What the hell is going on in Ukraine?

(Also, #WTH, Germany??)

Vladimir Putin is massing troops on the Ukrainian border. Various European powers are sending arms to Kyiv to help the Ukrainians defend themselves. Joe Biden is backpedaling from his appalling press conference last week in which he told Putin that “a minor incursion” into Ukraine would be cool. But Biden looks coherent and resolute when compared with the weaselly new government in Berlin. And yes, weasel is the right word here.

Sure, no one wants war (except maybe Putin), but the question is … has Vlad painted himself into a corner? Can he back down without looking wimpy? Will the United States and Europe converge on actual, serious sanctions? Why are the Europeans so willing to allow Putin a chokehold on his neighbors and Western Europe’s energy supplies?

Yep, that’s a lot of questions. But this week’s pod has answers. AEI’s Chris Miller, who had a terrific Foreign Affairs piece laying out what a smart policy might look like, joined us to talk Putin, Ukraine, Germany, Biden and everything else about the mess in Eastern Europe.

PS. As we settle into our Substack routine, we’re trimming and adjusting in response to great suggestions. This week, we’re linking the transcript and sharing our show notes — the thorough research our producer Jackson puts together for the show. In short, you’ve got the summary, the highlights, the show notes and a link to the transcript. What more could you want?

HIGHLIGHTS

Chris: I think the Biden administration has been trying to signal toughness vis-a-vis Russia, given Russia's threats to invade Ukraine. But I'm not convinced that this is actually going to work in deterring Russia. I'm worried the Russians are actually going to escalate, send their military into Ukraine. And then if so, our deterrence efforts will have failed. So I think the Biden administration needs to do more to look tougher to actually convince Putin to stay out of Ukraine. And that means more on the economic front, it probably also means more in terms of aiding Ukraine militarily. Because actual invasion would be, I think, disastrous for Ukraine, for the region, but also for American credibility.

Chris: China is the other factor here, because China is going to be watching Ukraine very, very closely. And the frightening thing to me is that the tools that we're hoping will deter Russia from Ukraine are the same tools we're hoping that will deter China from, for example, moving on Taiwan. And so if those tools fail here, if our threats of diplomatic pressure, of economic isolation don't work in this case, are they going to work against China when it comes to Taiwan?

Chris: …even the Old Europe, New Europe divide, I think it actually misses the dynamics in Europe today. Because it's not even just Eastern and Western Europe that's divided, it's really most of Europe is of one view and then Germany is off on its own. If you look, for example, at who's supporting the Ukrainians with military aid. Well, you've got Denmark, you've got the Netherlands, you've got the Swedes have been very out in front on this issue. So it's not even an East and West divide, it's just a Germany and most of the rest of Europe divide.

Marc: What about Nordstream II?

Chris : So I think it ought to be canceled. I think the Germans should cancel it. I think if not, sanctions are a reasonable tool. But we shouldn't think that canceling Nord Stream 2 is going to hurt Putin in any sort of meaningful way, because he's already got gas pipelines that are transiting all the gas that he needs to sell through Ukraine. So there's going to be no economic cost to Russia if the pipeline gets canceled.

Chris: I'm not sure we should conclude that the Russians are going to undertake an operation that would let them get bogged down. If you look at the Russian war in Georgia, 2008, the period in 2014, 2015, they had large numbers of regular Russian military forces deployed in Ukraine rather than the militias the Russians set up. And we actually had serious Russian military forces fighting in Ukraine. When you look at Syria as well, over the past couple of years, what you find, I think, is that Russia has actually been very careful in each of these wars to not have its regular military forces occupying large chunks of territory. And to keep the fighting limited in a way that's carefully calculated to achieve Russia's political goals. And so what I worry about is not Russia trying to invade and conquer all of Ukraine, occupying major cities. I think that's probably not the playbook. I'm worried about a repetition of Georgia, 2008. A war that just took a couple of days. Five days.

Chris: I do worry that we're not willing to impose the types of costs on Russia that would be necessary to deter an invasion ... So I think there's a misunderstanding in parts of Washington that you can impose targeted or smart sanctions on Russia. And if you hit oligarchs close to Putin, that'll be enough. I think that's a myth. I think targeted sanctions can't work. Putin doesn't wake up in the morning asking himself, how can I maximize Russian GDP growth? And so in order to get the message across, I don't think you can say, I'm going to reduce your GDP by 0.1% a year. I hope you don't like that. I think it's got to be severe. It's got to make a difference. It's got to be something that every Russian can notice and notices immediately … we should list the banks that we will sanction on day one, which should have a devastating impact on the Russian economy. Right now, no one knows which banks will be sanctioned. I think we should target Russian oil exports, like we did with Iran, if Russia enters Ukraine. Right now, that's off the table. No one is considering that.

Chris: … in some ways the rhetoric coming out of the White House is more pro NATO than in the past. But the fact is that this crisis is more dangerous than anything we saw the previous four years for the future of NATO and for European security. So yeah, I think you're right to say this is a dangerous point for NATO. It's hard to predict how it's going to play out.

SHOW NOTES

Want to read more? See how we formulated our questions…? Here’s the research!

§  “Russia Thinks America Is Bluffing,” by Chris Miller (Foreign Affairs, 1/10/22)

§  “Biden Opens Sneaky New Front in Trade War Against China,” by Chris Miller (Foreign Policy, 6/22/21)

§  “Discussing US options if Russia reinvades Ukraine: Miller on SiriusXM’s ‘Julie Mason Mornings’,” (AEI, 1/20/22)

§  “Discussing economic sanctions and Russia: Miller on KSL NewsRadio’s ‘Inside Sources’,” (AEI, 1/12/22)

§  “Biden Seeks to Reassure Ukraine, Vowing a Strong Response to Russia and Transferring Weapons,” (WSJ, 1/20/22)

§  “What Putin's Ukraine options look like,” (Axios, 1/20/22)

§  “Russia and NATO ‘on different tracks’ in negotiations, Putin spokesperson says,” (Politico, 1/16/22)

§  “First on CNN: US intelligence indicates Russia preparing operation to justify invasion of Ukraine,” (CNN, 1/14/22)

§  “Russia demands US, NATO response next week on Ukraine,” (AP News, 1/14/22)

§  “Russia's talk of troops in Latin America called 'bluster',” (WaPo, 1/13/22)

§  “Russia-U.S. talks hit impasse over NATO expansion as Moscow denies plans to invade Ukraine,” (WaPo, 1/10/22)

§  “Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, January 20, 2022,” (The White House, 1/20/22)

§  “Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference,” (The White House, 1/19/22)

§  “Statement from Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Russian Aggression Towards Ukraine,” (The White House, 1/19/22)

§  “Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator Mitch Landrieu, January 18, 2022,” (The White House, 1/18/22)

§  “Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, January 13, 2022,” (The White House, 1/13/22)

§  “How the West Is Losing Ukraine,” by The Editorial Board (WSJ, 1/19/22)

§  “Even if Putin doesn’t seize all of Ukraine, he has a larger strategy. The U.S. needs one, too.” By John R. Bolton (WaPo, 1/16/22)

§  “We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones. I say this as the President of a great power,” (Twitter, Volodymyr Zelensky, 1/20/22)