Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar6/29/24: Dave Smith VS Vaush: Did NATO Expansion Push Ukraine Invasion?
Libertarian comedian Dave Smith and politics streamer Vaush join Counterpoints Fridays for a debate on the Ukraine war.
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But enough with that, let's get to the show. Ukraine is losing this war.
They are not going to drive Russia out of PRIMEA, They're not going to drive Russia out of many of.
The territories that they've taken.
Right now, we should be working toward a deal, a peaceful solution, which has been on the table several times throughout this war, and it's been the West who has been trying to squash it.
Ukraine hasn't been losing. Both countries have been stalling. I don't want this conflict to end in a way that's going to guarantee the conflict reemerges in two years. If the line just freezes where it is right now, are we not guaranteeing another conflict in a few years.
The United States of America holds all of the chips. We could offer Vladimir Putin something that would probably get him to do whatever we wanted him to do. And you know that is the ultimate crowning jewel for heavy How about we leave Nata.
All right, welcome to Counterpoints Today. We're going to be talking about the Ukraine Russia war. Emily, who are going to have.
Yeah, Well, we have two great guests joining us. We were joined by YouTuber live streamer Vash and we are joined by comedian podcast hosts Dave Smith Vous Dave welcome, Thanks for joining.
Us, my pleasure, Thanks for having us.
Well. Ukraine is a timely subject to debate right now. Obviously we're two plus years into the war, but there have been recent escalations and that makes it important, I think to sort of go through some of those recent developments. For example, the US recently greenld as many people know, strikes with US weapons inside of Russia. There was the strike that the Russia is blaming the US for in CRIMEA just over the last couple of days. So I think probably a good way to begin is to give you both kind of an opening statement here, and I'll start with you, Bosh. Should the US continue funding this war, and then we'll go to Dave on the same question, but go ahead first, Bosh.
Yeah, I mean, I don't like the idea on a systemic level of rewarding Russia for invading a neighbor. I just think generally speaking, that's bad for global relations, very destabilizing. I think it's important that we support any system that prevents that from happening. And not exactly a novel position with regards to the recent development and strikes inside Russian territory, I actually think that this is in the long run going to be a good move for peace, just because the previous US doctrine, which seemed to be provide just enough weapons to stall the war but not like decisively concluded. I think that was actually like the worst possible decision. You know, if Russia did a sort of like early conquest, or if Ukraine decisively held its territory, those both and the war relatively quickly, but just in perminably stalling it right at the river, you know, I don't think that would have been good in the long run. Hopefully, these increased attacks inside Russian territory, mostly of course the refineries that they're using to sort of get up their war economy. Hopefully that serves as an effective long term deterrent. I don't want this conflict to continue. I don't want civilians to die. Yeah, I mean, obviously we'll have to see how things play out.
Dave, go ahead.
Well, of course, we should stop funding this. We never should have been funding this war to begin with. I think that in the original Cold War, which I still regard as one of the worst US policies in modern American history, that did so much to ruin our country and not to mention, you know, like things like the Vietnam War and the millions of people who died in it, but at least in the original Cold War, I think there was always a healthy respect for the risks involved and that all of us should all same people should recognize that the greatest priority in human history is that the United States of America and Russia do not go to war. And this something that people in the old Cold War were very respectful of and aware of. The Difference in this new Cold War environment is that no one in the upper rechilants of power in America seems to have any respect for this threat and any respect for you know, you could think to yourself, Well, maybe this will work out in a positive way that the US is green lighting attacks inside of Russia, or perhaps it could be an absolute disaster and we're playing with When I say we're playing with fire, it's an understatement where we're flirting with potentially the most disastrous thing that could happen to the human species. If America is to have any role in this conflict, it should be working toward a peaceful negotiation, and in fact, the American role in the Western role has been to kill peaceful negotiations from the beginning of this war and to prolong the fighting. I think that as John Meerscheimer said back in twenty fourteen, the West is leading Ukraine down the Primrose path has turned out to be the most accurate prediction on this entire conflict. And essentially, I think since the fall of the Soviet Union, American foreign policy, and just keep in mind American foreign policy in the Clinton administration, in the w. Bush administration, in Obama's administration, those are the same people who are in charge of the Middle East. And in fact, the neo Conservatives were very focused on NATO expansion back in the nineties. You can go read the project for New American Century Documents. And the same people who totally blundered foreign policy in the Middle East have totally blundered foreign policy in Europe, provoking Vladimir Putin and the Russians at every turn, leading to this awful place.
That we're in.
That is, certainly, if you care about the Ukrainians at all, has been more of a disaster for the Ukrainian people than anyone else.
And Dave Vash made a point that I think you hear a lot.
From defenders of US support for the Ukrainian war, and that is, you can't allow other countries. No, you can't reward other countries for invading other countries.
You just can't do that. We can't have that. What's the response to that we can't have that argument?
Well, I mean, first I would just point out how absurd it is that after the last twenty years of terror wars, somehow the United States of America still gets to put itself in the position of global peacemaker, as if our major concern is that bigger nations can bully smaller nations. I mean, over the last twenty years, there's been no greater purveyor of violence than the United States of America, who has imposed its will on tiny, helpless nations across the world.
As far as.
That, yeah, it's not good that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, and yes, certainly that's something we don't want to see, my argument would be that America and the West more broadly had many opportunities, many off ramps to put this fire out or at least calm it down, and at every single turn forward more gasoline on this fire that ultimately resulted in the invasion in twenty twenty two.
Yeah, so bosh, how can the US say with a straight face that it's not okay for other countries to invade smaller countries.
Well, I think it's kind of a cowardly non argument because I'm not arguing in favor of the moral superiority of the United States. That'd be a ridiculous position for me to take. It's not football. We're not taking sides like you know, waving banners. There are two levels to this when it comes to agency. We're concerned about the broader socioeconomic and geopolitical context that led to where we are now, and that goes back to the Cold War and even earlier. You know, if we listened to Putin's justifications for the invasion, it goes back to the borders of the Russian Empire, you know, and then there's like the immediate decision making. We mustn't remove agency from the equation. Russia invaded, by Putin's own words, in a sort of territorial land grab. The idea that it was entirely because of response to Western aggression or oposturing is ridiculous and a historical but that doesn't mean the West isn't responsible for helping to create the situation where it now. We have to balance These two justifications are arrogance after the end of the Cold War, the fact that rather than reaching out to Russia as a potential future ally, we ostracized, you know, with the shock therapy, the sort of economic devastation of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states. These contributed to an environment in which future conflict was inevitable. It was reprehensible in the part of the Western governments to participate in this. Look today at the divide between former West and Eastern Germany. I mean, the reason that East Germany is voting so heavily for the AfD is in large part because they see it as a rejection of the doctrine of the West that left them behind after reunification. These should all be taken into account, and we must acknowledge that Putin is a fascist who did a territorial landgrap Those two facts don't contradict each other. They work together to create a complete narrative with regards to the invasion. Now, I agree we have to take the threat from Russia seriously, and by that I mean we don't want this to scale out infinitely. We don't want this to turn into a global war. That's something we have to take seriously. At the same time, we have to acknowledge Russia does too, and they're constant threats of nuclear war. The fact that they started this invasion, the fact that they have been posturing and acting aggressive towards Finland, towards the Baltic States, even like ramping up aggression towards the rest of Western Europe. We must consider again their agency. Now I think that in the long run there is a very deleterious consequence to creating an incentive structure where Putain gets to boost his national rep his prestige with a successful land grab in Ukraine. I think it would have been disastrous if he could have just marched west and taken the territory, because it would have reaffirmed and rewarded all the worst possible behaviors from him. That doesn't mean I think that we should sort of do a victory lap around Russia, you know, Cold War two. Let's win, let's let's let's trounce them in Ukraine. I do think that we're in a tough situation because we can't just like magically make Russia a democracy or a country less incentivized to invaded staples or reclaim historical territory. It's a difficult question, which is why I don't like simple answers.
So, Dave, actually, here's an interesting point that Vauschist raised about the beginning of the war, and if we may all agree, correct me if I'm wrong, that we all think it would have been bad if Putin had indeed marched into Kiev and took all of Ukraine, et cetera. But that leads us to the question, Dave, of how much US involvement, if any, was just if we agreed that it was good for the US to perhaps prevent the Russian capture of Kiev, et cetera. At what point did it become too much? At what point is the support no longer just or moral? How do you respond to that, Dave.
I think that the point that it, I mean, you could start at a lot of different points. I think the first round of NATO expansion was unjust and was unnecessarily provocative of the Russians. I'm not exactly sure what vash is referring to as like a cowardly non argument.
I simply was directly responding to Ryan's point.
If you have a serial killer who's killed far more people than another serial killer, and they claim that they're trying to stop a serial killer because they're so against killing, it's reasonable to point out that no, this is in fact not what's motivating US foreign policy. That know, the butcherers of Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and Somalia and Libya and Yemen are not actually motivated by some sense of we can't let big guys pick on little guys. Let's have an honest conversation about what's really motivating this policy. And it has been since the collapse of the Soviet Union. To increase the power of the American empire, and Russia has always been seen as a force that's outside of the American Empire. That's what's been motivating American foreign policy. This is what we're living through here is largely the neo conservative doctrine. It is the worst thing that ever happened in the history of our country is that after we became probably the first ever true global superpower, about ten years later, the neo conservatives got control of our foreign policy, and this was their plan from the very beginning.
So no, I don't think America should have been.
Involved in Ukraine at all, and I certainly don't think that that anything we've done has done anything except make this situation much worse and much much more dangerous, because now you are experiencing a proxy war with the two biggest nuclear superpowers. I don't think saying any of that is reducing things down to simplistic, simplistic worldview, And of course, you know, you kind of snuck a straw man in there. I wouldn't say that this conflict is entirely because of NATO expansion, but to pretend like that's not a major driving factor in this conflict is to not be dealing with reality. And this has been admitted by all of the top people on both sides, and this was why so many peopeople within the national security apparatus in the nineties opposed the first round of NATO expansion explicitly because this will provoke a reaction from the Russians. Through the years, the Russians have been crystal clear that Ukraine was their red line. Thanks to the greatest journalist of the twenty first century, the hero Julian Assan, who is thankfully now a free man, we know that the current head of the CIA, Burns told Condaleza writes this explicitly that this was a red line, and not a red line in the way that America makes up red lines, like Obama will say if Asad uses a certain type of weapon on his people, that's a red line for us.
It's all just ridiculous.
This is a red line in a true sense, in the sense that Jack Kennedy said, putting nuclear missiles in Cuba is a red line for us.
We will blow up the world if you try to do that.
Vladimir Putin, and as Burns pointed out, not just Vladimir Putin, the entire Russian establishment has been unanimous on this that they will not tolerate Ukraine and jury to NATO. And look, it was not it's not justified or reasonable for Vladimir Putin to have launched this war, But on the scale of geopolitical demands, the demand that Ukraine cannot be a part of the American Empire's military alliance was a fairly reasonable one, and we could have avoided this whole war by just committing to that.
I have a quick follow up on that, Dave, So sure all things, you know, we're dealing in the reality that we did push for the NATO expansion and twenty fourteen and all of that considered. Is your position that there should have been like basically zero aid, military, whatever else a government aid to Ukraine after the invasion a couple of years back, like basically just none.
Absolutely, if there was any role for the Americans to play, it would have been trying to negotiate an end to the war. Unfortunately, you know, if you're putting me in the hypothetical of like, you can't change anything before this, but you're already here, we had probably blown all of that good will and there were better parties who would have been more suited for that. You know, for example, going back to even the Bootgres summit in two thousand and eight, into the beginning of the Maydan Revolution, Germany was much more hesitant to get to go down this path. There were other European countries who were kind of like, hey, let's not provoke the Russians. It's part of the reason why Ukraine didn't get a full map invitation in two thousand and eight. It's the objection of the Germans. So probably someone else would have been better at it. Yes, Essentially, what I'm saying is that the greatest purveyor of violence in.
The world, the most war hungry country in the world, the.
United States of America, shouldn't have been the ones at the table at all, and there might have been some goodwill from other parties who had more of an interest to avoid this catastrophe, if I may.
I just there are elements of this that I guess don't make sense to me. First of all, the claim that America's decision making is based on it tried to expand its own geopolitical power rather than any altruistic interest. That's true, but that's also the case for all countries. That's basic ir theory. So the idea of like, well, this Neokon theory of America expanding it's interest.
That's just nation states.
Russia's doing that right now, India's doing that, China's doing that.
Everyone's doing that.
We're better at it because we're a superpower, of course, but that's like a fundamental rule of national exchange. I don't think that it's really a moral question. It's a matter of material conditions. In a basic Marxist sense. Who's motivated by what and where they are In the modern world, you know, the imperial sphere of influence extends to the entire planet. You know, American jets can reach any part of the world in twenty four hours. Everyone's can if they have jets. There's no we get the nation next to us, Which makes me think the idea that like Ukraine is more innately in the Russian sphere of influence is I think it's a little bit old hat. At the end of the day, the people in Ukraine were interested in closer relations with the EU, and that is ultimately what triggered everything from Euromi on Yuonokovich fleeing, the annexation of Crimea, the invasion of the Dunbass following the invasion of Ukraine. Broadly, this is again a complicated situation. I don't mean to detract from the influence that Western arrogance hadn't I would never never try to do that. But I do think that, like your roadmap for how things should have progressed from American perspective following the twenty twenty two invasion is misguided, because I don't think the world would be any farther from annihilation if Russia had simply marched westward, taken give and we had a bunch of ginned up Russian soldiers right up against the border of Poland, you know, having just successfully annexed former Soviet slash Russian imperial territory. You could imagine the propaganda coming out of the Kremlin about how they're reuniting their people. They're sort of like expanding the Russian interest in like a diaganist ethnic sense, you know, reclaiming the empire. I think that like the incentive structure behind that would be really bad. Like that you're basically getting You're like you're throwing chum into the water for you know, Putin is expansionist. He's been sort of like preempting this for a long time with Georgia, you know, his behavior with the Chechens. I don't think that that would bring us any closer to peace now. Is the current path we're on right now the best possible road? Obviously not nothing we ever do is the best possible road, But I think it's closer to threading that line than just letting them march westward with them. What I'm interested in, I guess, is practical solutions now outside of just letting Ukraine get annexed, which I really don't think would have been good for world peace in the long run, even if it would have quickly ended the conflicts. How do we incentivize Ukraine and Russia to come to the table and bring it into this war? Can Ukraine regain its lost territory? I think morally it should be able to, because I don't like nations being rewarded for annexing adjacent territory. But logistically can they Would it be possible to end things where they are now? Would Russia keep crimea and that just be seen as a kind of like dull historical injustice to fade away over time At one hundred years from now, people would be like, did you know CRIMEA used to be Ukraine.
I don't know.
I just there's so much dogmatism, and whenever you bring up like modern solutions, people go back to I don't know, the end of the Cold War. I know, I mean, I understand NATO is not exactly a global force for good, But what can we do now? I mean, I so rarely hear answers that are contextualized in the current moment.
I want to answer your question at the end there, but just like a few things I want to point out, number one, I think this is almost like bigger than just any political debate. There's kind of it's a broader theme in life in general. I think anybody who's married, who's on the show or listening to the show, knows this is true in personal relationships. There's a tendency if you're in an argument with your wife or your husband or something like that, to focus on what they did and what they did that's bothering you. But a much more healthy posture if you're in a successful relationship is that you also add in, like, Okay, well what am I doing, how am I participating in this?
What have I done?
That's kind of led to this situation generally speaking, I think that if you look at the corporate media, you're going to hear all of this talk about what Putin's done, and I don't think. I think a lot of times in these debates people can kind of claim to be like, well, I'm adding I have a more nuanced position. I'm not simplifying things. I think the point of saying that, like, well, all governments are expansionist by nature, so there's no difference between the neo conservatives and say, other groups of people, it's I don't know, it's I'm not saying they're the same, but like a logical analogy, it's like, oh, well, all governments kill people. So like what Adolf Hitler's doing is just kind of the same as other governments. It's not exactly true. It's kind of different in scale and in kind. To sit here and say and look, if we have time, we could go through the history of Chechnya and Georgia and all this stuff, but to zoom out a little bit. During the Cold War, we drew the line at the Elbe River halfway through Germany. On one side was the Soviet Union, on the other side was NATO, and we're now, you know, We're now talking about Ukraine, and you could sit here with a straight face and say Putin is expansionist. Okay, I mean, if that's how you want to look at it, It's like, let's just look at the actual reality of what's happening here. It's not that Putin has been this expansionist force. Putin has been almost at every turn reaction reacting to the expansion of the American Empire and Ukraine. That's not Listen, that's just not true. It's not denying someone agency to say that they're responding to something that does doesn't everything to everything.
That's all life. Sue just acts without it. You didn't gi just a cop out. That's just a cop out. That's not the one. You're the one providing the cop out.
You're saying that, like, it's not possible for Putin to have like a distinctly expansionist element to his rule because everyone's responding to so it's not possibility the expansionist element to his rule.
Okay, there's no, that's not a binary one. Is it's not?
Hi, Instead of just interrupting me, let me make the point you just laid out by a binary between is it possible he has expansionist intentions and does he have expansionist intentions.
That's not a binary.
There are some expansionist desires that he has no In fact, if you actually like educate yourself on this topic, it was our CIA director who said, and then yet means yet memo leaked by Julian Assang that it verbatim, this was a choice that Vladimir Putin did not want to have to make. This was a choice that Russia did not want to get involved in this war.
And if he made the choice, he made the choice to invade, to bring troops down to the Ukrainian border, to commit to multiple years of like, come on, you know this is again, this is the thing I ask you for, Like what can we do now? And immediately it's it's back to the iron girl.
Hold on, hold on, there's what happens.
I just want to know in the modern I get.
Actually, what happened was you made a long statement and ended with that question, and I said, let me answer that question, but first let me deal with what you said at the beginning of your statement, and then you started interrupting me. So no, it's not that I'm not willing to answer that question. It's that I had to point out I think a lot of the errors that you're making.
Now.
If you want just to say, what could we do right now, well, look, we're going to have to be realists about this situation and admit that Ukraine is losing this war and that they're not going to drive Russia out of Crimea. That's a joke. They're not going to drive Russia out of many of the territories that they've taken. Right now, we should be working toward a deal, a peaceful solution, which has been on the table several times throughout this war, and it's been the West who has been trying to squash it.
Well, that's what we should do.
True at all, though you've seen, I assume you've read the deals that Putin has put through, Zelensky hasn't been particularly amenable to them himself. The narrative that the West is squashing the deals, which is blown up largely because of what that one Boris Johnson visit early on in the conflict. Don't get me wrong, Okay, the West is its own interests. There are plenty of Western leaders who would like to see the Russian armories depleted, but that doesn't mean that Ukraine would have been jumping in the bit for any of the deals Putin's been offering since the war began, and Ukraine hasn't been losing. Both countries have been stalling. This has been like a slog and it has been since the first like or after the first like three months of the war. I don't like the narrative that Ukraine's losing because the fact that they exist at all at this point, considering the Russian armaments aligned against them, is pretty impressive.
Guys off the streets to ye fight.
Oh yeah, but like and and Russian has, Russia has like their penal colony forces with the Wagner group, like pulling from from their multiple rounds of like really unpopular conscriptions waves of immigration out of Russia people.
No, no, no, of course not.
I'm not arguing that, like it's a matter of our investment or whether or not it's moral. You know, war makes unfortunately unethical decision making of every side, including the good ones. The Allies did plenty of bad stuff during World War Two. I'm only saying that it's been a slug for both sides. I don't want to see this out in like I don't want this conflict to end in a way that's going to guarantee the conflict reemerges in two years. If you end up just setting the border right where the fighting lines are right now, we're going to be exactly where we were back in twenty fourteen. We're going to have a combination of like paid separatists and Russian soldiers like moving around in the Dawn Bass. There's going to be constant exchanges of fire across the border. This needs like a real international solution. I don't know whether that means like a proper DMZ. I don't know whether that means like genuine reconciliation. Ideally, for me, it would be some kind of like Hail Mary, where Ukraine gets its borders back and there's like a massive like coming together between Russia and the West and we like reopen trade and negotiations. But that's a little bit, a little bit of a pipe dream. I just we do agree that at least let's agree on this. If the line just freezes where it is right now, are we not guaranteeing another inflicted in a few years.
I don't know that that's possible to say, to be honest, people to be pretty mad.
It's not guaranteeing. It's not guaranteeing it.
I don't know, especially at the front, are not positively disposed to each other. I feel like we need to give them something solid, a solid piece, not just like, oh, we've decided now this slug has gone on for two long they'd be throwing rocks at each other across the border. You know, you could get a five mile wide DMZ and those they'd still be like sending drones over with bricks to drop at each other's heads.
Maybe this is all be rough with the case of.
In general, with all of the war hawks that everybody who's supported every single war over the last twenty years, it always kind of relies on this unfalsifiable counterfactual like, oh, if we didn't do this, then Vladimir Putin would be invading Poland right now, or if the lines were drawn where they are, they'd they'd be throwing.
Rocks at each other. It's very hard to say.
I think the one thing that like, I think it's again just to rely on a counter factual, if that's what we're doing. I think the truth is that there were a lot of much better options. There were off ramps all throughout the path to get here. And the truth is that, if you want to go back to twenty fourteen, the West should not have gotten involved the way that it did. That it was it was such a provocation to back the overthrow of a democratically elected government. If I mean, all you have to do is think to yourself and just be honest here.
Past what's talk about. Let me just finish my point.
If Russia or China had backed the overthrow of the government in Mexico or Canada because they opted to sign a trade deal with US rather than the one that they wanted them to side to sign, what do you think DC would do? And we all know the answer to that, they overthrow that government in a second. And we have a Monroe doctrine for a reason. And you can say that it's it's like some relic of the past that faraway superpowers ought not intervene in the region of other large nations. But we certainly wouldn't feel that way. We wouldn't think it was a relic of the past. If anybody tried to come over here and set up a military alliance with Mexico or with Canada, tell me how much DC would go, oh, yes, the Monroe doctrine is just a relic of the past.
Do you think debate of pigs invasion was justified? No?
Because the Soviets invested economically and militarily into a country that is just off our coast during a time of heightened international conflict. They knew that it would antagonize us. We already had strained relationship with Castro, even though we didn't initially of course, because we recognize that he was a much litter better leader for the Cuban people than the man he replaced. Do you not think the Soviets antagonized us in a way much comparable to what we have done with NATO and Ukraine?
Like I did? Oh they did?
Okay, So do you think then picked well, well, this isn't a gotcha, this is gotcha. I think it's an interesting question because I do think the Soviets were a little bit wacky with how they handle Cuba. But I feel like in retrospect, we don't talk about the Bay of Pigs invasion as an inevitable consequence of expansion, as Soviet investment in like in spite of our national interest? What you do think about it as like Kennedy's mistake, you know.
Right, okay, but see a lot of the reason why we think of it as Kennedy's mistake as the logistics of it. By the way, if you really want to get into it, wasn't Kennedy's mistake as much as the right the previous administration.
But regardless of any of that.
See what you asked me is if I thought the Bay of Pigs was justified, and I would also say that, no, I don't think Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine was justified.
Do I think that the Soviets.
And the Cubans were taking a provocative stance against the United States of America? Of course did there. Did those provocations lead to the Bay of Pigs? I think that's undeniable. And the truth is that from Vladimir Putin's got a much stronger case of out the provocations of the United States of America because it's not just one little island or one economic deal. It's been a steady push eastward since since the late nineties.
Now that we are where we are, oh no, before we go too far, I just want to stand up for the dignity of the Cuban revolution for just a moment.
Please, it was surprising development.
I mean it was not. It was not a Soviet project.
This was this was a This was an organic Cuban project against the corrupt elites in Cuba. Fidel Castro in the beginning, I thought he could maintain some decent relations with the United States.
It was Shai Guwara who witnessed.
In nineteen fifty four he was in Guatemala when the US overthrew our Benz and he was the one always saying to Fidel Castro, You're not gonna be able to work with the Yankees, like, it's not possible. Castro wanted to like, he was like, look, no, these jazz are corrupt you. I'm just I'm George Washington here. It was only when it became in possible for the Cubans to work for the Cuban revolutionaries to work with the US that they went.
They went in the Soviet direction.
And in fact Ryan but ahead. Correct if I'm wrong, all correct, Correct me if I'm wrong about this.
But I also believe that Castro had been rejecting communism up to the point that the US started putting embargoes on him before he then said Oh yeah, I'm a communist, and so you could certainly argue that we drove him into the hands of the of the Soviets.
Right, And I think it plays further into the broader dynamic where basically everybody acts as a reaction of previous acts. Very rarely does something you know, sort of come up whole cloth. You almost always, even even for the United States. I mean, with all of our power, it might we are still responding to you know, the the the actions and decision making of agents that are of themselves responding to others in the world today where we are now, because there are a million places that I would have turned, I could have turned the clocks back and like changed history. It brought us to a different point. For me personally, the big line wasn't with NATO. It was with economic investment in Russia and the shock therapy, you know, I think that was the real line where we like lost the post Cold War world, where we arrogantly decided that, you know, having like one over the Soviets, we would do a victory lap by annihilating their economies, you know, arrogantly like pillaging them and leading them to the oligarchs who had worked with us in like in a business relation sense. If there was anything I could go back and change, it would be that. You know, I'm not really particularly fussed about NATO in particular. Military alliances are always going to carry with them, let's say, problematic elements. NATO is just the Western military alliance everything that insinuates and carries. If we got along with Russia properly, maybe all of this could have been avoided. I mean, hell, it could have extended far enough east. We could be on better relationship with China. We wouldn't have people like Trump trying to constantly push for a second Cold War with like the tariff, and well Biden did that too recently with the electric vehicle, So I guess everybody wants the Cold War with China.
Things could have really started with Obama.
Yeah, no, it's we all because we need a foreign threat. We need a foreign threat exactly. Wasn't doing it for us, and they're certainly not going to be doing it now.
So let me just say, because I think there's something almost being lost here where. Look that technically speaking, you are right that everybody is reacting, and you are right that every nation is you know, like I'm a radical libertarian. I think basically essentially all governments are criminal organizations, so you don't have to like convince me on that. The thing here that separates things is that after nineteen ninety one, America became the first global superpower.
The level of power.
It's funny I have to explain this to a leftist, but the level of power that America had was totally asymmetrical to anything else.
And here, yes, the first kids, right.
And so so yes, it is like, it is true that there are all of these different nations that are reacting to different things. However, if you actually look at the role that the United States of America played and then think about it from say the Russian personective that this is not something that you and you may say from your perspective that you know, the NATO military alliance isn't your biggest concern, okay, but it is the Russians, and you have to see from their perspective that they would see this as a threat that they cannot live with. And the fact is that the idea of Ukraine, the Ukrainian entry into NATO was something that was floated out for years, and not just in two thousand and eight at the Bucharest Summit where they announced that Ukraine and Georgia would be joining NATO, but for years after that and then more and more involvement, especially after the coup in twenty fourteen, joint military exercises with NATO and the Ukrainian military, which is part of the reason why Vladimir Putin did not have such a quick, decisive victory right away as he probably would have before that time period. But that from the Russian perspective, you have the global Empire, the most war hungry country in the world, very clearly committed to encirclement. Obviously, this is going to be a recipe for disaster.
And yet Ukraine's desire to be protected by NATO has been validated by Russia's expansionism. Well, I just a couple oh, I just want to finish that point, if I may like again. You say, Russia's greatest fear is NATO. Ukraine's greatest fear is Russia, who ended up being more justifle.
Ok.
NATO hasn't invaded Russia. Russia did invade Ukraine. There's no getting away from it. At the end of the fear, this powder keg was ignited by Russia, and here we are now today, with the gunpowder having already left the blaze, where do we move forward? Because I keep asking, I feel like we're always It's always, like I said before we started the show. You may recall, whenever I debate Israel, you say it's wrong to genocide these thirty thousand such and such Palestinians, And then the people you argue with the Zionist they'll go, oh, but what about Camp David?
What about the accords?
They draw back into history because they want to avoid the question today. They want to avoid and turn their eyes away.
But I'm certainly not avoiding that question.
And as I just said a couple of minutes ago, it was wrong for Vladimir Putin to invade and killing people, right right?
Oh?
I also answered that.
But look this idea that, first of all, the concern from Vladimir Putin was never not even Vladimir Putin, the Russians in general. The concern was never as simple as is NATO going to invade us? The concern was moving military hardware closer and closer to Russia's borders. Okay, so the concern is more akin to the Cuban missile crisis, not that we were ever worried Cuba was going to invade US, but moving military hardware that close to our borders was a legitimate concern and one that Jack Kennedy said he would blow up the world over. Most Americans, however, they feel about the Bay of Pigs, look at that is fairly justified.
That that was a threat. We couldn't live with a knife to our neck.
Now to your point that Ukraine's biggest fear was Russia and that they just wanted to join NATO because they had this fear of Russia, that's not exactly true. Like, if you know the history of this situation, it was in two thousand man, I think it's two thousand and eight, so it might have been two thousand and six, but there was The State Department admitted that one of the big problems they had is that Ukrainian entry into NATO was just not popular in Ukraine. They estimated that it was about thirty percent, and so they embarked on a campaign. They literally said, we need the NED and we need the USAID to intervene more to get this support up for NATO membership amongst the Ukrainians. It's not look, Yanikovich was elected in twenty ten. And this is these elections were verified by the EU because we're all, you know, neo conservatives are such believers in democracy, but only in the places where we feel like we need to import democracy too. I don't think not necessarily in Ukraine as results well, okay, but I'm saying it's not as simple as saying that overwhelmingly the Ukrainian people just wanted to join NATO and DC was just you know, respecting the.
Ukrainian vassals.
I'm never saying that the West is acting out of altruism. I would never be that silly, and I'm not.
That's not I'm saying that you're in Ukraine just wanted.
To Russia wanted.
But let's turn the clock forward, right, The Russian economy was stalling, the EU's economy was booming. The Ukrainian people were more interested in economic ties with the EU than they were with Russia. Yanokovich against the will of the people, and yes, he was democratically elected. Democratically elected leaders can do on popular things. That's life. He then turned towards Russian and said, because Yanokovich wasn't, we don't have to get into it. Let's say compromised by Russian interest. Uh, the people revolted. America supported the Euromaidan revolt because we were interested, of course in Ukraine having closer ties to us. But nonetheless, and you can take a look at polling from the time the Ukrainian discussed with Yuanokovic's decision was authentic and widely reflected. Yanokovich fled, of course, fearing for his life and well being. They took his little wealthy boy palace. And then after that, of course you have the annexation of Crimea and the separatist movement in the Donbass, which was of course heavily supported by Russia. And then of course after that they want to join NATO because they realized that the moment they do anything that Russia doesn't like, Russia's just going to turn the military on them.
Do you have to keep moving the clock forward?
Let me just interject there and ask, So we're one hundred and seventy five billion dollars into this as the United States, the Ukrainian deathel is at least thirty one thousand people. It's probably much much higher than that. Both sides minimum around one hundred thousand, but again probably according to a lot of analysts, much much higher than that. So to what extent can the United States? This is like higher than the NASA budget last year? The amount of foreign aid we're sending to Ukraine? Is that just the United States? It's spending that much US taxpayer money to protect every inch of the don boss with no plan perceived as of right now, ostensibly no serious plan as to what a peace process would look like going forward. Is that a just outcome for the American tax pay Oh?
Look, every dollar we give to you Ukraine, we don't give the Israel. Okay, So it's like it's like convince your friends.
That's the best argument I've heard.
Yeah, right, it's like convincing your friend has put me own cigarettes, not fentanyl. But I agree that Washington should have a more decisive plan. The lack of a plan, which is a common pattern by the way, with both the United States and alsodent in Yahoo. So not a fan of that tendency on all sides is problematic to me. Like I said, now, if we just froze the war where it is, because of course Russia, like Putin's peace deals are basically just like forfeit the territory you've lost up until this. They're not like real conciliatory deals, right, which, of course Putin wants to keep the territory that he's stained. I think that if we just took that, if we pressured Ukraine into taking that, a war would break out again within a year two years maybe because you would have like the military build up on either side of the DMC would be like the greatest Oh sorry.
Sorry, yeah, you started the conversation talking about not wanting this to be a stalemate that goes on forever. So you know, last year we had this much vaunted counter offensive. At the time, there were tens of thousands of younger Ukrainian troops who were alive and were well trained, they were well equipped. They launched this massive, much anticipated counter offensive. It was a complete disaster, led to an enormous loss of life and a loss of equipment. And so to your question of what do we do next, like why is it the case that a new counter offensive with older, less well trained Ukrainian troops and less well equipped troops would be able to succeed against a more fortified Russian military while the.
Previous one failed.
In other words, like what is this hail Mary that you're talking about, that could change the calculation on the ground to such an extent that it's worth it to continue throwing Ukrainian men and women into.
The maw of this war.
Well, they don't.
I don't like the term throwing only because like they are, of course, you know, engaged in it, right, They're not just being.
They're being grabbed in many cases and literally throw forty five year old men well literally threw.
Yes, Yes, Ukrainian morale are at least interesting continuing the war is still high. But that sort of nitpick aside, I would only say, I look, the hail Mary is something that I hope for. It's not something that I think is guaranteed. With the introduction of attackers and other relatively long ranged, you know, munitions, we have the ability to sort of provide Ukraine the option to strike at depots, refineries and like facilities that are closer to the sort of back lines of the conflict, and that has had like a massive effect in the past four or five months since that was introduced. I don't know whether that's going to be a game changer in the war in the long run. I hope that it is, because ultimately I do think that a conciliatory position from Russia would be a better way of ending this conflict than one in which things just freeze as they are now. The DMZ build up along the line that people settled on right now would be catastrophic, and I think it would just guarantee further war. My hope, and this is I know, perhaps a little naive of me, but I still have a little bit in me that hopes for this. My hope is that eventually, following the expansion of Ukraine's ability to strike it further back targets, this becomes increasingly economically untenable for Russia. There's pressure from both sides. Hey, this has gone on long enough. We literally can't keep this going anymore. We're both on fumes, and like two exhausted boxers on the fourteenth round, they both clapsed into each other's arms, and you know, they have a Christmas Day in World War One, you know, there's a moment where, for for a second, things get rough enough long enough that they collapse and they just can't do it anymore, and maybe the world like breaks a sigh of peace as they finally do subtle on whatever line they're at.
At that point, I think it's quite a dangerous game to play, man.
I mean, I know it was the all dangerous right well, sure, but I'm just saying, you know, it was the neo Kon's hope that if you overthrew Saddam Hussein, democracy would sweep the region.
And you know that would have been nice, I guess, but.
You know, the hope that, oh, if they strike inside of Russia, that will make Russia realize that, you know, this war just has cost us a little bit too much and we sure should knock off this war business.
That's quite a quite a risky game to play. There's a couple of things that I want to eat.
So let me let me just respond to a couple of things you said there, because the things that I think are pretty interesting. So number one, just a couple points of correction. I mean, I know I said it was a good point in Jess, but now it's not true that you know, the every dollar that goes to Ukraine is a dollar that doesn't go to Israel.
I mean, as you know, we print.
Money out of thin air, and the US government is quite fine to spend well beyond its means. So no, they can they can deficit finance through fiat currency both of these wars at.
The same time. Now, what I was gonna do to our dollar equipment to not just money? Sure?
Sure, yeah, no, Mostly we're just bribing the military industrial complex and sending old weapons over there. However, you know, there is as you brought up the talk of agency before, it is true that individuals have agency. It's also true that there's such a thing as moral hazard. So if I were to just say I'll start giving a Ryan, I'm gonna start giving you a million dollars a month, and then you quit your job and you sit at home, and I go, look, he doesn't want to work.
It doesn't want to work. He wants to stay home.
It doesn't want to It's like, well, yeah, okay, there is some truth to that, but might that have you know, the Ukrainians just want to fight, okay, but might that have something to do with the blank check that they've received from the world. So the whole point here, right, is that and this is true with Israel and with Ukraine. What happens is that when the biggest bully in the history of the world, the US Empire, says we got your back, people get a lot braver than they otherwise would. If Israel didn't have unconditional support from the United States of America, they'd be forced to make a deal with some of their neighbors.
And same with Ukraine.
You know, you say, like, oh, if the war ended, Ukraine would just be ready to fight Russia again in a few years without our backing, without US arming them, without all of Europe behind them. No, they wouldn't because they know they couldn't possibly win.
Dave, what's a riskier game to play? I mean, I think I know what your answer would be to this, But what's a riskier game to play? Is it, you know, allowing Putin to expand unchecked, just to go back to the argument that Vash made earlier, or is it, you know, escalating the war. It seems as though there are risks in both scenarios, and why is one riskier than the other at this point?
Well, look, I mean, okay, so the biggest risk that, again, as I mentioned at the beginning, we should all be concerned about, is the potential of nuclear war. And what's prevented the nuclear war in the past has been private negotiations, handshake agreements and mutually assured destruction, the fact that you know, nobody really wants to get into a nuclear exchange because we all lose the only time, especially now, because the current administration isn't doing handshake deals or even having conversations behind the scenes with the Russians, the only thing that could lead to a nuclear exchange. So, in other words, the worst case scenario is that Vladimir Putin actually thinks he's going to die. He thinks he's going to end up like Momar Kadafi, And that's this scenario where you might end up launching nukes because you know, screw it, bring everybody down with you. In terms of the risk of Russian expansion, I do think that Vous made a somewhat fair point where look between the mix of this is my point, not yours, but resulting in yours, between the mix of NATO joint military exercises with the Ukrainian government, the massive amounts of foreign aid, the weapons shipments that Ukraine has got going back to before the invasion of twenty twenty two, but certainly since twenty twenty two, it has made Ukraine a tougher adversary than they otherwise would have been. Vladimir Putin famously said back in two thousand and eight when he was warning Burns, who was the ambassador of Rush at the time, but I could be in Kiev in two weeks. Well, I don't think that's true anymore. I think it's a tougher battle for him than that. But then also you think, because he ends up getting the eastern part of Ukraine that what he's moving on Poland after that. I just think there's absolutely no reason to think that that's the situation.
I don't think the bottom line.
Is that right next to Poland, it seems like, given the history of NATO and everything else, that's pretty dangerous too.
Well, I don't know.
I mean, the whole argument that all of the people who wanted to bring Ukraine into NATO made was that, well, he won't attack them if they're in NATO country. Now he's going to go after Poland. I just don't see it as being very likely. I don't think the guy's on a suicide mission. I think, as Burns told Condaliza Rice that it wasn't for a suicide mission. It was a choice they didn't want to have to make. That's what our intelligence was saying at the time, and so no, I don't think that there is to pretend. Look, I think American expansionism has been more of a threat to the American Republic than anything else. The idea that uten is somehow some type of existential threat to America, I think is aside from the nuclear question, just not true. I think that there has been an effort for many years now by the entire political class and the entire corporate media to demonize Vladimir Putin in oftentimes the most cartoonish, ridiculous ways. He stole the election in twenty sixteen, he's got bounties on US soldiers heads in Afghanistan. Now, from our perspective here right, people like insay this alternative media space like Breaking Points is in, we all kind of laugh and mock this stuff, like, oh, it's so ridiculous. Look at how the cias lie in everybody and they actually fell for it, and look how it's been. But from Vladimir Putin's perspective, all of the most powerful people in the most war hungry, powerful country in the world have essentially been saying over and over again that he declared war on us. I mean, you guys, you tell me, because I know you guys have covered this stuff a lot.
How many people in the corporate.
Media and in the intelligence apparatus said that the fake overthrowing of the elections in twenty sixteen was worse than Pearl Harbor. They were saying out loud for years that he's declared war on US. Now, if you're Vladimir Putin, you can't just laugh at that.
You have to take that seriously.
It was William Perry, Bill Clinton's Defense secretary, who said that Vladimir Putin believes that it is the that the US policy is to overthrow Vladimir Putin. I don't know for sure whether he's right about that or wrong. It wouldn't surprise me if he was right. That does sound a lot like my government. But that's the perspective that he's got to come to this from. And I think all it takes is as I believe, it was John Meherscheimer who coined the term strategic empathy, and that's all you kind of need in this In this scenario, it's not empathy for its own sake.
It's strategic empathy.
The same thing that you need to understand the Palestinians, the same thing you need to understand al Qaeda is that these I'm not saying they're good groups. Some of them are, you know, some of the Palestinians are good people, but some of them are are terrorist organizations.
Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. Vladimir Putin is a death.
Spot, but they also can have legitimate grievances, and we ought to if if we want to ignore those, then okay, but we ignore those at our own peril.
I just I just want to say, if I may like, respectfully, again, no talking about the present or what to do now.
And this is my frustration firstation. I mean, oh, I'm sorry. I promise I'll be very very quick on this.
But the other point that I just did want to make to you, as you bring that up again, it's actually not the case that when I have all of these Israel Palestine debates, that I want to talk about what's going on right now and they want to talk about all of the history that led to this point.
It's actually quite the opposite.
Sagar made this point when he moderated a debate recently for me on breaking Points.
When he was recapping it the next day.
The truth is that all of the pro Israel supporters want to just talk about October seventh to today, and everybody who's critical of Israel actually wants to go back through the history and talk about all of it, because yeah, it's important to understand the history to understand what position we're in.
Now.
Let me let me bring you up to this week, says you want to want to talk about today. So this is from earlier, earlier this week from Zelenski's top advisor. You probably saw this quote. He's got a couple others out there publicly. He's saying this in English, so we don't even have to hit the translate button, So very nice of him. After the attack on the beach in Crimea, he said quote, there are not and cannot be any beaches Taurus zones. Those are his quotes and other fictitious signs of quote peaceful life in Crimea. Crimea is definitely a foreign territory occupied by Russia where there are hostilities and a full scale war, the very war that Russia unleashed for genocidal and invasive purposes only. Crimea is also a large military camp and warehouse with hundreds of direct military targets which the Russians are cynically trying to hide and cover up with their own civilians, which in turn are considered to be civilian occupiers. So he said this after Ukraine killed civilians on the beach. So are we the batties here?
I mean, it's almost a perfect mirror of rhetoric employed in the Hamas versus Israel conflict actually, where you know, when Hamas killed civilians on October seventh, the argument was that the civilians were settlers who were occupying stolen land, and therefore you can't like reasonably argue their civilians. And then on the other hand, of course you have like Israelis who say that like Hamas uses the palace in people as human shields in the West Bank, you of the argument. It's remarkable, actually how many parallels there are and how these are employed. Are we the baddies, Yes, we're all the batties. Nation states the batties. That sounds reductive, but that is just the way the game is played. You will never find the nations.
There are ways to play the game without explicitly justifying the slaughter of civilians on a beach.
But in practice, if you go back to basically any military conflict where existential threat was on the line, which it certainly is for Ukraine or is in the Israel Hamas conflict. You will see that this rhetoric and these standards are employed. This is not me arguing that it's justified. It's morally important because war demands abhorrence of the people who participate in it. You're not going to find any large scale conflict where stuff like this doesn't happen, which is why to me.
The interesting question is it's not even a large scale conflict in Crimea like why part of the broader Ukraine. Why is the American public supposed to care all of a sudden that Russia controls Crimea like four years ago you would have been laughed at if you suggested that Ukraine ought to go to war to kick Russia out of Ukraine.
Well, that's a separate question.
The first one about like the abhorrence of this rhetoric, which by the way, I agree with. I just want to be clear that this is a consequence of like these heightened tensions, which is why I'm interested in what can be done to bring an end to this war, a permanent end, not some middling ceasefire that gets broken almost immediately. In terms of whether or not America should care.
I don't know.
The average American couldn't find Kabul on a map. You know, the average American doesn't care about anything outside of their own tax breaks. My interest in what the average American cares about is nil. The average American doesn't care about the homeless. Why should I care about what they care about?
What I care about? Nuclear? What's good? They sometimes they do.
I don't know the average American with the state of our education, I care about what's good. Nuclear war's bad. By the way, that's where I land in that particular moral equivalence. I think that if we settle with an unjust tense quiet with the Russia Ukraine conflict, we guarantee future. If you look, why would the history of expansionist empires. If you take a look at what Russia is doing now and compare it to the rhetoric employed by other nations that have annexed adjacent territory, you will find they tend not to quit while they're ahead. There's a pattern of over extension.
Let me ask you so on on this piece. You know you hoped that, you know, if there's enough fighting, that eventually these two fighters will become exhausted and kind of peace will break out. But you've also said that if we get a peace deal, then war will eventually break out.
So why would the peace from.
Exhaustion not just lead to your your fear that two years later war would break out again, Because I think it means only war is the only logical endpoint of your position.
Heretion, I think it needs to be a peace deal that the Russian and Ukrainian people are happy with. Right now, we haven't even gotten close to finding that point, which means the only real end to the conflict would be the complete annexation of Ukraine and the annihilation of all the militias and insurgency groups within it, which would be very difficult considering the fact that Russia has logistical breakdowns fifty miles out of their border, or Ukraine retaking all of its territory, which is at the moment basically unthinkable. It doesn't seem like there's any end to the conflict right now outside of something that could be imposed by a kind of international move to sort of like solidify the line where it is now, and I do think that would just lead to more peace in the future. That's my question, and I don't come to this with a solution. By the way, if I had a solution, or if anyone did, I think you'd be hearing them preaching it a lot more often. I don't like the idea of treating this like team sports or like you know, well in actuality, like we could have prevented this if we went back twenty thirty forty years. I know there's a lot of other cool stuff we could have done. We could have invested in, like Apple early too.
Let's say it. Let's say the US tripled the NASA budget and sent it all to Ukraine. Do you think that would be too much US support?
I mean, if we oversupport Ukraine, if we commit to it so hard that Ukraine starts pushing back further. My concern would be that the the brass in Ukraine would get arrogant and start pushing into Russia. I don't think that's especially likely. Certainly, Ukraine doesn't have the same sort of legacy and cultural pretext of expansionist sentiment the way that Putin does, but it's possible. I also disagree, by the way, with the strike they did on some of those early warning systems. You showed an article with that headline a little bit ago. I think that's dangerous territory. I don't think that Ukraine has been particularly irresponsible in this conflict, as military conflicts go, and that's a pretty low bar. I do think that there's a risk the more we gin them up, the more gung ho they get, and I think that risk increases the longer this goes on too. So again, we either let Ukraine get washed entirely. I don't even know if Russia could do that at this point, even if we divested from Ukraine, we sort of pressure Ukraine to accept the Russian peace steel as it is now, or we overinvest to the point where they can reclaim their borders, which, given enough time and enough money, you know, we unleash Area fifty one on the Russia, and sure maybe Ukraine could do it. Of these three options, which is the most likely to bring about the fewest deaths the lowest likelihood of long term nuclear conflict. In my opinion, the path will get clearer the more time goes on, because we will increasingly test the willingness of the Russian people to support this ongoing engagement. That sounds horrible. I think this is a horrible situation. That's not me blaming anyone involved, the Pentagon, the Kremlin, whatever else. It's a horrible humanitarian nightmare, but it's also a pretty difficult one to manage. You know. You look back at history and there are empires that we're clashing with each other for centuries, over and over again, borders barely changing with each successive war. I don't want that to happen here, not just because we've got nuclear powers involved, but because, like it is a collective drain on these spiritual, financial and military collective of humanity. I just don't want to come at it from a dogmatic position, because I don't want to blind myself to avenues of peace that might be unintuitive.
Were running up against our time limit here. But Dave any kind of final thoughts you'd want to have on how this ought to end, like from your perspective to Vosh's question, what do we do now?
Sure? Okay?
Well, first of all, I would just say that I don't think Ukraine has been very responsible throughout this whole thing, and certainly when their missiles hit Poland and Zelensky immediately called for preemptive attacks on Russia by the West, either either lying through his teeth and claiming it was Russia who attacked Poland, or being so clueless that he hadn't even done any investigation to figure out whether it was them or not.
Either way, it seems pretty irresponsible to me.
But look, without even going back into ancient history, like just going back to very recent history.
It was Jens Straltenburg. I apologize to the Norwegians.
I know I'm butchering that he gave the whole game away last year, but he admitted that Vladimir And actually sent them a draft treaty and said, if you just promised to not bring Ukraine into NATO, I won't invade. And he brags that they said, no, we won't sign that. Haha. You didn't want NATO expansion and look at you. Now you're getting more NATO expansion. It's like yeah, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians dead, Like, could we at least all agree that we should have just signed that treaty? Why is it a vital strategic interest to the United States of America that we have a war guarantee with Ukraine?
Like what how many people in America?
It's like George Kennon said back in the first round of NATO expansion. We have neither the political will nor the resources to actually defend these countries. How many people in America actually would be willing to sacrifice themselves or their children to make sure that the Donbass region is ruled by Kiev? Would you guys be willing to sacrifice your kids?
This is that ridiculous.
Anyone here The average American wouldn't sacrifice their lives to protect East German or Poland either. Do you think the average American would fight for warsaw? This report doesn't. That's fencing, but it's empty.
Now, let me explain.
What you will explain to me. I'm what you want today too. I'm gonna finish.
I keep talking about it today, and then you keep talking about NATO, NATO, NATO.
We know I addressed and acknowledged and agreed with.
You're interrupting me and then claiming I'm not addressing something. So first, I was just saying, could we at least all agree that a couple of years ago we should have just signed that deal and committed to not bringing Ukraine into NATO and avoided this war.
Couldn't invaded anyway? Huh? Couldn't Russia have just invaded anyway.
Sure, I guess in the worst case scenario it would be as bad as it's not that you're laughing, but there's no point to that. Yes, in the worst area, we could have still ended talk about what we can Okay, let me please, okay, okay, fsh let me just make my point instead of this constant interrupting listen. Yes, in the worst case scenario, I suppose it could have gone as bad as it did in this scenario, but obviously the overwhelming odds or that it wouldn't have come to this. Now in terms of your point of saying, like, well, the average American isn't willing to go die for Germany or Poland, Okay, but so why are we adding more of these countries, especially when our own intelligence community is telling us that the risk of adding this other nation that American's carabout even less, the risk of it could result in this war very explicitly blatantly saying that. Now, look again, I do think I actually answered this question pretty clearly pretty early on in this But right now, what we should do, being educated by what's happened in the very recent past, is to go, hey, America is going to announce that we will pull all of our support for Ukraine in this war under the condition that Vladimir Putin accepts some type of peace proposal. That's going to look like not quite as good as Ukraine would have gotten if they had taken the deal at Boris Johnson broke up. But it's going to look like Vladimir Putin obviously keeping Primea, obviously keeping some of the part some of the territories that he's he already has control of, and in exchange for him ending the war, we promised that Ukraine will not be admitted into NATO.
That deal is still possible.
Listen, let me just add one final point to this, and then we could you can respond however you want. Understand something here, the United States of America holds all of the chips. We could offer Vladimir Putin something that would probably get him to do whatever we wanted him to do. And you know what, that is the ultimate crowning jewel for him. How about we leave NATO if you end this war right now, America will withdraw from NATO.
Why not internet rhetoric that it's not.
We're you know this is this is like this is like you know, like literally, what if we left the key military alliance on the planet to incentivize a desperate on the other side of the world to not invade the country they unjustly. No, no, no, no, it's it's good for Twitter likes, it's great for like the ultra libertarians who are all like keenly interested in you Knowkovic's like electoral legitimacy. Uh, it's not reality. You suggest that you pointested that we offered a poll. Uh, there was support from Ukraine in exchange for a peace deal. Okay, fine, so let's finally talk about that. Then what happens then if that divestment occurs naturally there's a DMZ of course there would be, right, and then you have a build up of the remaining Ukrainian troops and Russia's troops on both sides. Don't you think it's likely that given a piece deal that takes place under those circumstances, eventually like the conflict would spark again. And this time, what are we going to do provide a to Ukraine again when Russia again.
Respond to conflict like the ongoing slog for another couple of years, I mean.
To the path through that allows the peace feal to take place in a way that doesn't guarantee an immediate future conflict. So if we pursue an unjust piece that is immediately broken, it will have been for nothing and will be in a worse position than we were before. Because nobody's going to want to stop the second version of the conflict five days after it starts. We need to be careful with this.
So first of all, let me just say that will close with a response from you.
Okay, So I think that Vousch's response of like, oh, this is just what internet libertarians care about or something like that. I just think there was a lot of words without you actually saying anything there. NATO was created after World War Two because we had the Soviet Union controlling half of Europe and the West and Western Europe had been destroyed. It was in utter ruins, and so we felt like we had to subsidize the defense of Western Europe to make sure that this very clearly expansion has powered the Soviet Union didn't expand into Western Europe at this point. Today, Western Europe is rich and we are thirty four trillion dollars in debt. It makes absolutely no sense. And by the way, Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. There is no reason for NATO to exist. There's no reason for the US to be a part of it. The former president of the United States of America and the current front runner to be President of the United States of America again has made this point many, many times. This is not just something for Internet libertarians to be interested in. This is something that should be a serious conversation amongst the American people. And by the way, during the fall when the Soviet Union collapsed, there were many of the wisest gray bears in the American security establishment who felt the same way, who felt that, okay, the mission.
Of NATO is over.
Anyway, to your next point, again, this is just an empty argument. You could say this about any peace deal. Well what if war breaks out again? Well okay, but if your worst case scenario is war breaks out, your solution is to continue supporting the war. We want to continue the war because we're afraid of war. Listen, if we actually as I just mentioned, which is a serious proposal, we have the ultimate chip here. We have the chip that could allow Vladimir Putin to claim, hey, I won, which is what you want. In these situations, you want to let everyone save face. You want to allow the Ukrainians to say, hey, we thought and we kept this part of our territory. You want to allow the Russians to say, hey, we were pushed into this, but we were victorious. You want to let everybody save face and come up with some type of deal. And yes, Vosh, you can make the point that it's never one million percent guaranteed that it'll hold in another war won't break out, but it's a hell of a lot more likely than continuing the war. So the point is you want to come up with a deal that's realistic that could maybe hold. And I do think that America is all the leverage in the world to make that happen.
And if I may, I'll just say that, like, no, the idea of holding out for a good piece, one that actually incentivizes both parties to hand like keep their hands off, rather than just the first piece that comes up, is a good instinct. The idea that there is no difference between a piece deal that immediately breaks down and like, you know, a war that continues until a good piece is found. There is a massive difference between these. You know, look at the multiple attempts at securing peace between the Ukrainians and the Russians over the twenty fourteen invasion of the Dunbass. Right, you know, terms are set, conditions are then not met by either side, and then nothing changes, cementing a course of action that continued down eight years until the proper invasion by Russia began.
You need to find a good piece.
I don't know where that path lies, which means that I don't have the convenient, simple answer of saying, what if we just divested, left NATO and the hope that Putin never invaded the remains of Ukraine again. I think that's a very easy thing to say. I think that it's good for like getting up populist fervor. I think it sounds compelling. I think it would do nothing. I think it's a virtue signal. After all, America is in NATO as a formality, Like most many nations that are in NATO don't even meet the required two point five percent GDP millilitary expenditure that they need to be there. NATO is just a cementing of existing alliances. Do you think we still wouldn't go to war with the interests of say Britain or Germany or France. Of course we would, because we're still allies. NATO's just the framework built around it. The real, true underlying force, which has shared geopolitical interest persists. Nonetheless, what would keep Putin from invading again? In my mind it would be promises from the West, but not promises of devestment. We shouldn't just leave Ukraine weak and open to being invaded again, because again, if they just break the peace and conquer the rest of Ukraine after giving it a year or two to rearm on the Russian front, what do we get then? Well, obviously the Ukrainian people are conquered and they are subject to a great many.
Violences and humiliations.
But in addition to that, of course, we continue to sort of throw fuel into the fire of an expansionist empire. Putin's intentions on this are not subtle. He was invoking the borders of the Russian Empire when he began the invasion of Ukraine. I do not think there's any reason to believe that he would be like sated after he made his way all the way over to Poland. What I want is real reconciliation, not just between Ukraine and Russia, but the West in Russia. Russia has been, let's be real here, a nuclear missile ridden backwater since the end of the Soviet Union. Prostitution skyrocketed, child sex trafficking skyrocketed after the end of the Soviet Union. Their economy in shambles. Oligarchs effectively rule the country. There are many many Russians who don't even have indoor plumbing. I think that a promise of shared investment the thing we never did after the end of the Cold War, and not just business investment, not just Coca Cola opening up a factory.
I mean real.
You don't want the American taxpayer spending money on Ukrainian weapons, Okay, I got a better idea for you, three times as much money on Russian economic.
You know, reinvestment.
Give it, Give it to them to work with build real economic bonds. One of the reasons Taiwan hasn't been invaded yet is because China and America are so integrated economic. We don't have that with Russia. That's one of the reasons they're able to persist in spite of all the sanctions on them, because they rely on a pretty primitive oil coal, natural gas kind of you know, extraction economy. I think that if we take Russia seriously as a foreign power and as a people, we invest in them and we care about them in the long run, we could secure a better piece that both sides feel better about, and we could build a world where there is no longer any incentive for the West or for Russia to get angry at each other.
And that's my hope naive it.
Maybe and probably cheaper if we just reached a piece deal and lifted the sanctions and then kept dollar in gemony.
Anyway, well, this is a good place to leave it. And this has been super super interesting. Thank you guys both for being game to talk some of this out. We really appreciate it. Boush and Dave Smith, thanks so much for joining us on counterpoints.
I have a good week you guys. Thank you Dave, Thanks guys. Thanks Bash
