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Hey there, listeners. Before we begin, I wanted to let you know about a live show that we have coming up. It's going to be on April 19th in New York City at the Bell House, and it'll be at 730. You can get tickets at 538.com slash live show. Again, that's 538.com slash live show. April 19th. We really look forward to seeing you there. Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druke.
As folks likely know, last Friday marked a year since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There have been over 8,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine since the invasion began, according to the UN. According to Ukraine, it's lost 9,000 troops in the fighting, and Russia has lost 40 to 60,000, according to the British Ministry of Defense.
8 million refugees fled Ukraine since the invasion and 5.5 million were displaced internally, although about 5.5 million have returned to their homes from both abroad and within the country since.
We spoke a little bit last Tuesday about what Americans think of the United States' involvement in the conflict a year on. In a nutshell, the majority or clear plurality of Americans still support the approach the U.S. is taking, levying economic sanctions, sending arms, and accepting refugees, although there has been some softening of support for these measures, mostly coming from Republicans.
Today, I want to do something a little different and invite back two experts on the conflict who we spoke with almost exactly a year ago. I'm curious to hear how the past year unfolded in comparison to what they expected and where things might go from here.
And so joining us today is Samuel Cherup, a senior political scientist at the nonpartisan think tank, the Rand Corporation. He's the author of the book, Everyone Loses, The Ukraine Crisis, and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia. Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for having me. Also here with us is James Acton, a physicist and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Likewise, welcome back to the podcast, James. It's good to be back, Galen.
So based on your respective expertise, Samuel, yours being the regional dynamics and James, yours being nuclear risks, I'm curious how you two would describe the events of the past year. And Samuel, let's begin with you. So if I had to pick one word, I guess it would be an earthquake. I mean, everything, all the dynamics that were in place before February 24th, 2022 are now gone. Everything ranging from the composition of
the NATO alliance to the state of the Russian military to German military spending, which has of course increased significantly to Germany's willingness to engage in military support to an inactive combat zone, which of course it wasn't before this year. The United States military presence in Europe
Russia's international reputation, Russia's influence with its neighbors, all of these things that sort of were the definitional features of the regional security environment before the war are now changed forever. And so, you know, it's really it's hard to think about what hasn't changed really as a result of Russia's invasion. You're describing a situation where there were probably lots of surprises. What surprised you perhaps the most of the past year?
I guess Russia's military underperformance has been the biggest surprise. This is a military that had significant advantages, both in terms of capabilities, experience, and even doctrine in terms of the ability of the thinking parts of the military to try to deal with major questions of how you conduct operations and so on. The Russian military science is sort of even world-renowned for that ability.
But, of course, you know, they have dramatically underperformed. And that has been a major surprise. I think all of those of us who work on regional military issues would were expecting to see something very different.
Yeah, I mean, so I went back and listened to my conversations with both of you that took place about a year ago. And in late February, Sam, you said on the topic of regime change in Kyiv that, quote, the Russian military still has huge advantages and capabilities in numbers, in the types of systems they can deploy. Ukrainians are still very much the underdogs here. And if Russians do use all the capabilities they have arrayed around Ukraine, it's just a matter of time, of course, before regime change, that is.
So, you know, why didn't that come to pass? I know sort of Russian military underperformance was the big surprise, but what can we attribute it to? And also at this point, would you say that regime change in Kyiv is basically not going to happen? Very unlikely.
Well, I guess I should stay out of the predictions business. That's one thing I've learned since I should have done that before. But, you know, it's war is obviously quite a contingent phenomenon and you can only do so much in terms of predicting the future. However, so what I would say is that what we learned subsequently is that the initial Russian plan, which was based on these impossibly optimistic assumptions about
Essentially, an assumption that the Ukrainian military would give up.
and the Ukrainian public wouldn't resist. All of that turned out to be completely wrong. And I think that that set the Russians off on such a bad footing that they basically squandered any military advantages they had. Another factor I'd point to is the extent in the early period of U.S. intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians, which we didn't really know at the time. And that has continued throughout. And that really does make this conflict quite unique in that
The Ukrainians benefit from all of the intelligence capabilities of NATO member states, particularly the United States, which has the best intelligence capabilities in the world. And Russia cannot touch them, essentially, without risking the kind of escalation that it's tried to avoid. So whereas if this were a direct war between Russia and NATO, the first thing Russia would do would be to attempt to blind the U.S. and its allies here.
It can't do that without undertaking risks that it doesn't want to take on at this point. So the Ukrainians have benefited from that. And we've learned in subsequent months about the extent to which the U.S. was really telling the Ukrainians even where to expect the initial Russian assault and they were thus prepared for it. So those are some of the factors I'd point to. There are obviously others as well. Would you rule out regime change in Kyiv at this point?
So in terms of that, yeah, I think at this point we can say that the Russians failed in their initial objective, which I think was regime change. They were seeking to oust the government and as far as we can tell, and sort of impose their own puppet regime or pro-Russian government in Kyiv.
That is now off the table. And I think it's pretty clear based on their military performance that they are not capable of imposing that kind of an outcome on Ukraine in this war. And even less so now than they were a year ago, given the extent to which Western military assistance has transformed Ukraine's ability to resist Ukraine.
All right, James, let's get you in here. When we spoke almost a year ago, we talked about two types of risks. One, the use of a nuclear weapon. And then we also talked about the nuclear risks involved in nuclear power plants in a war zone. So jumping off from there, how would you describe how those risks have evolved over the past year? In terms of the risk of nuclear weapons being used,
There's been a tremendous amount of nuclear rhetoric coming from Russia throughout this war. It started off, I mean, I think just four or five days into the war and it's ebbed and flowed. There's been times when it's been much higher and times when it's been lower. But I think you have to go back to the first half of the Cold War to go back to a period where national leaders and their advisors have been so willing to make nuclear threats. Now on the one hand, I've actually become more optimistic.
Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons over the four newly annexed territories. Those are the four territories that Putin has tried to annex during this war, excluding Crimea.
And in my assessment, those threats have turned out to be a bluff. I wasn't 100% certain at the beginning of the war that Russia wouldn't be willing to use nuclear weapons over the newly annexed territories. I mean, I'm not 100% certain today, but I think it's very unlikely that Putin at this point is going to use nuclear weapons over the newly annexed territories.
And I think both the US and Russia, as Sam have indicated, have sought to avoid direct conflict with one another. I think certain norms of behaviour, Russia has refrained from striking material being shipped to Ukraine while it's on NATO territory. The US and NATO have refrained from directly involving themselves in war. And I think the two sides have tried to avoid a direct conflict here.
On the other hand, I'm less optimistic than many commentators because of the potential for nuclear use over Crimea. I mean, I'm sure we will discuss this in more detail later, but basically I think Putin views Crimea quite differently from the newly annexed territories. And
If Ukraine looks like it's in a position where it could take back Crimea, which to be clear, I think it's legally and morally entitled to do, I think the chance of nuclear use by Russia goes up significantly. In terms of the nuclear power risks in this conflict,
It got hairy, I mean it really did. In particular the fighting around Zaporizhia. You know, reflecting on the first anniversary of this war, I was looking back on a piece I wrote just a couple of days into it. And at that point I flagged up there was a risk to nuclear power plants, but I couldn't get my head around the possibility that Russia might actually order an armed assault on a nuclear power plant.
So in the spirit of like recognizing where we prognosticated very badly, I think I significantly underestimated that risk there because just a few days later, Russia ordered a direct assault against Zaporizhia. And, you know, I think there were times when we were just like one errant missile strike away from a serious accident there.
The IEA says that safety at the plant is seriously degraded. And at a time when that plant had no source of electricity, when it was entirely reliant on its emergency diesel generators,
A fire started by an attack on the plant could have been extremely dangerous at those moments. That risk has now significantly receded given the plant is in cold shutdown. But one can imagine scenarios in which Russia restarts that plant in order to steal the electricity output and then the risk could rise again. Right now as things stand on the ground, I think the risk of a serious nuclear power plant accident are relatively low right now.
So, you know, I also listened back to our conversation and we spoke in early March and
And you said then that you viewed Putin as an evil but rational actor and that he would only use nuclear weapons in a scenario where he felt that the use of those weapons were sort of less of a risk to him than alternatives. And one scenario in which he might consider doing so is you called it a prolonged bloodbath that diminished the Russian military. I mean, in a way, that's come to pass.
So do you think that there is greater likelihood of Putin using nuclear weapons today than there was back in March? I don't think Putin currently sees the scale of a threat to himself and his regime that would be needed to justify, in his mind, the use of nuclear weapons. I stand by the assessment that Putin is a rational actor. I think he
started this war based on extraordinarily bad information but I think that's not the same thing as being irrational it's clear he had a tiny circle of decision makers around him that he didn't have good intelligence or he ignored good intelligence I think more likely based on uh Ukraine's willingness to throw off their democratically elected government and embrace Russian rule but again none of that speaks to me of irrationality it speaks to me as bad information
And, you know, we have seen a bloodbath. I think the strength of the Russian military has diminished. But that hasn't led so far to what I think Putin will perceive as an existential threat to his regime. And from that perspective, a lot of my concern is now focused on Crimea, which is the one area in which I think Putin could perceive that scale of threat emerging to him and his regime.
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Okay, so let's talk about Crimea, both from the perspective of James, you brought up the nuclear risks. And of course, Sam, from the perspective of what it all means in this conflict and what Crimea means to Russia and Ukraine. What are the questions here as you see them? Like, does Ukraine look to be in a position to potentially take back Crimea? And what would Putin do and why?
So in terms of whether Ukraine is in a position to retake Crimea, again here I'd shy away from firm predictions one way or another. I think it will be a challenge more so than the previous two successful counteroffensives, which succeeded for particular reasons, like in the case of the Kharkiv counteroffensive because of Russia's manpower problem.
which it has addressed through mobilization. And in the case of Kherson, because of a particular geography, the Dnipro River and its being in the way, so to speak, of Russia's ability to keep lines of communication open. So it had a sort of pocket of forces that could have been isolated had they stayed on that side. So whether Ukraine can conduct a third successful counteroffensive is
is the real unknown question right now against Russian lines that are much better defended, that are much better manned. And that's what would be required to even get to the Isthmus, let alone to take the whole thing. So whether Ukraine can get there is a big open question. And then whether it can actually take
The peninsula is a further one. You have to understand that Russia, you know, has had a military base there since there wasn't an independent Ukraine. It was, you know, the Soviet Black Sea Fleet base. And then, you know, it was a leased base that the Russian Navy had with, you know, thousands and thousands of soldiers stationed there or sailors mostly since, you know, Russia became independent.
an independent state in 1991. And it has been under full Russian control, even if not internationally recognized, since 2014.
So it's going to be a much harder nut to crack militarily. And I agree with James that Putin is likely to be willing to go much further to defend it than any other part of Ukraine. The other thing, of course, is even if Ukraine were to retake it, you're dealing with a population that is unlikely to welcome the Ukrainian military with open arms. It was always the most pro-Russian sort of an outlier within Ukraine before it was annexed in terms of how
sympathetic the population was to Russia. And given that anyone with pro-Ukrainian sympathies has probably had a hard last nine years, they might most have probably left. So it would be a major challenge from any number of perspectives. I think Crimea here, though, serves more as a broader
or is the most acute case in point of something that I think we can take away from what James said about what drives Russian decision-making and risk calculus about particularly when it comes to nuclear weapons use, but just escalation more broadly, which is that it's driven by battlefield dynamics. So that if, if we see like collapsing lines,
Or the last time there was a lot of chatter in D.C. about potential Russian nuclear use was when that group of forces was stuck on the other side of the river in the Kherson region and potentially about to be encircled by Ukrainian forces. So you could have seen tens of thousands of
Russian soldiers being either captured or killed before they successfully retreated, that was when the last acute concern about nuclear weapons use came. And so I think, you know, if there is to be another collapse in the Russian lines, that's when I would also be concerned. And if that collapse were to extend as far back as Crimea, you know, that's sort of almost doubling the concerns. Yeah, I mean, I think you put your finger on exactly the two questions to ask here, Galen. You know, the first one is,
what probability do you place on Ukraine appearing to Putin like it can take back Crimea? And then secondly, conditional on that occurring, what do you think the probability of Putin using nuclear weapons is? And I think, as Sam indicated, there's lots of reasons to think Putin values Crimea much more highly than other parts of Ukraine.
It's one of his crowning achievements from his reign in Russia. The take back of Crimea was wildly popular within Russia in a way that the current war hasn't been. Crimea is of much greater strategic value to Russia, largely because of the Russian military base there and access to the water.
Putin, looking at the Donbass and other parts of Ukraine other than Crimea now, I think has to recognise that an occupation would be extremely difficult and costly in a way that an occupation of Crimea is just not so much for him. Sam points out Crimea has been part of Russia illegally now, but for eight or nine years.
And every time I write about the escalation risks here, one of the counter arguments I often hear is that nuclear weapon use would not be militarily useful for Russia. That because of the nature of Ukrainian military operations, using nuclear weapons on a limited way on the battlefield would not significantly blunt Ukrainian operations. I think that's probably incorrect.
But much more importantly, I think it misses the theory of the case for what Russian nuclear use would be. I don't believe Putin looks upon nuclear weapons as a form of super artillery that are useful for attacking, invading Ukrainian tanks and, you know, by brute force defeating an attack on Crimea. I think the purpose of nuclear use would be to terrify.
partly to terrify Ukraine, but much more importantly to terrify Ukraine's international backers. And I think Putin's big hope would be, if he were to use nuclear weapons, that by doing so he would coerce the US and Ukraine's international supporters into a stopping their support of Ukraine and b trying to force Ukraine to the negotiating table to make concessions. One can argue over whether or not this strategy would be successful.
But that's what I think the theory of the case as Putin would view it would be. And it may appear to him less risky than losing Ukraine. I did a kind of forecasting exercise a few weeks ago where I was finally forced to put a probability on the conditional case of Putin using weapons if Ukrainian forces enter Ukraine.
I put about 20% on that at the time. So I still think it's much less likely than even odds, but I find that a terrifyingly large probability if we're talking about nuclear war. That, you know, as somebody who deals in probabilities, you know, 20% tied to the prospect of using nuclear weapons, that is indeed concerning. And so that's, for you, 20% chance that Putin were to
resort to nuclear weapons if Ukraine attacks Crimea? Correct. So this is a conditional probability. Where does that come from? It's not just attacks, though, right? It invades, yes? Well, I mean, the specific forecasting question that I was asked to weigh in on was if Ukrainian ground forces enter Crimea,
What is the probability that Putin uses nuclear weapons now there is a
some probability there that there is some very small-scale incursion into Crimea that Putin recognizes as a small-scale incursion that doesn't fundamentally threaten his hold on Crimea. And in that particular scenario, I think nuclear use is very unlikely. But I think that if Ukrainian forces enter Crimea, it's overwhelmingly likely that it's as part of an effort to take back Crimea. It's a concerted large-scale effort.
And in that case, you have to ask yourself, what's the probability that Putin assesses that the Ukrainian offensive will be effective?
And then secondly, if he does view the Ukrainian offensive as being likely to be effective, what's the probability he uses nuclear weapons? So, you know, that's the kind of mental chain that I went down. The two things here that I want to emphasize are firstly, I have a ton of uncertainty. I think it's enormously difficult to predict the likelihood that Putin will use nuclear weapons. I would have put very big error bars on this estimate. But, you know, I think it's...
I've come to think over the last few months that implicitly policymakers who are being cautious or who advocate greater support to Ukraine are implicitly putting probabilities on the likelihood of nuclear use. And I think we should be explicit in that discussion. We should lay out our assumptions. We should lay out our escalation pathways. And we should be willing to debate these probabilities openly.
The other thing that I would emphasize is my sense is that if Putin uses nuclear weapons over Crimea, it's in his interest to do so quickly rather than slowly. The theory of the case, as I've laid out here, is that the use of nuclear weapons would try to be to put enough pressure on the West that the West pressures Ukraine into negotiating.
If that's the theory of the case, you want to do it as early as possible within a Ukrainian attack on Crimea before Ukraine captures large amounts of territory. You want to try and freeze the conflict as soon as possible. So I would also make the forecast here that if Russia uses nuclear weapons over Crimea, it's likely to be
before Ukraine captures large amounts of territory, rather than at the end of a Ukrainian operation to recapture Crimea.
So from what I understand here, President Zelensky has said that he intends to not stop fighting until Ukraine is whole, including Crimea. Given that you've put a 20% chance on Putin using nuclear weapons, if President Zelensky's, not just if his goals are achieved, but if he actually tries to pursue his stated goals,
Like, wow. So is Zelensky sort of just saying this to say it or does he actually plan to try to recapture Crimea?
As with all public pronouncements on objectives in the absence of negotiations, I would at least consider the possibility that these statements are as much about, you know, laying down a sort of maximalist negotiating position as they are, you know, a bottom line that both sides wouldn't or wouldn't accept in the context of negotiations.
an endgame. There's also, of course, the domestic audience issue for Zelensky, whereby as public opinion in Ukraine is hardened, so too has his position. If you look back, I don't know, as late as June of last year, he was talking about potential
halfway points between where they were at that point and, you know, or even accepting the February 24th status quo ante in terms of lines of control. But they are in a difficult position whereby, and this is true of the U.S. too, since we, you know, everyone except for Russia recognizes Russia's
Ukraine's international borders to include Crimea, saying, you know, we will stop before we retake all of our sovereign territory doesn't actually make for a sort of strong soundbite domestically, for sure.
And even international, in international legal terms, it sort of puts you in a tricky position where you're treating part of your own territory as differently than another. And Ukraine, under any circumstances, isn't going to give up its legal pretense to all of its internationally recognized territory, and neither will the United States. But that doesn't necessarily mean much about who's in control of what. After all, South Korea claims the entirety of the Korean Peninsula.
You know, it doesn't recognize North Korea, you know, to really exist, neither does the U.S. formally. So positions on international law and de facto control might be two different things. But the question really is, at the end of the day, can Zelensky achieve that goal, assuming, let's say, that it is his, in fact, bottom line, rather than necessarily what he's saying? And there, I think there are reasons to question it, right?
You know, but there are also lots of reasons why we could have questioned a lot of things that have occurred in the last year. So I wouldn't put it off the table. But, you know, I think his position has evolved and it could evolve in other ways, depending on how things go. Yeah, I mean, I think Sam puts his finger on a really important point, which is war aims are not fixed. War aims are fluid. The better you do in a war, the more maximalist your war aims become.
And I don't know whether Zelensky's talk right now about taking back Crimea is rhetoric or whether for a domestic audience or whether he really means it. But if Ukrainian forces are ever in a position to take back Crimea, they may never be. But if Ukrainian forces are in a position to take back Crimea, then I think it will be quite hard for Zelensky to risk that domestically. That's that's the first point.
The second point that I would make here is that Zelensky is quite rationally more willing to risk nuclear war over Crimea than, in my view, the United States should be. Crimea is Ukrainian. Like, legally and morally, it's Ukrainian.
And I fully understand why Zelensky would run some risk of nuclear war to take back Crimea. I don't personally believe the United States should take that risk. So I believe that our policy should be to say we recognize Crimea as Ukrainian, both legally and morally.
And it is up to Zelensky as a sovereign actor to decide whether Ukraine takes back Crimea. But privately, I think we should calibrate our support not to help him do that, because I just don't think it's in US interest for him to take that back.
The analogy that I would draw here is with the Baltic states during the Cold War. The United States never recognized Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as being part of the Soviet Union. It's actually kind of extraordinary that there were parts of the Soviet Union we did not recognize as Soviet. And that policy took a long, long time to bear fruit, but eventually it did with the independence of the Baltic states as part of the collapse of the Soviet Union. So I think that's the kind of long game here we want to be playing over Crimea.
And I think, you know, to be fair to the administration, although they tend to, there's a lot of different things that have been said about U.S. objectives. But I think at one point in December of last year, Secretary of State Blinken said,
blurted out that, you know, we're trying to essentially enable the Ukrainians to return to the status quo ante of February 23rd, 2022, saying something out loud, which you've heard a lot of maybe sotto voce discussion of, that is that the U.S. would be perfectly happy if, or not perfectly happy, but would be satisfied if the Ukrainians were to sort of restore the status quo ante of before this full-scale invasion of 2022, not
the previous invasion of 2014, which included Crimea. But the challenge is that A, you know, with the exception of the Isthmus, like there really isn't a line. There's no natural, like the February 24th line was, the pre-February 24th line was contested in a lot of places and there was fighting along a lot of different parts of it. Granted, not along Crimea, but in the Donbas area.
And it's nearly impossible to calibrate assistance to help the Ukrainians take just that and not more. Moreover, let's just imagine a situation where the Ukrainians get to the Isthmus and the rest of the February 24th line. Why would they stop? I mean, you know, militarily, it doesn't really make much sense. So there is a tricky dynamic here whereby you could imagine a sort of catastrophic success scenario, which might be morally and legally justified, but would
end up potentially creating these quite significant risks. Yeah, I think that's totally fair, Sam. And I think it's very easy for a think tanker like me to say we should calibrate our support so that the Ukrainians can reach exactly the isthmus of Crimea, but not go into Crimea. I accept that's easier said than done.
But I think there are certain things we can do. That wasn't a critique, just to be fair. No, no, no. But I think it should have been. Like, I think it's a fair critique. But what I would say is, you know, firstly, we can very much calibrate our intelligence support. I mean, by all accounts, the US provides the Ukrainians a lot of targeting data. And I think we can make it clear that, you know, we're not going to provide that kind of data to support an operation that goes into Crimea. I think with things like
equipment for conducting deep strikes in Crimea. There is a big difference between providing limited quantities of that equipment that would help the Ukrainians attack Russian bases in Crimea as a way of interfering with Russian operations elsewhere in Ukraine, as opposed to the kind of much larger scale strikes that Ukraine would want to launch prior to an invasion of Crimea.
And then finally I think we should privately, and I would absolutely not say this publicly, but I would privately tell the Ukrainians if you go after Crimea and Putin uses nuclear weapons we are not going to respond militarily. We will respond diplomatically, we will respond economically, we will try and isolate Russia, but we're not going to get drawn into a nuclear war over Crimea.
The other thing that I would say is my sense is there's a pretty vigorous debate within the Biden administration as to how much support they should provide the Ukrainians. I mean, Sam's right that Blinken has actually on various occasions kind of hinted that he recognizes Crimea as something of a red line.
On the other hand, there was a pretty well-sourced New York Times article, I forget exactly when it was now, maybe January, maybe December, I can't remember, but indicating that the administration wanted Ukraine to be able to threaten Crimea. So my sense is there's actually kind of a fairly vigorous debate within the administration about this. So one way of avoiding nuclear conflict altogether here is ending the war.
What are both sides saying about the prospects for negotiations and some sort of peace agreement? And I know that sort of ability to threaten Crimea or ability to retake parts of the Donbas, etc., are probably part of those calculations. But what are both sides' positions at this point? And what is the United States' position if it has one?
Well, there haven't been any negotiations ongoing since May of 2022. I mean, there have been discrete talks about specific issues, but no settlement talks since May of 2022. And that's actually quite a long time to have not been discussing the endgame. At the moment, the Ukrainians say, you know, we'll retake all of our sovereign territory and then we'll talk about potential settlement.
And, you know, the Russians say a lot of different things. Actually, the Ukrainians probably have the most clearly articulated desired end state. You know, the Russians that sometimes will say, well, they need to recognize our new realities on the ground, which essentially means the annexations of these four territories, which is an interesting demand, given that Russia militarily has not been able to establish control over them.
And they're also saying, the Russians, that it's the Ukrainians who are not willing to talk, that Russia is willing to talk, and Zelensky is the one refusing.
Most of that seems to me posturing. I do think that the Russians are trying to advance militarily in the Donbass before sitting down at the table. But at the moment, you know, neither side really seems to be genuinely interested in negotiating. Both sides are going to try their hands at an offensive sometime between now and the summer before any, you know, change in that calculation comes to pass. And I think that's
The U.S. at the moment is mostly just focused on assisting the Ukrainians in that counteroffensive with this sort of idea that you can convert battlefield success into negotiation leverage at the negotiation table. The challenge is that there is no table and there are no negotiations. So...
Whether battlefield success can be converted into that kind of leverage is unclear. Moreover, battlefield success hasn't necessarily brought Ukraine more security. As we've seen Russia with these strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure, you know, even as they've retaken more territory, arguably their security as a country as a whole has been further threatened or undermined by Russia. So,
We're at this point where it's almost hard to imagine that process beginning, and I think that's a problem in itself.
That we've gotten this sort of all the parties have gotten out of the habit of talking while they're fighting, which is often the norm in these kinds of situations. So it's going to be harder to return to to that kind of a negotiation scenario now, even though, of course, these two things are not mutually incompatible. You can do both at the same time, as both parties were doing up until May, frankly. Yeah.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with Sam's pessimism about the likelihood of any kind of negotiated settlement for the foreseeable future. And I think the fundamental challenge here is that both sides are optimistic about their prospects over the long term. It's not just success on the battlefield that translates into leverage. It's success on the battlefield that the other side thinks is going to keep going.
If the other side thinks that it can reverse your success on the battlefield, it doesn't have nearly so much incentive to negotiate. And I think Putin looks at this war and goes, over the long run, I just have a bigger country, a bigger army. I can wear out this storm and gradually get to an outcome that I find acceptable.
I'm not remotely sure he's right about that. I don't want him to be right about that. And I actually don't think he is right about that. But like, I don't control whether Russia wants to negotiate. Putin controls whether Russia wants to negotiate. The big idea, and this links back to Crimea that's been out there over the last few months, is that if Ukraine threatens to take back Crimea, it can buy itself a lot of leverage at the negotiating table. In theory, I think this argument is 100% correct.
If Ukraine could really credibly threaten to take back Crimea, it would give Russia something to negotiate over. And that something is important enough that Russia may come to the table. I think there is a very real practical reason why this strategy is deeply flawed. If Ukraine says, let's negotiate or I will take back Crimea, it also has to be willing to say to make those negotiations successful. If we reach a peace agreement,
As part of that, I, Ukraine, will have to accept Russian control over Crimea. If Russia agrees to withdraw to the 2014 borders, get out of the Donbass, stop the fighting, then we have to be willing not to take back Crimea.
And I don't think Ukraine is willing to say that. And I think a lot of the people who are advocating for threatening to take back Crimea as a way to make negotiations would be incredibly critical of Ukraine if it was willing to make concessions over Crimea. And this is a separate issue from whether or not Zelensky would actually go after Crimea, because for him to accept verbally, openly accept Russian control over Crimea would be a huge deal for him domestically.
So I actually think this whole strategy of threatening Crimea as a way to aid negotiations is fundamentally flawed because Ukraine is not willing to make concessions on Crimea, which it would have to be to make this strategy successful.
And that's not necessarily a criticism of Ukraine. I mean, as I want to emphasize it, Ukraine is a sovereign country. Zelensky is its democratically elected leader. It is up to Zelensky whether or not he is willing to make concessions over Crimea. But if he's not willing to make those concessions over Crimea, then threatening Crimea is not an effective way to try to reach an agreement.
You bring up a good point, which is that everyone here is going to be facing the pressure of their own domestic politics. After all, we are a politics podcast and we often talk about American public opinion here. So I'm curious if we can go through the different players in this conflict and talk about what those domestic political pressures are.
are. So I think we've talked a little bit about Ukraine, but if we can expand on that, and then also talk about Putin's Russia. I mean, you said he's not as popular as during the first invasion of Crimea. How popular is he? And what's the public in America and the rest of the West? How are they seeing these conflicts as well?
We should caveat all this by noting that public opinion in wartime is notoriously difficult to measure, and people are more likely to say what they think those asking the question want to hear, or what they think is proper and under the circumstances.
But what we can say, I think, is that Putin has not suffered or is not at risk of popular unrest, that there is enough popular support for what he's doing to sustain it. And also that what we've seen in the public opinion polling is that there's this remarkable...
similar numbers in favor of a potential negotiation and peace as there are in favor of continuing it, which I think suggests that Putin has significant flexibility in framing an endgame as a victory, you know, probably more so than Zelensky does, because basically there's a lot of Russian, you know, a lot of the Russian public is apolitical and will just say, okay, whatever the, you know,
Putin says is good for the country is good for the country. That contrasts to a certain extent with what Zelensky faces domestically, where if you look at public opinion, there's a lot more of a sort of hard line or a hardening of positions on negotiations. Again, hard to judge the extent to which that in the context of the war reflects the broadest swath of public opinion and also because you can't poll everywhere.
And so on. But, you know, I do think that there's a bit of a feedback loop in the Ukrainian context. You know, something that's not discussed very much is that basically there's one TV channel in Ukraine and has been since the beginning of the war, which is where most Ukrainians get their news. And it's largely, if not controlled by the presidential administration, then certainly influenced by it. And in other words, this sort of narrative and information is,
Space is to a significant extent controlled by the government, much more so than before the war when there was a lot of sort of oligarchic competition in the media space. And so I think if Zelensky started saying something different and making the case for something different, he might have a little bit more space to run on, given the political capital is accumulated there.
So, you know, I think that remains to be seen the extent to which he is constrained, although there is a concern in Ukraine, of course, that anything that is deeply unpopular with the public could lead to another revolution, because after all, there have been a couple of those in the last, you know, 20 years. And, you know, I think anyone in power in Ukraine is concerned that there could be another one if he or she crosses the wrong lines with the public.
So overall I think Western public opinion towards Ukraine has held up a lot better than many analysts were expecting. I don't particularly remember making a forecast myself at the time. You know the war is still broadly popular. Ukraine is still rightly viewed as the victim of outrageous Russian aggression.
There's been various pieces of luck that have helped. I mean, had Europe had an exceptionally cold winter and much more energy was needed than has actually been used, one could imagine that there would have been a much stronger desire to end the war as quickly as possible. But that hasn't transpired. So overall, I think Western public opinion has held up fairly well. And I think that's likely to continue for the time being.
You get interesting questions within the US. I mean, obviously there is an element of the Republican Party that has been quite vocal against spending money on Ukraine and are calling for a reduction or an end to US support.
They're not making a huge amount of headway, though one always has to ask the question, given how slim the Republican majority in the House is, given the extent to which McCarthy is dependent upon this element of the Republican caucus, whether or not they may have an outsized influence. But, you know, overall, I think one has to be fairly sanguine here about the state of Western public opinion.
The other kind of big unknown card here I would put is China. Obviously public opinion in China doesn't matter a huge amount for what the Chinese government does, I would think especially on an issue such as this. But internal regime opinion and whether China decides to support Russia I think is a significant uncertainty and could have a significant impact on the war.
The US administration has come out just in the last week or so and expressed concern that China is gonna start providing lethal aid to Russia.
That may have been a pre-emptive step to try to get international public opinion motivated to stop that kind of Chinese transfer. But that for me is one of my big unknowns about how the war is going to unfold within the next year or so. I mean, one could imagine significant Chinese support prolonging the war, helping Russia slowly win the war, lose more slowly. You know, I
I don't have a good sense myself of how likely that support is, but suffice to say that if China were to provide large-scale significant support to Russia, that could have a significant outcome on the conduct of the war.
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In response to the first question I asked, Sam, you sort of went straight to changing dynamics within countries that are not Russia or Ukraine since the start of this war. And I'm curious how this has changed
the globe, the relationships between the superpowers, James, to your expertise, the likelihood of nuclear conflict period, whether it be related even to Russia and Ukraine specifically. How has this changed the world? And what have we learned about how powerful countries with lots of weapons are going to behave towards each other? There's been a very active debate about
how outcomes in Ukraine in the war change both the likelihood of proliferation to additional states and whether states with nuclear weapons are likely to engage in nuclear blackmail, which is essentially what Russia's doing. I am somebody of the belief that these effects are more limited than they're often portrayed. As far as proliferation goes, the question that I ask myself is which countries that don't have nuclear weapons
feel significantly more threatened as a result of the Ukraine war and don't have other ways to mitigate that threat perception. And I'd argue the number here is actually pretty small. I mean, there were some countries that were really worried before the Ukraine war were pursuing nuclear weapons programs like Iran. You know, Iran may well proliferate, but I don't think that's a consequence of the Ukraine war.
There's a bunch of countries in Eastern Europe, in NATO, who have pretty acute threat perceptions before. Those threat perceptions have almost certainly gone up as a result of the war. I'm thinking here of the Baltic states and Poland. But the critical point is that they're NATO members.
And I think they are overall kind of happy with the way the U.S. has handled this war, the commitment to Europe. I think they certainly have long-run fears about this level of U.S. commitment, but I'm not sure those fears have been particularly exacerbated by the war because of the fairly robust support the U.S. has provided Ukraine.
So I have trouble identifying particular states that I think are more likely to proliferate as a result of the war. I mean, in some sense, the obvious answer to that is Ukraine. But I think Ukraine realizes that if it were to try to acquire nuclear weapons, it would probably suffer an even more massive Russian attack than it has done to date. I just don't see Ukraine as being terribly likely to proliferate, not least because it would really interfere with Ukraine's goals of becoming integrated into Western economic and security structures, the EU and NATO particularly.
As far as nuclear coercion goes, I think it is important that Russia's nuclear threats are broadly seen to have been ineffective.
One doesn't want to be in a world in which Russia is seen to have conquered Ukraine by nuclear threats. But I don't think we live in that world. And I think people push this argument too far by arguing that unless Ukraine takes back every single inch of its territory, including Crimea, Russia's nuclear threats will have been seen as successful. Like, firstly, I just don't think that's true. But secondly...
There is a real risk here, which is if Ukraine starts to take back Crimea and Russia uses nuclear weapons. If we make concessions at that point to Russia in an effort to avert nuclear Armageddon, that is much, much more damaging than making concessions
now. And fundamentally it is up to Ukraine whether to make those concessions or not. But as I've argued, I think we can influence that through the amount of support we provide Ukraine.
But, you know, the key point that I want to make here is I think this very maximalist argument that unless Ukraine takes back every single inch of its own territory, Russian nuclear coercion will have been seen as being successful, I think is just wrong. Like at the moment, I think Russia has paid a huge price for its invasion. I think it's seen as paying a huge price.
And I think the cost benefit analysis here, the calculation is all wrong to essentially argue that we need to run a high risk of nuclear war to demonstrate that Russia's nuclear threats have been unsuccessful. Do you think that means that to the extent that this is seen as a preview of any attempt by China to attack or invade Taiwan, that it will be disincentivized to do so based on this conflict?
Well, there's two separate issues here. There's what lessons do I think China should draw from this? And what lessons do I think China is drawing from this? Like, my answer to the second question, honestly, is I have no idea. Like, I'm just not familiar enough with the Chinese internal debate to know what lessons China is drawing from this. But I think the lessons that China should draw from this are that it should really,
really think twice about an invasion of Taiwan. They should think 10 times about an invasion of Taiwan. I mean, firstly, China has less operational experience of large scale operations than the Russians do. The Russians didn't actually honestly have a ton of that relevant experience, but China has even less. And I think that China should really question whether it has the capability to mount a much tougher invasion over, you know, 100 kilometers of water.
But secondly, the other thing at a human level that Russia's very unsuccessful to date war against Ukraine reminds us is how much people who are fighting for their own freedom fight better than those who fight for a war that they don't necessarily agree with.
or at least a war that they perceive doesn't have massive benefit. You know, I have no doubt that a large part of the reason or a significant part of the reason why Ukraine's forces have performed so successfully on the battlefield is because as individuals, those forces really believe in what they're fighting for in a way that I just don't think Russia's forces
believe in the value of taking large chunks of Ukraine. They're not necessarily against it, but they don't necessarily view this as something that's paramount to their own and the security of their country. And I think that should be a very salutary reminder for China about how well Taiwanese forces may fight in the event of a full-scale invasion.
The effects of the conflict internationally have been profound. We could start with the Europe-Russia relationship where that relationship has essentially been definitively severed. And it was hugely economically significant for both Russia and Europe, particularly in the energy sphere.
You can look at the way the relationship between the United States and Europe has transformed, whereby it's much more tightly linked on security issues particularly, but not only, in a way that was hard to imagine a couple of years ago. Russia's relations with China have obviously been transformed, and China's acceleration to the position of a senior partner in that relationship has been
rapidly accelerated. And I think, you know, if you look globally, one of the things that I think is less remarked upon or less often remarked upon, but we see it, you know, even over the weekend with the G20 finance ministers is that, you know, Russia for all of our dismissing of its economic and military might is
is a major player internationally and it's in every major global forum that exists, including most importantly, of course, the UN Security Council.
And we've also seen that Russia has been willing to essentially make this war the centerpiece of its international policy and subordinate everything to it. So therefore, the G20 finance ministers meeting can't come to a consensus because for both Western countries and Russia, not having something about the war or having something about the war in the final statement is either unacceptable or one way or the other.
and you see that dynamic playing out through, you know, and everything from like, uh, the, you know, biological weapons convention, um,
review conference to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference to the G20 meeting itself at the leaders level. So basically, dysfunction in international organizations, when you have a permanent member of the Security Council that's sort of gone rogue, it's hard to have a well-functioning international system. And I think that that is really going to be a long-term consequence of the war that it's hard to see coming to an end anytime soon.
Yeah, on the topic of those relationships, Putin announced that, you know, he's suspending the New START treaty. James, do you see that as having a significant impact on the likelihood of the use of nuclear weapons or proliferation in general? I see it as having a long term impact that's quite significant, not so much a short term impact on nuclear use. The
The immediate effect of Russia's suspension of New START would be the loss of notifications. So under the treaty, the US and Russia are required to exchange notifications with one another when strategic weapons are put into service, when they're removed in certain cases where they're moved from one location to another.
As of the 1st of February this year, the State Department has said that the two countries exchanged more than 25,000 notifications. I mean, this is an enormous number. And these are extraordinarily useful to the US intelligence community in understanding Russia's nuclear forces. And for that matter, they're useful to the Russian intelligence community in understanding US nuclear forces.
So I think the immediate effect is this loss of fidelity about information on the other side's nuclear forces. The long run effect worries me more. New START was due to expire in 2026. The prospects for a replacement treaty were already very bad. But I had some hope the two sides might at least be able to reach some kind of politically binding agreement over
numerical limits to prevent a full-blown new arms race. I think the likelihood of a new treaty is now vanishingly small and I think it's pretty unlikely we'll even be able to get any kind of politically binding agreement to replace it.
So, you know, even before we've been seeing this emerging three-way arms race, in my opinion, between the US, Russia and China in missile technology, in nuclear technology. I mean, it's more of an arms race with the US against Russia and China, because I don't think Russia and China are really racing against one another in any way.
And the only thing that was keeping a lid on that, at least in some areas, was New START, which was preventing the development of an arms race in long-range nuclear weaponry.
And I think that last restraint is going out, has gone out the window now effectively. You know, Russia says it's not going to exceed New START limits. We'll see whether or not that's true. But I mean, the bottom line is New START was only operational until 2026. So whatever happens between, you know, over the next few years, there's much bigger questions about the long term future.
When we spoke a year ago, one of the focuses of how this conflict was unfolding was that the United States and the West in general was capable of becoming extremely unified in levying economic sanctions and making Russia sort of pay a
a price for Ukraine's invasion. And at the time that we spoke, you know, the ruble was crashing and it seemed like the war might become so costly that that in and of itself could become some kind of deterrent or maybe even encourage Russia to come to the negotiations table. It seems like despite all of that,
The ruble has rebounded. Russia is able to continue funding the war. Like, why haven't those economic sanctions been more effective? So I should preface this by saying I do not regard myself as an expert on sanctions effectiveness. And there is a lot of views out there about how effective or ineffective sanctions have been.
I think part of the issue here is countries become very good at evading sanctions, responding to them, finding alternative purchases for their goods and the such like. And, you know, as far as I can see, the Russians have responded to that fairly effectively, at least in the short term. I think the really big question for me long term is how effective sanctions are at depriving Russia access to Western technology.
and how much that effect has on Russia over the long term. I mean just, you know, from vignettes that we know an awful lot of the advanced weapons, the cruise missiles, the ballistic missiles that have been recovered from Ukraine that have been fired by Russia turned out to use Western technology in them. If sanctions prove effective at preventing Russia from
buying and having access to Western technology, and this actually seems to me the most credible argument about what the main advantages of sanctions are, one could actually imagine that having a quite significant long-term effect on Russia. Now, I don't know enough about sanctions to be able to predict whether that's going to happen or not, but if you're looking for a theory of the case about
how sanctions could be most effective. It seems to me more about preventing Russia from using its resources to get hold of technology and goods it really wants. And that, I think, is always going to be a long-term thing rather than a short-term thing. All right. Well, any closing thoughts before I let you go? Well, I hesitate to make a prediction about where we'll be in a year, given the ways in which this war has surprised us.
But I do think that there is at least some prospect that once we get through this period where both sides are going to try their hand at advancing on the battlefield, that at least you'll have more of an opportunity to pursue off-ramps. And I think the best-case scenario is something that's going to be very messy in terms of a negotiated outcome. But an end to the fighting would be...
at least at some point in the reduction of these broader risks and challenges would would clearly be I think at least in the interest of the United States if not that of the two parties doing the fighting so I guess that would be my final thought you know a year ago I had hope that this war wouldn't last a year that hope has kind of eroded that hope eroded pretty quickly I am
I'm pretty skeptical, I have to say, about the prospect of ending the war over the next year. You know, even beyond issues of nuclear use, just the scale of human suffering, I think, is very likely to continue over the next year or so. I very much hope that a year from now, we won't be back here doing it again. But if the war is going on, then I'd be delighted to come back to discuss it in a year. All right, well, let's leave it there. Thank you, James and Samuel. Thanks, Galem. Thanks for having me.
My name is Galen Druk. Tony Chow is in the control room and Audrey Mostek is helping on audio editing. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.
