I really don't care, I'm going to clamp down on people. He's sending people to jail for six years, 10 years to speak out against the war, what's gonna happen to the people in Russia?
• 29:37
  Mircea Geoana: I hope that the Russian people will realize that this is basically one of the worst decisions that leadership in Moscow has taken probably in centuries. I think this is a fundamental, strategic error that will impact the future of this of this country. But having said that, I also doubt that the Russian average citizen has access to real information.
• 30:03
  Mircea Geoana: First of all, they live in a sort of a bigger bubble than the one in Britain in the Kremlin.
• 30:06
  Mircea Geoana: So internet is that free information is curative. The average person is giving is fed with propaganda. I remember this from communist Romania. And the ones who have been, let's say, the middle class, the educated young professional, they left the country already when the first draft for joining the military was was triggered by the Kremlin. So in a way I'm afraid that is this is this no great people is in a way sticking to the to the manuscript propaganda coming from the Kremlin. I hope there will be a change but for the time reason I don't see and we don't see You know, enough critical mass of change in Russia happening and, and the losses, even the losses are not known to the to the public. Of course, empirically, when you see the coffin of your young son coming to your family, you see it but there is still not enough critical mass for change in Russia, unfortunately, and, and the grip of dictatorship is very, very strongly embedded in Russia, unfortunately. So let's hope that one day they will wake up and we'll see that, in a way, Russia has already been part of European and Western culture, you see the musicians and everything else. But now in a way, they decoupled from civilized Europe and the civilized world. And they are becoming more of a Eurasian power than a European power. And this is, you know, in the end their decision, what kind of future they want to embrace, and they want to be living in civilized Europe and democratic and prosperous Europe. And that will be great. But if they don't, they won't. You said
• 31:56
  Randall Kaplan: Russia is going to wake up? I think they're fully awake right now. And I think Putin knows what he is doing. How's this going to end?
• 32:02
  Randall Kaplan: He can't say face if he doesn't say I'm going to get something in return. And Ukraine is saying, I'm not giving up a single foot of land. So how's this going to end? We're we're already hearing about NATO countries saying, Hey, we got to try to fix this, but I don't know how they're gonna fix it. I mean, President McCrone is, is working his way in, I think there's some reticence right now of keeping funding is just gonna go on for 20 years indefinitely, like Afghanistan, for example, where you're just going at
• 32:37
  Mircea Geoana: it, no wars eventually, end. And history teaches us lots of examples of how war ends, most of the times, then, in any negotiation. But in order to have the political conditions for a negotiated peace, you need to have both sides, the Russians and Ukrainians, you know, having enough of a of a compromise that will be acceptable to each of the two sides. So today, we don't see the political conditions met for a settlement.
• 33:10
  Mircea Geoana: But coming to the ones who started the world, so if if if Mr. Putin would like to end the war, he can pick up the phone and end it down. Now, is that okay? We stop, right? Not going to happen, though, that's going to happen. So the only way, the only way to change the calculus in Mr. Putin's mind and his entourage is to have the cost benefit analysis look even more dire to them. So helping Ukraine, it's counterintuitive.
• 33:48
  Mircea Geoana: What I'm saying. Giving Ukraine more help now is the fastest way towards peace. Because it's the only way to change the calculation in in Moscow to say okay, cost benefit analysis.
• 34:00
  Mircea Geoana: What do we get? And what do we lose. And I think that the realization that Ukraine we're gonna continue to fight for the land, and we are united behind Ukraine could be the best way to alter the calculation in Mr.
• 34:20
  Mircea Geoana: Putin's mind, and eventually lead him towards some form of negotiate negotiated settlement, we want peace. NATO is an organization that is in favor of peace. But today, unfortunately, I think this war will drag on, I don't think it'll be Afghanistan style, it's a different kind of situation. But unfortunately, probably, we're also looking to the counter offensive, the Ukrainians are preparing, we hope that this will be successful. And this will also be a way for Russia to change the calculus and the cost benefit analysis of this of this war that is basically going wrong for them. They should get to should go even worse for them before they change their mindset.
• 35:05
  Randall Kaplan: So we've been hearing about this counter offensive for six months, we're gonna wait for winter to end.
• 35:11
  Randall Kaplan: Are we just going to tell Russia, hey, this is coming? Or are there things about that that are secret that we don't know what they're going to do?
• 35:22
  Mircea Geoana: They should be they should be treated with very, you know, very careful consideration. This is about lives of people. So I don't think that Ukrainians will go in front of the international media and say, we'll attack tomorrow in that place and that place, but what is really happening?
• 35:40
  Mircea Geoana: There are a couple of preconditions before they could eventually start this and they will decide where to do it and that their sovereign decision where and how to do it. So we see the preconditions being met.
• 35:50
  Mircea Geoana: Have a bit of a drier land because that's for heavy equipment, we see equipment coming in and have to say something that is really to the, to the credit of Ukrainians, as a people and also as a military since 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea, they came to us and they say, Okay, we want to join NATO, we want to join European Union.
• 36:15
  Mircea Geoana: And we like to be trained by NATO, and NATO countries, Canada alone, since 2014, train model 30,000, Ukrainian troops, Canada alone. And now of course, they're doing much more to the, to the credit of the of the of the Ukrainians, even for us, they are very pleasant surprise, they learn very quickly. They absorb NATO doctrine, command and control. With great speed and ingenuity, they are quite creative. On the battlefield.
• 36:47
  Mircea Geoana: They're using, you know, even commercial tech gadgets, you know, like commercial drones and things to just, or apps on phones. Artillery is basically done with apps that are basically from the shelf. So I have to say that even for us, we have a top professionals in the world when it comes to military and defense. That's NATO.
• 37:05
  Mircea Geoana: Ukrainians are pleasantly surprising us every day. So we also hope they will give us a very pleasant surprise when they'll decide. And it's only them deciding when the counter and where the counter offensive would be would be launched. Wish when the best of luck. And we try to support months for them as much as we can.
• 37:23
  Randall Kaplan: Countries are afraid you have Finland, Sweden coming up. Are you gonna like countries like Bosnia, in Georgia, and as well? And how's Russia going to react to that if NATO goes forward and allows them to join?
• 37:35
  Mircea Geoana: This is the same.
• 37:35
  Mircea Geoana: I mean, I mentioned the fact that the miscalculation from from Russia, on Finland, Sweden, but I would say that the most remarkable sea change of public opinion about Russia Ukraine itself, before 2014 Ukrainian people 80% a 0% of Ukrainians believe that Russia is the closest friend to their country.
• 37:57
  Mircea Geoana: Now 91% of Ukrainians believe that Russia is an existential threat to their nation. So Mr.
• 38:06
  Mircea Geoana: Putin in long essay, a few years back, he wrote, in fact, the thesis that Ukraine doesn't exist as a nation. Now we have a nation that is forging war, that is so patriotic, and so united.
• 38:20
  Mircea Geoana: So in a way, the most formidable you know, counter performance will be supporting that he really created a Ukrainian nation. And I think the grandkids of the heroes fighting in backboard everywhere else in Ukraine will be remembering the stories from from from the grandparents of the Great Patriotic War. So in a way, the fact that Ukraine wants to join the West, this is something that I think they earned it is a true for Georgia for the Republic of Moldova, which is a smaller nation under the huge hybrid pressure from Russia, in the Western Balkans. So in a way. As I mentioned, Mr. Putin has managed to create a Europe whole and free. And nations in Europe to realize the Russia is dangerous and to try to find a safer place under the sun. In in the European Union, which is also doing a great job in keeping these countries close.
• 39:20
  Mircea Geoana: But also of course, we need to
• 39:22
  Randall Kaplan: let's talk about nuclear weapons. The largest nuclear bomb ever tested was called Tsar Bomba. It was tested by the old USSR on October 30 1961. It was a hydrogen bomb.
• 39:35
  Randall Kaplan: That was 1500 times more powerful in the combined yield of the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Fast forward 62 years later, today, Russia has ultrafast missiles called hypersonic missiles, which they call Kindles, which means daggers in the US, which they have already used against Ukraine. These hypersonic missiles are lethal they travel up more than five times the speed of sound 3852 miles per hour that's 1.1 miles every second, which is so fast, they can't be shot down. They also follow what is known as low atmospheric ballistic trajectory which allows them to evade radar systems. The bad news doesn't end there. These missiles are capable of carrying 10 nuclear warheads each. There are currently nine countries that nuclear weapons Russia has the most at 5977. Three NATO companies, three NATO countries have them the United States is 5428 France 290 United Kingdom 226. In addition, the US is believed to keep some of our nukes and Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Russia has stated several times that the use of nuclear weapons is on the table in the war against Ukraine. So here's the question. Is there a risk of world war three where everybody will nuke each other and we're all going to die.
• 40:56
  Mircea Geoana: You know, when your nuclear superpower in Russia is a nuclear superpower, with that kind of formidable force for destruction comes also formidable responsibility. And, of course, it's very dangerous.
• 41:08
  Mircea Geoana: And we condemn, you know, very strongly the use of nuclear saber rattling by Moscow. Of course, they're speaking about eventually using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. And this is something which is dangerous in itself. So we're responsible nuclear superpower doesn't play with words. And look how NATO has responded to this. We were exceptionally subdued, we are just basically not escalating this thing.
• 41:35
  Mircea Geoana: Because that's, you know, that's, that's so, so, so dangerous. So NATO is a nuclear superpower as well, America force, our British and French allies. And of course, this is something that we share with all the allies. But to tell also the other side of the story, we see a lot of rhetoric from Russia.
• 41:58
  Mircea Geoana: And we believe this is mainly used to, to soften the public opinion in Ukraine and the public opinion in NATO countries, just to say, okay, the danger is there, we don't see any sign that Russia is changing his nuclear posture, or actions, or we don't see any suspicious activity when it comes to that. So. So I think we should be ready for for hearing from Russia, this kind of threatening rhetoric. But we also believe that they they know that going across the Rubicon is something that is so dangerous for them and for all of the human mankind that they will not go there. Meanwhile, we have to also show strength and restraint. So what does NATO do?
• 42:43
  Mircea Geoana: We do three things, we are giving real defense assurance to all our nations, the 1 billion people that we are mentioned from 3132 nations, every square inch of NATO soil is protected by NATO. And that's really something that we are taking very seriously. We are strengthening the eastern flank, you know, nations, we are we are having a new generation of defense planning, we are spending more on defense, we'll have a summit in Vilnius that we hope that all allies will accept that 2% of GDP for defense is the threshold is the floor and the ceiling. So we are doing our part to defend NATO countries.
• 43:22
  Mircea Geoana: The second obligation, we have to continue to support Ukraine.
• 43:26
  Mircea Geoana: And the third thing that we do at once with the first two is to avoid the risk of escalation Russia. So we have been exceptionally careful in while helping Ukraine not getting NATO involved in this conflict. So you can stay assured that we know what we do, there is always a risk of incident or accident, there is something we cannot take out from the table because that's something that that could happen. But they don't see any any indication of a strategic real calculation for Russia to start nuclear war against us because this will be something which is so formidably disruptive and disruptive that we don't believe that this is on the table. But saber rattling, unfortunately, they will continue to use that.
• 44:09
  Randall Kaplan: So should we be worried or shouldn't be worried as an average citizen reading?
• 44:15
  Mircea Geoana: I think you should trust NATO and the way we conduct everything we do. So I think all nations are safe. And I think we should focus on, on on the rest more pleasant part of our lives and the family and business.
• 44:30
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about the horrific war crimes that Russian has committed against citizens. They're shooting people down in the street mowing them down. They're raping women pillaging villages. You've said that war crimes will not go unpunished. But how on earth are we going to punish people who are committing these war crimes?
• 44:46
  Randall Kaplan: They're gonna go back to Russia.
• 44:49
  Randall Kaplan: What do we have to punish them?
• 44:52
  Mircea Geoana: I think there is a lesson of history that sooner or later, no crime remains on punished or horribles. No crime remains on punished. So what we're now seeing is a sort of a re re consolidation of the International, you know, legal system trying to cope with such horrendous crimes. And these are crimes that are really going beyond any imagination, DEPORTATION OF YOU CAN kids, rape, girls and boys and everything else and so much destruction. And even the you know, we have we have conventions that are regulated, even war, worries to be fought amongst warriors and military is not against civilian population is totally against any decent law or norm of warfare. to target the Russians, the civilian population and you know, electrical grid and things like that. So we're now seeing an attempt to create a dedicated international tribunal for the crimes that Russia has conducted, committed during this war. And, of course, that's not always easy, because jurisdiction and all these things, you've seen some other countries that are still reluctant in applying the decisions that the International Criminal Court has taken. But something tells me that in the end, justice will be served. And I think I'm probably not everyone, but I know that all these horrific crimes will not go unpunished. And this is just a matter of patience, collecting evidence. That's a lot of effort, because in the end, you have to be in the court of justice. And we are basically the ones abiding international norms. So I see building up the institutional end and the legal case, because the moral case is very clear. This is totally war crimes, and they should be they should be they shouldn't be punished.
• 47:02
  Randall Kaplan: Thanks for listening to part one of my amazing conversation with near Cergy Juana, the Deputy General Secretary of NATO. Be sure to tune in next week to part two of my awesome conversation with Mircea.