i think initially uh the biden administration thought the best we could do in ukraine
was to stymie the russian offensive by assisting the ukrainians but when it became
clear that the ukrainians were doing very well on the battlefield against the russians
we escalated and eventually greatly escalated our goals and we're now bent on inflicting a decisive
defeat on russian forces in ukraine in other words beating them decisively on the battlefield
and in addition wrecking the russian economy with sanctions and all of this is designed
to greatly weaken russian power secretary of defense austin has made this very clear
and in fact one could argue that what he and his colleagues in the biden administration
are interested in doing is knocking russia out of the great power ranks
this policy that the biden administration is following is remarkably dangerous and foolish
we know that the one circumstance in which a great power is likely to use nuclear weapons is when it
its survival is threatened when it thinks and then a decisive defeat is being inflicted on it
and what the biden administration is bent on doing is inflicting a decisive defeat on russia
we are threatening its survival we are presenting the russians with an existential threat
and this again is the one circumstance where they might use nuclear weapons
and i think we should be going to enormous links to make sure that we don't put them
into a position where they even countenance using nuclear weapons much less use them
well i think it's very important to understand that if he were to use nuclear weapons he
would use them in all likelihood in western ukraine and there are no nato or american
forces in western ukraine so he would not be attacking us he would be using those weapons
in ukraine and the question is what do we do then uh and i'm not sure what we would do then would we
use nuclear weapons would we then get dragged into the war you know when professor farkas talks about
the consequences of this for the world order i'm more worried about the consequences if we end up
getting hit with nuclear weapons i mean we want to remember what president kennedy
did during the cuban missile crisis he was in a similar situation what he did was he tried to
dampen the conflict he tried to work out some sort of deal with khrushchev so we could both avoid
getting vaporized with the biden administration is doing is exactly the opposite it's upping the ante
it's putting putin in a position where he might very well use nuclear weapons
again i think this is remarkably foolish well make a couple points first of all i think the liberal
world order is in tatters at this point in time i mean not only do you have a serious conflict
between the united states and russia but you have a serious conflict or competition brewing
in east asia between the united states and china the unipolar world where the united states pursued
liberal hegemony is gone and we're now in a multi-polar world where security competition
among great powers is back on the table which leads me to the heart of your question
the sad fact is that in international politics minor powers have to pay really serious attention
to what great powers think and what great powers believe their interests are steve has
made this point at great lengths that a great power whether it's the united states or russia
will behave in a brutal fashion if it thinks if it thinks its interests are being threatened
and the russians believe that their interests are being threatened in ukraine that if ukraine
becomes a western bulwark on their border that is in effect an existential threat to them
mike and radic can disagree with that but that's what the russians think and when great powers
think like that they behave in brutal ways and my view and i've long said this about ukraine it is
in ukraine's national interest to act smartly with regard to russia and not poke the russian
bear in the eye with a stick because it will lead to a situation like the one that you now face
am i happy about the fact that this is the way the world works absolutely not but i am a realist and
i think ukraine would be much better off today if it had acted according to the dictates of realism
i want to make it clear i disagree completely with radic on the point that russia is an
imperial great power and that ukraine is the first train station on the line and when they're done
conquering and incorporating ukraine there'll be additional countries there is no evidence
to support that it's true if you look at the july 12 2021 talk it's true if you look
at putin's february 21st and february 24th talks this year this is all about the west
effort to make russia excuse me to make ukraine a bulwark a western bulwark on russia's border and
the key prong in our strategy is nato expansion if you just go look at the documentation you'll
see an abundance of evidence of that and you can find no evidence that putin is an imperialist
what we have here no i what we have here what we have here is a choice between
two bad alternatives one alternative is we can reach an accommodation with the russians and
through diplomacy work to create a neutral ukraine that's one alternative and it's the alternative
that steve and i favor the other alternative and this is the biden administration's policy
is to double down and to try to defeat the russians in ukraine to bring the russian
economy down through comprehensive sanctions and as i said on a number of occasions to
knock the russians out of the ranks of the great powers that's the alternative you have to choose
between those two and our argument is that the second alternative is extremely dangerous
and it's going to be terribly damaging for the ukrainians it makes more sense to cut a deal here
and what you really want to think about is the one crisis before this that looks a lot like the
situation we're in today and that's the cuban missile crisis we now know that when the united
states got involved in the cuban missile crisis what president kennedy did was he went to enormous
lengths to shut the crisis down he cut a deal with khrushchev he cut a deal with khrushchev that he
thought was so objectionable to the american people that he told khrushchev that he was
going to have to lie about the jupiter missiles in turkey which he was going to take out right
kennedy understood we were talking back then about the threat of nuclear war and kennedy understood
that you definitely wanted to do everything you can to avoid that so what i'm saying to all you
folks in the audience is you want to think like john f kennedy in this crisis not like joe biden
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