This is Democracy – Episode 326: Ukraine Update

[00:00:20] Zachary: Welcome to our latest episode of This is Democracy. I’m Zachary Suri. Today we’re gonna talk about a topic that we’ve talked about more times than any of us can count, but one that has enduring relevance of course, and that is the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War. But since we last talked, there have been a lot of developments, not just in Eastern Europe, but in the Middle East and around the world that really play into the dynamics on the battlefields, of Ukraine.

for the first time, in a long time, the Ukrainian forces have advanced, and gained significant amounts of territory back from the Russians, and also launched full-scale, large-scale drone attacks on, on Moscow. so we, we wanted to discuss this topic a- as always with our good friend Michael Kimmage.

Michael is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America, and the director of the Kennan Institute. from, from 2014 to 2017, he served on the secretary’s policy planning staff at the State Department, where he held the Russia-Ukraine portfolio, and his latest book is Collisions: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability.

Thank you for joining us, Michael

[00:01:41] Michael: Great to be with you, Zachary and Jeremi

[00:01:43] Zachary: Thank you. And of course, we’re joined as always by our, perennial host, James Suri

[00:01:52] Jeremi: Perennial kibitzer. Yes, Zachary, it’s good to be with you and Michael, as always.

[00:01:56] Michael: Annual radio

[00:01:58] Jeremi: Yes, exactly.

[00:02:00] Zachary: so Michael, I just wanna first start by asking, you know, for those of us, not following the conflicts very closely, and many of our listeners can probably sympathize, you know, there’s been a lot of things happening in the world since we last spoke. and unfortunately, this is not the only major conflict that the United States is tangentially or not involved in.

at the moment, what, what do we need to know? What are the, what are the big things that have changed in the last few months, or, or has nothing changed?

[00:02:31] Michael: But no, certainly a lot has changed, as your question would suggest. I think we can start with Ukraine, where in some respects, if we just think of the territory of Ukraine, the changes have actually been, a little bit less extreme. And so you have had Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure over the last couple of weeks and months, but you’ve had that for the duration, of the war. Ukraine is taking back, you know, some of its territory, and you’ve seen that happen before. and Russia is at times taking a bit of territory, but, you know, really for the last two years, there hasn’t been a huge shift, in terms of the, the front lines of the, of the battlefield. It’s still President Zelenskyy, you know, the relationship between state and society. You know, I’m sure that there are subtle changes if you’re living there, but, you know, no revolutions in Ukraine, no revolutions on, the horizon. If we turn our gaze to Russia, there is, again, you mentioned this, Zachary, that the war is coming to Russia much more than it had, in the past. Part of this is optics, and you might think here of the St.

Petersburg Economic Forum, a kind of showcase global event as, as Vladimir Putin would like it to be. and you had a Ukrainian attack on an oil refinery in St. Petersburg at the time of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, and that’s, you know, meaningful. You can say it’s only optics, but in a war, optics is a lot.

But it’s also more than optics. Ukraine has been systematically making it difficult for Russians to gain access to Crimea, meaning kind of to go back and forth, to Crimea, which is now becoming, absolutely a kind of war zone, environment. And in part because of Ukrainian attacks, but also for other reasons, you know, inflation and cost of living and cost of energy in Russia is, shooting up. and so that’s being felt in a very acute way, not in a way that’s driving Russians into the streets or, or bringing Russia to the point of some political transition, but it’s, it’s meaningful. and it’s meaningful because one imagines that six months from now, all of these trend lines are gonna be deeper, thicker, more intense, in Russia.

Let me identify two other changes that matter in terms of the overall global landscape, although we could go further afield than, than the United States and Europe. But Europe, in a structural sense, has continued its shift toward Ukraine, not away from Ukraine, although you can tell those stories on a micro level in certain places in Europe. But Germany has remained committed to very high levels of defense spending, for the sake of Ukraine really, and for itself, of course, vis-à-vis, vis-à-vis Russia. But the defense industrial cooperation between Ukraine and Europe is, a major story of the present moment, and it’s been in the making for a long time, over the last couple of years really. But part of the reason Ukraine is excelling so much with its deep strikes in Russia is because of its cooperation with Europe, and because of Europe’s commitment to Ukrainian security, and defense. That’s not, you know, a, a rapid shift, but it’s a structural shift that you’re feeling the consequences of in the present moment. And finally, the United States continues its process not of engagement in this issue, you know, that’s been a superficial story of the last 15, 16 months of, you know, various diplomatic initiatives all of which have failed. But the United States is continuing its trend of withdrawing support both from Ukraine, and in a way more precipitously from, from Europe.

and, in an interesting way, that may be pushing Europe to support Ukraine, you know, sort of more, more dramatically, and so maybe there are ways in which these, these changes, intersect. But, it’s making it a different war. It’s more of a European war. it’s one in which the war is coming home to Russia, and it’s one in which Ukraine is, in a very important sense, holding on.

[00:06:09] Jeremi: Michael, you published a, a wonderful piece in The New York Times, earlier this month with the title, Putin Has No Good Way Out of His War. And you make the point very clearly, that there isn’t a, an anti-war movement that’s threatening to overthrow Putin. but it’s not just that he’s unpopular, you argue that Putinism, uh, the, the promises he had made to Russians about stability and some modicum of improvement in their lives, that, that, that those are going in the wrong direction, and you see him trapped.

I think that’s the word you use. e- ex- explain that to us, because from the outside it looks like he’s as secure as ever

[00:06:48] Michael: Sure. you know, there’s always been a effort to kind of characterize Putinism because it’s not, it’s not easy to do. It’s definitely not the Soviet Union, it’s not Nazi Germany, it’s not fascism, it’s not, totalitarianism, though there are intelligent people who apply those words to Putin’s Russia. I think in some ways, the best characterization of Putinism refers back to, you know, General Franco in Spain. or it refers back to various kinds of dictatorships that are familiar from the history of Central and Latin America, which is to say, you know, sort of authoritarian regimes of the right, that are socially conservative, that have some connection to the church, that are militaristic in a way. but that also freeze societies as Franco’s Spain got frozen, the sort of Iberian world off there to the side of Europe.

As, as Europe moved on, Spain, got stuck until the 1970s when, when Francoism was, was, was eviscerated in Spain. and in a sense, if Putin had just continued on with that model, which he kind of slowly arrives at in the early 2000s, and then begins to perfect, you know, I don’t think that there would be a crisis of Putinism at the present moment, or there wouldn’t be this sense of, of no exit because those are models, and we think of, you know, dictators who live for a very long period of time, where you could kind of ride it out until the very end, and just give the people something, you know, something of a state ideology. and then where it doesn’t work, you use repression to, to, to keep your grip on power. The thing is that Putin has grafted a radical, ambitious, sprawling war that he is very much not winning onto this kind of system. So that’s like Franco invading, Portugal and maybe Franco invading France, and trying to make Francoism work under those, under those conditions.

And I think it’s very hard because these kinds of regimes, these kinds of governments are by their very nature, sc- sclerotic, they’re gerontocratic, they’re governed as much by malice as they are by mediocrity.

and you know, mediocrity doesn’t win wars. malice might, but, mediocrity, doesn’t.

And so Putin has this sort of aging middling low-talent government, that knows exactly how to repress the Russian population and to sort of keep that threshold where it needs to be, but it’s completely out of its depth in fighting the war that it’s fighting against Ukraine. And just to go back to, you know, Zachary’s question and, and to what’s changed with the war, you now have a Ukraine that is an absolutely formidable fighting force capable of going offense in ways that I think Russia is struggling to anticipate and certainly struggling to, to respond to.

So we can go into all the ways in which this is, I think, an unwinnable war for Russia. We’ve had that discussion now for the past, couple of years. Very happy to return to that topic, but I think it’s really a problem, of regime, that if Putin set the regime a very low bar to, to, to meet, he might have been able to do it.

But with the war, he set the regime such a high bar. Russia has gotta juggle sanctions, im- international diplomatic relationships. It’s gotta juggle that with regime stability, with a war that is, beginning to nip away and sort of chip away at the foundations of Russian statehood and Russian, political economy.

And this is, I think, the moment, and this is why it is something of a striking transition within Russia, when Russians are beginning to judge Putin not as a loser and maybe not even as wrong for waging this war, they’re beginning to judge Putin as incompetent, and that in itself is also a very dangerous thing for a dictator, and for an autocrat.

I don’t think that they mind look- being looked at as evil, but they really hate being looked at as incompetent, and that is a phenomenon that’s just beginning to take root in Russia. Big, big problem for Putin

[00:10:25] Jeremi: and Michael, if you could, could you contrast that with the Ukrainian side? Because what, what seems extraordinary to me, at least as, as someone with less on-the-ground expertise than you have, is how the Ukrainians have not only held out in this war of attrition, but how Zelensky has managed to hold this together and, and avoid many of the weaknesses you’ve just identified in Putin.

How has he done that?

[00:10:48] Michael: No, exactly. I mean, Ukraine does have, you could say, other weaknesses, which are sometimes connected to its, strengths in fascinating ways, and I’ll start with a few of the weaknesses so that we have as balanced a picture as possible. One of the obvious weaknesses, which is imposed by the war and not by Zelenskyy, is that Ukraine is in under conditions of martial law, so there haven’t been elections in Ukraine since the start of the war.

That’s, that’s tough, of course. Ukaine- Ukraine continues to struggle with corruption, and that, you know, is a kind of generic point, but there have been a series of scandals over the last six, seven months, including people quite close to Zelenskyy that are worrisome. And that is a wartime dynamic. you know, think back to, you know, many wars, Civil War in the US case, and, you know, kind of graft and corruption that became, problems, and you do see that, of course, in the, in the Ukrainian case.

And you also have, and I’ll start with this as a weakness and then turn this into a strength in, in a moment, you have just this decentralized quality, to Ukrainian life, which is a way that Ukraine survives its regional differences and, sometimes manages the alienation that people feel from the government and the state, through all kinds of mediating institutions and just a fragmented, localized sense of, of power.

but one of the problems in Ukraine at the present moment is that you have parts of society, this is a typical wartime problem, not unique to Ukraine, but particular to the war. you have parts of Ukrainian society that are making huge sacrifices and living under very difficult conditions, and everybody, of course, is deeply affected by the war, but you also have parts of society that are experiencing relative, privilege. and those are social tensions that are gonna have to be worked out. I wouldn’t say that Zelenskyy has managed them badly, but they’re, tensions that are implicit to the war. But that very decentralized nature, of the war, is a key element of Ukraine’s strength because it ensures a kind of political pluralism. It also ensures a kind of media pluralism. Although Zelenskyy is not a Boy Scout on that issue, he can be, a bit rough when it comes to the issue of media freedom. But Ukraine does have media freedom for sure, again, because it is this, pluralistic, decentralized society in so many respects. But I would also emphasize the point, and it’s not that Russia has been unable to innovate in this war.

It does innovate, at a pretty rapid pace. but Ukraine has been brilliant, at innovation. Many, many different tactics and techniques and methods, of warfare. And I think the striking example of this is, and, you know, I know Zachary, you wanted to link up, you know, the war in Iran with the war in Ukraine, and that’s a, that’s a good thing to do. So you have a, you know, kind of US-Israel invasion of Iran in, in late February of this year And within a couple of days and weeks, you have Ukrainians going to the Middle East, not just to sell arms, which they were doing, but also to provide advice, to be kind of military consultants to governments that have huge resources and huge militaries, and there you have Ukraine in a position of, of advisor.

And that speaks to the high, high quality of defense industrial innovation, which is a product of a society that is capable of doing that in some respects on its own, outside of government circles, and that’s where you do see the difference between Ukraine and Russia. Russia does have a version of startups and, and you know, that, that kind of dynamic, but for the most part, the vertical in Russia is pretty crushing.

and so this decentralized, you know, maybe democratic, not in the Jeffersonian sense, in the kind of technical Jeffersonian sense, but in the spirit of democracy, that’s, you know, very much there, and that’s paying real dividends. So as much as it can be a source of dissension and, and f- you know, fractiousness in Ukraine, it’s paying huge wartime dividends.

And y- you know, you can say about Zelensky that he both celebrates that, which is good, and he does if you read his speeches and look at his political persona and profile, but he also doesn’t get in the way of it. You know, now and then I think he’s tempted to, but he really doesn’t in a fundamental way, get in the way of that, and that has been, to be sure, politically a great gift to, to, to Ukraine.

[00:14:38] Zachary: Yeah. I, I’m struck, Michael, that every time we have this conversation, it seems like, you know, one of the two sides is, in the better position or in the stronger position, and usually not the same one as last time. And you said it earlier that this has clearly become an unwinnable war for Russia. I wonder if it’s also just become an unendable or unending war, period

[00:15:05] Michael: Probably. I think that’s probably the, the, the safest way to look at it, depressing as that thought is. because to end a war does mean going to root causes, and to the things that created the war in the first place, to the, to the factors, the, the instigators that created the war, in the first place.

And in a way, the two root causes of the war are not only still with us, in some ways they’re both, intensifying. And of course, they feed into one another, and this is not a line of analysis that cheers me at all, but, it’s, it’s, it’s worth pursuing. And so one of the causes of the war is Ukraine’s, totally understandable wish to be a part of European life, in many respects. institutional life in Europe, security structures in Europe Turn, you know, travel and commerce and studying in Europe and all of that, European norms, and access to Europe and, and, and sort of membership and belonging in Europe. That’s where the conflict begins back in 2013 with this question of the association agreement with the European Union, which the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, at the time did not sign.

and it’s not that Ukrainians are less invested in that in 2026 than they were in 2022 or 2013 or 2014. They’re more invested in that because they sacrificed so much, not just for the sake of a Ukraine that will endure, but they’ve sacrificed so much for the sake of a Ukraine that will be in Europe, and it will be, in Europe.

I feel very comfortable and confident making that statement or, or prediction, but it is a cause of the war. And the other cause of the war is, a Russia that seeks dominion over Ukraine.

if we wanted to be very technical about it, Jeremy, we could use the f- you know, foreign policy term suzerainty and maybe, maybe sovereignty, maybe colonization.

I’m a little bit less convinced of that, but suzerainty, the kind of ability to control the foreign policy of another, of another country. you know, Russia largely had that attitude in a, in a, in a general way in the 1990s. I don’t think Yeltsin, was uninvested in that, although Yeltsin was, was, was pretty friendly toward Ukraine. and Putin has, you know, wound his way ever more closely to a vision of a Russia entitled to rule, over Ukraine. I think we can get into a complicated conversation of how much Russian society agrees with that and Russian elites and, and, and, and, and I’m not sure, that they’re all that invested in that vision, but Putin is all-powerful in that system, and he’s able to carry forward with that. And I think for the elites who currently govern Russia, not just Putin, but the small group of other decision-makers, I don’t think that they’re less invested in that vision than they were in 2022 on the eve of invasion. I think they are more invested in it, and here’s the devil’s logic of this war, that as Ukraine advances militarily and integrates into European defense industrial structures, in some ways the threat or the quote unquote threat to Russia grows, and so the Russian investment in controlling Ukraine, which is impossible for Russia, that Russian investment also, intensifies.

I, you don’t think that this logic can last forever. Something will break it, you know, something will undo it, but I don’t see anything at the moment that’s capable of undoing it. Maybe it’s my limited imagination, but, it feels to me like if anything, this logic is getting more bitter, more deep, more entrenched.

And so you can envision a ceasefire, you can envision a pause, but a true end to the war is to me very hard to contemplate.

[00:18:25] Zachary: Yeah, I, you, you mentioned Ukraine’s relationship with Europe, and before, before we forget, I want to, touch on one of the developments that I think got a little less attention, but it seems like U- Ukraine, is going, is moving one step closer to membership in the European Union, in particular with, the defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, earlier this year.

And I wonder if you could speak to, what that means both for Ukraine and for Europe that that relationship is strengthening, and also the possibility that Ukraine might even have a pathway into the European Union, or at least into close association with the European Union without ending this war.

[00:19:09] Michael: Yeah, it’s a great question, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Germany has floated the idea of a kind of EU membership that wouldn’t be full membership, but a sort of partial membership, path to membership, that he thinks is suitable for Ukraine in the short to medium, term. and to be sure, the failure of Viktor Orbán as a resolute opponent of Ukraine as such, and certainly of Ukraine in the European Union, really matters.

That vision has weakened, so now it’s basically Slovakia is the sole, standout, in terms of, opposing in a, in a, in a very explicit way Ukraine’s European path. But, know, Europe is a hard place for me to fathom in this regard, you have the change in, in, in prime minister in the UK, with Nigel Farage sort of nipping at the heels of whoever happens to be a British prime minister.

You have Friedrich Merz at historically low approval ratings and levels of, popularity. You have a Macron who’s, I don’t know, you know, if, if, if what is a lame duck in France, but, if one could be, he would be a lame duck. you know, you have Giorgia Meloni, who’s actually a pretty commanding political figure, and relatively supportive of, of Ukraine, but I don’t think Italy is in the position to, to drive this process.

And then you have an EU that probably in some theoretical way would love to have Ukraine as a member, but, doesn’t have the leverage or the power to make that possible. It needs the member states to do that. And then if you hone in on a place like Poland, you get a paradox of a country that’s very pro-Ukraine on the security side, but really resentful of Ukraine in terms of its memory politics at the present moment.

They’ve just stripped Volodymyr Zelenskyy of a, award in Poland, and it’s because of, you know, memory conflict over the Second World War. But even beyond that, in Poland, you have Polish farmers who don’t want Ukraine joining the European Union because that would then drive down agricultural prices or diminish profits in, in Poland.

So in a way, these are the humdrum issues of regional, local, national politics, but I think it does mean that the path to full membership is gonna be long and winding, for Ukraine. And I think it’s gonna be hard for the EU also to lift a lot of the, you know, conditionalities that are built into the process of EU accession, where Ukraine is certainly gonna struggle.

Rule of law, separation of powers, issues of commerce and, and, and all of that are gonna put Ukraine, in a, in a, in a tough position. So the best one can say is that Europe is gonna have to be creative in this regard. I think they see the reason for being creative. The incentive is there because what Europe kept doing with Ukraine going back, you know, into the 1990s is sort of kicking the can down the road, and saying that there is some sort of issue of where Ukraine is gonna belong, but we’ll figure it out when the time comes. And then 2022 came along, and because the whole issue was so unresolved, Europe, you know, had a major war to face taking place in Ukraine. And I think there’s a desire for greater clarity or an association of greater clarity with greater European security. but you know, it’s, it’s, it’s very, very tricky.

and you know, there are so many ways in which this process could be ripped apart without a Viktor Orbán or populists or, others to sort of get in the way, and those people might emerge in Europe. So I think it’s a, it’s a, it’s a very, very hard landscape for Ukraine, to navigate. And, and this is one of the ways in which Europe is a fascinating, you know, sort of protean, remarkable place, but kind of frustrating to pin down

[00:22:47] Jeremi: Michael, how much of the Ukrainian position and its recent strengthening has been a result of technology? You, you pointed to the innovation and the strategic acumen of the Ukrainians in contrast to often, at least a slower process on the Russian side, a more cumbersome process. And, uh, in a sense, the Ukrainians have started to export their, their model in some ways.

and, and, and clearly there’s a lot of credit that goes to the Ukrainians, but, but are we also seeing just a phase shift in the nature of war and this is sort of case study number one?

[00:23:19] Michael: Yeah. I’m certainly at the edge of my competence here in terms of being able to comment, directly on these issues. And, and, and going back to Zachary’s initial point of curiosity about global interconnections, I think it is essential here to link what’s happened in Iran over the last few months with what’s happening, in in Ukraine.

And sometimes it’s sort of economies of scale, that it’s, that weapons can be produced now very cheaply that actually have really significant, battlefield and even beyond the battlefield, effect. It does seem like, to take the Iranian example, Iran has been able to use relatively cheap drones, and rockets to exert a kind of control over the Strait of Hormuz, and that in turn is having a political, you know, impact in Washington. so that’s not just a battlefield effect, it’s sort of a geopolitical, effect. And I think you’ve seen something similar at work, in Ukraine, that Ukraine is able to break up Russian transportation routes and to drive up the cost of energy in Russia, and to do so in ways that are, you know, relatively low cost, and doable.

And there’s, there’s this sort of, to, to cite a, a famous page from Mad Magazine, there’s a kind of spy versus spy quality to the war, where with jamming technology and, and, and other things, you know, the Russians will make an advance, and then you’ll see the Ukrainians make an advance. And that’s resulted, interestingly, in, a kind of stalemate along the line of contact between Russia, and Ukraine.

But you can actually see on both sides, and it’s more a matter of technological innovation on the Ukrainian side, is that both sides are acquiring political tools, which is of course a, a major objective in, in warfare that, you know, to start with the Russian side, there are lots of concerns about the coming winter in Ukraine. or that Russia, you know, may try to make, major cities, including the capital city in Ukraine, may try to make them uninhabitable by going after Water, sanitation, you know, sort of the, the, the very basics of civilian infrastructure for, for cities. And Ukraine is playing this game at the moment where, you know, there’s a limited number of interceptors, and Russia has a lot of, you know, sort of missiles that it can send in.

and you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not easy for Ukraine to, to defend. And that’s, you know, a problem that touches not just on purely military matters, but on, on the basics of, of, of, of, of, of politics. And there, you know, sort of Russia has, you know, some advantages that may emerge in the next couple of months.

Back to Zachary’s point about how this is a war that seesaws, in terms of who has the perceived advantage at any given moment. but Ukraine has, you know, as, as already mentioned, acquired, you know, a real, lever of political influence within, within Russia. and that Russia’s, Russians now tie their economic misfortunes to the war is really important, and that goes back to the issue of optics, but it also goes back to the issue of Ukraine being able to strike deep within Russia.

Okay, Moscow, I mean, look at the map of Moscow, how far that is from Ukraine.

That’s remarkable. But the strikes are, like, way in Siberia, all the way in the eastern parts of, of, Russia, and that’s just astonishing, and says to Russians that none of you is really insulated from this, and that’s a political message, and an exceptionally powerful one from, in, in, in, in the Ukrainian case.

And it does stem, to, to go back to the, to the essence of your question, Jeremy, it does stem from technology and technological innovation

[00:26:39] Jeremi: Right. And it seems to me, Michael, what’s striking, in both the Ukrainian and Iranian cases is that these much weaker countries relative to the country they’re fighting, they are able to produce technology at low cost rapidly with the promise that they’ll continue to do that. So, you know, when, when you– if you’re sitting in Moscow or Siberia, it’s not that this was a one-off attack like, you know, a Japanese balloon that was launched on the West Coast during World War II, but that this is actually something that will continue. Um, and in the near term, there’s nothing you can do about it, even though you have such vast superiority in the larger military items

[00:27:16] Michael: No, absolutely. And there is a structural difference here between the war in Iran, you know, whether it’s over or not, and the Russia-Ukraine war because in the case of the US it’s much more indirect. It’s, it’s, it’s energy prices, and the American economy. I mean, that’s what President Trump is worried about, that if the war would go on too long, that he would suffer political consequences because of, you know, secondary effects on the, on, on the American economy.

Of course, for, for Iran, this is a primary objective of shutting, shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. But it’s very different in Russia. If you’re sitting in Moscow and, you know, Ukrainian drones are shutting down the airport, which just happened last week, three out of four airports I think in Moscow were shut down, at the beginning of last week.

you know, if you see plumes of smoke, in the capital city, and in many parts of Russia, this has, you know, been a story actually for the last couple of months. You have rolling blackouts because of, effects on electricity. You have internet, outages sometimes caused by the Russian government, but sometimes caused by the, by the war.

So that’s really, It’s in a way a much more intimate war now for, for, for Russia in the sense that it’s intervening or sort of making itself felt in the personal lives of people. And that I think is still inconceivable for Americans. Now, who, who knows? You know, a war a year from now, two years from now could change that, and the US could experience what it’s like to have, you know, cheap weaponry, affecting, life, on the home front.

But that’s, that’s not the case currently for the US, but it’s absolutely the case for, for Russia. So in some ways, Putin’s problems, are, you know, the worst of all possible worlds for him. So there too, the kind of no exit quality of Putinism, is, is, is exerting itself. How do you prevent Ukrainians from producing these sort of cheap,

[00:29:01] Jeremi: Right

[00:29:02] Michael: tools and using them within Russia itself?

I don’t think that there’s 100% way of doing so.

[00:29:08] Zachary: Yeah. I, I want us to, to, to bring us to a close with where we started, which is the, you know, not just the seemingly endless nature of this war, but the, many distractions that I think keep people from paying attention to this war. You know, thinking about the Russia-Ukraine conflict in a global perspective, you know, what is your case for our listeners for why they should continue to pay attention to this war and why it still matters?

[00:29:37] Michael: Yeah, that’s a very important, question in the crowded media world that we live in. And, and unfortunately, I mean, The Economist had a, a, a chilling graph to this effect, in, in, in, in an issue a few weeks ago. And it was just a graph that sort of, visualized global warfare, from, you know, 20 years ago to the present moment, and it’s an upward trajectory in quite a dramatic way.

So it’s not just, you know, wars in the Middle East and wars in Europe, it’s, it’s, you know, under-reported wars in Africa, and Asia, as well. and the trend lines are not great in this respect, and I wonder if it doesn’t go back to Jeremi’s point also about technology, that it’s almost incentivizing, you know, it’s almost incentivizing warfare in some ways if, it’s possible to hold out or to kind of, push against a stronger foe, because of these, because of these new tools.

Or whatever the explanation is, we, we do live in a moment of, increasing militarism and violence. And so the question is absolutely the right one. Why pay attention, in a sustained way to Ukraine when there are many other conflicts and issues that, that, that deserve our attention? You know, I think, the answer has to be beyond just the most im- important basic answer of the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, because as many Russians are experiencing higher prices at the pump, you have, you know, kids who can’t go to school in Ukraine and, you know, you know, mass humanitarian suffering, and, you know, attacks on, on, on, on major cities.

And we just saw, you know, a, a 900-year-old church that had been refurbished after the Second World War, rebuilt after the Second World War, but nevertheless was destroyed or, or damaged seriously by, by Russian rocket fire. So you have all of the costs of the war, which we need to take account of, and that’s, that’s a human story, to begin with. but it is the case that the geopolitical implications, are, profound. and some of them have been mentioned already, but let me just repeat them, you know, in this context. We have Europe going from a place of peace to a place of war. We have Germany now spending a half trillion of its budget, half trillion dollars, euros, I can’t quite remember, to make Germany in what in the future will be the fourth biggest army, in the world.

I don’t think it’s a negative development. I don’t think it means Germany is gonna be what it was in the 1930s, but still that’s a profound transformation within Europe itself. You have Europe itself, not just Germany, but many other countries investing heavily in defense and military affairs. That’s gonna make for a new Europe.

you have a European project that since the 1940s has been defined by peacemaking, is now being defined by warmaking, not by European choice. They would have preferred to be peacemakers, but they’re being transformed into something else. You have a Russia that has gone from a kind of shoddy authoritarian, but, you know, sort of, you know, not totalitarian system in 2022, go to a highly militaristic, you know, sort of deeply, you know, repressive, system and government that’s gonna have a long-term effect.

Because if you look at Russian education, I would commend our, you know, to our listeners to, to take a look at Mr. Nobody Against Putin, the Oscar-winning documentary, and the indoctrination of Russian children. Now we know unfortunately from the story of national socialism That even though indoctrination can end, at a given moment in time, it still stays in the minds of people, and that’s a profound long-term consequence.

You also have the kinds of relationships Russia is forming with North Korea and with Iran, which is affecting, you know, non-proliferation and the status of nuclear weapons in our world, and that’s being changed by the war. So just the profundity of these changes matters. You know, first and foremost, of course, the people of Ukraine and their story, and the things that they’re going through, but the massive geopolitical implications throughout Europe, certainly in Russia, but rippling, around the world in many, many, many forms.

Food security was a story of the early war. I think that that’s less of a story. Now I would really focus attention, we can do this in a, in a later conversation, Jeremi and Zachary, but focus attention on the nuclear dimension, of this war because this war, among other changes, is rewriting the nuclear code of the 21st century, in ways I think that we’re just beginning to understand.

But that change alone is, is crucial, for anyone in the w- anyone in the world to pay close attention to

[00:34:09] Zachary: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for this real tour de force of the many geopolitical, and, and psychological dynamics, at play in this conflict. so thank you, as always, Michael, for, for joining us

[00:34:24] Michael: Thank you so much, Zachary, and I would say, many of our conversations, especially sort of a year ago, two years ago, were really bleak,

about this war. I don’t think that the bleakness has left us. It’s still staring us in the face. but Ukraine has come a really long way, and you see that. and I think that there is light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to, the Ukraine that will be after this war, and we’re just beginning to, to glimpse it.

Wouldn’t wanna go beyond that in terms of any kind of predictions or anticipations, but that’s, that’s a pretty big transition

[00:34:58] Jeremi: Well, and I think, Michael, one of the real strengths of the analysis you’ve shared with us, and of course you’ve shared in other forums, in print and, and in, in podcasts and other things, is, is how we’re all learning. I think, there’s a tendency we have to bring our paradigms and our models to the reality around us and then try to make the reality squeeze into our models. And, this war and your analysis of it is reminding us that, we’re, we’re living through a, a period of incredible transition, uncertainty, and unpredictability. And, that might not always make us comfortable, but I think the strength of your work, Michael, has been to, as any good historian would, to follow the evidence and update your analysis as we go.

And, and, I think that will continue to happen. We don’t know where we’re gonna be one, two, three years from now

[00:35:43] Michael: Well, I’m sure the experience is very familiar to you, to you, Jeremi. You make the historical analogy, you knock it down, you make it again, you knock it down and you keep on going more or less forever in that pattern. And, and it’s not, I don’t find it Sisyphean or maddening. It feels in some respects like, you know, it, it, it, it, it gets you somewhere

[00:36:02] Jeremi: It’s good work if you can get it, right?

[00:36:06] Zachary: Well, thank you to our two historians for joining us on today’s episode of This is Democracy. and thank you, of course, as always, to our listeners for joining us for this, one of many discussions on the war of Ukraine and, and probably, hopefully, I guess, not the last, for the three of us. So thank you all

[00:36:27] Jeremi: Thank you

[00:36:28] Michael: Thank you