This is Democracy – Episode 252: Ukraine War

[00:00:00] Intro: This is Democracy. A podcast about the people of the United States.

[00:00:11] Intro: A podcast about

[00:00:11] Intro: citizenship. About engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues. And how to have a voice in what happens next.

[00:00:22] Jeremi: Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy.

[00:00:26] Jeremi: This week, we are going to return to the war in Ukraine. It’s a topic we have covered a number of times before. It has been a few months now, in part because of the, uh, density of other crises and materials that have come before us. But the war in Ukraine, as most of our listeners know, is a war that has been going on for years and has no end in sight.

[00:00:50] Jeremi: And it’s a war that does appear to be reaching some kind of turning point. As, uh, the United States and its allies consider, and, uh, with little agreement, consider how to and whether to continue supporting the defense of Ukraine by its people. The Russian government appears to be as intent as ever on continuing to prosecute this war.

[00:01:11] Jeremi: And it seemed, uh, more than ever that Americans can, uh, their particular role in this war and what we hope, uh, to achieve as, as would be the case for all of our allies. We are fortunate today to be joined by a good friend of the podcast. And someone who is doing the best work, I think, uh, in the United States and anywhere, uh, on covering the war, putting the war in historical perspective, helping us understand the stakes in the war and understand what’s actually happening.

[00:01:41] Jeremi: This is none other than Dr. Michael Kimmage. Uh, Michael, thank you for joining us again.

[00:01:45] Michael: Wonderful to be back with you both.

[00:01:48] Jeremi: Dr. Michael Kimmage, as many of you know, is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D. C. He’s involved with many institutions, the German Marshall Fund, the Kennan Institute, the Woodrow Wilson Center.

[00:02:02] Jeremi: Most significant, perhaps, for our discussion, he also served in a policymaking role, an important high level policymaking role, from 2014 to 2017 in the State Department. where he worked for the secretary of state on the policy planning staff covering precisely the issues, precisely the region that we’re talking about today.

[00:02:20] Jeremi: Michael has written, I think, um, articles that have been widely read in the last two years, dozens of articles for foreign affairs and other major publications on the war. He’s also the author of many important books. Just a few of them include the conservative turn, Lionel trilling, Whitaker Chambers and lessons of anti communism.

[00:02:41] Jeremi: The Abandonment of the West, The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy, which is just a brilliant, uh, book. I really enjoy that and highly recommend that. And his new book, which I’ve had the chance also to read in advance, which will be out, I think, to the general public in the spring, Michael’s new book is called Collisions, The Origins of the War in Ukraine.

[00:03:00] Jeremi: and the new global instability. I think this will be the book really contextualizing and historicizing this war for us today. So Michael is clearly the right person to be talking about these issues, and he’s the right person to help us understand where we are in this conflict and how we should think about it today, especially from the perspective of the future of democracy.

[00:03:22] Jeremi: Before we turn to our discussion with Michael, of course, we have Mr. Zachary Suri’s scene setting poem. Zachary, what’s the title of your poem today?

[00:03:30] Zachary: For a World of Wars.

[00:03:32] Jeremi: For a world of wars. Let’s

[00:03:34] Jeremi: hear it.

[00:03:35] Zachary: How can one think of war as something that occurs to real people and real towns, and not just a wave that passes through the spinning wheel of history like a brook?

[00:03:47] Zachary: At a paper mill churning out death notices and funeral invitations no one will keep. How can it be that as I splash my way through puddles on the old yard, in that very same instant as the boot breaks the water and sends it flying like bombs, there are bombs flying like raindrops from the sky on a town without a name that is nameless only because it is too difficult to say home when no such feeling remains.

[00:04:15] Zachary: When we were flying back from New Delhi, we had to fly between the wars, on a narrow strip of air that churned with anger at each of the airplanes sticking in its throat, that spit us out into Romania as I threw up uncontrollably, hurled at 500 miles per hour away from two wars and probably a thousand more.

[00:04:37] Zachary: How can you say I have seen nothing when each of those children who fight our wars shares their eyes with me? Peering out of each foxhole with a mix of terror and ferocity, Like something bidden and bitter, And waiting for its moment to say, Now is the time to question, Beware, be wary, Before it’s you who sits here singing.

[00:04:59] Zachary: It’s a long way to

[00:05:00] Jeremi: temporary. Zachary, I had forgotten until you started reading it how graphic this particular poem was. Thank you for helping me to relive our sick flight with you from New Delhi. What is your poem about, Zachary?

[00:05:16] Zachary: My poem is about the seeming ubiquity of wars in our world today and how it can often seem hopeless and as if those wars are inevitable.

[00:05:25] Zachary: Um, and even though some of them, perhaps even most of them, Are necessary, um, or, or fighting for, for, for meaningful. Meaningful goals, um, how hopeless, um, a world, the world can seem when it is so filled with war and how important it is to remember that there can’t be another way, but also that if these wars and such violence and conflicts are allowed to fester that they will and do affect all of us.

[00:05:54] Michael: Sure, sure.

[00:05:55] Jeremi: You know, Michael, I was going to close with this question, but Zachary’s poem really puts it right on the table. I mean, you’ve been covering this war so closely. You’ve been living this war. Um, how, how do you feel? How do you, how do you

[00:06:09] Michael: cope with that? Well, um, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a very good, uh, and, uh, important question.

[00:06:19] Michael: I think, um, one risk, uh, is you cope with it by being very technocratic, um, and you break it down to questions of decision making. Uh, you break it down to the many logistical questions that accompany any war provision of, weaponry, the political economy of war. In the case of Ukraine, you have issues of, you know, the grain deal and, uh, you know, sort of naval questions, shipping questions, questions of how the railroad system functions and all of that.

[00:06:55] Michael: You can kind of deal with technocratic technocratically. I don’t think that that’s the wrong approach. I think it’s, it’s, it’s valuable, but it’s in some ways to put the emotions. Very, very far from the center, uh, of, uh, of what you do. I think that when you bring the emotions back in, as, as Zachary always does so beautifully with his poems, he invites those emotions back in.

[00:07:18] Michael: Uh, what you do have to do, uh, is, uh, is to pace yourself, uh, and Zachary also used the word hopeless, and I think that that’s, uh, an unavoidable emotional reaction, uh, to war. Even wars that, uh, in the end will be victorious, uh, on the right side, that feeling of hopelessness comes, uh, to the fore, but you have to pace yourself, and at the same time Urgently remind yourself, uh, exactly as Zachary’s poem does of, uh, he repeats the word, the adjective, real twice, uh, real people, uh, real towns of the human reality, uh, at the, uh, at the core of war.

[00:07:57] Michael: If I can say a word about the book that I’ve just written about the war, I think it is, I mean it to be, uh, and I Thucydides, who was famously Dry in the way that he wrote about war. Uh, but, uh, uh, I conclude the book with a reference, uh, to the Odyssey and the Iliad, uh, and to the remem the remembrance of suffering, uh, and to the emotional nature, uh, of the war because I think that that’s the only ending the conversation.

[00:08:27] Michael: Uh, can have. But as a practical matter, I think that the emotions have to be controlled, uh, so that they don’t, you know, lead you to sort of disarray, uh, and I suppose for me, the way that that’s done best is, is, uh, is to concentrate on the, uh, on the practicalities. But you do the, you concentrate on the practicalities.

[00:08:49] Michael: Hopefully with a moral urgency that comes from the human realities underneath. Uh, and to keep all that in balance is not easy, but, but essential. And, and it

[00:08:58] Jeremi: does seem to me that it’s a constant balance and a, an everyday checking yourself, right? Whether you’re distancing yourself too much at that moment or whether you’re getting too close, right?

[00:09:09] Jeremi: I mean, you have to constantly readjust, I imagine, right?

[00:09:12] Michael: Precisely, and what I’ve come to understand in the course of this war, it’s never been clear to me before from my own personal experience, but what I’ve come to understand is the seesaw nature, emotional seesaw nature of war itself, which I think we know from studying a lot of wars historically, that people who go through them have these moments of superstition, they have moments where rumors play a very prominent role, um, really where they appeal to the kind of irrational uh, and wars are.

[00:09:39] Michael: Uh, in, in their essence, I think quite, uh, you know, sort of irrational, but I understand that a lot better now because of the way in which, you know, news will just affect you in certain, uh, in certain ways. And I kind of look back at the last six months and I realized how many things I misjudged and got wrong.

[00:09:55] Michael: Uh, and part of that is from being on, on this emotional, uh, seesaw. But I think that that’s very much the experience of war, and I suspect if we would have a chance to speak in detail, uh, to Ukrainians that we would get that with a, a great deal more, uh, intensity, because obviously their emotional seesaw is, uh, is at ground zero.

[00:10:12] Michael: But, um, I’ve never understood this quality quite as well as I feel, uh, I do at the, uh, at the present moment. You know, I sort of look back at World War II and, uh, You kind of know that this, that 1940 and 1941 were, uh, for the Allies, a very, very difficult period where things looked, uh, impossible. And then you kind of know also that after Stalingrad it’s a bit different, but now I feel like I feel those, um, Uh, those, uh, enormous mood swings, uh, much more, much more intensively.

[00:10:40] Michael: So sure. Putting the most positive spin on it, Jeremy, I think it makes me maybe modestly a somewhat better historian to have that knowledge.

[00:10:49] Jeremi: Yes. Yes. And to be self aware, of course. Uh, Zachary?

[00:10:53] Michael: How do you think

[00:10:53] Zachary: your understanding of the war and what it means in particular for Ukraine and for Ukrainians has changed?

[00:11:00] Zachary: In the last, uh, years, months of war, um, I mean, I know that we’ve reflected in past episodes. Um, how what we predicted on February 24th or February 25th, um, was wildly different from what occurred. Um, but do you think maybe those, some of those same anxieties are

[00:11:21] Michael: returning? They are. This is, you know, clearly, with, with the exception of the first maybe two, three weeks of the war, probably the bleakest phase, uh, that we’ve lived through, uh, so far.

[00:11:32] Michael: So in answer to your questions, actually, I’ll just say a few words about, What in my mind hasn’t changed so much about the war And i’m glad that we have such a long record of conversations among the three of us Uh that I I hope that these points will ring true to you uh, and then uh would like to say something about what Uh, what is changing in my mind in the in the in the present moment, and I think it will sound a little bit more optimistic than you might be expecting from, uh, from from the prompt, I think I did expect this even sort of going back to the summer of 2022 to be a long war.

[00:12:08] Michael: Uh, certainly was not alone in that. That was a prediction that many people, uh, made, uh, and it did seem to me, um, that the simple size and scale of both countries, uh, uh, argued, uh, in favor of a long war, uh, what the Ukrainians proved in the first month of the war, uh, their own resilience and things that we’ve discussed in great detail, Zelensky’s leadership, Et cetera, et cetera.

[00:12:35] Michael: Gave me confidence that Ukraine, uh, would in no way back out of the war. Uh, I was surprised at the beginning, the first couple of months, about the popularity, such as it was, of the war in Russia. That, to me, came as a, a bit of a shock. But what doesn’t surprise me is the extreme intensity of Putin in his prosecution of this war.

[00:12:57] Michael: I think that he made this a top line effort. This is a fairly obvious point, but it bears a degree of emphasis, a top line effort, and that he would restructure Russian life, economic life, social life, political life around the war, I think is not surprising. And again, that. is part of this, uh, you know, sort of longevity of war that, um, uh, is, uh, I think, in a way, really sort of settling in psychologically, uh, at the present moment.

[00:13:22] Michael: For that reason, as mentioned in a number of other conversations, I won’t belabor the point. We’ll just quickly kind of re mention it. Uh, you know, what I’ve been proposing. As a strategic posture for the U. S. is a posture of containment, uh, not passive containment of Russian military power, not one that’s purely defensive in nature, not one that puts Ukraine on its back foot, proactive, uh, with lots of strikes behind, uh, enemy lines for, uh, Ukraine, but nevertheless containment in the sense of something that doesn’t require a theory of victory, uh, but can be pursued for a long period of time, and in which one of the essential ingredients is Patience, of course, that’s, you know, something that we’ll get into in a moment in terms of the U.

[00:14:04] Michael: S. Congress and, and Europe and all of that. But, uh, in an ideal world, uh, we would have almost unlimited patience when it comes to this conflict because of the demands that containment places on a country and its partners and allies, uh, in the midst of a, Uh, of a war. Final point I’m going to make about a bit of a surprise, and this is, uh, an element of optimism up to a point, uh, is how slow the going has been, uh, for Russia.

[00:14:33] Michael: Let’s go back to mobilization that Russia announces after the huge setbacks that Russia experiences in September, October, November of 2022. This is around Kharkiv and then eventually Kherson. And so then Ukraine falls to, uh, to Ukraine, I think, by November of, uh, 2022. And after that, you have mobilization in Russia and you have the Russian economy to a degree booming and a set of fairly robust relationships for Russia to the outside world, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, uh, Middle East, et cetera.

[00:15:07] Michael: Uh, and with all of that and with what was still on paper in February, 2022, one of the world’s most formidable militaries. And definitely a big economy and a very, you know, sort of hell bent, uh, president on doing something, um, you know, to Ukraine. Uh, since the fall of 2022, Russia has almost not progressed.

[00:15:30] Michael: Uh, it spent enormous efforts and materiel on conquering Bakhmud, a city of 70, 000, a very questionable strategic, uh, value. And even now in our winter of discontent about the war, if you look closely at the details, Russia has been expending huge resources on a town of Dievka, uh, and that’s not a town that Russia has conquered, even though.

[00:15:52] Michael: It’s, you know, expended huge amounts of blood over the course of the last couple of weeks to fight the war there. So, I think that this is the sort of final point that I’ll make that It’s a bit of a surprise to me that things are in such a bad position for, uh, Ukraine. Uh, you know, especially in terms of, uh, Western support, that’s coming as a bit of a surprise.

[00:16:12] Michael: But it’s also a big surprise to me in a sense that Russia has, uh, stalemated in this war. And we do need to emphasize that point at the moment, in part perhaps for political purposes to maintain our own morale. But I think we need to emphasize that point for the sake of proportion in understanding this, this, this war.

[00:16:31] Michael: In a sense, it’s a tough moment for both sides of the war. Uh, that’s unfortunate regarding Ukraine. Uh, but, uh, it’s, uh, you know, something that has to be remembered in terms of where Russia is. Uh, at the present moment, stalemate for a country like Russia over the course of an almost two year wars is a surprise.

[00:16:51] Michael: Yes, yes.

[00:16:52] Jeremi: Well, certainly, uh, Vladimir Putin expected a quick victory and to some extent even the American intelligence agencies and many other observers expected, uh, a relatively quick victory at least for Russia taking control of Kiev and forcing the Zelensky government to flee or to collapse, uh, and it is extraordinary.

[00:17:11] Jeremi: Uh, how difficult this has been for Russia and how difficult it remains for Russia. Before we talk about U. S. Support and on other external factors, Michael, how would you assess where the war is today? There was hope months ago for an offensive by the Ukrainians that would push further into the area occupied by Russia in Ukraine.

[00:17:34] Jeremi: That is not Fully materialized. There was talk then of Russia making its own offensive. That did not materialize. How would you describe the war where it is

[00:17:44] Michael: today? So, it’s, uh, you know, all of the points that you make are extremely, uh, important. Um, part of them are about expectations. That’s certainly I think for Ukraine, but for, for the United States and for the countries back in Ukraine, there was a set of expectations over the summer and the spring.

[00:18:04] Michael: It goes back to the big successes that Ukraine had in September and October of 2022 and the big successes Ukraine had pushing Russia out from the vicinity of Kiev and, uh, northern Ukraine at the beginning of the war. That this created a set of perhaps inflated expectations, maybe a overinvestment in what technology could bring to the war in terms of weapons being provided to, uh, to Ukraine.

[00:18:29] Michael: And there’s been a pretty harsh readjustment from that over the course of the last, uh, couple of months. So part of it is about, uh, expectations. And I think that there is a strategic readjustment going on in Washington, in Kiev. Hard to know exactly what that is, uh, and that’s proceeding from a new set of expectations that are You know, again, you know, sort of difficult to characterize, but, um, uh, very far from the sense that there’ll be a counteroffensive anytime soon, or even if there would be, that this counteroffensive would be the knockout blow, uh, in, uh, in the war.

[00:19:04] Michael: Uh, there are, you know, subsidiary points that are worth teasing out. So, the territorial war. Has for all the reasons you mentioned Jeremy, uh, not gone forward, uh, especially quickly, uh, over the last couple of months, uh, and it’s going to be quite a while before Ukraine returns to offense, but the naval war, uh, has scored a couple of successes for Ukraine, uh, this is, you know, making Crimea a more difficult place to store naval assets, uh, and to strike, uh, you know, those parts of Ukraine that are not under Russian control.

[00:19:37] Michael: It’s now more difficult from Crimea, and quite remarkably, Ukraine has punched a hole through the Russian Navy, uh, and this is allowing Ukraine to ship its grain, uh, through the, through the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and to the wider world, uh, in what’s a very positive development for, uh, for Ukraine.

[00:19:53] Michael: So that’s, uh, you know, not the dominant fact of the war, uh, that would be an exaggeration, but it’s a salient fact of the, uh, war, and it goes a bit against the direction of, uh, a stalemated war, or a war in which Ukraine is, is being pushed entirely into the Uh, into the defensive, uh, on the Russian side, you know, I would just repeat what I said a moment ago in terms of, uh, having withstood the counteroffensive, which I’m sure the Russians think of as a victory, but on the other hand, Russia has had an enormously difficult time going on offense.

[00:20:26] Michael: Uh, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change, uh, anytime soon. It’s clear that Russia will be making huge strikes on civilian infrastructure, critical infrastructure in Ukraine over the course of the winter. You had the hacking attack on the telephone system in Ukraine over the last, uh, 48 hours, you know, consistent attacks on Kiev and other places.

[00:20:45] Michael: Uh, and that’s, you know, quite ominous in terms of what it could do just to, you know, Social cohesion and solidarity, uh, over the course of the, uh, of the winter. It could be quite a despairing winter in Ukraine. That’s, that’s, that’s sort of one possibility. And then the other rather ominous note in terms of configuring the various forces of the war is that Russia has been pouring money into armaments production, uh, and that has been paying dividends as far as one can tell in terms of available artillery munitions and, uh, and missiles and drones.

[00:21:19] Michael: And, you know, the western side of the story, it’s not just congressional funding for the war. It’s just been slow and piecemeal. So in 2024, Ukraine is just not going to have a huge amount of materiel available to it. However much money is spent on Ukraine, some of those stocks have just been sort of spent down and the rate of production is slow on the western side.

[00:21:41] Michael: That apparently will change circa 2025 and with that the war itself could change but we are looking at The calendar year of 2024 as, um, a very tough year, uh, and it would be a disservice to everybody involved, uh, I think, to try to put a rosy picture on that at the present moment. It’s, it’s, it’s a convergence of, of, of circumstances that’s going to make 2024, uh, very difficult.

[00:22:07] Michael: Do you think, do you think that,

[00:22:08] Zachary: um, ordinary Americans, ordinary Europeans, and those in other countries allied with Ukraine have forgotten about the Ukrainian cause or have, have ceased to, to consider, um, Ukrainian democracy? It’s something that should be at the top of the agenda of their

[00:22:25] Michael: politicians. I don’t think forgetting is correct.

[00:22:31] Michael: I don’t know exactly how to measure this, uh, in our society. I do see fewer Ukrainian flags in the city of Washington, but I don’t know what that really, uh, tells us. Uh, you know, if you look at polling data, if you look at our basic political culture, I think it is correct, fair and correct to say that more than a majority of Americans, or a majority of Americans, Support Ukraine and support continued assistance to Ukraine.

[00:22:58] Michael: That is a considerable portion of the Republican party. In a very considerable portion of the Democratic Party. And I don’t think forgetting, you know, you had Zelensky in Washington this week, and, uh, you know, there’s going to be a lot of Ukraine news in the coming months. Uh, and so I don’t worry so much about amnesia, uh, and, you know, Israel Hamas wars is very significant.

[00:23:19] Michael: It deserves a lot of media attention. Uh, and it’s sort of inevitable that other crises are going to arise. Uh, and that will all have to be balanced, but, um, Ukraine has gone down a notch or a couple of notches in the news, but it’s, it’s certainly still, still there. I think the two things that have changed with the war, if I can judge public attitudes, uh, is that the fear, you know, that was there at the beginning, I think this may be more a European story than a U.

[00:23:44] Michael: S. story, but there was a fear that the war would spread quite quickly to Western Europe, that the war would, Spill over into NATO countries. There was a fear very much engineered on the Russian side in the autumn of 2022, that the war would go nuclear. And that fear compelled the kind of attention. Uh, and that fear was very much a part of the support for Ukraine in the first year of the war.

[00:24:08] Michael: And I think that that fear has dissipated. And so politicians who want to support Ukraine need to take note of that. I wouldn’t argue, you know, so much for pressing the fear button, although I think now and then it should be pressed, but, uh, they need to think of new narratives and new frameworks that are maybe a little bit less based, uh, in fear, although if the war would go very badly in the next year, some of those fears, uh, could return.

[00:24:32] Michael: This I think is the, this sort of additional point that I’ll make additional to fear, uh, is, um, to me more upsetting and more, uh, regrettable, and it goes back to your poem, Zachary, I think that people have lost their sense of the horror. Uh, of the war, uh, in Ukraine because the images that came from Bucha and Irpin in sort of April, March, April of 2022, when, when Russian forces pulled out of the north and people could see what happened, the sense of the sort of war crimes, um, you know, the attack on the, uh, on the train station, I think it was in Krematorsk that killed a huge number of people, young people, Mariupol and the destruction of Mariupol and the, and the, the airstrike on the theater there where many children were, Were killed all those feel to me like horrific stories that are there in the first year of the war But as both of you know, the second year is equally horrific Uh of this war and what’s still to come is going to be as horrific as the war has been Uh already and yet I think our sensitivity to that Uh, has, uh, diminished, and there, you know, sort of Israel Hamas and sort of another major war, uh, is, is, is probably, uh, a factor, but if you don’t have fear and you don’t have horror, you do have to think about what the motivating factors are for people to engage with the war, think about it, feel a sense of, uh, investment in there.

[00:25:52] Michael: Uh, I think it would be impossible to say that there has not been a, a shift or a change or perhaps just a diminishment, uh, and, you know, sort of unfolding before our eyes, but, uh, uh, you know, we spoke earlier about surprises. This is a, this is a surprise that an unfinished war could sort of lose. Uh, it’s staying to a degree, and that does seem to be happening.

[00:26:13] Michael: And

[00:26:13] Jeremi: Michael, are you really surprised by that? Or is this, in a sense, what Putin was counting on? That Americans would tire of supporting this war, that Germans would tire of it, and that other political concerns, concerns about another region, but also concerns about trying not to give the sitting president a victory of any kind.

[00:26:39] Jeremi: That these elements would, would, would interfere, um, and that this is a different moment from the cold war when there was such a strong consensus on containment. There’s not, there’s not that same consensus in American politics today, nor in West European politics. So, so is this a surprise or is this sort of the natural second stage of the war?

[00:27:01] Michael: It’s a, it’s a wonderful question. I suppose we could break it into two parts. You know, is this what Putin was expecting? Is this what, uh, what we were expecting? Is this what we should have been? Uh, expecting. Let me start with, with Putin. Uh, I don’t want to give him too much credit in this regard. I think that he thought it would be a very quick war, uh, that for Europeans it would just seem like a fait accompli, that the U.

[00:27:24] Michael: S. wouldn’t like it, that it would create a transatlantic rift, um, you know, that he could kind of rewrite the story of Europe, uh, on the basis of, um, rapid and glorious, uh, Russian victories. I doubt that In the initial planning of the war, uh, there was much speculation in the Kremlin about what things would look like in 2024, uh, or what a long war would look like, because it does seem to me like they were expecting something short.

[00:27:49] Michael: So there was a long scramble after that, and, you know, there’s been a lot of readjustment and, uh, and adaptation, and some of, uh, what Russia says in this regard about the West being in decline, the United States being in decline, dissension, division. Space between the leads and populations. Some of this is definitely a kind of propaganda narrative.

[00:28:13] Michael: It’s what they want us to believe about ourselves. And so there’s every reason in wartime why Russia would project this narrative. Uh, does Putin believe it? You know, sort of 100%. I’m not, uh, I’m not sure. I think Putin wavers between contempt for the West and, and, and fear of the West. And the feel it fear is certainly still there.

[00:28:33] Michael: Uh, but let’s, you know, sort of give Putin his due in this regard. He is a fairly diligent student of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And I think what he did notice in those wars is that there was a kind of intensity of purpose at the beginning, high degree of media attention. And it’s not as if partisan divisions sort of blocked, uh, the US and Afghan, uh, Afghanistan and Iraq, but, uh, it’s more that the country kind of lost its attention, uh, its attention span, uh, was, uh, somewhat short.

[00:29:03] Michael: And when these wars began to seem intractable Um, there was a sort of powerful move to just move on from these, uh, from, uh, from these wars. Uh, and the level of sacrifice, this is a Putin’s judgment, kind of goes back to some things that bin Laden said before September 11th. The willingness to sacrifice, uh, is, is limited, uh, in the West.

[00:29:26] Michael: I’m not saying that this is my judgment. I think that this is sort of Putin’s judgment, uh, and is probably a factor in the way that he conceptualizes the war. Uh, at the, uh, at the present moment. So, does the West have the wherewithal, uh, and Putin would not have waged this war if he believed that the West had the wherewithal, uh, to contend with Russia in this regard, uh, and, um, no doubt he is selectively reading things at the present moment, uh, and probably feeling, uh, to a degree, uh, vindicated.

[00:29:56] Michael: Should we have been surprised by, uh, some of this? Um, uh, perhaps so, uh, and I’m not sure if we can go back. You know, sort of a year, two years into the war and say, uh, in terms of some of these developments, the difficulties of being involved in a long war, if we should have done something differently, maybe one small thing we should have done differently, uh, we should have been a little bit more careful with the notion of Zelensky as the Hollywood hero.

[00:30:23] Michael: Uh, as somebody who by virtue of his grit and charisma and decency was sort of inevitably predestined, uh, to prevail, uh, in this, uh, in this conflict. There was a bit of that maybe in the first six months of the war and it did seem to be being borne out on the battlefield and I think we probably overcommitted ourselves, uh, to that narrative.

[00:30:47] Michael: What we should have done is had a somewhat more sanguine view perhaps of Zelensky. It’s not a matter of supporting him. The support is, is, is in order. Uh, but we should have understood that he’s a man who’s juggling a lot of balls and has his limitations. Uh, and we should have and should still base our optimism on broad based, uh, Ukrainian resilience, acknowledging that the war is going to have a lot of ups and downs.

[00:31:09] Michael: So I think that there were a few narrative mistakes that were made. I’m not sure by whom. It’s not really the Biden White House. Maybe it’s a media mistake or maybe it’s an expert mistake to sort of, uh, configure Zelensky in this, uh, Uh, in this narrative manner, and we’re paying a bit of a price for it.

[00:31:25] Michael: But otherwise, I can’t see things that we really should have done. Uh, differently, but we just need to think creatively about the sources of our own resilience. That’s the worth of really discussing this kind of, uh, question and, uh, and, you know, sort of think about how, uh, think about how we can build that up rather than, you know, sort of, uh, uh, maybe indulging too much in self criticism.

[00:31:47] Michael: Uh, it’s more just understanding the nature of our resilience and, uh, enhancing, uh, and enhancing that resilience. What do you think,

[00:31:55] Jeremi: Michael, though, is at the core of the objections to continued funding? Because many different arguments are made. Some say this is just getting too expensive. Others, I think the House Majority Leader Uh, Johnson today made the case that he hasn’t seen a strategy for winning from the White House.

[00:32:14] Jeremi: Um, some have argued there should be other priorities. Uh, there are various arguments out there. What do you really think is at the core of the hesitation by many Republicans and it seems sometimes also by some progressive Democrats to support continued funding for Ukraine?

[00:32:32] Michael: Well, for progressive, uh, Democrats, it’s, um, To me, not so easy to understand.

[00:32:41] Michael: I mean, I think you do have a figure like Bernie Sanders, who’s, um, been, you know, strongly behind support for, uh, Ukraine from the, from, from, from the beginning, uh, and represents at least one pillar of progressive Democrats. That’s not. Rethinking the war, uh, or, uh, or changing gears. Um, you know, I suppose from a, from the vantage point of progressive Democrats that the expense is, uh, probably an issue vis a vis, uh, other possible, uh, priorities.

[00:33:11] Michael: Uh, and, you know, if lack of an end game is a factor there, well, perhaps it could be. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s hard for me to say, but that is, um, to a degree, uh, perplexing. Uh, in terms of the 20 Republicans in the House of Representatives who are Um, anti Zelensky, anti Ukraine, uh, you know, sort of eager to wrap things up.

[00:33:34] Michael: Um, maybe this is a superficial analysis, but it seems to me like it’s a highly theatrical position. Uh, that it’s, uh, tacitly or explicitly a way of supporting President Trump, uh, uh, candidate Trump in a, in an election season. Uh, consciously it’s a way of hitting out, uh, at the Biden administration with the suggestion that the Biden administration has mismanaged the war.

[00:33:57] Michael: Uh, and is strategically, uh, incompetent, and it also seems theatrical in the way that our politics often is, the kind of pleasure of being against something, uh, and, uh, sort of appealing to certain kinds of, uh, instincts, uh, out there, uh, in the electorate. Uh, in the American population through a theatrical, uh, negativity.

[00:34:19] Michael: I say that because I don’t really see a very effective counter argument for how, uh, the war could be wrapped up if Speaker of the House Johnson feels that there isn’t an end game in the White House. Why doesn’t he come out and propose a viable endgame? Uh, and suggest what it is that, uh, the White House is missing.

[00:34:37] Michael: Uh, but I s I suspect that the reason he doesn’t do that, uh, is because that’s a very difficult thing, uh, to articulate. I mean, he could suggest that the U. S. withdraw from Ukraine, uh, and that would demand taking responsibility for that position, which I think is a hard thing to do. And Johnson has made a couple of I don’t know hawkish, but you know sort of pro ukraine statements as well Uh, so I think that there’s a kind of ambiguity there and then of course anybody is free to argue for a negotiated settlement Uh, to the conflict, but you haven’t heard much of that, uh, either.

[00:35:10] Michael: So it’s, um, you know, uh, a set of agendas that are linked to domestic, uh, politics from a fairly small number of people, uh, and yet it’s holding the entire process, uh, hostage. So it’s, um, you know, I think a rather, uh, irrational situation. It does not feel like a, you know, sort of healthy, uh, or productive debate about the issues, which would be fine.

[00:35:33] Michael: That’s always a good thing to do in wartime. What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? What could we be doing better? What’s an alternative strategy? Uh, all of that would be great, but this just feels, you know, sort of much more, uh, you know, sort of piecemeal, chaotic, disorganized, and minority driven, which I think is, um, you know, surprising.

[00:35:54] Michael: Of course, Congress is a colloquial branch of government, and it’s not bad for Congress to have a different view from the executive branch, but for Uh, sort of accidentally small group of people, uh, to have this degree of power is, um, it’s, I’ll, I’ll just put it this way, it’s, it’s quite unfortunate, uh, how it’s all playing out in, in, in this regard, you know, you can imagine a different, a different structure where it would be pro and con in a real debate, but this is not that.

[00:36:19] Michael: Right. It

[00:36:19] Jeremi: doesn’t actually seem like they’re having a real debate about the issue, as you say. It sounds like they’re, they’re posturing, uh, particularly a small group who, uh, for whatever reason, and one can agree or disagree with them, but for whatever reason think it’s valuable to posture against this without offering an

[00:36:33] Michael: alternative.

[00:36:34] Michael: I mean, it does seem to me, uh, and just, you know, I suppose tip my political hand here, but the linkage of Ukraine with questions related to immigration and the southern border, uh, of the United States seems to be without logic. It’s just, to me, a non sequitur. It’s a strategic non sequitur, and, um, and yet that for JD Vance and for many others is, you know, sort of a key Vivek Ramaswamy.

[00:36:57] Michael: Uh, other people, obviously, you know, sort of, uh, candidate Trump would, would frame things this way. As well. That’s, I think, specious and misleading and, uh, a canard. Uh, and, uh, and yet there it is. You know, it’s sort of a, a pretty prominent argument and I could imagine, and I hope that this doesn’t across come across as patronizing.

[00:37:18] Michael: If you’re not closely following the issues in Ukraine, uh, this might seem like a pretty persuasive argument. We do have problems here at home and US has given, you know, roughly $110 billion to Ukraine over the course of the war, and that’s a lot of money and, you know. There are other priorities. All of that is, uh, all of that is true.

[00:37:37] Michael: But the idea that you could somehow withdraw funding and support for Ukraine and then solve these other issues and that this would be a win win, uh, situation is, is, is to me a kind of gross mischaracterization of, of, of, of the current situation. And, and I will say

[00:37:52] Jeremi: that, uh, although there are always politics around foreign policy, this does seem to break, uh, a long standing Um, tradition going back to the end of World War Two, where the sorts of political posturing you’re describing so well, Michael, uh, occurred around many issues, civil rights, um, matters in particular, but generally not around core foreign policy issues.

[00:38:18] Jeremi: Uh, there was a kind of code of ethic, uh, about that, just as there was a code of ethic about not holding up appointments, uh, for major military promotions as well, and it does appear as if this Congress, uh, in the Senate on holding up promotions for a number of months, and in the House now in, in linking aid to a, to a strategic area fighting for democracy, linking that to another issue, uh, it does seem as if that breaks a certain mold that we’ve had for 50 to 70 years.

[00:38:49] Michael: I absolutely agree. I mean, I think if there is, uh, and you would know this history much more in much more detail than I would, Jeremy, but there is of course, Congress sort of standing up to the White House toward the end of the Vietnam war and kind of pulling the financial plug. Uh, and, you know, I think that that was painful for the Ford White House.

[00:39:08] Michael: Uh, but, you know, that feels like it was really part of a democratic, uh, process at that point, with maybe the accident of Watergate behind it. But, uh, that does not, to me, resemble what’s happening. Uh, at the present moment, or, you know, there were times that Congress looked into overreach at the CIA and, and, and sort of reined in the executive branch, the imperial presidency, uh, and there was tension and back and forth and, and, and debate then, but, uh, you know, much more substantive and I think constitutionally, um, oriented than what we see, uh, at the present moment.

[00:39:41] Michael: To add in another detail here in terms of historical context, it’s history that we’ve all lived through, but, uh, it’s, uh, you know, I think important to review Another element of what House Republicans are doing is exacting revenge for the first impeachment of Donald Trump, which is, of course, related to Ukraine.

[00:39:59] Michael: Uh, and I’m sure, um, you know, Zelensky was thinking back to that in his visit to Congress today. He was walking the halls of Congress today because Zelensky becomes president of Ukraine in May of 2019 and almost immediately is embroiled in a set of machinations coming from the Trump White House about Trump’s own re election campaign in 2020 and that leads to Trump’s Impeachment, of course, we have Hunter Biden, his connection to Ukraine, which is, uh, a major Republican, uh, talking point.

[00:40:27] Michael: So, it’s not really that new. I mean, this is now five years of tangled, complicated history between partisan American politics and the country, uh, of Ukraine. But it’s unbelievably unfortunate that that 2019 intersects with the prosecution of the war, uh, at the present moment. I wish that that scandal had occurred, uh, in, uh, Indonesia.

[00:40:50] Michael: Uh, or in Sri Lanka, or in Ecuador, or just a country that was not involved in something that’s as significant as the war between Russia and Ukraine, but there too you kind of see the shadows of partisan politics just, you know, sort of darkening our foreign policy. Absolutely.

[00:41:06] Jeremi: It’s almost as if the, um, Domestic efforts to manipulate Ukraine for electoral purposes have now created a sort of reverse problem that, uh, the Ukraine war becomes a victim of other efforts at manipulation that, that are, that, that are built upon that.

[00:41:24] Jeremi: Um, Michael, what should we do if, if As seems the case, the money from the United States, the aid, more than a hundred billion dollars that the Ukrainians desperately need, as you described so well, because their supplies are so depleted. Uh, if that aid doesn’t come through, it certainly looks like it’s certainly not going to happen before January, if it happens at all.

[00:41:45] Jeremi: What should we do then? If, if one is thinking about this from the perspective of, uh, the White House or from one of the major European capitals or from Ukraine’s perspective? What should they do if they don’t get this

[00:41:57] Michael: necessary aid? Well, the first thing is not to, not to panic. Uh, the war is where it is.

[00:42:04] Michael: Ukraine is where it is, uh, due to the valor of its citizens, the good quality of its political and military leadership and to its overall ability to muster support outside of Ukraine’s border. So let’s put the center of the story where the center of the story should be. Which is in Ukraine. And you do not have, you have difficulties of morale at the present moment in Ukraine.

[00:42:29] Michael: Obviously, it’s a long and brutal war, but you don’t have a crisis of morale, uh, in, uh, in Ukraine. You have a strong willingness to fight. And you have lots of instruments and tools that are there on the ground, uh, indigenous to the country. So I would be the last person to say that the future of Ukraine is going to be determined, uh, in Washington, D.

[00:42:50] Michael: C. Uh, and you know, that’s, uh, I think one, uh, significant point. Second point is that, um, amid, uh, a well publicized, deservedly well publicized set of disputes between Hungary and the European Union, Hungary has managed to, you know, sort of Take Ukraine out of the debate about you EU enlargement In a practical sense and Hungary is also creating difficulties when it comes to EU funding of Of Ukraine that’s deservedly well publicized that story But you also have Germany doubling its financial commitment to Ukraine in the last couple of weeks or the last couple of Uh, months and many other countries, Baltic republics, Poland, uh, other countries are doubling down on their commitment, uh, to, to Ukraine.

[00:43:37] Michael: So, the story in Washington is important, you know, as Washington weakens, if it does, that will give license to other countries in Europe, uh, to weaken, to be sure. Uh, but that’s not the story of every European country and there are lots of other countries. Supporting Ukraine that are thinking of ways to, uh, increase what they’re doing that I think is, is, is, is significant to when it comes to the Biden White House, they have to obviously advocate as best they can for.

[00:44:03] Michael: Continued funding from Congress, that’s clear. And if it doesn’t come through in January, they’ll have to continue advocating and sort of continue working and, and, and not give up on that. But they too, I think, cannot um, uh, make this the end all and be all, important as it is. A lot of the connections between Washington and Kiev when it comes to the war are indeed financial, but not all of them.

[00:44:27] Michael: Uh, intelligence sharing. Uh, targeting, things that the U. S. military can provide, strategic assistance, you know, wargaming, planning, all of which is very much ongoing, I think actually increasing, uh, uh, since the stalled counteroffensive of the summer of 2023. Uh, that can be ongoing going forward. So it’s not as if the White House is losing everything, uh, if this money doesn’t come through.

[00:44:51] Michael: And I suspect that there’s a little bit of exaggeration from the Biden White House about how dire things would be if this money didn’t come through, that there might be other sources and ways of reconfiguring things, finding new. Uh, avenues and routes, but they don’t want to belabor that point now because it might, uh, make Congress less willing to, uh, to provide the supplemental and provide the aid, uh, to Ukraine.

[00:45:13] Michael: So, um, you know, you have to, um, resource a strategy, uh, with real resources, uh, and if those start to diminish, then you may have to moderate your strategy to a, uh, to a degree, but there are many, many pillars on which this support for Ukraine stands. There are fewer than there were a year ago, that we have to acknowledge, but there are still many pillars, and they can be used, and they can be used to create.

[00:45:37] Michael: Uh, strategic effect, uh, and, uh, Ukraine is not gonna give up, uh, even if, um, uh, even if the going gets more difficult, uh, in this regard. So, you know, I hope it’s not happy talk, I hope it’s not wishful thinking that I’m trying to propose here, but, uh, uh, you know, I think, um, uh, there are ways of moving past this moment, uh, and to go back to a point that I mentioned earlier, investments in military production for Ukraine, which are too slow and too piecemeal, and that’s, uh, been, I think, one of our Um, you know, debits in terms of how we’ve approached the war.

[00:46:10] Michael: Uh, but these are going to pay off and they are going to pay dividends in 2025. And so maybe what 2024 is, is a year of patience, you know, sort of waiting. Uh, and, uh, we can see a trajectory that will move Ukraine forward. That’s not a one year trajectory, but a two, three, four, five year trajectory. And so that too is something to latch on to.

[00:46:31] Michael: Gosh,

[00:46:31] Jeremi: Michael, that’s, that’s a very long war that you’re talking

[00:46:36] Michael: about. Yeah, I think we need to approach our understanding of this war in decades, not in years, uh, and that would be true if Russia would be vanquished in some very substantial way on the battlefields of Ukraine, uh, in the next couple of months, because the will to fight the war on Russia’s side, if that will is there, Russia is going to have capacity, uh, and somehow the war will, uh, go on.

[00:46:58] Michael: And that will is likely to last for, uh, for a very, very long time. So we have to be conceptually ready for that. My question

[00:47:05] Zachary: is, if you had one piece of advice or maybe plea for our listeners, um, as they continue to follow this war, um, obviously with, with varying degrees of, of concentration and attention, um, what would that be?

[00:47:20] Zachary: What, what, what can Americans do to stay informed about

[00:47:23] Michael: this war? I think that it’s important to dig into the human stories. And, you know, there’s not yet a great film about the war or a great novel. I’m sure it’s too soon, uh, for that. Uh, but, uh, give one example, PBS Frontline has a, a really extraordinary, uh, documentary film that’s been made about, uh, the city of Mariupol.

[00:47:46] Michael: I think it’s the first 20 days or first 10 days. Uh, of the war, and it really brings forward, uh, the human element. So, as we get, I wouldn’t want to say sidetracked, but as we get preoccupied with questions of Congress and domestic politics, and, you know, who did what right strategically over the summer last summer, and what should the right strategy be next year, all of which are crucial questions.

[00:48:11] Michael: But as we get preoccupied by those things, we really can’t lose sight of. Uh, of the human story. And I think that the degree to which we tune into that human story, whether we’re talking about the diaspora Ukrainian populations, whether we’re talking about, uh, internally displaced people in Ukraine, whether we’re talking about just the Children.

[00:48:31] Michael: Uh, of Ukraine. I think that that can remind us what this war, uh, is, uh, is truly about. Second point I would make, uh, at a difficult moment in the war, it’s important to recall what’s gone right and what’s gone well. Ukraine is in control of 80 percent of its territory. City of Kiev is largely safe, even though still, uh, under attack, uh, the Ukrainian economy, uh, has muddled through.

[00:48:57] Michael: Ukraine has a network of many of the country’s richest and most technological technologically advanced, uh, countries, uh, that are still very much willing to support Ukraine if struggling at times with the details of that support, but still very much willing to support, uh, Ukraine, and that’s a very strong foundation.

[00:49:15] Michael: Uh, on which the country rests. So one plea I would have is not to become too, uh, uh, engaged or too, uh, sensitive in a way to the latest news cycle. The news cycles go up and down. It’s a roller coaster of a war. As all wars are, but remember what some of the strengths are, uh, and remember what some of the good fundamentals are in terms of what Ukraine’s, uh, position is, uh, and then finally, as we’ve discussed, I think multiple times in these, uh, conversations, um, structures of resilience, uh, and patience, uh, a plea to think carefully about what those are, you know, in the civil war, We can kind of go back and tell a simple story about the Civil War as one in which the North was going to win because it had more industrial capacity and because it had the cause of justice on its side, etc, etc.

[00:50:09] Michael: That’s not how it felt during the Civil War. You have draft riots in 1863. You have an extremely contentious and troubling election, uh, in 1864, which Abraham Lincoln does win, uh, but it was definitely not a, uh, a given that he would, uh, and they found ways of carrying through. The United States is not in the war in Ukraine, it’s a different situation, uh, but, uh, we do need to think about what Creates, uh, the possibility of, uh, of, uh, of resilience.

[00:50:40] Michael: A strong sense of, of, of, of purpose and, uh, of, of, of, uh, of remembrance and realization of what the big picture, uh, is. We know that we tend to lose sight of that and in many conflicts, and that it’s not easy. But, uh, there are quite a few conflicts in the history of the US where, uh, structures of resilience in patients, uh.

[00:51:01] Michael: Uh, we’re built up. Uh, and, you know, one plea I would make is to think along those terms. You know, we’re very, very good at discussing our problems. We’re very, very good at discussing our shortcomings. Uh, let’s remember that we also have capacities, uh, and, uh, lots of sources of strength. And, uh, uh, you know, let’s let’s keep our focus on that.

[00:51:24] Michael: Uh, as well, this extremely difficult balance of sober pessimism and plausible optimism. That’s, that’s, that’s the sweet spot that we have to hit and that’s the place where we have to be. Uh, and, uh, difficult as I think things are at the moment, I do think it’s possible to hit that sweet spot, uh, and to remain there for quite a while.

[00:51:44] Michael: Well, Professor

[00:51:46] Zachary: Kimmage, I think you’ve given us a very powerful reminder of the importance of being Not only good students of history, but also responsible consumers of media and responsible geopolitical thinkers, as all of us are, and in some way, shape, or form. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you and our listeners will continue to share their thoughts with us on these unfolding events.

[00:52:15] Zachary: Um, as they happen in real time and also stay engaged as always, um, in these tragic, um, but, uh, vitally important, uh,

[00:52:25] Michael: human, human stories. Zachary and Jeremy, we’ve come full circle. Thank you so much for having me. You mentioned the phrase real, real time. Uh, and this takes us back to the very beginning of our conversation and to your poem, Real People, uh, Real Towns.

[00:52:43] Michael: Uh, you know, sort of real places, academic and political discussion tends towards abstraction. Very fortuitously with your poem, uh, you’ve reminded us of the, the key value and importance of specificity, uh, and of staying in touch with the, uh, with the realities of this very terrible war. Yes. I

[00:53:00] Zachary: think that’s so, so well said, uh, well, thank you again for joining us and thank you to our listeners for participating in.

[00:53:08] Zachary: This episode of This Is Democracy.

[00:53:17] Outro: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts ITS Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Jerez Codini. Stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find This Is Democracy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

[00:53:37] Outro: See you next time.