nobody wants to see a nuclear war nobody
can win them uh and as we do things and
as we uh you know take actions we're
always mindful of making sure that we
have the right balance and then we're
taking the right approach so
uh there's always uh you know a
possibility that a number of things can
happen
but uh but you know again i think it's
uh it's unhelpful and dangerous
uh for uh to rattle savers uh and
speculate
about the use of nuclear weapons
it was u.s secretary of defense lloyd
austin in germany earlier today blasting
the latest rhetoric coming from russia
as being dangerous to every last one of
us the kremlin's foreign minister
accused the west of waging a proxy war
with russia by arming ukraine and he
warned such support poses considerable
risk of nuclear conflict yes nuclear
austin this morning continued to deliver
that strong stance on our support of
ukraine pledging and demanding really
more weapons assistance from the west
while speaking to defense officials he
gathered from more than 40 countries all
of whom he said let the meeting quote
more resolve than ever to help ukraine
defend itself against russian aggression
and atrocity some big news from germany
in that meeting too and on that front
germany announcing it would send up 250
anti-aircraft vehicles directly to
ukraine it seems like a major shift in
its weapons policy after weeks of
pressure to do more and to do more
quickly joining us now former u.s
ambassador to ukraine william taylor now
vice president for russia and europe at
the u.s institute of peace and retired
four-star general barry mccaffrey a
former member of the national security
council now lucky for us an msnbc
military analyst and you have you have
the tweet of the day on this nuclear
question but i just want to back up a
minute because i haven't had a chance to
speak to either of you since what feels
like an historic visit by two of the
most senior u.s government officials
secretary austin and secretary blanken
and secretary austin has sort of grabbed
the mic in a way that i haven't seen him
do yet on the world stage as
our country's top defense official and
and i just wonder from your view first
ambassador taylor and then and then
yours general mccaffrey what you make of
the trip and what it has yielded so far
ambassador you
first thanks nicole um
a great trip
great demonstration of u.s support for
ukraine ukrainians appreciate it
others have been there of course
but it's great to see the senior people
of the united states government showing
up in cave having that conversation with
president zielinski and the defense
minister uh minister reznikov and the
foreign minister minister kuleiba
it was it was clearly a such a long
substantive conversation so it both was
symbolic of our support but it also got
into the details of what kind of support
we were going to do it talked about
the new ambassador going to come out
there they talked about moving the
embassy back to keep sooner uh or later
hopefully sooner
so it was it was a good conversation
very glad they were there
and and gerald mccaffrey i want to
understand from you
how much more persuasive can you be when
you're speaking to your counterparts
from i don't know say germany after
having just been in the room tell me how
that translates in terms of of sort of
rallying for more nations to do more on
the military front
well you make a good point look zoom is
terrific but at the end of the day the
personal interaction the personal sense
of trust and i might add secretary lloyd
austin
has properly let tony blanken be the
face of u.s foreign policy
but secretary austin and mark milley the
chairman of the jcs have been determined
and exhaustive in bringing together
these coalitions it started with u.s
european command and stuttgart germany
germany general todd walters an air
force four star who actually runs
with 15 nations cooperating the arms
deliveries across the border to ukraine
and you know now we've expanded that and
the whole point of this conference
uh was to regularize and get some
longevity planning into supporting
ukraine
we're very fortunate to have these two
experienced sober-minded people and
running the pentagon
general mccaffrey you tweeted this it
caught all of our attention here about
russia's
the secretary of defense called it saber
rattling
quote the russian amped up nuclear
threat is hard to fathom i've dealt with
nuclear strategy much of my life a putin
threat of nuclear and deployment after a
failed conventional invasion is bizarre
illogical not credible madness russia
could not survive
um
is it in your view would you go so far
as to say it's an acknowledgment of all
this an acknowledgement that putin has
failed in his conventional approach or
and do you think it means that that the
risk isn't real what do you make
well look from an intellectual viewpoint
again i have dealt with this issue
throughout
much of my adult life you know the
height of the cold war there were like
20 000 nuclear weapons on each side it
was utter madness but it was stable it
was deterrence they were never used
there was never a shot fired in europe
now we've got a lot less nuclear weapons
in a lot more hands and it's getting
unstable
so for have foreign mr lazarov and putin
making these outrageous irresponsible
threats with nuclear weapons
it's hard to fathom either putin's
starting to unravel some of that's true
a lot of it's undoubtedly a complete
bluff but it's horrendously unsettling i
mean russia would vaporize after three
days of
a nuclear exchange
they know that so what are they doing
it's just
entirely illogical and unsettling
to the global community
and an unsettling ambassador taylor to
to no one more than the ukrainians i
mean i've heard public and private
real despair and concern about what what
you know one of the most official
most senior russian officials i mean i
think these came from from lavrov today
and and um yeah it's from um
from sergey lavrov certainly always
thought to be very close to vladimir
putin um
what is the the sense from the people
you talk to in ukraine about the real
risk of putin
using nuclear weapons there
sort of called the ukrainians don't put
much stock in what president putin says
or what foreign minister lavrov says
they have lied to the world and they've
lied to the ukrainians they've lost they
said they were not going to invade they
send all these troops around around
ukraine were there for exercises so the
ukrainians uh
they're concerned like everybody else
like general mccaffrey just said that
people are concerned it's unsettling to
hear that kind of talk from senior
people and and what would you would hope
to be responsible government but they're
not
and they lied and so the ukrainians
discount this uh pretty significantly
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