Lt. Col. (Ret.) Alexander Vindman, the former Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council, gives us a history lesson on Ukraine and Russia, speaks to Putin's miscalculations, and talks about the power of democracy. Additionally, he talks about the dangers while giving potential outcomes regarding the current war in Ukraine.
Lt. Col. (Ret.) Alexander Vindman, the former Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council, gives us a history lesson on Ukraine and Russia, speaks to Putin's miscalculations, and talks about the power of democracy. Additionally, he talks about the dangers while giving potential outcomes regarding the current war in Ukraine.
Putin's aspirations were always for Ukraine were always to fold Ukraine back in, and everything else was kind of a pretext of sorts for war, saying that he had no choice because NATO was expanding all this other stuff. But it's always been about Ukraine. He started a war in 2014. He thought he had done enough damage, frankly, when he annexed Crimea. And when he started a war in eastern Ukraine to rescue Ukraine's progress towards towards the west, but in fact, he actually accelerated it. He was a galvanizing force.
Charlie Malone:Welcome to Season Two of the policy bets podcast, engaging with leaders, scholars and strong voices to fill a void in support of Policy Development for America's veterans. With your host former Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Dr. David Shulkin. And the Executive Director of Policy beds, Louis Celli, today's guest Lieutenant Colonel Alexander vindman, a retired United States Army officer and former director for European Affairs for the US National Security Council.
Louis Celli:Well, Mr. Secretary, here we are witnessing the first full scale invasion of a European nation by another in over 80 years. I mean, it's truly sad for the people, Ukraine and democracy overall.
Dr. David Shulkin:Yeah, it certainly is. But, you know, I think that even watching the tragedy unfold, and who knows what the future is gonna hold. There still are some really hopeful signs coming out of Ukraine, and also some important lessons for the world to see how to respond to military invasions like this. Well, global
Louis Celli:politics is a lot to follow. And, you know, while wars and fighting in Asia are brought to the attention of the American public, largely through American involvement, or through the reporting of outrageous human, human rights violations, European politics feels much more intimate. I mean, for instance, Brexit was closely covered here in the United States, and the royal family is in the news daily. I don't think there's anyone that doesn't know that the Queen has COVID.
Dr. David Shulkin:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. And it is amazing watching this play out in front of our eyes. I think we're really lucky today to have Colonel vindman, to talk to us about how to understand what we're seeing both in terms of not only the historical and the strategic issues that we're watching, but also watching this unfold so quickly, and how to interpret the events, and how it's likely to impact the future, this is really going to be an important podcast.
Louis Celli:I couldn't agree more. I was stationed in Germany twice during my military career, once at the height of the Cold War. And then again, at the collapse of the Soviet Union, as matter of fact, I was in Berlin when the wall came down. And, you know, I was one of the first American soldiers to interact with a foreign East German soldier. So I've seen firsthand the difference between a free market economy and what a communist economy looks like. Yeah,
Dr. David Shulkin:and glue. I think it's so important that you talk about that, because many Americans, and I certainly hear this all the time you say, I don't understand why we are have our troops over in Europe, in Korea, all over the world. Why are we doing that? Those were old times? You know, that was World War Two. But I think this allows Americans to understand why it's important that America maintains its strength in its world leadership position, because who just a few months ago would have really ever imagined that we'd be in this situation today.
Louis Celli:It's absolutely right. And here's the difference. You know, once a society has lived in a free and democratic economy, I don't think it's possible to go back. I just I don't see how that's possible.
Dr. David Shulkin:Well, the way it's possible is through lots of human tragedy and a lot of suffering. And you know, certainly people aren't going to do it under their free will. And so, so we're watching this as the Braves Ukrainians stand up to this tyranny right now. And let's, let's hope that the ending to this is one that we can all feel was worth it, because there's going to be a lot of people that suffer in the meantime.
Louis Celli:It's true. The only other example we have of anything like this in our time, is when Hong Kong was turned back over from the British to China to Chinese rule, and that was through a treaty. So I mean, that was and not only that Hong Kong is different. They're isolated, they're an island. So the last time that an invasion like this was successful, was during the dawn of the information age, when radio and printed newspaper were the only media available that was the only the only voice that people heard.
Dr. David Shulkin:Well, I also think we saw something similar with the talent band though. But again, that was a that was an intra country conflict and, you know, somewhat tribal in nature. And this one's different this is this is breaking across, you know, internationally accepted boundaries. And so we'll, we'll need to see exactly where this goes. But I think what's so interesting about our podcast guest today is is that he not only is able to interpret what's happening through a historical lens, he's able to go out and talk about where he thinks this is going to end and what it means for the future relationships between Europe, the United States and Russia.
Louis Celli:It's absolutely true. And, you know, I think what we may hear is that, you know, Vladimir Putin had severely miscalculated the human resolve of the Ukrainian people, as we're seeing play out on the news today, and Ukrainian president Solinsky has basically turned into an international folk hero, you know, which only served to strengthen the resolve of the overwhelming international disdain for Russian aggression.
Dr. David Shulkin:Yeah, I think that's an accurate reflection of today's picture, but never on their estimate. Lattimer Putin, he, he's been doing this a long time, he has a pretty good sense of what is still left for him in terms of, you know, tricks up his sleeve, as well as his significant military power. So no one should be overconfident in where we are today.
Louis Celli:Well, I really can't wait to get Lieutenant Colonel vindman. In here. He was, as you know, born in Ukraine, he immigrated to the United States as a child ended up working at the White House, you know, the director of European Affairs for the National Security Council, and he's a regular commentator on CNN and MSNBC. So we're lucky to have him today.
Dr. David Shulkin:Yep. So let's, let's hear what he has to say.
Louis Celli:Lieutenant Colonel vindman, thank you for making time to join us today at the positive. That's podcast, we really appreciate it.
Unknown:Thank you for having me on.
Dr. David Shulkin:Colonel, I wanted to get right into some of the current events that are happening in the Ukraine today in terms of both how our listeners should think about what's happening both historically, but also strategically, in terms of what they're watching. And actually you helping them understand it on CNN, and lots of other outlets, I'm sure. But give us your sense where things are today.
Alex Vindman:Yeah. So I mean, those are fundamental questions on how we got here. And that could be in the big scale. Because the shared history between Russia and Ukraine and their predecessors, goes back 1000 years. And for somebody like Vladimir Putin, he, he thinks about long term historical legacies. And he thinks about the fact that Russia and Ukraine are indivisible, and that Ukraine is a part of Russia. And what was known as you had greater Russia, which is a Russian Empire, little Russia was Ukraine and Belarus. Those are the three the core of the Empire. That's the way he sees the world. They do they they're constantly intermix in constant interaction between these populations and these people. But there's also a persistent feature of struggle for self determination independence on initially it was from Russia and from Muscovy, away from the the Kiev and rousse princely states where Kiev is the capital of Ukraine, but when it was founded a long time ago is the dominant power was Keven rousse and then after the Mongol hordes sacked the city and depopulated it and allowed for the, for the predecessor to, to Russia to start to, to merge and consolidate and they emerged as a power of vassal power of the Mongol horde. And slowly but surely this you know, what used to be the lesser became the greater and slowly started to dominate the region. Much of the modern history, if we could call it that goes back to about the 17th century where the Ukrainians were trying to pave their own way as an independent country and made the ill conceived decision to partner with Russia, when they were trying to establish their independence from Poland and Lithuania, this there was a Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire and so forth. And Russia took that as license to slowly kind of assert dominance, but that was over all of Ukraine. That was all over eastern Ukraine. And by the time you get to you jump forward to the 19th and 20th century there's kind of a firm movement for Ukrainian identity. There is a Ukrainian renaissance in terms of language, in terms of culture, poetry and things of that nature in a brief period of independence in the 20th century, after the collapse of the Russian Empire, and the Red Army crushes that pretty quickly, and it still is not the entirety of Ukraine, because the Western ports that are creating Alicia or Alicia were part of the Austro Hungarian empire and then part of Poland. And it's not really until after you get to World War Two, that the country takes shape as it looks like now. And after World War Two acquires the the territory of Crimea. Now, the reason that Putin claims you know, that they're this is one one people is that there was a Russian chauvinism, a deep Russian chauvinism over a dominance over other kinds of Slavic populations. And there's an animist because Ukraine was both responsible for the creation of the Soviet Union, how it looked, why it was 15 states, because there was a discussion at one point about establishing a communist Russian Empire. But Ukraine's demands for for kind of autonomy for a recognition as a separate population, as well as Georgia has forced the forced Lenin to accept 15 different states. And as much as that was Ukraine, that was the kind of the genesis for the Soviet Union. It was also the genesis for the collapse of the Soviet Union, because on December 1 1991, the Ukrainian population voted overwhelmingly 90% voted for independence. And without Ukraine, there was no ability to sustain the Soviet Union, Yeltsin, Gorbachev and Yeltsin. In particular, Yeltsin goes on the record and saying, I'm not going to try to establish a union without Ukraine, because then we'd be dominated by, you know, non white Russians and stuff like that. So Putin understands this, he either he's got a grievance there, that Ukraine was responsible for the greatest tragedy of the 20th 20th century. And for the entirety of the post Soviet period, Russia has been trying to assert control over Ukraine, and assert, initially with economic levers, because there were plenty of them, Ukraine and Russia were tied and everything kind of felt toward, went towards the center of Moscow. And then once that once, he couldn't do that with with military force. And that's the precursor to this now.
Dr. David Shulkin:So Alex, all that history is really important and relevant. And I think the biggest question that I hear in talking to people every day, is what is Russia's intent? Why are they doing this? What's their objective and listening to you? It sounds to me the objective is not just to keep NATO from from out of Ukraine, it really is a grander aspiration to try to bring Ukraine back into the Russian boundaries into its own nation.
Alex Vindman:Absolutely. I think the NATO discussion is mainly about the fact that NATO was empowering and helping Ukraine get stronger. And Russia wanted to limit NATO's ability to do that. So this is all before the war. But clearly, you know, all the indicators now there's it's indisputable that Putin, his aspirations were always for Ukraine, we're always to fold Ukraine back in and everything else was kind of a pretext of sorts for war, saying that he had no choice because NATO was expanding all this other stuff. But it's always been about Ukraine. He started a war in 2014. He thought he had done enough damage, frankly, when he annexed Crimea. And when he started a war in eastern Ukraine, to rescue Ukraine's progress towards towards the west, but in fact, he actually accelerated it. He was a galvanizing force.
Dr. David Shulkin:Yeah. So Alex, how does it work? If 90% of the population votes to get away from from from Russia and the Soviet Union? How does he expect to occupy a territory where the people aren't going to be supportive
Alex Vindman:for the 1990s and 2000s, Ukraine was a basket case they, frankly couldn't provide services to all their people, that the reforms that were supposed to help them move towards the west didn't kind of come through for what they did, but not in a way that was satisfying. And corruption was was endemic. And you had this divide you still even within this population, you still had kind of an East West divide the more Russian leaning portions of the country, more Western leaning portions of the country. But those slowly started to kind of blur through this period of independence because everybody's learning Korean language, they're developing cultural identity. And by Putin launching this war in 2014, he took the most kind of racially pro Russian portion of the country took it out. So now the rest of the country kind of kind of consolidate with it with a clear identity and a sense of self in and under the threat of Russian war. And he's actually nudged it further away from Russian Russia's control towards the west. And he, where he's initially thought he'd been successful. He recognized that he had, he had miscalculated, you need something bigger. And that's why we have this massive, you know, Army sweeping in from the north, east and south. That's where he needed something bold like that to, to recapture Ukraine, through military force
Louis Celli:developments continue to unfold daily, can you bring our listeners up to date as to where we are,
Alex Vindman:you know, we are in a world where a week ago, it looked like Russia was going to achieve its military aims and democracy was going to be on its heels, US was going to be in a much much diminished a place in the world, Europe was going to be in a much diminished place in the world and the subject of great instability, Putin made some major miscalculations, he's basically galvanized the world and supportive of Ukraine, he's galvanized the democratic world in opposition to him. And even an even the kind of the ambiguous parts of the globe have now set made a choice about which kind of world they want to live in rules of the jungle Russia, or kind of Western democratic order. So those are, that's the kind of big sweep of geopolitics. But we're now on the cusp of Ukraine, frankly, being in a place where it emerges with its sovereignty and territorial integrity intact. And with a much, much closer relationship with, with the European Union and, and with the West, without having to constantly fear for it safety. We're in the span of seven days, in the force of arms, the diligent, valiant defense of the Ukrainian people in the leadership of their president who's more than a leader of Ukraine, he's leader of the free world. We're living in a world where, you know, this is one of the biggest battles for for democracy. And there's a good chance that, you know, we come out okay.
Dr. David Shulkin:Are you saying, Are you saying that ultimately, Ukraine may end up being a member of NATO if all this happens?
Alex Vindman:Are you think NATO, I think visit or Ukrainian joke that you might appreciate that NATO could petition to join Ukraine. They've got some swagger now. But I think there's a good possibility that Ukraine gets a roadmap for the European Union. That's what I think is likely.
Louis Celli:So Lucas, Alpert, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal wrote last week that Putin's claim of reuniting nationalism is really just a cover for protecting Russia's economic ability to provide fuel through Ukraine. And you've given us a little bit about your opinion about, you know, about what Vladimir Putin's real goals are, but judging now based on his own people who are, are willing to go to jail so that they can oppose him publicly? What is what is the outcome look like?
Alex Vindman:It got worse than that today, people that, you know, spread false information, whatever that means, could not be sent to the front. That's the Duma pass the law, not today. So what does the ultimate outcome look like? So the President, or a dictator, Putin bears a lot of responsibility for how poorly This is gone. Because for those that understand the military, they get their kind of their direction from a pie. They get, you know, kind of, there are some assumptions made about how easy this is going to be that they're coming in with peace as peacekeepers that the population is going to run over. That population is going to roll over. And the military plans based on this assumption, so the president said some directions, the military set up a plan, which is disastrous in hindsight, because it was probably the worst possible outcome the the Russians did not employ their, their massive capability with regards to technology with regards to fires. So they didn't destroy the Ukrainian Air force on the ground. They didn't destroy the Ukrainian air defense on the ground where they can fly freely. And then they rolled forward to cities and got bottled up in those cities and started taking punishing losses. And just as they were taking those punishing losses, and they were calling for fuel, food and ammunition, those cowboys started rolling through and getting destroyed hammered by the Ukrainians. So now you have a significantly diminished and you know, pretty pretty chewed up Russian military in not just any parts of the world. But the leading edge is the kind of the most powerful parts of the formation. It's far from from done. The Russians still have a lot of combat power. But they cannot this at this point they simply cannot achieve their military objectives. They the mirage of rolling into a city, removing a political leadership leadership, putting in a puppet and then leaving is gone. Because we could we could we know that Ukrainian people are not going to tolerate it. So now you have to hold ground. And the Ukrainians are not going to allow the Russians to hold ground unpunished. So that military portion of the plan is deeply flawed. The Russians are going through the routes and they're using fires to just just destroy cities. And I think this is likely to play out as it is for some time, unless we the United States offer material support. This is not troops on the ground. This is not pilots and planes. This is more air defense. So these are the Stingers these are the anti tank javelins. And frankly, I think we should be offering them, you calves, which they're unmanned combat aerial vehicles. So like those Turkish TV twos, by our cars, those that types of things to destroy these missile systems before they could wreck cities, that's where we, that's how this thing maybe gets wrapped up a little bit quicker. Otherwise, as its as it goes on, and spirals, and it gets more dangerous,
Dr. David Shulkin:when you said some really scary things. But you've also said some optimistic things, in terms of the Ukrainian resistance. Do you think then that since the Russians have gotten bogged down that the threat to the other European Union countries is really now over? You know, the United States has now sent 90,000 troops over to Europe? And certainly I think the concern has been that Russia had done well with their military incursion that potentially other European nations are threatened. But do you see that as less likely now?
Alex Vindman:Yes, absolutely. I always thought it was not very likely, because Article Five is kind of a high bar, I think it would more be more than likely, more likely for some some sort of long term provocation or attack if Russia was successful. But not in the context of this. I think you have a situation in which you have a situation in which it was always far fetched for the Russians to try to conventionally target, NATO and US forces. I've been sat in the room when conversations were going on when US are striking targets, close to where the Russians were, and the Russians were basically pleading, do not strike, make sure we don't receive any casualties, because then we'd be forced to respond. But it was kind of like in the impotent, please don't make us, you know, put us in a position where we have to defend ourselves type of situation. But that was that was kind of like anecdotal. Now, we see a Russian military that's getting trounced. I mean, it's still day seven. But so far, it's gotten really bad. There major gains have been in the south. And those have not been super, super great either. In the in the eastern North, they've basically stalled. So to for them to go after NATO, or is conventionally is unrealistic. But as this as this spirals, though, if this extends from from days into weeks and months, and Putin feels like he's backed into a corner, and he does his typical kind of double down incremental ism, you have a scenario in which he, you know, is he becomes more bold, especially if he's unchecked, which is the pattern that brought us to this, this computation in the first place. He was he's just been checked for a long time and believed he could act with impunity. And in that kind of situation, there's a risk that you know, he crosses a threshold and then a NATO forces are involved in that could lead to a bigger spiral.
Louis Celli:This might be a good time in the in the podcast for you to to help our listeners understand who may not have been following national security issues in the past, just who Alex vindman is how you got here. And you know, how you became such an expert at this.
Alex Vindman:So I'm now a retired Army officer. I started my career as an infantryman, so troop leader for for about a decade, did all that kind of cool stuff, Airborne Ranger and all that stuff. And then I and then I went off and kind of had to do some introspection and think about where I could make the biggest contribution. And I spoke Russian. Because I spoke it in the home. My family came over to the US when I was we arrived here when I was about four years old from and from Kiev, from Kiev, Ukraine. So I understand the language I understand the culture and then as a foreign area officer, I went in received advanced training I went to Harvard for graduate school I served in Ukraine for a year, I traveled all over the place there. And then actually all throughout the former Soviet Union, like so, one corner to the other, you know, these boonies in the middle of Siberia and stuff, stuff like that included. And then I served for three years in Moscow. And I served part of that time after Russia started its war in 2014. And basically, had underground ground experience understanding how the Russians were conducting the war, I was asked to join the I was asked by I was directed to join the Pentagon. And in the Pentagon, I authored the national military strategy for Russia. So the plan of how we're going to manage Russia, belligerent Russia, and then participating in all of that, in all these, like four star level engagements, you know, managing the chairman's affairs with Russia, including all the meetings he had with Grace mouth, and translating for the calls when cruise missiles are flying into, into Syria, with Russians on the you know, these air bases, I was asked to join the White House, and to be responsible for Russia, initially, and then eventually Ukraine, and a bunch of other countries. So as the director for Eastern European director for European affairs, and yeah, and then history unfolded.
Dr. David Shulkin:And so So given that, that perspective, which I think is just remarkable, and you know, you're the perfect person for being able to help us think through this. How do you think the US is using the balance of, you know, focusing now on sanctions primarily, are the sanctions impacting and being effective or, or understanding the Russian psychology and understanding Putin? Do you think that he just is not going to respond to sanctions?
Alex Vindman:Well, there's a lot of stuff that has unfolded over the course of the past week that nobody expected, nobody really could could have understood that the Ukrainians were gonna hold the way they did, I mean, like unbending steel, and setting the conditions really for the rest of the world to rally around them with the sanctions and including going after Russia's central bank. And this, this, this funding of $640 billion, which is basically evaporated, because they're cut off from it. And all of the businesses that are leaving, you know, central to Russia's economy, like the oil and gas sector, technology firms. So the sanctions all kind of unfolded after which was one thing that was critical of this administration of I thought we should employ graduated response options to deter the war, instead of waiting until after it happened. And then, you know, punish, never really the best idea, because the Russians will kind of tend to double down, you want to signal and you want to start to kind of ratchet up and make sure that your signals, they know that the signals are more than signals, they're meaningful. But sections are intended to have an effect over the course of weeks and months, not days, weeks, months and years, not days. So this is mainly punitive. And these things will start to, to really Royall the population in Russia, which is already discontent with the warm because they were out in the streets before the sanctions were levied. And that was before the Russians started taking severe combat losses by by Ukrainian account, which is probably, if it's inflated, it's inflated, because if the same way that US forces would double count, because you know, you'll have multiple units maybe claimed the same destroyed tank or something like that. But if it's if the numbers are vast, over 9000, Russian dead, these punishing strikes on the logistics and so forth, and destruction of Russian frontline units. That is not something that Putin counted on. And that's not something that the Russians were expecting, they were expecting a peacekeeping operation, or limited operation to secure that these so called, you know, Donetsk and Luhansk. republics, which are, which is which don't exist, they were Russian controlled territory. So now those things are going to unfold. And it's really, really going to cause a lot of, it's going to cause a lot of unrest inside Russia that they're gonna have to deal
Dr. David Shulkin:with. I wanted to just switch the topic just for one second, to get your perspective on this. And that is about the psychology of the American people watching this on their TVs. You know, we just watched this horrific withdrawal from Afghanistan. And, you know, it looked like the US was finally out of conflicts and that and that maybe the military and veterans who are going to take a back seat, but I just wonder what your what your feeling is, do you think that the American public looks at our military now as having to remain strong. And this is the reason why we can never let our guard down. Because while there doesn't appear to be a threat one day, it can appear overnight. Like what happened here with Ukraine? Do you think that this is going to impact the way that Americans feel about our military and our veterans?
Alex Vindman:I? Absolutely. So I think you know, we do not have the luxury of letting our guard down, we do not have the luxury of receding back in retrenching to our shores. This is the this is a fundamental flaw to America First policy is that somehow the rest of the world? Well, you know, the rest of the world doesn't affect us. It does it. And what we do also affects the rest of the world. So, you know, when our politicians make some pronouncements here or take actions here, it doesn't just affect domestic politics, it affects the rest of the world. And it gives Vladimir Putin a green light to conduct his military operation because he thinks the US is distracted or divided, or that, you know, one of the political parties is going to take it easy on him, these things matter, we should we forgotten our central place in the world. For whatever reason, it's, you know, we're still the sole superpower, we've forgotten our place in the world. You know, too much navel gazing too much focus on things that, frankly, that the Ukrainians have probably woken us up to, that there are real struggles there. They're real challenges, that they're real threats. And I think if anything, I actually see it bringing us population together in a way that I haven't seen, you know, not since September 11. Certainly, January, six people hoped that it would kind of bring the population together didn't, because it fed the beast on on the big lie, but this is seems to be bringing the population together. So I'm gonna be a little hopeful about
Louis Celli:that. So I want to go back to something you said earlier about sanctions. And this this unprovoked attack has caused this conversation to come to the forefront for the American people. But America has come to associate Russia with a high degree of organized crime. I mean, especially cybercrime, which really changes the dynamics now, because criminal activity isn't restricted to just Russian homeland threats. And the threats are now third, global menace. So this this war aside, how does the international community police this now that now that we've seen this unfold?
Alex Vindman:Well, one thing we could say is that Russia is going to be greatly diminished coming out of this? Russia's belligerents. I mean, it could, there's only so many times they could try to do that the nuclear saber rattling to intimidate us before we like, Okay, be quiet, you cried wolf too many times. And we know that's something that he's going to because his army is diminishing, that kind of boogeyman of conventional forces and isn't there, he's going to probably want to be or whoever follows him is going to be want to be very careful with the saber rattling on the nuclear side. Because otherwise, that will also be no longer useful. It'll be diminished, as as irrelevant. So I think we probably will see a Russia, we could end up with a Russia that actually takes a healthy dose of reality, and recognizes that it's not the Soviet Union, that the exceptionalism of the Soviet Union and having influence over, you know, Eurasia is was a mirage that let it down the primrose path towards failure, and that they they undertake, you know, really structural reforms that that they need to do internally, that actually could end up being that is not as far fetched as it would have been to say that a week ago. But the way this has unfolded has been, it's been it's been pretty darn bad. And that's not just on the battlefields. That's just from every element, informational, military, economic, and diplomatic, political.
Louis Celli:I'm really glad you brought up the Eurasia point, because there's been a lot of discussion lately about whether whether Vladimir Putin has been bolstered by President G in, you know, in with China, and you know, whether he has his back, and we're I think we're seeing now that this type of behavior, this type of attack on human rights, just isn't going to be tolerated by the global community anymore, regardless of who commits it. So this may have given states that the do these types of things cause for pause it, what are you seeing?
Alex Vindman:I think that's a very astute analysis, I think I feared that there would be a chilling effect on democracy if Ukraine was crushed, and there was a timid response from the west. But this powerful powerful response from Ukraine setting conditions for all this we there that we should recognize who the heroes are, but the Ukrainian setting the conditions for this have allowed democracy to rally and we're in a world where frankly, it's it's it's a cautionary tale for authoritarianism and overreach and the thing the fears that we had about, you know, a Taiwan scenario are diminished now. Because we could count on the rest of the world being there. And the fears that we had about kind of resurgent authoritarianism and consolidation are now frankly, you know, a little bit easier than they were, we still have a lot of great dangers. I mean, you know, a cornered Russia that feels it's under existential threat does have the most powerful, the second most powerful nuclear arsenal in the world, and we need to be on our guard. But we should not we should now be feeling our power, as democracies and living up to kind of our own values and our own aspirations, without thinking second guessing ourselves constantly. Colonel
Louis Celli:Viman, we're just about out of time. But before we go, take us through this. How does this end? What does this look like, give us give us your prediction, on, on what we what we might be able to expect on how this ends,
Alex Vindman:it likely ends with a great deal of tragedy, but it does end it's it ends with Ukraine, or maintaining sovereignty and independence. That's one thing that's pretty clear. It ends with a greatly diminished Russia and ends with a greatly diminished Putin. But the scenario is the two kind of main, you know, directions are, it ends relatively quickly, because Ukraine gets the aid it needs and is able to reformat, Putin's thinking on on the military in the ability to use these punishing fires to destroy cities, or extends for a long period of time. And it becomes increasingly escalatory. And there's the possibility of for the US being drawn in. And you have a scenario in which you know that we avoid that. But if there's a catastrophic loss for Ukraine, but ultimately, I think you Russia leaves Ukraine, after wrecking cities, and saying that they successfully completed their demilitarization do not suffocation by force, even though you know, we are Ukrainian showed them up. They'll just say that because Putin could say that he's an authoritarian, he could just say I was successful, taking my armies and going home, but he's he's inflicted a massive amount of damage. The thing is that this is one shot, he blew it. He no longer has. Ukraine no longer really has to fear a threat of Russia doing this again, because of how bloody is how badly Russia has been bloodied. And Ukraine that gets rebuilt on the back end of this is much more powerful, much more capable to face down future challenges.
Dr. David Shulkin:We are running out of time, but two quick questions if you could answer them, you know, rapidly. First of all, what what is the chance of what is the scenario that you would see that the United States gets drawn into this militarily?
Alex Vindman:It's it's hard to say what that what that looks like, exactly, but it's probably a human disaster, you know, with with just like a nightmare, like the bombing of the the market in Sarajevo or something of that nature, galvanizing moment like that, that the Russians are all about certain to inflict, you know, a errant missile that takes down another airline or something of that nature, where we have to move towards this is why the options are a lot, a lot worse inside conflict than they were outside to try to determine are we just didn't you know, frankly, we didn't do enough.
Dr. David Shulkin:And, and the last question, which I just have to ask you, but being being Jewish, what is this that Putin is talking about this not suffocation? D not suffocation when you have a Jewish President of the Ukraine? And so can you help? Can you help us understand this a little bit better?
Alex Vindman:Yeah, it's it's pretty absurd. Basically, you know, when when Alinsky came to power, he was the only he had actually a Jewish Prime Minister. There was only one other country in the world, Israel as a Jewish president and Jewish Prime Minister. So it's it's just kind of an absurd throwback to what the Russians would kind of call the Ukrainians whenever they acted up the button data to because the there were Ultra nationalists during the Second World War, fighting for freedom that sided with the Nazis and were complicit to some of the atrocities but this was a country that was fighting for its freedom. And, you know, went to horrible lengths to try to assure its freedom. So, I will say that, you know, President Solinsky has done us proud. He's a Jewish Ukrainian guy. I'm a Jewish Ukrainian guy. Our he's one of our own. We're we're a hot commodity right now.
Louis Celli:One. One final thing I'd like to end on this before we go. One of the things you said was it Putin took a shot. And I think I think we're a different society than we were 80 years ago between the internet and the way information travels the way the family's has been, have been dispersed. So we once you once, once the genie is out of the bottle on freedom and democracy, it's hard to put that back in. Where do you see where do you see his vision on trying to trying to conquer Europe?
Alex Vindman:Putin's vision trying to conquer Europe, right? In the toilet.
Dr. David Shulkin:A good way to end.
Louis Celli:Thank you so much for joining us.
Alex Vindman:All right, thank you had a good time. Thanks for your time to that. Okay.
Louis Celli:And that really is all the time that we have for this week. And we really want to thank our listeners for making us one of the most listened to podcasts in the nonprofit space on iTunes. It really is quite an accomplishment. We will see you next week.
Charlie Malone:Thanks for listening to the policy bits podcasts. For more information about projects and other podcasts. Go to policy. That's dot org.