Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / PREVIEW: “Does Ukraine Still Matter?" with correspondent Misha Zelinsky

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PREVIEW: “Does Ukraine Still Matter?" with correspondent Misha Zelinsky · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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G'day, humans! Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas, and it's the biggest
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doozy of a dangerous idea of all when it comes to world peace. It's the reason why the
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Ukraine war ever mattered in the first place, the dangerous idea is this, that prior to
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the Second World War, certainly prior to the First World War, the majority of humans,
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and the majority of places, the majority of times, lived under regimes that were constantly
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under threat of attack from their neighbors, and we invested vastly too much in both human
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capital and money and treasure and blood in avoiding being invaded or trying to invade
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other people, and World War II changed all that, and we managed to erect the imperfect
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artifices of the United Nations and NATO and other international norms all underpinned
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by an American security guarantee that ensured that countries would not just randomly
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send tanks over the borders of smaller neighbors and try to take their land. Russia's invasion
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of Ukraine changed that, and we now stand at a precipice, which is sort of no less pressing
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than it ever was, which it seems entirely possible at the present of the United States,
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and the leader of Russia will come to some kind of an arrangement to effectively allow
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Russia to win this war. It's worth reminding ourselves what the stakes are, taking a snapshot
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of where the conflict currently stands, what the upsides, downsides, perils, opportunities
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are of the current situation in Ukraine, what Donald Trump is trying to do, what Vladimir
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Putin is trying to do, and whether or not the interests of the people who actually live
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in Central and Eastern Europe should matter to us at all. Thus, we invite back on the
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show, the one and only, Misha Zalinsky. Misha was the Australian financial reviews correspondent
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War Correspondent in Ukraine from 2022 to 2023. This is his second appearance on the show. We had him
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on in 2022 to give us a snapshot at a very different time during that conflict. He's a full bright
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scholar and a national security expert. He tried to run for federal parliament in Australia at the
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last election, but that attempt was derailed. I would be very surprised if he doesn't try it again
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at some point in his future. He has his own podcast called Diplomates, not Diplomats, but Diplomates
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as in G'day mate, and he has the great honor of being personally sanctioned by the Vladimir Putin
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regime. We talk about Ukraine, but also its implications for global security, Taiwan, China,
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and all the rest of it. Misha's book is entitled The Sun Will Rise. It's a novel based on his time
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in Ukraine. I hope you enjoy as much as I did. The one and only, Misha Zalinsky.
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What have you been making of the events of the foreign policy from the Trump administration?
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Can you believe it's only 63 days or something? It feels like 63 years is genuinely
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before the Trump presidency, my friends in the foreign policy geopolitical space,
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national security space. I would say to them, does I feel like the world's going faster and it
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really sped up with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but it has gone its like, I don't know, from
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hyperdrive to ultra hyperdrive. It's amazing, isn't it? It's impossible to keep up almost,
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which is in some ways a strategy from the Trump team in the Trump White House, but from a
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geopolitical point of view, it's a cliche now. It's the landing thing of sometimes nothing
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happens in decades, but weeks happen in decades, or decades happens in weeks, and we'll
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feel a little bit like that kind of real pivotal moment. How are you personally sorting through
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what's worth paying attention to and what's not? We've got a little good, the big things are.
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There are a few very big things happen. There's a lot of things happening in the United States,
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domestic politics, which have profound implications for geopolitics everywhere, like Australia.
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We're very staked in what happens in the United States. We're waiting to get nuclear submarines
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in seven years, clearly. You should hear the conversation that I just had with the former premier
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of South America. Foreign Minister of Australia. I know you have the bullet points. He's
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never going to happen. They're never going to give us the nuclear subs. I was like, let's just
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suppose they will. He was like, they won't. I was like, let's suppose they will. He was like,
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yeah, but they're not going to. I was like, well, thought experiment. Yeah, Bob's very
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strikingly opposed, but nevertheless, look, it's important to what happens in the United States
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implicates policy in Australia. We need to watch what's happening there. But geopolitically,
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there are three big feeders around the world that matter the Middle East, whether or not there's
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going to be an enduring piece there, that continues to simmer away and flare up. We should be too hard,
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right? No, it's a rough Palestine. Easy one to fix. Not bad overings on that too, but
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so that's obviously devishly complex. You've got China's ambitions in the East Asia. No hot
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war there, but a lot of activity, a lot of grey zone interference. It's a reason why we want
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nuclear submarines. China, very active pushing into the territory of its neighboring nations.
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War exercises off the coast of Australia only a couple weeks ago, which terrifying, and to my
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mind, really showcase the need for things like nuclear submarines and Virginia class submarines.
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Just pause on that for a second. So the anti-nuclear submarine, US alliance faction would say,
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that's precisely why we don't need to hitch our wagon to some vast geo-strategic global US
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led nuclear submarine like complicated Malaki and why we need to focus where we should instead
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be investing those massive resources in a really good, solid, local, conventional submarine fleet
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to be patrolling our waters and making sure that China doesn't shit on us in our
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Yeah, I mean, that's an attractive argument, right? And we should have indigenous capability
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into, in our military hardware and kit and ability to self-produce it. In the use of the word
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indigenous, they're politically incorrect. Are you getting it canceled by the way?
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I don't think, I don't think First Nations people have any submarine. I mean, nuclear oil
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otherwise. Well, I mean, I'll leave others to make that their minor. Well, you fly along to enjoy
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a delicious beverage. We've got to cooperate. But to talk about in a nuclear submarine capacity,
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it's the world's best nuclear sub, sorry, submarines. When you look at what's available in the
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market, Australia is a huge land mass surrounded by water. So we need asymmetric capability. We
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need the ability to defend our perimeter and also to have asymmetric capability where our adversaries
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don't know where we are. And so a nuclear submarine, unlike a diesel submarine, can stay underwater
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in perpetuity. Essentially, T run out of supplies, right? All the crew needs to be switched out,
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can stay under months at a time. There is nothing close to approaching the capability of what
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the Virginia class can do. It's the best in the market. And we are one of the unique beneficiaries.
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No other nation in the world apart from the United Kingdom in 1958 has been shared the
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jewels in the crown of US critical military capabilities. Yes, it's only useful if you actually
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want your submarines to be up in the Taiwan straits. It's not useful for securing the homeland.
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Secondly, it comes with massive liability. It's like a put a huge target on our back and
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means that we've got to target on our back. Well, not so much the China has to nuke us if they're
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in a war with Pine Gap, the United States. Pine Gap is a critical capability for the United States.
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That's a security and intelligence base. I think things get boiled right down to
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is the United States going to go to war with China rather than what are China's ambitions
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around the world. And so for Australia, we need friends and we need capability. The United States,
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the Trump administration, notwithstanding, is a critical friend of Australia. And we need the
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capability to defend ourselves as well. And so we've always worked together with friends, whether it's
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the British empire, the back of the day, or whether it's the United States, whether it's European,
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or right thinking, democratic nations, like Indonesia, like Japan, like India,
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you look at the Quad, people talk about Orcas, that's Australia and the United States, but the Quad
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is a critical partnership. The Quad is Japan and India and the United States and Australia.
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Now, what are they having common? What are they having common is that they're all democracies
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and they're worried about the rise of the Chinese Communist Party. And so the capability that we have
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and the friends that we have are critical and defending Australia. And I think I boil it down to
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this. Massive land mass, relatively small country, surrounded by water, we want the very,
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very best under sea capability and there is nothing approaching a Virginia class submarine in terms
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of capability. Even if it drags us into a war that we would otherwise have the luxury of choosing
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whether to be involved in. Well, that's a sort of a leap where I don't necessarily support the
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underlying thesis. There's no obligation for us to go to war with the United States. The United
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States go to war, goes to war, it's making its own decision. But also, let's step back up from
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that. Well, there is, but the obligation is not that we would have to declare war, it's that war
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would have to be declared upon us because we would be functionally a part of the United States,
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militarily, would be part of the United States. I assume you're talking about a world where China
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is a war with the United States. Yeah, that's right. That is going to be a profoundly massive conflict
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that would have far broader implications than what Australia decides to do in those
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circumstances. But having a submarine based nuke would make it additionally bad.
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If you have a situation where nuclear warfare is at play, we haven't seen nuclear war ever
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in play thankfully since the, you know, the nukes were created in the 1940s. If you talk about
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Australia being nuke, I mean, I profoundly wild scenarios are at play there where I would
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imagine we would want to go to war anyway. But I think the idea that Australia would be
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nuke because the United States and China are at war is just like kind of elite by three and four
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fold that I think is not well. Well, isn't, isn't strategizing three and fourfold out precisely
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that, but I mean, let's, let's, let's bring it to a real live example. I mean, if nukes is,
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if you're allergic to that idea, then you can just say massive conventional aerial bombardment.
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But the United States of US military assets that we would not otherwise be in present.
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Well, let's take an example of this live. Ukraine's being supported by the United States in its war
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against Russia, resisting Russia's invasion. Russia is not new to Ukraine nor is it you,
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the United States, despite capacity to do so. So I, I just think that it's a fair fee.
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I don't think we should be thinking about whether or not there's risks of us being,
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you know, attacked by nuclear weapons or conventional weapons when we think about how to arm ourselves.
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Why wouldn't you think about whether or not we're going to get attacked by nuclear or conventional
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weapons when you're thinking about what I'm most worried about. What I'm most worried about.
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Is the ability to resist a conventional subsea or on surface naval exercises off our coast.
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And the ability to resist that is heightened with the superior technology. The most worried about
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resisting exercises. Well, what, what does an exercise lead to? Why is, why is China showing that
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it can perform these things off our coast because it wants to intimidate us? And the way to
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stop being intimidated by a large repunters have asymmetric capability. If we have asymmetric capability
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undersea, it'll make China think twice. But what do you mean by asymmetric in their case?
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Having superior tech. China, China, we're not going to be, we're not going to be asymmetric with China.
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Well, we're never going to have a better military than China. Well, the Virginia class is way better
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than anything the Chinese can do. We'll have what, three of them. Well, three to five, maybe more,
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as we have quickly. How quickly will their naval capabilities outstrip ours?
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Well, the thing about, it's not about just simple numeric numbers. It's about how good
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equality of your tech is, right? And what I'm saying is, yes, China's producing a lot of
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military equipment at the moment, but it's not as good as what you see currently at least in the
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Western hemisphere. You don't think that having US, having being so closely interwoven into the US
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military machine makes the homeland of Australia more of a target where we'd come to blows with China.
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Look, I mean, what do you think that is true, but it's nonetheless worth
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what I say is we're already deeply woven into the United States military hardware.
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Those are decisions that we've made as a country for 40 years. I think at the end of the day,
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you've got to choose who your friends are in the world. And the United States,
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for its faults, is still a good friend to Australia. What if your friends don't care about who
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their friends are? Well, that's a whole other question. And I mean, there is a profound change
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underway now in USGS strategic posture. And it's a worry, right? I genuinely do worry about that.
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And I think everyone's right to worry about it. Now, whether or not this becomes a permanent
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fixture or if it's a temporary problem, we don't know, right? But yeah, look, the Trump
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administration has upending years or decades of thought in this space. But I don't think
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that changes the questions around what kit you want. You still want the best kit. And the best
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kit on the shelf right now is a Virginia class nuclear submarine. I sidetracked you a little bit
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from I think relating the three, the three things. So you said the middle is the Middle East.
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We have the strategic concern considerations. Domestic policy. Then the United States.
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United States. What was number three? So, so domestic policy, United States. The Middle East.
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Middle East. Yes. What China's ambitions are, which I think we've sort of ventilated.
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And then of course, obviously the hot war in Ukraine. So you've got like a regional war
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in Middle East. You've got a cold war if you want to phrase it in those terms. But gray zone,
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foreign interference type conflict and the certainness going on in East Asia or in our
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neck of the woods. And into the South Pacific. And then you've got a hot war, a land war in
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Europe of mass attempted conquering, which we haven't really seen since World War II.
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And how's it going? Brutally and awfully. It is. It's a peculiar war, Josh, in that I describe it
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as both ultra high tech and ultra low tech. So high tech, the types of weapons you've never seen
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before. The use of drones is actually changed war effects extraordinarily. Drones in the air
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is like hundreds of thousands in the theater at any one time, hundreds of thousands in the air at
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any one time. So war has changed profoundly in that sense. And the ability now to use very
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cheap drones to attack a very expensive kit, like essentially blow up a tank with a very cheap
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drone is changing the way tactically war is fought. But then at the same time, you still need
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men with guns to take terrain. And the war on the front line is brutal and almost World War I
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style trench warfare of a meat grinder. And particularly when you look at the tactics of the
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Russians are using where they are just throwing walls that they got walls of meat, but walls of men
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running into gunfire and artillery fire. It is the casualty rate is massive. Are you two
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of them using at the moment? Because even a year ago, they were already having to pull people
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out of prisons and across Russia and send them out. And I mean, well, wanted to go to the front
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line. It's a combination of conscription. So the Russians have conscription and a combination of
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recruitment out of places like the prisons system, et cetera, saying you can get out early and
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will pay a lot of money. Also paying a lot for people to go. And like any war, it's the poor people
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as well in regional areas. And the Russian Putin's bases in Petersburg and Moscow, the Russian
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middle class, not many of them are fighting. They're increasingly they're going to have to some of
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them. But you see a lot of the poorer out regional rural areas. And also the ethnic minorities
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that are doing the fighting as well. So it is brutal stuff and awful stuff. Who are the ethnic
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minorities? So you see the Stan parts of the world. So Dakastan and other, essentially, I mean,
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Russia is still relative to racist kind of country where they try to run a monoculture,
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ruzo culture where Russians preeminent. But there are a lot of ethnic minorities,
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Muslim minorities and others that they draw from the central Asian parts of it.
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You say that they're going to have to start drawing on more people. But maybe they won't, if the
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great President Trump and President Putin can come to an agreement. Well, that's a great if
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isn't it. I think what Trump's realizing is he said he could solve the war in one day. I think
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what do we say was 60 odd days in. So we've still haven't got a resolution. So 60 days minimum
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over his own deadline. I think he came away from a two hour conversation with Trump with Putin
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rather added to our conversation where Trump came away with a ceasefire that was only for aerial
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bombardment, which was immediately broken and agreement to play an ice hockey match between Australia
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Australia, the United States and Russia. So not much of an agreement. They just had a meeting
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overnight where again, not much was agreed. They've come away saying, oh, they're going to have a
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an increased ceasefire on the oceans. You're already kind of, there's an informal one in place
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anywhere where effectively the Russians and Ukrainians are not attacking each other's merchant
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seas, sea capacity. And also the Russians got smashed up so massively by the Ukrainian military
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that they kind of pulled back. They had their flag ship sunk, which does not happen since the
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Balkans war by the Ukrainians who have no navy. So the Russians ages ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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there's a couple of years. Yes, right. So the Black Sea ceasefires are already kind of informally
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in place. If not formally, the Russians are already kind of breaking many of the terms of the
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ceasefire. So what Trump's working out is he may want peace and look, we all want peace, right?
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But peace, any price to be a bad piece and the price of peace that Putin has said from the outset
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is he wants Ukraine's sovereignty. He wants to own Ukraine. Now, leaving aside how you might
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feel about the Ukrainians who got strong views about whether they want to be owned by the Russians,
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they made it very clear. And they're paying with their own blood for their freedom. And so
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whether or not they're going to get to peace, it really depends on what Trump is prepared to
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trade away. And there's all manner of moving parts here. You saw the meeting with Zelensky
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in the White House, which is awful and very shocking. I think for many people around the world to see
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the United States a leader of the free world for many, many decades since World War II,
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berating a fellow Democratic leader, telling him to be more grateful on the jade advancing to him as
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well. And it was just awful to see. But then Ukrainians pivoted from that very quickly that
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they're smart and dexterous in their foreign policy, managed to get to a situation where
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the Russians now are kind of seen to be the side that aren't coming to the party in the deal.
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But any terms of the deal, I'd always be skeptical of because the Russians,
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one thing Vladimir Putin always does is breaks his word. He's done that for 20 years.
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The lesson of deals with Putin is he never honors them. For 20 years, any time he's done something
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bad and said, that'll be the last time I do it. And we believe him, he does something worse. So bad
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behavior, unpunished becomes worse behavior, right? And so he's ability to continually fool us.
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Like it's fool. You know, fool me once, shame on me, fool me a hundred times. Like, I don't know
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what there's no pun for that. But he's done that consistently. Sorry to cut across. But you go,
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look at his history. 2018 invades Georgia. The world sort of does nothing.
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2014, he invades Ukraine for the first time. And X's Crimea starts a war in Donbass.
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2016, he get medals in the US election and medals in Brexit. He starts a war in Ukraine of
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conquest in 2022. Effectively, there's been sanctions, but not much, right? The penalties have not
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been high. And if in the end, Putin's on the verge of a strategic defeat here. If we give him a
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strategic victory, the lesson for him will be what? Yeah, you start a problem. You make the problem
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big enough in the end, the West capitulates because they get bored or there's other priorities.
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And that's a lesson to him and others. Why do you say he's on the verge of a strategic defeat?
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He's already had one. Look at his economy as a mess, right? So if you look at where Putin started
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in 2022 and to where he is now, he's literally blown up his biggest market for his biggest export.
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So Ukrainian territories where they used to sell Russian gas into Europe. Now that market is gone.
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Their other biggest market is oil. That's been completely handicapped in terms of how they can
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make money. Now they're still selling oil, but the Indians and the Chinese are extorting them
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at very cheap prices and making hay out of it, essentially. And so his economy is ruined. Their
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interest rates are at 21% inflation at 9%. So yeah, they got, I think it depends on how you
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calculate about hundreds of billions of US dollars frozen overseas in their own wealth and assets.
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So that's the kind of economic consequences of it. In terms of the military consequences,
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he's had his army humiliated. This has been the least the second most powerful military in the world.
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They've had perhaps nearly a million casualties of injuries and deaths. Now even if it's half
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a million, like to spend some or two and half a million and a million, right? Huge numbers of
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people that have died. Now Russia's a big country, 140 million people, but no country can lose half
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a million to a million young people. He said, either a million fleas, well, from the
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conscription we talked about earlier. So that's the kind of military humiliation. Half the tanks
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he had before he started blown up. So they have just been completely shown to be a paper tiger
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when it comes to military. They're prestige around the world is destroyed. They've essentially
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not got many friends left. And what's he managed to gain in the process? Some incremental gains
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of Ukrainian territory. It seems like a very high price to pay for all that very little gain.
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All of those strategic defeats were banked within the first six months of the war,
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basically. I mean, in terms of the economic and military pain is ongoing.
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When he continued, but it was clear pretty quickly that the world sort of got actually
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together on sanctions and so that that was going to be tricky. I mean, I guess when you say he's
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on the verge of strategic defeat, that makes it sound that sounds more optimistic than the way
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the most people are trying. Well, it comes down to us, right? If it's a contest between Russia and
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Ukraine, over time, Russia wins that contest just because of sheer weight of force, of men,
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material, a larger economy, over time, they can grind them down. If they're prepared to pay a
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high price, which the Russians are showing that they are now. They're paying, I would argue,
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an unsustainable price, but over time, if Ukraine's left to its own devices,
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logic would tell you that if Russia is prepared to keep paying the price that it is, it will make
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Ukraine suffer and take more and more of its territory. But wars are fought on industrial
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bases. If it's Russia versus Ukraine, then the outcome is probably more leaning towards a
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Russian victory. But if it's Russia versus everybody else, then it's a whole different ballgame.
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That's where it's been up until recently where suddenly we've decided we don't want to send
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weapons to Ukraine. I would argue that the ability to not only defeat Vladimir Putin in Ukraine,
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but to teach a lesson to any other dictator that we can't have wars of conquest in the 21st century.
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That's a lesson that we can teach Putin permanently and every other wannabe dictator wants to
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go and start a war of this nature. Now, the Ukrainians are prepared to do the fighting,
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they're prepared to do the dying and they're showing that every day with their bravery,
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all they're asking for is weapons. Now, that's a deal of the century. If you compare to what we
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had to do in World War II, World War I and other major conflicts around the world,
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all we've got to do is send our stuff. So the way I see it and we sort of talk about the stakes,
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it's a pivot point. Whatever the lesson of this conflict in Ukraine is,
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we'll really drive what the next 10 and 20 years of geopolitics looks like. If the lesson is
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you shouldn't invade your neighbours, democracies can resist dictatorships and big countries can't
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crush small countries that don't like them, that'd be good. But if the lesson is you can do that,
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Australia is a country of 26 million people. We cannot survive in a world where big countries
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destroy little countries where might is right. That's a dangerous world for Australia. So if you
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never want to see war, we talked before about, you know, conflict in our region, whether or not we
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get dragged on conflict with the United States and China or a major world conflict. If you never
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want to see a conflict like that, if you never want to see tanks having to be deployed in Australia
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or in our region, then send those tanks to Ukraine. That is the single best way to make sure
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that we never have conflict anywhere else around the world. And I believe that passionately.
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So it's not about charity, sending stuff to Ukraine, whether you're Australia or another
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nation around the world. And it's also not some sort of like bleeding heart or sort of forward
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leading foreign policy where we've got to promote democracy around the world. It's saying this is
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a national security objective of Australia that big countries cannot destroy small ones.
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It feels a little bit like we're talking in 2023 in the sense that let's suppose that Donald
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Trump hadn't won the election. Let's suppose that the US administration was full rar, rar,
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rar on Ukraine. What would we be doing right now that would lead to a decisive military defeat
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for Russia since, as you mentioned before, it seems like it's a world war one style
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stalemate and a war of attrition. Like in what universe is Ukraine retaking the east of Ukraine?
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Well, weapons is the first step, right? We've never ever given Ukraine the weapons they need
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to win. We've given Ukraine enough weapons not to lose. That's kind of been the unfortunate
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truth of what we've done. And everything we've given, the weird thing about military
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as you say, we're not going to give you these things. And then in the end you give them,
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but you give them too late for them to be comprehensively decisive on the battlefield.
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You remember, you go right back, can't give you cream tanks, gave them tanks, can't give
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them high miles, you gave them high miles, can't give you long-range missiles, gave them,
26:04
you can't shoot these into Russian targets. And they've done all these things, right?
26:09
But when the time to do them, where it may have been most decisive, we haven't done it,
26:12
like you think about the fact that Putin survived the near coup because of the pressure he was under.
26:17
All those things I've talked about, the pressure on Russian society is high.
26:21
You talk about cost of living. You've got inflation-running double digits for that long.
26:25
You've got unemployment, so not unemployment, but high levels of casualties in your community,
26:33
like that pressure and that cut off from the world. In the end, something popped in
26:37
progression, stage kind of a half coup, and there are no half coups. Yeah, you've got to go the
26:44
whole way. And then he strangely had some aviation vehicles indeed, right? And we can talk
26:49
about what that means to Putin regime. But ultimately, couldn't you make the argument that
26:56
a flailing autocrat who's been backed into a corner is a risky, you know, entity to provoke,
27:03
and so that's why your cautious about what you give you. You don't want to come out of the gate,
27:08
giving Ukraine the capacity to strike well into Russia and then escalate it into, you know,
27:14
at the time Putin was saying, this will be World War III, New Jersey. But he hasn't done it. Well,
27:18
he didn't, but my analysis of Putin when he talks about nuclear weapons, the war's going very badly
27:25
for him. You actually look at whenever he starts saying, well, just never forget Russia's got
27:29
nuclear weapons. It's generally when things aren't going particularly well. That doesn't mean that
27:33
it's not a risk. But look, I mean, you should, in anyone says nuclear warfare, you should pay
27:38
attention. But you think about it, though, it's a bad choice and a worse choice. The bad choice
27:43
is continuing to, you know, to take him on and not buckle to him. The worst choice is what,
27:48
less than you're teaching Putin, if he says, nuclear weapons and we go shit, like we capitulate,
27:52
and we back off, right? He knows then he's got us cout in a way, right? So you need to take him
27:58
seriously, but not be completely terrified of what he might do. And look, there's be consequences
28:02
that and privately, I think it's been communicated that what the consequences would be. And also, I think
28:08
what's interesting about the nuclear stuff is, even when you're sort of a tactical nuclear weapons,
28:13
which people talk about tactical nuclear weapons, what are they? Just small nukes that can potentially
28:18
use in the battlefield, but no one's ever obviously uses them. When he was talking about Nukes quite a
28:23
bit, the Chinese had a back channel where they said, look mate, just cool it on that. And there's
28:29
been less talk of that from Putin. Because I see China's right on the border of the Russians and
28:35
not interested in nuclear warfare on their doorstep. When you say that behind the scenes, you know,
28:39
it's probably been been made clear to him what the consequences would be of crossing that Rubicon.
28:44
I do remember hearing some rumors about what the Biden administration might have been talking about,
28:49
but do you have any suspicions about? So there was a moment where I think in 2023, where it seemed
28:58
that the nuclear, the conversation about his potential use of tactical nuclear weapons in the
29:03
battlefield was at a peak. And Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State, I think, right at the time,
29:12
we have to Moscow had a meeting with the Putin or his foreign minister. And then all of a sudden,
29:19
that went away. And I heard some people saying, like, well, it's interesting. It's fascinating to
29:24
sort of think about what the sticks are in the carrot and stick metaphor that the United States
29:30
basically said, listen, if this happens, then instantaneously this happens, this happens, this happens,
29:35
and this happens. So quit it. Do you know what the this? Well, I mean, there's all a matter of
29:39
different things they could do in those some theories that essentially the Americans would immediately
29:43
sink Russia's entire black sea fleet that they could deploy their own literally deploy U.S.
29:50
military into Ukraine that they could strike Russia. Like there's a lot of things that the Americans
29:57
are not doing that they could do to Putin and his armies right now that they're not. What's
30:02
extraordinary is the Ukrainians have been holding off Russia was really kind of the stuff in the
30:07
warehouse, right? Like the Americans have been kind of what do we got here? Yeah, you can have
30:10
some of this stuff and they've been using that to hold the Russians off. The American military
30:15
might has not nearly been brought to bear on Putin. So like there's a lot of scary things they could
30:21
do. And I'm sure that was communicated. And so in terms of the use of battlefield nuclear weapons,
30:27
the other reason why I think Putin didn't do them other than the fact that there would have been
30:31
consequences for him and not just consequences from the United States. But I think anyone that's
30:37
been tacitly supporting him, whether it's the Indians getting to buy things or the Chinese giving
30:42
black market support of equipment and other material, they would have been it. It's completely
30:49
unsustainable to continue to support them in any fashion. So Russia would have been utterly
30:53
isolated at that point as well. But the thing about the use of tactical nuclear weapons is there
30:58
wouldn't have been decisive. The Ukrainians have got a modern military approach. They don't
31:03
funnily enough, the Russians still do it to a large extent where they will pull their
31:07
defense or sorry, they'll pull their soldiers and tanks all together in one area.
31:12
The Ukrainians are spread out. So where are you launching them and how and why? So
31:17
it's attractive as an idea. But all you really do is create a lot of damage in an area,
31:21
sort of environmentally, but you couldn't create a battlefield advantage. So Putin doesn't get a
31:28
battlefield decisive victory by using them. Suddenly he's got complete isolation from his allies
31:35
or you know, he's got no one to sell anything to. Correct. And the Americans might do. So you
31:41
kind of look at that go, why would I do it? Where remains useful is still as I might use them.
31:47
Right. So for the reasons I talked about with you earlier, it's often scarier to say you might
31:52
do something to actually go through and do it because you've done it then it goes all that's
31:55
happening now. I've comprised it in, whereas that fear of unknown still does. It has and continues
32:00
to create a degree of hesitation in policy makers' minds for the reasons you've said. I think
32:06
fundamentally you have to grit your teeth and ignore it. You can't completely discount it,
32:12
but you've got to also remember Putin's, while he's a megalomaniac dictator, he's still
32:18
sent fundamentally, he's a cunning rat who wants to survive and that would be kind of essentially
32:23
fatal move here. So I just want to clarify what best case and worst case scenarios are from where
32:27
we stand. No, we're going there and we're going to kind of dictate it. So let's take it as a
32:31
given that almost let's take it as a given then that what should have happened when he first
32:35
invaded Ukraine is that we should have thrown more unrestricted, long-range weapons at Ukraine
32:43
and said go for it, go for it kiddos and hopefully that we wouldn't have ended up in the situation
32:48
that we're in where there's effectively a stalemate border in the east of the country. Now that we
32:55
have that, do you still see a universe in which Ukraine becomes whole again and like retakes
33:04
Crimea or or something like what's good what's good what's good case. It's okay so there's kind of
33:11
what could happen which is I said you could give them the weapons to get the job done and they
33:14
you know they grind out a tough come from behind victory right now does that seem likely no it
33:19
doesn't seem likely it can't happen without United States support right and that does not appear
33:24
to be on offer from the Trump administration. So then what becomes probable well what in an
33:29
ideal world you'd still want to do is give Ukraine the advantage on the battlefield that Trump
33:36
so not Trump that Putin feels as though he's got to make a deal because he's starting to lose right
33:41
at the moment I think Putin thinks well it's kind of all going my way that's always being
33:46
recalcitrant on any sort of 30-day cease-fire is like well why would I do it yeah I'm kind of
33:51
grinding forward here you guys look like you're about to capitulate anyway you know stuff it right
33:56
but the world where Ukraine looks like it's starting to make gains I think makes their position
34:01
stronger but fundamentally the real big decision here is what is the price of peace so if Putin's
34:08
able to extract out of United States Europeans and others that Ukraine's on its own then I think
34:15
you if you're a betting man you know Putin's going to retool and come back for the rest if they're
34:21
on their own and they've got no security guarantees then eventually it's going to you know I think
34:28
end very very badly for the world and for Ukrainians and so it yeah is it going to be possible to
34:34
expel Russian troops from all of the lamb ass they currently occupy extremely hard so therefore
34:40
what's the price of peace needs to be is it needs to be that Ukraine is safe and secure and sovereign
34:45
in its own borders that it has security guarantees that are bankable and you've got to remember Ukraine's
34:50
memory of security guarantees and you know this is a history list of the 1994 Budapest Agreement they
34:54
had the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons outside the United outside of Russia and the US and
35:01
gave them up to remind people that's because they were part of the Soviet Union and of course the
35:04
Soviet Union at the time and they were storing them in Ukraine I mean it's an obviously good spot
35:10
to have them because it's close to Europe so if you're an aggressor on Europe you want to put
35:14
them somewhere in the Soviet Union so you've got then the Soviet Union falls apart right
35:19
Ukraine becomes an independent country correct sitting on all these nukes correct and the new Russia
35:23
and the United States and everyone else goes yeah we don't want you having all these
35:26
drugs but don't worry give us your nukes we'll guarantee that you're safe perfectly fast forward a
35:31
few decades I'll show you a guarantee yeah no you're not going to happen didn't happen in 2014
35:37
was when it was first tested and shown to be you know complete bullshit yeah right didn't get
35:43
defended and so you can understand they got some hesitation around you know promises on paper so
35:48
what does the promise on paper look like well I think it looks like what the Europeans are talking
35:52
about you know Keir Starmer is talking about this Emmanuel Macron is talking about this you know
35:56
Anthony Albanese is talking about what you got to have some level of
36:01
allied or European or democratic soldiers on the ground maintaining a piece in Ukraine that
36:09
keeps Ukraine safe and that Russia then knows if we come back we're not just taking on the
36:15
Ukrainians we're taking on everybody and that's the only way to have to guarantee it now short of
36:18
NATO now NATO would be ideal that again seems unlikely because the United States essentially
36:24
the way NATO works is I mean US being the big dog in the NATO arrangement but everyone's
36:28
well V2 powers on new membership and so that seems unlikely that that would give them the guarantees
36:34
they need article five mutual defense would give them right but would there is there not a
36:38
conceivable arrangement where Ukraine does not join NATO but NATO functions as the body that
36:43
influences the peace whether it's NATO the United States at this point on Trump is saying they're
36:48
not going to provide any security guarantees so what the Europeans are trying to do is to say okay
36:54
we'll do the heavy lifting now Trump's whole thing is the Europeans are bludging on security bases
36:59
now that's kind of true over a long period of time with NATO spending it's not true with the
37:04
Ukraine conflict they've been supporting Ukraine more than the United States have and rightly so
37:09
it's on their doorstep right and so what the Ukrainians are saying is sorry the Europeans are saying
37:18
we'll go in we'll be the cops on the ground but we do need the United States to be a backstop if
37:25
you know she hits a fan and Russia comes back again yeah and so I think some sort of peace
37:32
is secure and guaranteed where okay they're not in NATO but they've got a NATO-esque type
37:37
backing and then they're in the European Union at that point what are the Ukrainians one out of
37:41
this I want to get away from Russia they want to be European and they want to be democratic and
37:46
they want to be free and liberal and get to enjoy the world that we're so grateful to have here
37:50
in Australia that type of life is what they aspire to that would be a good piece I think it's a yeah
37:57
I still think I mean isn't it a massive economic hit isn't the eastern part of the country the
38:02
bread basket of yeah it's interesting to hear the rest of this conversation go to uncomfortable
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