The 2022 Holberg Debate w/ John Mearsheimer and Carl Bildt: Ukraine, Russia, China and the West

thank you foreign foreign foreign thank you foreign foreign foreign welcome foreign foreign Norway as well as viewers around the world to this year's holbat debate my name is and I'm the chair of the hoverboard the holdback price is one of the largest International prices awarded to outstanding Scholars within the humanities social sciences law and theology the price was established by the Norwegian government in 2003 and are made to the scientists and writer Ludwick holdback who lived from 1684 to 1754. in addition to the academic events that are held each year in celebration of the Holberg price Laureate The Hold by debate is held annually in December in tribute to Ludwig hallberg's Enlightenment ideals the debate aims to engage prominent academics as well as non-academics in public debate on pressing issues in our time and the topic of this year's debate is the current Global Security crisis facing us in particular we will focus on Ukraine Russia China and the West and what kind of power and deterrence that may prevent future Wars or escalation of existing conflicts they're called the debate by the question will Fair keep us safe on the panel we are pleased to have professor John meersheimer of the University of Chicago and former prime minister of Sweden Mr Corbett they're also very pleased to have with us Dr Cecilia Street he will moderate the event hello straight is the conflict researcher at innovation academy of international law falkiratz Institute in Norwegian she has a PHD in international humanitarian law from the University of Oslo and she has been associated with a number of research institutes both in Norway and abroad so without further Ado I hereby give the floor to Cecilia Hill Street [Applause] so much for that kind introduction Their audience I'm honored and delighted to have the privilege to moderate the Holberg debate of 2022 organized by the Hallberg prize in the loveliest of cities in Norway Bergen but while the city is bright and cheerful the subject of tonight's debate is far from it it is dark and gloomy because we live in dangerous times this year war on land between nations returned to Continental Europe Russia's aggressive military assault on Ukraine is a watershed a Monumental event in the history of modern Europe and we are still struggling to Gorge all the effects that this war of aggression will have for the future of Europe and the World At Large simultaneously other dark clouds are on the horizon the Rivalry in technological political economic and military terms between the Giants of the world the US and China is gaining traction but even when war and geopolitical rivalry is upon us and it is very clear to us who was a friend and who is a foe public debate debate must take place and the Holberg debate this year Ventures into this complex and sensitive landscape asking whether fear Will Keep Us Safe And what do the current geopolitical crisis mean for the power of deterrent and the prospects of a new Global Security order as the journalist and Grand strategist Walter lipmann once observed where all think alike no one thinks very much on behalf of the Holberg prize I am therefore delighted to present to the public to distinguished speakers who do not think alike one is the scholar of politics and one is the Craftsmen of politics one is American and one is European one is a proponent of the school of realism the other a firm believer in Liberal traditions our two speakers have expressed views in stark contrast to each other notably on Russia and her war on Ukraine the American guest is uh unrealist scholar is John meersheimer professor John mayerzheimer is the r Wendell Harrison distinguished service professor of political science at the University of Chicago he graduated from West Point in 1970 and served five years in the U.S Air Force massheimer has also been a research fellow at the Brookings institution and Council of foreign relations in New York the European politician is Karl belt former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden Carl built is also a distinguished International career among others he was the EU special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia High representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina and U.N special Envoy to the Balkans he also was a co-chair of the Dayton peace conference belt is currently co-chair of the European Council of foreign relations and we will start the debate by hearing opening remarks from both speakers and I do want to remind the audience that and the viewers that they still have the opportunity to send in questions for the speakers and since we are in Europe and this is Carl Bill's turf we first give the floor to him the floor is yours Carl [Applause] thank you for those kind words of the introduction and it's truly a pleasure to be here in Bergen I've come not too long Professor mursheimer had come a long way but I think we both look forward to this particular debate and let's be clear we have entered more dangerous times that certainly applies to the global order or perhaps the lack thereof but it plays of course in particular to the situation that we are faced with in this part of the world in our Europe in the American debate the focus has always been or has often been on the west coven armed confrontation with the rising China notably over the future status of Taiwan and that has loomed large and policies have been oriented and are oriented towards trying to contain that and slow down the rise of Chinese power in different domains but here in our Europe we are since 10 months in the largest military conflict this part of the world has seen since 1945 with no end in sight and with consequences that we lost decades we did after all managed to secure some sort of Peace during the long Decades of the Cold War in half of Europe it was the piece of the graveyard we were in the lucky pot and perhaps the recognition that war in Europe in those days could have led and could have taken us all into nuclear Armageddon played an important part in bringing stability during those long dark decades the Soviet Union and his wider empire under the weight of his own failure collapsed more than three decades ago and the task for particular policy practitioners like myself since then has been to try to build an order that could not only secure peace and security but hopefully also the element of freedom and prosperity for every part of our continent and it is these efforts that are now under such a mortal threat from the military aggression initiated by Vladimir Putin 10 months ago your peasant seen anything since when Adolf Hitler in September 1939 launched his all-out attack against Poland and there are important similarities between the two cases in both cases it was War started by a personal decision of a dictator that didn't really feel any constraints whatsoever in both cases it was War started by dictators driven by some sort of vision derived of history of their what they wanted to see Hitler wanted to get rid of independent Poland it was an unnecessary creation of the vasai peace treaty Putin wants to get rid of Ukraine as an independent entity he describes this as an unnecessary mistake and creation by of all people Vladimir Lenin Hitler of course then continued when he attacked and occupied Norway it was described as absolutely necessary to safeguard the security interests of his greater Germany we know how it all ended but we don't know how this horrible war will end it is indeed horrible we have several hundreds of thousands of soldiers engaged in combat we have more than a thousand as a matter of fact one thousand three hundred kilometers of front line we have waves after waves or missiles against the civilian infrastructure of the entire Ukrainian Nation we have the greatest number of people displaced or forced to flee of any conflict in any part of the world during the last few decades the ukrainians are determined to fight for their freedom you can't really blame them and they are more so determined with every new missile and every new bomb that strikes them but Vladimir Putin is unlikely to back down from seeking to dismember control and subdue UK he has described it several times as a life and death struggle in all probability it is a life and death struggle for him he's unlikely in my opinion or he is likely in my opinion to escalate as long as he can until he runs out of possibilities and until he collapses but let's look at the principles if we are to search for new stability there are two principles that I consider absolutely fundamental for the security of our continent the first is obviously that aggression should never be tolerated the nearby in Tokyo Trials of the second World War because it aggression to be the ultimate International crime every other War crime derives from the crime of aggression and the second principle that I consider fundamental is that borders should be respected and should never be altered by force most of the borders of Europe have been drawn by blood during past centuries not all of them are entirely logical sometimes the past still creates emotions and tensions but if you open up the issue of borders if you allow one country to dismember another country one country taking one big taking over parts of a smaller you will open up a Pandora's box of true Horrors for all of you these are not only principles of international law but they are primarily our yoga principles derived from the very bitter history of Europe but they of course also principles their resonate strongly across the world faced with the Russian aggression in two Landmark decisions the U.N the annual assembly with first 141 and then 144 votes in favor endorse these principles only five I will classify them at Outcast Nations voted against so when we support Ukraine today it is not not only supporting the right of its freedom and Independence but also the support for upholding these principles that are fundamental to the security of all of our European nations aggression must never be tolerated borders must be respected Hitler as you might remember had all sorts of arguments for invading Poland he considered much too close in alliances matter of fact with Britain and France he didn't like its treatment of the German minorities he considered the entire Versailles settlement polish Corridor and all of that unfair to Germany and Putin also Marshall's argument against Ukraine he doesn't like them to put in Miley wanting deep integration with the European Union and indeed NATO he bitterly regrets an opposes the departure of former president janakovich he certainly don't like his talk about colon revolutions and democracy he thinks Russia has been mistreated by the Americas but nothing of this be it right or be it wrong gave neither Hitler Putin any thought whatsoever the right to invade Poland or invade UK now let's be clear to peace in Europe can't be restored until this aggression has been rolled back and Ukraine has been secured as a democracy freely able to choose its own path for the future and this can't be achieved until Russia has given up its Imperial ambition and focus its Energies on building a functioning nation-state as long it is dragged Away by an imperial Temptation it will never be able to develop in harmony peace and security with the rest of Europe and with 140 million people 11 time zones and vast natural resources it doesn't really need an empire in order to be successful we want to live in peace with the prosperous unstable Russia I do believe that representative rule constitutional order a rule of law would be hugely beneficial for that country But ultimately that's up to them to decide but put his aggression means that there's now a fundamental and an endangered uncertainty as to the future of Russia his War has already failed to reach its objective but where is Russia some years from now will it be in internal chaos in conflict will it be on an even more militaristic regime or will there be Alex navalny competing in free and fair election no one no one knows but one thing we know this war and its consequences will be with us for a long time the entire order between the rivers Vista and Volga is in flux in our immediate part of the world Finland and Sweden will soon enter NATO Denmark has given up its reservation against security Dimension defense dimensions of the European Union NATO will further enhance its forward presence in the Baltic countries there are 20 000 more U.S soldiers on European sold sold than just a year ago all countries are increasing their defense expenditure and need NATO Neu will move closer together the one a military Alliance the other security Alliance in my opinion the future secure of Europe will be a function of the security of Ukraine let's secure Ukraine we'll create the conditions for stability and peace in Europe and also for Russia to be able to develop as a great nation-state a destroyed a dismembered divided and a distraught Ukraine will only generate chaos and Conflict for years to come today it's a brutal battle on The Plains of the east of Europe people in the hundreds perhaps thousands are dying on a weekly or daily basis sometime in the future the days of diplomacy must certainly come but we are clearly not there yet but then those days of diplomacy must be based on the fundamental principles I have mentioned the peace and stability of Europe must be based on them and the peace and stability of Europe is of course also should be a global concern twice in the last century Strife in conflict in Europe brought War to all of the globe and that all as I'm sure will debate numerous other issues as well there is more Global disorder than order the Rivalry between the U.S and China must be hand responsible competition is the slogan the catch phrase that is used in Washington day and I hope the same phrase can be used in Beijing as well the Power Balance is indeed Shifty China will be the largest economy in the world with growing Naval and now also nuclear capabilities of both Nations or in a desperate race to control the Technologies of the future they know that that is where power ultimately lies Europe having to handle the brutal War sits in between these competing Global powers it does consist of Nations that are small and same some that don't yet understand that they are small and we are the European Union we are civil the trading an economic and an increasingly respect Social Security power in this way you can say that the European Union is a hybrid power able to handle hybrid threats but it is certainly not a military power it can most particularly only handle the nuclear might of Russia through its alliance with the United States nuclear deterrence remains an unavoidable perhaps somewhat unpleasant but unavoidable Foundation of our security and the overall security and as we look ahead is indeed both dense and tense preventing nuclear proliferation and War containing the unavoidable disorders of the greater Middle East facilitating all of the consequences of the rapid demographic rights of Africa handling the security implications of climate change notably in the Arctic not to too far from here securing a safe entry into the digital age or artificial intelligence and Quantum Computing it's a tall order perhaps taller than any political generation has faced for quite a long time but for us in this part of the world here in our Europe securing the future of Ukraine is the foundation for everything else thank you [Applause] thank you so much Carl for providing us with a very fruitful basis for a discussion and then Professor me asheimer I'm happy to give the floor to you [Applause] thank you thank you very much Cecilia it's a great pleasure to be here and I feel honored to be asked to be here this evening uh let me start by saying that I agree completely with both what Cecilia said and what Carl said about the fact we live in a very dangerous world today I'd put a finer point on it and say that I think the world is likely to get more dangerous with the passage of time and number two I believe that the world that we are moving into is more dangerous than the Cold War was and of course the Cold War was dangerous but there's bigger trouble ahead now the question is why do I say that I say that because you have to think about what the world looked like when World War II ended and how it's evolved over time and you have to think about how the structure of the world has changed because that tells you a great deal about the likelihood of conflict when I was born in 1947 it was a bipolar World there were two great powers in the system the United States and the Soviet Union when the Cold War ended in 1989 and certainly when the Soviet Union fell apart in December of 1991 we moved from a bipolar world to a unipolar world then around 2017 the structure of the system began to change and we moved from unipolarity to multi-polarity a world where there are three great Powers the United States China and Russia so if you think about it in my lifetime we went from bipolarity to unipolarity to multiply now what this means is that in the multi-polar world we're in now we have what I would call two conflict dyads involving great Powers one is the U.S China dyad and the other is the U.S Russia dyad during the unipolar moment you had no great power competition most of you young people in the audience were born in the unipolar moment there was only one great power in the system in the unipolar moment and you cannot have great power competition by definition when you have only one great power in the bipolar world that I was born into there were two great powers and you had one conflict dyad the United States and the Soviet Union so what you see is today you have a major conflict I had in Asia involving China and the United States a major conflict diet involving great Powers here in Europe involving the United States and Russia that's two conflict dyads versus one in the Cold War and none in the unipolar moment furthermore war is more likely security competition is more likely to turn into war in the U.S China competition and in the U.S Russia competition than it was during the Cold War so what I'm saying to you is that we have more potential Wars between great powers in the multi-polar world we now live in right and furthermore those Wars are more likely now why do I say that I think what I have to do here is explain to you how I think about uh the security competition between the United States and China in East Asia just tell you what I think is going on there and then talk about what's going on here in Europe in terms of the US Russia competition and of course when I talk about the U.S China competition what I'm going to do is focus mainly on Taiwan and when I focus on the U.S Russia competition here in Europe I'll Focus mainly on Ukraine and what I'm going to try and do is convince you that these are really dangerous situations now with regard to U.S China competition What's Happening Here is that China is a peer competitor of the United States if you were to rank order the three great powers in the system now the United States Remains the most powerful State on the planet China is a close second and there's great fear in the United States that they will eventually overtake us and Russia is a distant third Russia is a weak great power there are a number of people who argue it shouldn't even be considered a great power people should argue that we're in a bipolar world today that involves just the U.S and China I don't agree with that I think Russia is a great power but it's the weakest of the three great Powers China is a potential hegemon it's a potential hegemon in Asia China is growing very powerful and in international politics when you grow very powerful the ideal situation is to dominate your region of the world it's to be a regional hegemon and to make sure that no other country on the planet really no other great power on the planet dominates its region of the world the way you dominate yours and of course the paradigmatic example of this is the United States of America we are the only Regional hegemon in the world we dominate the Western Hemisphere no American goes to bed at night worrying about any other country in the Western Hemisphere attacking us why because we are Godzilla an International System you want to be Godzilla and you want to make sure you're the only Godzilla on the planet well the Chinese have figured this out the Chinese want to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere the Chinese know full well what happens to you in international politics when you're weak they call it the century of national humiliation it runs from the late 1840s to the late 1940s they were weak and when they were weak they were taken advantage of you can rest assured that they want to make sure that they are by far the most powerful state in Asia and you can rest assured that they'd like to get the Americans out beyond the first island chain out beyond the second island chain and far away from China the best way to survive an international politics to be a regional hegemon and the Chinese are taking all that economic might they have and they're turning into military might now how are the Americans reacting to this it's very clear the Americans do not tolerate other Regional hegemons in the system the 20th century shows this very clearly the United States played a key role in putting Imperial Germany Imperial Japan Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on the scrap peep of History we had no intention of letting any of those four countries dominate either Europe or Asia you can rest assured we have no intention of allowing China to dominate Asia and in fact we're not going to pursue a pure containment strategy we're going to pursue a rollback strategy as well we're going to try and weaken China the way we weaken the Soviet Union during the Cold War we have our gun sights on the Chinese the Chinese of course fully understand that and they're going to Great Lengths to try to deal with us and at the same time as I said to you the Chinese have a deep-seated interest in achieving Regional hegemony and the more powerful they grow economically the better off they'll be at developing the military capability to achieve Regional hegemony this is why of course the United States is trying to slow down Chinese economic growth so what you have in East Asia is an intense security competition between China and the United States and the principal focus is on Taiwan and Taiwan is a really dangerous situation there is no analogous situation in the Cold War the 1947 to 1989 Cold War Berlin was not the equivalent of Taiwan why is Taiwan so dangerous Taiwan is remarkably dangerous because number one the Chinese consider its sacred territory and they desperately want it back number two the Americans believe firmly that for a variety of reasons it's important that we not let China take Taiwan because it has great strategic value for us so what's happening here is that the United States is now moving closer and closer to Taiwan the Nancy Pelosi visits just one indicator of how we're moving closer and closer to Taiwan and this of course enrages the Chinese because this is sacred territory this is nationalism at Play the Americans are preventing us from getting Taiwan back so you have a lot of tension and then the third reason is it's easy to imagine a cold war in East Asia turning into a hot War over Taiwan because it would be a battle over an island in a huge body of water during the Cold War when Carl and I were young it was hard to imagine starting a war in Central Europe because you had two massive armies with thousands of nuclear weapons in their inventory and if those massive armies crashed into each other with all those nuclear weapons we probably would have all gotten incinerated so when we ran war games during the Cold War it was very hard to get a war going in Europe because everybody understood what the consequences would be it's much easier to imagine a war breaking out over Taiwan it's a small island out in the middle of a large body of water and by the way the other two points of friction in East Asia or the South China Sea in the East China Sea and you can imagine a war breaking out over those two bodies of water so you see the different scenarios between the Cold War Central Europe and the new Cold War in East Asia between China and the United States over Taiwan or the South China Sea or the East China Sea so this big trouble coming in East Asia I'm not arguing here that war is inevitable but it is going to be very difficult to avoid that intense security competition turning into a real war okay let's shift gears and go to Europe and talk about what's going on in Ukraine and here we're focusing mainly on the U.S Russian dyad uh and it's very important to understand that the Americans Drive the train in the West Putin doesn't want to talk to the Europeans he wants to talk to the Americans he knows who the boss is right so when you think about the war in the Ukraine it's really the U.S and the Russians that matter the most in addition to the ukrainians of course now the conventional wisdom in the West is that what is happening here is that Putin is an imperialist and he is bent on creating a greater Russia or recreating the Soviet Union and what he is intent on doing in Ukraine is Conquering that country occupying that country and integrating it into a greater Russia uh and in fact Ukraine is the first stop on the train line when he's done with Ukraine he's going to move on to other states like Estonia Hatfield Lithuania maybe Poland who knows but he is an imperialist at heart he's an aggressor who's interested in building an empire this is conventional wisdom that you all know well I would imagine that most of you believe this my view is this is simply wrong uh there's no evidence to support it I believe that if you're going to make that argument you have to show evidence that Putin said it was desirable to conquer Ukraine and create a greater Russia you have to show evidence that he thought it was feasible to do that and you have to show evidence that he said that that's what he was doing there is no evidence and I want to underline that word no there is no evidence that he thought it was desirable to conquer Ukraine or to create a greater Russia or to conquer any other country there's no evidence that he thought it was feasible and there's no evidence that he said that's what he was doing furthermore he does not have the capability to do it the Russians invaded Ukraine with a hundred and ninety thousand men there's no way a hundred and ninety thousand men could conquer a piece of Real Estate with 40 plus billion people in it with a hundred and ninety thousand men when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939 they went in with 1.5 million men you need a huge Army to conquer a country like Ukraine occupy it and incorporate it into your country and you're not going to do that with a hundred and ninety thousand men furthermore this man Vladimir Putin does not have the Vermont at his fingertips you've noticed how poorly the Russian army performs so you have a small army that's not the Vermont there's no way this Army could conquer all of Ukraine and if you look at the strategy that's been employed my argument makes perfect sense this is not a case of Putin acting like an imperialist my argument is is I'm sure many of you know that if you look carefully at what was going on it's quite clear that the West efforts to turn Ukraine into a western bulwark on Russia's borders was viewed as an existential threat the brightest of all red lines as Bill Burns the Ambassador U.S ambassador to Moscow at the time said by the entire Russian Elite the idea that Ukraine was going to be incorporated into NATO the idea that Ukraine was going to be incorporated into the EU the idea that you were going to promote an orange Revolution and turn Ukraine into a pro-western liberal democracy unacceptable to the Russians it was an existential threat you might not think it was an existential threat but what you think doesn't matter the only thing that matters is what the Russians think and the Russians thought it was an existential threat and they made it unequivocally clear to us that it was an existential threat and how did we react we ignored what they said and we continued pushing to bring Ukraine into NATO pushing to bring Ukraine into the EU pushing to turn it into a pro-western liberal democracy why did we do that I'll tell you why we did it because the Russians were weak that's what happens when you're weak in international politics the Russians protested NATO expansion from the get-go the first tranche took place in 1999 the second tranche took second trance of expansion took place in 2004 right the Russians screamed bloody murder both times we didn't care we just shoved it down their throat they were weak and when they were weak you can do that 1999 we succeeded 2004 we succeeded then in 2008 we said we're going to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO the Russians made it very clear you're not going to do that you're not going to do that we're going to resist and if we have to we'll destroy Ukraine this was clear a long time ago what did we do we doubled down we just kept pushing and pushing and pushing and what you want to understand is that from the Russian perspective this is an existential threat they have to win this war they cannot afford to lose it if you accept the argument that Putin is an imperialist and he's just bent on conquering some more territory and creating the greater Russia and there's no really underlying security imperative then you can cut a deal and end this war but if you think that the Russians view this as an existential threat you think about this conflict in very different ways because you're dealing with a great power that's armed to the teeth with thousands of nuclear weapons that seize itself facing an existential threat now that's my view of the Russian perspective on how this has to end they have to win they cannot afford to lose what is American policy and what is Ukrainian policy American policy is we're going to beat them in Ukraine this is of course Western policy Norway is deeply involved in this our policy our policy is to defeat the Russians right and uh also wrecked their economy with sanctions and also promote regime change and then put put Putin on trial and maybe even break apart Russia this is their goal we're going for victory we think we can win in Ukraine Putin has to win we think we can win and the ukrainians it's an open and shut case of course from their point of view they want to recover all their territory and they want to weaken Russians as much as possible so that Russia can't pay a return visit so the Russians are pursuing a clear-cut victory the ukrainians and the Americans are pursuing a clear-cut victory what does this tell you this tells you there's no diplomatic solution there's no diplomatic solution to this one this is why everybody basically understands that this is going to be a protracted stalemate right or at least they think it's going to be a protracted stalemate they think it's going to be a protracted stalemate because there's no solution there's another dimension to this the most worrisome of all and that's nuclear escalation Russia thinks it faces an existential threat and again what you think doesn't matter it's what the Russians think they think they face an existential threat what happens if NATO succeeds what happens if we begin to roll the Russian army back in Ukraine and we're moving up to the borders of Russia when I say we I'm talking about Ukrainian forces backed by NATO power the Russians are likely to use nuclear weapons to rescue the situation all right this is a great power that's facing an existential threat and it's losing you don't think it's gonna think seriously at least about using its nuclear weapons you can rest assured it is I like to tell the story about 1945 Japan 1945. the Americans had defeated Japan by August 1945. Japan Was Defeated we just couldn't get the direct the Japanese to throw up their hands and surrender and we thought that we were going to have to invade the Japanese home Islands and we knew how many casualties there had been at Okinawa and at Iwo Jima and we did not want to invade the Japanese home Islands we were desperate to avoid invading the Japanese home islands and you know what we did we dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan and you know what you could do that because the Japanese didn't have nuclear weapons of their own and they were not going to retaliate well I have news for you the ukrainians don't have nuclear weapons of their own and if the Russians use nuclear weapons in Ukraine Ukraine can't retaliate and we're not going to initiate a general Thurman nuclear war by using nuclear weapons to defend Ukraine so you can see the potential for nuclear escalation here is real and given the consequences the potential of escalation does not have to be very high to scare the living be Jesus out of you right so you want to understand there's a perverse Paradox here which is the more successful we are in waging the war against Ukraine the more likely it is that they'll turn to nuclear weapons it's not to say they axiomatically will it's just to say it becomes a real possibility so the story I've told you here in conclusion is that during the Cold War we had one conflict dyad during the unipolar moment we had none during the multi-polar world we now live in there are two potential great power conflicts on the table and both of them as I tried to describe are very dangerous so all of you should be very fearful about the world that you live in and even more fearful about the world that we're moving into foreign now thank you very much to both of you for a very disturbing I must say presentations now uh the subject of today's debate is how the geopolitical crisis influenced the power of deterrence and respect for a new Global Security order but let us start uh in Europe and then we will zoom out afterwards and before we venture into this uncertainty of the future and even of the present let us go to one issue where I know that your analysis and your statements which you have repeated here is seen as very provocative in Europe namely the why of the Russian Invasion and the Russian aggressive stands towards Ukraine and I would invite Carl to have some initial reactions to what John has said and I can do that but let's be start by saying that at least there is one issue where we do agree uh we live in a more dangerous time power relationships are shifting different competing interests are there it is less predictable it is more dangerous on that we do agree and that was irrelevant of agreement also on the China analysis we could go into that further but on obviously the Ukraine Russia we we do disagree I mean to me it's abundantly clear if you read what Mr Putin said as I said he he was very explicit in his speeches that setting up Ukraine was not only a mistake it was worse than a mistake it was unacceptable it's old Russian lands should never have been allowed by Lenin to set up this Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and then he said didn't make much of a difference he said because I mean we would it's loudly rooted with that iron hand anyhow but Stalin did the mistake of not taking away the formal structures of Ukraine and the second mistake was allowing Independence this is as he said repeatedly ancient Russian Land There is no question he wants to get rid of Ukraine I don't think he wants to create the Soviet Union he's uh he's ideal he's sort of even the terrible um it is Peter the Great it is Catherine II that's his Russia and he wants to recreate that he's not only Ukraine it is undoubtedly Belarus as well so his intention is abundantly clear in the speeches that he gave immediately before and immediately after the invasion then John said that well well he didn't have the resources to do it uh that sort of that's fairly obvious by now uh agree but we should be aware of the fact that when he attacked on February 24th he attacked with 90 of the combat potential of Russian army 90 percent so we will clear any Tech from the North in order to get Kiev biggest city for the West to get charging second biggest city from the south to get Adesa the third biggest city he attacked with missiles every single major Center across the territory of Ukraine it was not some sort of Sunday Expedition by some Russian forces who had got lost in the woods it was an all-out invasion it failed due to the fact that the Russian army was less competent than he thought and as a matter of fact substantial it has competent than most of us thought because either the Western intelligence ages have said he is likely to invade thought that he was going to finish the job in a week he believed that as well we know a fair amount of his political preparations he believed he could do it in one or two weeks the ukrainians proved otherwise but then on the background on I can understand that you are nothing wrong with Chicago but that's where you're coming from um so your perspective tends to be the Americans all over the place and and Europeans and others not really to that extent it wasn't really I went to the book about it I'm sort of I was there it wasn't really the Americans pushing I mean we Europeans went to Washington say you have to care about Europe as well not only be obsessed by China if there were anyone's pushing polls pushed in order to become members of NATO the ukrainians were knocking on our door all the time we want to close the relationship with the European Union we want to be part of the West it wasn't the West going east it was the East wanted to go west in order to get more of the security the prosperity that they rightly wrongly associate with the European Union and indeed NATO and Americans were fairly reluctant in the beginning if you take the entire crisis that led up to the first invasions uh first the Crimea one and then there were no overseer once in 2014. the Americans were fairly absent from the scene they were fairly absent from the scene because they were engaged in other things it was the ukrainians pushy and rightly so in my opinion then finally yours the Russians considered an existential threat with Ukraine why on Earth would they consider the essential threat I mean that's Pure Fantasy Land I I wouldn't disclose I wouldn't deny that there are Mr Patricia and others but we should take them out of that if they consider their neighbors to be existential threats they're going to be the one Invasion after the other there's no way that Ukraine is going to invade Russia no one has ever thought in those particular terms you said that Americans live peacefully yeah Canadians are not going to invade the Mexicans are not going to invade you live in peace there's no reason whatsoever why Russian Ukraine should not be able to live in peace if yours Russia gives up is the Imperial ambition what is your answer to this John how would you respond and where are the smaller European states that thought protection from NATO and the EU once they had the opportunity when Russia was weak in the early 2000s late 1990s where are they in your analysis wasn't this also I'll answer your question but I also want to deal with some of the points to Common uh there's no question that states in Eastern Europe that were outside NATO wanted in I don't blame Ukraine for wanting in my point is we don't have to accept them there's no rule that says just because somebody wants to be in NATO that we have an open door policy and we take them in and you didn't with Ukraine yes I actually don't believe that at all uh we have actually doubled down they they are not members of Ukraine and no one has you have to let me answer the questions sorry sorry you raised a lot of excellent points but and I want to deal with them but I think that if it's clear that the Russians view Ukraine in NATO as an existential threat you should not admit Ukraine to Nato or push to admit Ukraine to Nato because the end result is what you have today we in effect Pursuit a policy that is leading to the destruction of Ukraine if we had not attempted to make Ukraine a western bulwark on Russia's border with NATO expansion EU expansion the color Revolution but especially NATO expansion there'd be in all likelihood no war in Ukraine today Crimea would still be part of Ukraine and certainly those four oblasts that the Russians annexed would be part of Ukraine but I just want to go back to a couple points that Carl raised first of all I've gone over in great detail every one of Putin's speeches press conferences and his writings and the argument that he was bent on uh incorporating Ukraine into Russia is usually uh said to be outlined in a famous article that he wrote on July 12 2021 you can easily find this article on the internet and he did say many of the things that Carl said about how it was regrettable how Lenin set up the Soviet Union and so forth and so on he does not say in that paper that he is interested in conquering Ukraine that it's desirable to conquer Ukraine or that's what he intends to do in fact if you go look at the article and this is the article that almost everybody points to you should go read it he says that he recognizes Russian national excuse me Ukrainian nationalism he says that he recognizes Ukrainian Independence and he says that the future of Ukraine is up to the Ukrainian people that's what he says in the article that everybody points to is the key piece of evidence that he was out to conquer Ukraine as I said to you before I can find no evidence that he thought he could conquer you crying just a word or two about capabilities he had 190 000 troops it was almost all of his army as Carl pointed out you're not going to conquer a piece of real estate as large as Ukraine with an army that small and he might have dropped bombs on Western Ukraine but you can't conquer and occupy a country with bombs you need Ground Forces to do that he didn't have the ground forces he never even attempted to conquer one half of the country it mostly attempted to conquer one-third of the country he just didn't have the capability this was not the Vermont even with regard to Kiev he could not have conquered Kiev with the forces that he had it was just too small an army he wanted to threaten Keith but he couldn't conquer it um now just one final point and then I'll turn it back to you Cecilia Carl said that if you look at what happened uh over the past few decades it's a case of the East moving West and not the West moving East I don't know how you could make that argument with NATO expansion of course it's the West moving East NATO expansion EU expansion the color revolutions uh where were the Russians moving Westward uh the Russians weren't capable of launching a military offensive in the 1990s they were so weak and then Putin comes to power in 2000 and over time he resurrects the Russians he brings them back from the dead but they don't have the military capability to go on the offensive as you know in the tooth August 2008 military campaign in Georgia the Russian army performed terribly right they just don't have the military capability there's no evidence that the East is moving West it's the West that's moving East and this is what presents an existential threat to the Russians but what about if you go back to 2007 that is when Putin in his speech in Munich announced that in his view the multipolar world was already arriving now in your presentation you said 2017 that is 10 years later so isn't it a possibility that Putin from that moment on has that in mind as he goes forward from 2008 and then interprets things no the famous people the famous Munich speech in 2007 that Cecilia is referencing is where Putin first makes it manifestly clear that he is angry at the West for their policies which he thinks do not take into account Russian interests but he does not indicate that he's going to rectify this problem by going on the offensive and attacking any country in the world what sets off the real trouble is the April 2008 decision at Bucharest this is the NATO Summit AT Bucharest April 2008 where NATO says at the end of that Summit that Georgia and Ukraine will become part of NATO it's no accident ladies and gentlemen that on August to that or in August 2008 you had a war in Georgia and then starting on February 22nd 2014 conflict broke out in Ukraine right that's what was driving the train here and by the way just one final point before I turn it to Carl Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy were adamantly opposed to Bringing Ukraine into NATO at the April 2008 Bucharest Summit and Angela Merkel has recently said that the reason she opposed bringing Ukraine into NATO is that she understood listen to these words she understood that Putin would interpret it as a declaration of war against Russia that's in April 2008 but what did the Americans do the Americans steamrolled her and they steamrolled Sarkozy and they kept pushing and pushing and pushing and it all blew up in their face on February 24th of this year your reaction to this Phil yeah Pure Fantasy I I I can agree with you on that thought of the Bucharest meeting was fairly muddled there were the then president of Ukraine the then president of Georgia wanted in and most people said nope and then as a compromise that had that particular language but they refused them even a membership action plan and you need unanimity in NATO and since then there's not been a single native meeting where there's been a serious discussion about membership and even I would say even a half dead second Secretary of a Russian Embassy in any NATO country would be able to report back that that was off the table for the foreseeable future off the table for the foreseeable future what caused the big problem in 2013 and 2014 and I was there was the fact that Ukraine wanted to have a free trade agreement with the European Union and it was a Ukraine news who wanted it they were knocking on the eudor Time After Time After Time not everyone in the year was enthusiastic but evidently that was given and then Putin said they said utterly unacceptable forced president Yanukovych who is the most brutal means to go back on that that caused the people of Ukraine to go to their Square in maidan waving they didn't wave American flags sorry to say they waved the EU flags on the maidan and say we want to be part of this and why not because they were anti-russian that was not an issue at the moment they saw the success of Poland for example having done the democratic reform so you have it on the economic reforms and and and have you substantially better economic and social and political development the Ukraine had no question they wanted to go the same way and Ukraine happens and that's fairly important to understand Ukraine is a democracy they have elections they expressed their will to go in this particular case West on going West and East is not moving geography I I agree with that geography doesn't move but in political terms they wanted to go west Polo want to go west into NATO Ukraine wanted to go west into the EU as the Baltic states did they wanted to go away from the East which they associated with orthotherian and failed repressive regimes in Russia and that I think and there I can agree with you I think Putin does see that as an existential threat I think it does see a successful Democratic big Ukraine as an existential threat not to Russia but to the sort of Russia regime that he represents and he's been abundantly clear in saying that what is called colored revolutions people waving European flags people waving flags of others people wanted democracy people wanted to be able to elect their government he's been abundant clear that he sees that an existential threat to his Russian regime in that particular sense is right let me make two sets of responses to what Carl said he makes the argument which many people make that there was really no chance that Ukraine would become part of NATO uh and that we have sort of given up on that I believe that's simply not true and in June of 2021 NATO's Conference was held at Brussels in an official statement released by NATO they said that they were reinvigorating their commitment to bring Ukraine into NATO in on November 10 2021 the United States and Ukraine issued a white paper laying out the Strategic relationship between the United States and Ukraine where we made it unequivocally clear we were committed to Bringing Ukraine into NATO furthermore we were arming and training the ukrainians so that they were effectively becoming a de facto member of NATO many people wonder why the ukrainians have done so well against the Russians on the battlefield and they say it's because the Russians are incompetent period end of story that's half of the story the other half is that the ukrainians were a formidable fighting force and they were a formidable fighting force because we were training 10 000 Ukrainian troops per year from 2014 to 2024. and we were arming the ukrainians president zolensky and his defense minister today refer to Ukraine as a de facto member of NATO it was becoming a de facto member of NATO in fact and then in principle we remain committed to bringing it in to the alliance now just okay go ahead no I just let me make one quick point just on another issue that Carl raised Carl raised the point that the Russians viewed Ukraine becoming a liberal democracy as a serious threat and you said you agreed with me on that to point I want to make is that NATO mainly the United States was pursuing a three-prong strategy I tried to make that clear in my formal presentation NATO expansion EU expansion and turning it in to a liberal turning Ukraine into a liberal democracy so it's important to understand that that third strand that Carl was talking about where he and I agree that third strand is inextricably linked to the second strand in the first strand in the minds of the Russians so when he went go ahead now in the minds of Putin don't say that Putin and the Russians are necessarily the same same things I I've been involved with Russia intensely since the early 90s I made a lot of friends I worked very closely together with two Russian foreign minister I still consider my friends and one of their minds still in contact with and and in the Balkans we work constructively with them um I have to say that all of my friends from those years are either dead killed murdered imprisoned or outside of Russia it was where Russians that wanted the same thing as the ukrainians they wanted constitutional government in their country they wanted sort of decent living standards they wanted free speech they wanted some sort of democracy might not have been Swedish standards but Putin has a security regime that is different and he has faced demonstrations in Russia that he fights with violence after he returned to power and he's seen quality revolutions as a threat against the extreme that's why I'm saying in that particular respect is right it considers the college revolutions democracy in other parts of the former Soviet Union as a threat to his regime but that to be precise it's not something that invented by me or by American politicians that is demands coming from the people in these countries themselves democracy it's called can I just quick go back oh yeah I hope you don't mind us going back and forth I mean this fits together neatly uh I think that if you talk about Russian Elites regarding the issue that we're talking about tonight the question is how do the Russian Elites think about bringing Ukraine into NATO and you might think from listening to Carl talk that there's disagreement among the Russian Elites I do not believe that's the case and Bill Burns who is now the head of the CIA he's now the head of the CIA and he was the U.S ambassador to Moscow at the time of the Bucharest NATO Summit in April 2008 wrote a famous memo to Condoleezza Rice where he said for the entire Russian Elite not just Putin Ukraine in NATO is the brightest of red lines he said I've talked to all of the knuckle draggers in the depths of the Kremlin and he said I've talked to Putin's most Ardent liberal critics and they all agreed to a person that Ukraine in NATO is unacceptable so on that particular issue which is the issue on the table this evening there is unanimity this is why Carl I would say that you know if Putin is overthrown you're not going to get somebody in there who is interested in cutting a deal and living with Ukraine and NATO you'll get somebody who's probably more hawkish than Ukraine or at least as hawkish but where is the Ukrainian people in your analysis because the Ukrainian population in 2014 was divided on the issue but as a result of what has happened in Ukraine over the past eight years more and more ukrainians also russian-speaking ukrainians are kind of rallying around Kiev and from February of this year when The Invasion took place a number of powerful ukrainians who have been more likely to support Moscow rallied around the flag how do you explain that well anytime a foreign country invades your country you're going to have a rally around the flag effect nationalism is going to kick in big time I think there's no question that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has fueled Ukrainian nationalism and it has brought the Ukrainian people together I wouldn't deny that for one second but didn't Putin take that into account yes I'm sure he did how look Putin felt for certain that he was in a desperate situation I mean invading Ukraine is a matter of huge consequence he you just don't do that lightly you have to feel that there is a serious security threat because you might not know to what extent the United States and its European allies are going to come into the fight but you know the United States is likely to come into the fight you know how powerful the United States is Putin was fully aware he can document this that the ukrainians were being armed and trained by the west and were reasonably formidable so for him to do that he had to be desperate this is my point about using nuclear weapons you do not want to underestimate the risks that great powers are willing to take when they are desperate and I believe that his attack against Ukraine in February 24th was an act of desperation it was not an attempt to create a Russian Empire because in an interview in the newer New Yorker in February you said that in your view Putin was not going to try to build a greater Russia he was not interested in conquering and integrating Ukraine into Russia you suggested that we invented the story that Putin is aggressive and responsible for the situation now then in November you said Putin's goal have escalated since the war started on February 24th and he is now interested in conquering territory by annexing for all blasts in the East now most analysts believe the opposite is the case that Putin's goal were much more ambitious at the outset of the war but he failed time and time again the Ukrainian pushback took the Russians by surprise the closing of ranks in Europe and NATO has been unprecedented since 2001 and how do you explain that a war has gone so badly for Russia has led Putin to escalate his goals look there's no question that when a war breaks out and I could walk you through some of the big Wars of history that you get escalation in terms of goals and you get escalation in terms of the means or the strategies or the Weaponry that's used I mean you could get nuclear escalation you get an escalation now where the Russians are attacking the electrical Grid in Ukraine so there has been significant escalation in terms of means and there has been significant escalation in terms of Russian goals the question on the table that we've been debating up to now is what were Russian goals before the war and as I'm arguing throughout the evening there is no evidence that the Russians were bent on conquering territory the Russians went to Great length to make the mints II framework work because the Russians did not want the Don Bass they wanted a mint to solution it's when the men's 2 solution clearly had failed by February of this year that he invaded comments through that or no go go back slightly in history because it's not entirely uninteresting the history we we do agree with that when the entire crisis started in the most acute phase 2013 2014. Ukraine had neutrality in his Constitution because they recognized in 2008 that NATO was not going to happen neutrality was part of their constitution when Putin invaded and took first Crimea and then to take all of the southeast as he called it and eventually was forced to send in the Russia regular army in order to secure parts of donbass neutrality was in the constitution of Ukraine we should have recognized it but why should we recognize it it was they in their constitution and I remember I I saw selinski for the first time before he was elected president in the beginning of his presidential campaign I asked him about NATO and he said it's not an issue I'm not going to mention it it's not an issue it wasn't part of his platform even and I mean after becoming a president he reached out to Russia I mean he's a he's a Russian speaker is a Jew who Putin has now described as a Neo-Nazi and drug addict so it's the history is sort of and you said we arm them we didn't arm them um we didn't provide them we did training correct we did even Sweden did training we we trained there in between the Army in medical things primarily for different peacekeeping operations they were part of you in peacekeeping operations and and we helped them for training with that we did not provide them with any orbs Obama refused that consistently American reviews it consistently Trump eventually did gave them some anti-tank Javelin missiles anti-tank missiles and to be precise he stored them in the west of the country they were not even allowed to give them to the soldiers they were stored in the west of the country not even given to the soldiers anti-tank missiles how on Earth could it be an existential threat to the second biggest army in the world that the Russians had um so if you go to this there's nothing in this particular story and the entire NATO expansion just to go into the military aspect of it um if we sort of deal with Native thing up to 2004 was the expansion Poland in those countries long time ago by now but there was no NATO infrastructure there was no troops whatsoever movie is nothing nothing nothing with the exception of Two fighter aircraft in the Baltic States during our policing as a reaction to 9 11. it was only and as a matter of fact 2000 and all of the countries were taking it out of the defense expenditure in the west 2013 the Americans took away their lost their very lost battle tank from Europe we were all going down we're doing nothing whatsoever then came Crimea then came his passion on Ukraine then Cameron over Russia then came the invasions of 2014 then NATO started to give forces to the countries in the East because they said we are afraid we don't know what the man is up to but prior to that neutrality was in the constitution of Ukraine and there were no native forces whatsoever in the new member States since 2004. so where is the existential threat but there was no one there I was going to invade and and take down the Kremlin well it doesn't have to be an existential threat today this could be bringing Ukraine into NATO could be a stepping stone to Bringing yeah Putin was desperate uh when he launched The Invasion despite about what I mean it was not that I mean diplomatic reporting newspapers though no one talking about anything whatsoever except the fact that the donbass issue was on resolved 14 people 14 000 people died we should not forget that in the fighting in donbass uh but it was no threat to Russia in February of this year none whatsoever there is no justification whatsoever for The Invasion look you're talking about bringing a military Alliance that was a military foe right it was a it was a fall of the Soviet Union and you're talking to that taking that military Alliance and bringing it up to Russia's doors I I I I I'm sorry on but I think you and Putin are the only ones in the world who believe that Putin that NATO was going to allow Ukraine in February of this year there's no one else but how can you argue allow Ukraine to be a member of NATO it was not on the table it was on the table it was a it was becoming a de facto member of NATO and we had redoubled our commitment to bringing it into NATO we had no forces there they were you don't need forces there we didn't have forces in Poland and we brought Poland into NATO John and now Finland is going into NATO Estonia has been remembered Norway is a member of NATO but what is that going to do to the Russians it's going to scare the Russians even more one final question okay it is another threat to us and John sorry yeah now I cut now one final question because in 2008 when Putin went to the bucharesti meeting and said this is a red line the situation was far away from the Cold War at the time Russian ships were participating in a NATO operation in the Mediterranean there was no threat comparable to that during the Cold War now I want to bring us up to now because and I want uh both of you to answer to this but I want to start with you Carl because for Europe February of this year was a watershed in terms of how real related to Ukraine and to Russia until that point dialogue had kind of been the name of the game to bring the the troubles in in Ukraine to a halt and even after 2014 Germany and France participated in the Minsk agreement to bring the conflict to a halt through diplomatic negotiations but now we are in a very different situation in Europe many European countries including Norway and Sweden are outright declining the prospect of negotiating with Russia particularly after the annexation of the four oblasts the new European Mantra seems to be the battlefield must first exhaust its potential now what does this say about the prospects for getting this war to some type of halt and you said so in your intervention that there are two principles for European Security today first aggression will never be tolerated second borders must be respected new they cannot be altered by force now you are saying that we will not negotiate nobody will negotiate in Europe or allow negotiations before Ukrainian territory has been reconquered is this what you are saying or what other type of precedent can Europe accept because this will set a precedent for security in Europe for decades to come it certainly will and it's of course not for Norway or Sweden to negotiate with Russia uh any sort of Peace if that was to come we'll have to be between Ukraine and Russia so he's up to the ukrainians to Define borders can be changed I said borders can't be changed by force they can be changed with agreement but ukrainians are very determined to keep that territory that's not entirely unique if you go in European history I mean there are very few people a few Nations that are prepared to give away that territory to someone else who is invading them they fight for their freedom and I think the ukrainians will fight for their freedom and we will support them and why do we support them well we support them because first Russia is a regressor and secondly because of these principles are at stake if if we sort of allow Russia to change borders by force and by aggression against Ukraine we don't know what's going to be the continuation I don't think necessarily they're going to evade Sweden tomorrow but the fact that defense the day of tomorrow the day after February 24th every single thing thought about one thing 1939 installed in attack and they said we can no longer be safe without going into NATO so I agree with you and I think we agree on that prospects for peace are at the moment fairly Bleak it will be decided on the battlefield at some point in time diplomacy will come but I will certainly give my support to Ukraine fighting for its freedom and Independence does this look different in the countries that are closer to the Russian border and for the countries that are further away from the Russian border it does obviously obviously I mean the um I go to Tallinn go to Riga go to Warsaw uh we go to the news yeah wrongly go to she's now which has now lost all of the electricity because of Russian bombing rightly wrongly they believe they are next that might be wrong but they believe they are next I think you have to be careful though because of the case of Hungary if you would look at Hungary and Poland they have fundamentally different views of how to deal with Russia hungry shares a border with Ukraine as is Poland yeah but not for us and how do you explain that difference that's an East Oregon yeah I think that the polls have a hatred of the Russians that almost knows no bounds and sees the Russians polls tendency the Russians as the font of all evil I think the hungarians have a more circumspect view of the Russian threat so you look then at historical animosity is coming into the equation yeah I think I think we would agree that the Baltic states in Poland given the history but isn't this the problem of Europe because what Putin did in February of this year was basically constitutions that the Europeans have built since the second world war and particularly after 2000 or 1990 and that you have been contributing to vastly was the objective of having institutions in Europe that would prevent war between nations in Europe from ever returning again and at the same time have economic uh cooperation for instance buying every possible drop of gas from Russia that was possible so that Russia would not you know even think about importing the use of military Invasion as a way of pressuring the situation in Europe now these means did not work to prevent Putin from invading Ukraine what now for Europe true we built the Helsinki principles the parish shorter to go back Helsinki principles OC we have ongoing as we speak in lots in Poland a ministerial meeting of the osce lover of Russians are no longer there because they are violated every single part of what was agreed in there was he so they are no longer allowed into that that's a massive failure highly regrettable I mean I spend a lot of my time as foreign minister prior to that even as prime minister trying to engage Russia in cooperation and we did fairly well for why we did fairly well for a while um but things went wrong at some point in time and I dated from the return of it was problematic before I mean there's always been problems I mean happens uh but I dated really from the return of Putin on his third term we see a distinct shift of policy when he tried to build up something that was entirely new and when he tried to squeeze Ukraine into something and then is when from one disaster to the other and I think quite certain that Putin will go down in Russian history as a disaster who has created immense damage to Russia Itself by misreading misunderstanding and mishandling the most important neighbor that Russia could have had that is Ukraine how do you react to this I want to pick up on the question that you asked Carl and your story of what NATO and the West was up to my argument which is consistent with what Cecilia said is that up until the crisis in Ukraine broke out in 2014. okay NATO expansion and EU expansion and the color Revolution is three-pronged strategy was not designed to contain Russia Russia was not seen as a threat it was designed to turn Eastern Europe into a giant zone of Peace it was designed to take those institutions that had done so much to create peace in the west of Europe and moved them Eastward the idea of bringing Ukraine into nato in 2008 was not designed to poke the Russians in the eye or to contain the Russians you might not believe this but Vladimir Putin was invited to the April 2008 Bucharest conference he was not seen as an imperialist up until February 22nd 2014 and that that's why I said once the crisis broke out we had to invent a story that he was an imperialist he took power in 2000 Putin from 2000 to 2014 according to my higher math that's 14 years over those 14 years nobody was arguing that it was an imperialist he all of a sudden overnight became an imperialist after February 22nd because we had to blame him for the crisis we could admit that we caused it but you see we caused it it's the hell of good intentions I believed that you and your friends had good intentions you thought that by spreading these institutions Eastward you would create a giant zone of Peace in Europe but it backfired and it backfired over Ukraine because as Bill Byrne said Ukraine was the brightest of bright red lines we are not going to get it into the bottom of the why the question now is what will happen to Europe going further going forward because the type of deterrent that we thought was going to prevent the return of War institutional building and economic cooperation did not prevent Russia from going to war in fact when we have constructed the institutions in Europe after second world war we have constructed institutions precisely for the objective of preventing States from invading neighboring states with the argument that there is a minority across the border that we need to protect which is exactly what Germany did in 1939 in which by the way is exactly the argument that Putin also used in February of this year after that Russia has withdrawn or been excluded from a number of the organizations that we have in Europe to prevent further conflict we are looking for a decoupling in part economically speaking between Russia and Belarus on the one side and the EU and Western Europe on the other what are going to be the deterrent mechanisms preventing further conflict going forward in Europe that we don't know uh but you are correct they are de facto no longer part of the we see they have the fact to left they have left the Council of Europe which of course has to do primarily with human rights the Democracy which they're not very much in favor of um they have left a lot of economic cooperation they cut the gas supply new is not that EU has any sanctions on gas from Russia as of yet it is a Russia that is cut in order to influence the politics of the European countries where do we go in the future we don't know but as I said I don't know where Russia is going to be a couple of years from now I don't think Mr Putin is going to be there I feel certain he's not going to be there it could be chaos in conflict in the country you can see the so-called power vertical that he's been running the country on I think that will disappear I think you would have different interests in Russia fighting it out I think he will be very quite chaotic the time of troubles to take a phrase out of Russian history will come back will there be an even more militaristic regime for a while could be but I don't think it's going to survive very long will there be more normal forces asserting themselves as I said even Alexei navalny been able to stand in a free Affair elections I don't think that's the most likely scenario but I wouldn't exclude that even either Russia is going to face a very very difficult future Ukraine even more but we will help Ukraine to rebuild hopefully to stabilize his democracy hopefully to secure Ukraine because if we don't secure Ukraine we won't get a secure Europe um and then we can't really influence what's going to happen in Russia very much how does the U.S scholar look at this yeah I would actually like to use my time to ask Carl a question uh one thing that strikes me just listening to you talk and I think it's true of a lot of people who I interact with is I place a great emphasis on the nuclear threat I live in fear that this is going to turn into a nuclear war and my argument is that as I said in my formal presentation that the more successful we are we meaning the west and ukrainians the more likely it is that the Russians will use nuclear weapons I'm surprised that you don't see that threat that you don't worry about that I mean you talk about supporting the ukrainians and whipping the Russians right and in a conventional world you can think in an all conventional world you can think in those terms but why aren't you scared like I am that this could spin out of control and we could all get vaporized no no I I I would just care of that I I belong to those that gives a somewhat higher percentage of possibility of him in a desperate situation actually using a nuclear device uh I I don't really talk but because I think the man in a certain situation could be extremely desperate I think that would be the end of the entire thing I think it will collapse internally in Russia if he does that but that's a separate issue but I will not give in to nuclear blackmail because if if we were to do that and said while he's threatening with nuclear weapons as he does so we cave in we give up then be be damned certain he will learn that particular lesson and he will threaten the one or the other others with nuclear weapons and we will give in so giving into nuclear blackmail is highly dangerous and we must not do that we are now trying to American and European diplomacy is doing that building as much as a firewall against the amusing nuclear weapons as we can engaging the Chinese has been doing the last few weeks and the Chinese have been fairly good at saying that we shouldn't tread the nuclear weapons in the way that Putin is doing engaging the Indians and others yeah will that help I don't know but giving into nuclear blackmail I wouldn't do that but the thing is Carl when you're dealing with a rival great power it has thousands of nuclear weapons there are limits to how far you can push against that great power uh you you can't threaten its survival in any way no wouldn't you agree with that I I do agree with that but you're talking you're talking about no no but ask asking Putin to go back and respect the borders of Ukraine is hardly it's a threaten the Survivor it's not that we are threatening to invade Moscow uh that's not going to happen but asking him to go back to February 24th is hardly to threaten the survival of Russia um and if he wants to threat to nuclear weapons by trying to use nuclear weapons to defend the parts of Ukraine that he has already tried to take over I wouldn't give in to nuclear blackmail because I think that would be extremely dangerous he would then use nuclear blackmail on the one issue after the other okay so I don't want to put words in your mouth but basically what you're saying is that you understand that there's a serious risk of nuclear war if we succeed in Ukraine but you're willing to live with that risk no no I I wouldn't use the word nuclear war but a nuclear war involves both usually nuclear weapons I think even if Washington hasn't been explicit but Washington has been very clear that if he sets off a nuke the Americans will not set off a Duke so we'll not get a nuclear war the response will be there but will not be nuclear and there are other ways what will the response be because many people believe that what will happen is if the Russians use nukes nuclear weapons in Ukraine that as Carl says almost everybody agrees we will not retaliate with nuclear weapons yeah okay called a nuclear war but many people believe that what we will do is retaliate with Conventional Weapons against Russian forces then you have a great power War United States versus Russia and April Haynes who is the director of National Intelligence in the United States she told the Senate armed services Committee in the spring of this year that that's the most likely scenario for Putin to use nuclear weapons because if the Russians can't beat the ukrainians on the battlefield you can imagine what will happen when they're up against Godzilla also known as the United States and its allies right so she was hypothesizing I think quite correctly that that's the scenario where that is that that signaling is what's called deterrence that the Americans are making clear rightly so that if he goes nuclear things will happen uh if the Americans were saying instead that if he uses nuclear weapons we don't really care we've got to back off then it would be the end of this particular conflict then Putin will win and they will continue so don't give in to Blue nuke the blackmail I think if he uses nuclear weapons the world will turn against him even more decisively I'm not quite certain that it would be very acceptable in Moscow either I have to say I think it might implode the political regime if it does yeah he's used them now what if we if we uh in one moment expand the perspective Beyond Europe and NATO and Russia and China and look at the rest of the world one of the ways of showing for Russia that Russia is a global power is is permanent seat of the U.N security Council which Russia is is using in order to prove that Russia is a global power and now if Russia were to use nuclear weapons what will happen to the legitimacy of the Russian seat if Russia were to do that because the U.N security Council has had one major task over the past 30 years than it is to prevent nuclear proliferation this is what gathers all the permanent members the one issue where they can agree now if Russia were to use it it would itself exclude Russia from that club wouldn't you say that that would be a major consequence for Russia can we can we it doesn't matter it doesn't matter look States use nuclear weapons pursue extreme strategies that involve using nuclear weapons when they're desperate when they think they face an existential threat and they're losing this was my point to Carl the Carl's advocating a policy that puts the Russians in a position where they're losing and that's a situation where they're likely to use nuclear weapons it's like the Japanese attacking at Pearl Harbor if you've never studied this case you should go read about it the Japanese understood full well that attacking the United States of America in December 1949 was not a good idea in the sense that the United States had 10 times the gross national product of Japan and the United States was capable of building much more formidable military forces and ultimately crushing Japan nevertheless the Japanese attacked at Pearl Harbor because we were strangling the Japanese we had cut off scrap iron in 1940 we'd cut off oil in 1941 they were highly dependent on on Imports of scrap iron and oil from the United States their economy was in desperate Straits and we just kept squeezing and squeezing they thought their survival as a great power was at stake and therefore they were willing to pursue a risky strategy a highly risky strategy and the kinds of considerations that you're talking about go out the window in situations like that it's not that you're wrong that that would happen to the Russians that they would suffer in terms of how other states perceived them it would have negative consequences for proliferation I don't dispute that my point is that is of minor consideration in a world where you think you're going off the cliff what do you think Carl no um yes go back to sort of the beginning of the war and you say Russia perceive against attention threat and so I think you saw as well probably several times you've seen this sort of uh meeting of the National Security Council on February the 21st when Putin calls in all of the sort of members of the National Security Council and ask them what to do and it was obvious that it wasn't to pre-planned that much and he asked them one after that another he wanted one particular answer we should grab donbass that's the answer he wanted most of them try to avoid giving that answer he had to publicly humiliate his head of external intelligence the man who responsible for donbath said explicitly at that particular meeting that he thought the policy was wrong there was virtually the the Prime Minister looked like he had wanted to disappear from the meeting altogether it was only a couple of them that demonstrated even the Vegas enthusiasm for what they suspected of suddenly saw that Putin was intending to do this was a decision for war driven by President Putin himself it wasn't really supported very much by the Russian security League I agree with you there's certainly no enthusiasm in Moscow for NATO expansion into Ukraine but there was hardly anyone in Moscow who saw that possibility either but there was even less enthusiasts even in the ruling circus in Moscow I would argue for going to war with Ukraine they were forced into it by Putin and you can see it's so vividly clear in that particular meeting that we have the transcript of and that we can see on the video it was a Putin decision driven by I mean if you read all of his speeches and this historical vision and how he says it was a mistake to set up Ukraine and it thoughts propaganda okay no sorry it was Norwegian yeah no he it was evident that so I got lost by particular intervention by this he's a planted agent by me no I he said he's a Norwegian age we come back to the question of Doterra kind of deterrent in the present situation and going forward what are we deterring in your question we are deterring an escalation to a nuclear war we are also deterring future war in Europe because that is not any longer a guarantee that we have because this happened in February of 2022 now I think that from a European perspective Putin this was the sacrilege of Putin because he broke our illusion you might call it a delusion but he was the illusion that war between nations would never return to Europe to the European continent this has been a part of the European exceptionalism and it is now broken where does Europe go from here now what we are doing in terms of the nuclear issue that we're discussing I mean the signaling from the Americans is very clear the signaling from the Chinese and the Indians is equally clear now uh will that be enough we don't know on other issues how do we seek to deter well Sweden Finland are joining NATO because we think that will give us more security that's a conclusion that Norway and Denmark took in the late 1940s I think Norway is highly likely to also increase defense spending nor is increasing its security cooperation with the U.S Germany is substantially reduced increasing defense spending Poland is substantially increasing defense spending is this enough I think I hope it will be enough because sorry to say I think what's going to happen is that we're going to be faced with a fairly weak Russia in the years ahead because I I see I see Russia that would go into when they don't win this war and I don't see them winning this particular War I will see them go into prolonged period of deep trouble but that is a danger in itself an unstable Russia is not a stable neighbor so we need to safeguard ourselves not necessarily against the Russian invading Ireland or the UK or Belgium but Safeguard ourselves against an unpredictable and dangerous regime that has a lot of other evil instruments of power I mean we've seen them using poisonous gas uh in European countries to murder opponents uh it's it's a narcity place I think that uh with regard to your question which is obviously a truly important one Carl and I think about this very differently uh the question of how to create deterrence and prevent nuclear escalation let's just go back to 2014 when the crisis breaks out crisis breaks out in 2014. short question how would you prevent nuclear well I'm I'm going to answer it I'm trying to sort of separate myself from you or differentiate between how we think about this to sort of get my hands around this whole issue because it's a great question these are complicated issues that don't have simple answers but um so let's assume it's 2014. the crisis breaks out as you described it before the Russians take Crimea the question is what do you do then let's take Cecilia's questions that she just asked and apply them in 2014 after the crisis is broken out John's view is you back off right it's clear that you're asking for trouble that you're poking a stick and the Bear's eye and that the bear will eventually lash out and you may end up in a nuclear war I believe and Carl can correct me when I'm done that he would say we should double down which is what we did we doubled down then in 2021 when Joe Biden came into the White House we began to reinforce our commitment to Ukraine it caused all sorts of trouble over the course of 2021 you all remember Russia mobilized its Army was threatening on the borders of Ukraine and then in December December 17th 2021 the Russians sent a letter to stoltenberg and to Biden demanding that Ukraine not become a member of NATO that military forces be moved back to where they were in 1997 and so forth and so on so the question is what do you do then if you if you play this one all over again it's December 17 2021. I said at the time and I'd say now that's where we should have backed off and worked out a deal because otherwise you end up with February 24th right so I think I know what I would have done before February 24th but backing off now almost impossible for me to imagine us backing off now because I'm a minority voice Carl is the majority voice he's not interested in backing off he's interested in doubling down he's interested in winning in Ukraine throttling the Russian economy with sanctions again I'm a hardcore realist I'm an offensive realist I understand of being hard-nosed in international politics but I'm more dovish I think than you when you're dealing with a state that has thousands of nuclear weapons but given the audience has several questions dealing with what kind of scenarios could be realistic for the war in Ukraine to end now given your distinctive uh positions how would you see that what would be a realistic scenario going forward for the war well I agree with Carl there when you ask Carl that question in a slightly different form he basically said it's very hard to figure out where this train is headed I don't know how this one is going to end right I do want to go to Great Lakes to make sure we don't end up getting uh incinerated in a nuclear war but I don't know where it's going to end because what I hear you say also from your intervention is that there is no obvious end to this war because Russia is not going to back down and the ukrainians give the support from Europeans and the US is also not going to back down right I said that in my formal remarks go back to this Russia Putin Putin is not going to back down and that might be a difference I I I think there are a fair number of people in Moscow even in senior positions who would be interested in closing down this war tomorrow would they could would that include Crimea withdrawing from Crimea probably not probably not so then we will be back to where we were but uh prior to sort of February the 24th where we did not have an agreement on Crimea and I think it could take quite some time to get some sort of solution to Crimea but I think the other issues I would not consider it entirely impossible that at some point in time we get the change that sort of they understand in Moscow that what they're heading into into something that's got to be danger for Russia not because we are going to invade Moscow that's not going to happen but it's going to implode and they will try to rescue what can be rescued and go for something that might be acceptable but that will only be possible if we can give and and I think we'll talk about the post Putin it's not going to happen with Putin and it's also going to be dependent us helping to secure and and give a new future to Ukraine because as I said if you don't get a stable Ukraine uh we will not get a stable Europe because then there will be a constant Temptation for I mean if you see some of the loonies that are paraded on Russian television these days they're truly dangerous loonies trading there but we'll give temptation to them but we do not know where this war will and we do not know where Russia will end up what we do know is that there is a movement towards a geopolitical rivalry where you have the UF and China coming back to John's intervention and the U.S Russia now where is Europe in all this in the now where is excuse me where is Europe in that picture because the Rivalry is primarily the dyad between the UF and China on the one hand and you depicted to be the U.S and Russia on the other so it's a tripolar dynamic but where is Europe in that dynamic in that particular Dynamic I mean we are John mentioned the Taiwan issue uh as perhaps the most dangerous one which is really is a very very different issue because it's really unresolve the Civil War from 1949 and and the Chinese want to sort of obey Jing once in some sort of way primarily prevent Taiwan from going independent they would consider that something completely unacceptable so we are distinctly in favor of one China principle we say however defined it somewhat differently and we are in favor of a peaceful resolution to it and we are distinctly against uh trying to resolve that by military means then Europe is not a military power in that part of the world we are trading power we are diplomatic power but we are not a military power with that part of the world yeah yeah uh I think the United States is deeply committed to containing if not uh rolling back Chinese power and that containment strategy has two Dimensions to it one is a military Dimension and the other is an economic Dimension and in terms of the military Dimension the Europeans are going to play hardly any role at all I think we agree on that where the Europeans are going to matter is on the economic front and this is a very tricky issue and they're of course now lots of articles in the media on this subject but the Europeans are going to want to trade extensively with China this is especially true given the negative Economic Consequences of the Ukraine war and it's no accident that early last month the German Chancellor went to Beijing and there's all sorts of evidence the Europeans are thinking about trading more and more with China and of course the Europeans because they have these sophisticated economies with all these sophisticated technologies will trade Technologies with the Chinese which will enrage the Americans the Americans are going to want the Europeans to help Washington throttle the Chinese economy you are not going to have any interest in throttling the Chinese economy you're going to have an interest in enhancing your prosperity facilitating economic growth and that means more trade with Europe so I think there is a potential for significant tension between the United States and Europe over the whole issue of trade between Europe and China now is this not the challenge because we have no good deterrent to prevent war and instability in a more multi-polar world and that means that we are moving over to more hybrid measures now the new U.S uh defense strategy talks about integrated deterrence which is not only military but which is also integrating all other kinds of of domains all the military domains but also sanctions and a number of other institutional measures now how does this look from the perspective of Europe is Europe is the EU ready for that world I think to some extent the Europe is more ready than Americans are in the sense that I said um EU is very much a Hybrid Power if you talk talk about all of the different elements of hybrid Warfare they are elements where there are instruments in the hands of the European Union uh we are not a military power we don't have any armored divisions at all but we coordinate cyber policies we coordinate trade policies we coordinate migration policies to a certain extent not always a domestic success has to be said we coordinate uh security sort of domestic security Affairs that sort of thing that is necessary in order to meet hybrid threats we have I think more instruments than the Americans have for obvious reasons because the U.S continent has not been fake as you said you live in peace with the Canadians and the Mexicans uh while we have been uh exposed to these sorts of hybrid things and accordingly have more instruments so you think that Europe is well equipped I wonder why it's well equipped I mean shouldn't but but we are better equipped and we are equipping ourselves uh that I would argue but what do you think of my argument that the Europeans are going to trade with the Chinese in ways that's going to anger The Americans are we were going to trade with Chinese we do or also the Americans do America American yes exports you know what I'm saying here high technology yeah on high tech there's an element of tension sometimes uh we have this sort of Chip restrictions that came in the beginning of October that affects a couple of European companies that are less happy there will be talks as a matter of fact on Tuesday uh in Washington in the traded Technology Council and see if we can sort out these issues yeah yeah uh we have a trade relationship across the Atlantic that is not without its tensions growing tensions at the moment growing tensions due to certain protectionist tendencies in American politics but we normally thought them out um the relationship across the Atlantic uh we are allies whatever that means but that doesn't mean that we are 100 of the same view all the time never been the case uh not now either and and of course the difference I would say the the fundamental difference between the European View and American view on China is that for the us correct me if you think I'm exaggerating but for the U.S it's a fear of what I call 1870 um 1870 was when U.S replaced Britain as the dominating power in the world in terms of economy and there was consequences coming out of that and and Americans of course fear that an increasingly economically powerful China will over time replace the Americans replace U.S is the dominant power in the world I think that's grossly exaggerated I don't think it will happen but there's no question that that is driving a lot of the fears in American politics yeah but you know I think that you are right that that is the great fear that they will the Chinese will overtake us the United States and I also agree that it is probably greatly exaggerated but this this gets to my earlier point that you never want to underestimate the extent to which great Powers assume worst case assumptions or make worst case assumptions about the other side so when you bring NATO up to Russia's borders even if there are no military forces American military forces on Ukraine's territory and even if it's going to take a long time for Ukraine to become a member of NATO from a Russian point of view they assume worst case and they get really scared because it's a security issue and the same thing is true with the Americans looking at China the Americans are scared stiff she pointed out that China is going to overtake them and great powers are just they get very nervous they get very antsy and then they pursue risky strategies that's the point I've tried to drive home here but I mean there's no quite the same thing but I'm in Norway as a border with Russia Norwegian Force which is very close to Mormons which is the most yes density's concentration of nuclear military power that's been fairly okay uh since the 1940s I don't think the Russians were particularly happy about Russia about Norway joining NATO they were not but his work Estonia is a member of NATO that is very close to Saint Petersburg I mean the the Border City of narva is closer to Saint Peters than to Tallinn um they live fairly harmoniously together that is not a threat it works but don't you see geopolitics leading to an escalation of tensions in the Arctic and in the north doesn't the fact that the Cold War was a bipolar situation that was relatively stable we are now in a situation that is fairly unstable because we do not know exactly where we are heading and we have major states that are uncertain about the capabilities and the intentions of the others and that brings us into a very dangerous territory it does but but but but the Arctic is essentially not another thing and that is of course the fact that the ice is receding and that means that for example now if you want to go with north of Siberia you can't go without the help of the Russians simply not doable um 20 30 years down the road 40 50 years down the road you might have a lot of commercial traffic going to the north of Siberia and that will invite a lot of legal and political issues be that rivalry be something else I don't think war is going to break out in the Arctic but we're going to face a number of new questions primarily as a result of climate change I would argue but that is also more urgent because we have climate cooperation among the major Nations how does the geopolitical Rivalry influence our ability to move forward and climate if you look at what has happened over the past 10 months they didn't it didn't vary optimistic would you say no I wouldn't although Russia was never a big play on global climate they should have been because they're going to be profoundly affected by it and it taken them a long time to understand that that's got to be the case China is a was the big one India to a certain extent we have I think is 28 to 29 percent of global emissions all from China and even if they are leaders in Lord of the Renewables and other things now they're also the leaders in Coal emissions which is the most dangerous thing so um one of the good things that came out of the meeting between Biden XI Xin ping in Bali was that they restarted the climate dialogue and the president of the European Council is invading today in order to discuss primarily we start in the climate dialogue with the Chinese Russia different thing but we know that war is a very varied detrimental activity for climate and for a focus on climate issues the emissions in Europe have certainly taken a different uh Road and so has the situation with coal in Asia and so forth so this is having very detrimental effects both on emissions but also on the economies that we need to turn it around so there are certainly some very unfortunate consequences for for for climate in the short to midterm I think to get in agreement on climate uh and to get agreements on how to deal with pandemics and to get arms control agreements unique cooperation among the great powers in the system the most powerful states as we remember we shut down proliferation in the second half of the Cold War because the United States and the Soviet Union decided to create the npt the nuclear suppliers group and so forth and so on the great Powers have to cooperate there's no question about that the problem that we face today is twofold first of all they're not two great powers in the system like there were during the Cold War there's not one great power which is really the ideal situation like there was in the unipolar moment there are three great powers second problem is a young woman named Eliza George who wrote A article on proliferation during the Cold War and her argument is the more intense the security competition between great Powers the less likely it is you'll get cooperation on proliferation and assorted issues because the great Powers really don't want to cooperate they want to contest each other and she shows that you got very little cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union on the nuclear proliferation front in the Hat first half of the Cold War it was with the coming of day taunt where you've got cooperation between more cooperation between the United States and the Soviets that led to cooperation on the proliferation front anyway all this is to say when you look at the fact that we have three great powers that you have to coordinate and that you have an intense security competition in East Asia between the United States and China you have an intense security competition almost a war between the United States and Russia and Europe it's no accident ladies and gentlemen the Xi Jinping recently told John Kerry that he was not interested in cooperating on climate and it's no accident that the Russians have just made it clear that they're not that interested in cooperating on arms control with the United States so I think we're going to have a lot of trouble garnering copyright cooperation on this set of issues moving forward because of the change in the structure of the system moving to multi-polarity and the intensity the Cooper of the competition do you share this well I do I think we are back in climate talk with the Chinese that's a good thing but otherwise I I share I mean the the achievement of the Cold War if what might use that particular word was that after off after both the Russians and the Americans the Americans first of the Russians I would hire went for whatever thirty thousand nukes each huge quantities they both said this is insane they phrased it somewhat differently perhaps and agreed on a framework for strategic arms limitation that's taking them down to two three thousand deployed Warriors huge huge difference um and whether that can now be maintained remains to be seen I agree that this becomes and then we had sort of the bits and the French and others but very small numbers of nukes so the Americans the Russian agreed we don't doesn't really affect the balance now the Pentagon report out the other day say that they estimate is that the Chinese are going to Google for 1500 Warheads now that changed the equation fundamentally and whether they can adjust a two-party thing with two three thousand Warheads these and weighing in 1500 Chinese becomes virtually impossible because if you are American you say we need to deter both the Russians and the Chinese so we need to both deter 2000 Russia warheads and 1500 Chinese Warheads that we can't do that with two thousand American warheads and you could do that equation from the Chinese side and do the education from the Russian side this is going to be very very destabilizing in the years ahead yeah and the Americans pulled out of the INF treaty we remember the INF pretty well which was where we basically eliminated medium range nuclear weap nuclear missiles because Russians violated it but what the Americans but we we would have pulled out anyway because the Chinese are building medium-range missiles and we wanted to be able to build medium-range missiles to combat the Chinese yeah but the yeah okay but this is the issue of parity isn't it that when there is a is a third party increasing its stockpile you either go out and everybody has no restriction questions or everybody goes into a new agreement which restricts all three of them gets complicated gets complicated is there a prospect for that type of agreement in the next couple of or short to mid term do you see between the US the Russians and the Chinese on limiting I think a nuclear I think the key getting back to my earlier point about the Eliza Georgia argument it all depends on the intensity of the competition the problem is that we have in East Asia today an intense security competition already between the United States and the Chinese and we have an intense security competition for sure between the Russians and the Americans right and garnering a meaningful you know sort of agreement on an issue like arms control or proliferation or or climate I think this is going to be very tough with that competition I don't disagree I I still think that over time it might be possible but then and the reason for that is self-interest because Decision magazine Washington in Moscow and in Beijing knows that an all-out nuclear war is the end of it and and accordingly there is at the end of it the self-interest in having some sort of moderating agreement can I then again ask you about the rest of the world because if you zoom out and you look at the reactions from medium or Regional Powers such as Brazil South Africa Nigeria Thailand Saudi Arabia and so forth they had most of them as you said 141 said we do not accept this aggression that Russia made towards Ukraine but after some time quite a lot of them were not willing to go along with excluding Russia from various International institutions and there is this interest it seems in the global South to kind of stop or at least to reduce the tensions between the great Powers because they are also suffering quite heavily from this increasing uh rivalry between the great ones how can they play into this equation quite a lot of humanity is actually living in these countries can they have a positive influence on this well as you say I mean they they are deeply concerned and they was effective I mean we've seen food prices go down somewhat we see the energy prices all affects them negatively we see the economic effects that is to the detriment of these countries as a result of the war so they have an interest of course in stopping the war we all have an interest in stopping the war um most of the countries of the global South voted with us on those resolutions including by the way Indonesia Brazil Thailand and those somewhere on the fence because they think they can play a role in between will they be able to do that Chinese or Indians remains to be seen so far notes the Russians have been fairly dismissive so far of attempts we have at the moment we have the Emirates in the Saudis trying to do it the only ones who've been able to do some mediation grain deal and some precedence exchanges have been the Turk so far so there's a role for some powers in order to be able to engineer some partly important agreements but uh I don't think they will settle the war so I'd say yeah I think that in the west uh we believe that there are good guys and bad guys in the International System and we're the good guys and the Russians are the bad guys and what we expect is for countries outside of the West to see this conflict through the same lens that we see it and we expect them to view the United States and its European and East Asian allies as the good guys we occupy the moral High Ground in our story I think if you get outside of the West there are very few people who accept that argument and there are many people who think that the United States is a thuggish state who think quite correctly that the United States is a ruthless great power if you're a Norwegian it's easy given the circumstances that exist in Europe for you to think the United States is a wonderful Ally but there are many countries around the world where that is not the first thought that comes to their mind when they think about the United States but if we look at the world today the numbers from upthala in Sweden and the the peace Research Institute in Oslo indicate that the number of armed conflicts in the world has never been as high since the second world war from 2018 up until today now they are low-scale simmering conflicts but they can escalate they can quite easily escalate many of them depend on International institutions assistance and even the U.N security Council what will happen if this going forward will kind of bring the UN Security Council back to a stallmate as we saw during the previous great rivalry between two superpowers you talk about the UN Security Council like it's a separate entity like it's a big God up in the sky the U.N security Council is comprised of a handful of powerful states and in particular three great powers and it's not what the UN Security Council will do it's what those great Powers will do and the argument I was making over the past 10 or so minutes was it's going to be hard to get those three great powers and the French and the British as well to coordinate their efforts to deal with issues like proliferation and so forth and so on it's also going to be hard to get him to help shut down potential conflicts and in fact given what we experienced in the Cold War the old Cold War I think that the great Powers may try to exacerbate those vocal conflicts around the world to take advantage of the situation and hurt the other great power do you share this view of the U.N security Council well I mean the Security Council is essentially the five permanent members and then you add a couple of others that are there for the time being we should not forget that the security Council was essentially blocked statement during the entire Cold War period I mean it was a Soviet fee to occasionally American V2 all the time he couldn't do anything on the major conflicts of that day then we had what John called the unipolar movement um 90s and some years after that when it was possible to get agreement in the security Council and I actually do things I mean significant things were done in that particular period in agreement between the Americans and the Europeans and America and and the Russians and the Chinese it moved forward and now we are back to situation where on the big issues of the day Russia Ukraine to take that one complete stalemate and completely blocked and that of course is to the detriment so far they have been able to get agreements on a couple of other things but there's no question that we go back to far more difficult period for the multilateral cooperation that particularly we Europeans less Americans has to be said but particularly we Europeans considered to essential in order to address the climate or health or the different Global challenges that we are facing we do have an element still of cooperation although that's probably gone by now on on the Iran nuclear dose here which is one of the dangerous ones that we have on the horizon as well but doesn't exactly the the gcpoa with Iran illustrate that the climate for cooperation is very very different now compared to what it was only seven years ago at the global level when the prominent members of the U.N security Council including the Germans were involved in in negotiations with Iran in order to prevent proliferation of of nuclear weapons and they made that in 2015 and after Biden came in and said we're going to go back into that agreement that is impossible to bring to a close although in all fairness that particular issue has of course been messed up profoundly by Washington primarily Trump but also the Biden didn't go back into it as soon as he should have done in my opinion but in the situation of global rivalry there can be many reasons for the mess up absolutely yeah just on that and I agree with what you said about the United States messing it up it'll be very interesting to see if the Iranians really do go down the nuclear Road and go beyond significant enrichment to actually developing a bomb what the Russians will do because five years ago 10 years ago the Russians would have jumped in and worked with the United States to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons I'm not sure that would be the case moving forward I mean this is part of the negative Fallout that you get from you know the U.S Ukrainian conflict U.S Russian conflict over Ukraine so what you are saying what I'm hearing from both of you and now you are going to prepare your closing remarks is that the world is heading for a kind of try trouble Troublesome water Beyond also the war in Ukraine we don't know where that is heading and it doesn't really have a very obvious end but whatever it will be it will have major consequences for the security of Europe in addition we are heading for a world where Global rivalry is growing and the global institutions are not really very well set up to tackle those huge challenges ahead is that what I'm hearing you say it's a gloomy picture I think that's fair to say and here I now invite you for your closing remarks well but you already delivered this was the moderators um privilege so I invite you Carl to give a couple of Reflections at the end which will be I feel somewhat repetitive um as I said this particular war and sort of sorry to be several preoccupied with it but we we are sitting in Europe and this is the by far biggest war that we've had since 1945. it's got to have consequences for decades to come and how we get out of it remains to be seen it is Mr Putin's War I don't because it is Russia's War I think it's Putin's war and we need to look into a future where we can both as I said secure and help Ukraine because Ukraine is a big country it's the second biggest country in Europe after Russia and if you take that enormous landmass that is Ukraine and if you have instability and divisions and conflict over that one I think it don't it will not be possible to have stability in the rest of Europe so sick defend against securing Ukraine is the basic condition for us having stability in Europe in the years to come the second is as I've said several times is let's see what happens with Russia um I think Putin is going to down in history is the man who created um ah he's going to go down in history as a man who created enormous damage to his own country and its prospect it's 140 million people huge natural resources huge human Talent um they could do something but instead they are engaging in large-scale war they are being subject to as we said sanction other things it is unavoidable that they will sink down in the League of Nations in every single respect with the social and political and economic consequences for those 140 billion people it's not going to end well and that's not going to end particularly well for Europe as whole we need to reinforce the cooperation that we have in Europe in order to handle security and other threats that we'd be a stronger NATO with Sweden and Finland I would believe and there will be a stronger cooperation between the European Union and NATO and I hope that the Americans for all of their preoccupation with China will stay engaged on this part of the on this side of that language as well I think they will although their main focus is going to be in China then we need also to look at what's going to be the consequences of the rise of China they are not invading any other countries for the time being and haven't done it lately the Taiwan issue should be handled with extreme care I can be worried about some of the Tendencies I see both from the Chinese side and from the American side that could sort of lead to tensions I am moderately hopeful that that will be possible and then I would hope that we would be able to while we handle the war in Europe that we will be able to focus also attention on all of the global challenges that we have the pandemic is still there and there could be another one around the corner climate change with all of the consequences is distinctly there and must be handled migration pressures Africa there's an abundance of issues that needs to to be had but the war has to be their number one priority for the Europeans because that's for the security that's the security of Sweden Norway not only the security of Ukraine as we move ahead Carl and I obviously have differences about what caused the Ukraine war and I don't want to focus on that in my closing comments I want to focus on moving forward and I had to think about Russia in the years ahead uh I think that he and I have a fundamentally different view on how to deal with Russia and that is Carl believes that being tough with the Russians teaching them a lesson and winning back Ukrainian territory is the way to go whereas I tend to think that being tough with the Russians is a mistake and and I think that you want to remember that if this turns out to be a disastrous policy for the Russians as Carl said it will be uh they're still going to be there you're still going to be there they're not going away and they're still going to be quite powerful this is a really big country with a lot of people a lot of human capital many nuclear weapons and you want to ask yourself what are you humiliated and weakened Russia is going to do and this is what the question you want to ask yourself uh it's kind of the question that the Europeans and the Americans faced after World War one with Germany what do you do with Germany do you humiliate Germany right do you try to rehabilitate it how do you think about dealing with Germany right this is the question that you want to think about my view is that backing off and trying to work out some sort of motives for vendai is not a really great solution but it's better than Carl's solution right my view is that you want to do everything you can to remove those incentives the Russians will have to to cause trouble in the rest of Europe you want to understand that if you back the Russians into a corner and you humiliate them they're not going to roll over and play dead let me just go to the Western Hemisphere you know we have the Monroe Doctrine I had meant to talk about that this evening but I didn't we have the Monroe Doctrine and that says that no distant great power is allowed in the Western Hemisphere with military forces you you not bring military forces into the Western Hemisphere if you're China or the Soviet Union or Germany or Japan and you cannot form a military alliance with anybody in the Western Hemisphere if China were to form a military alliance with Canada and Mexico we would go ballistic now the case you want to remember that proves this is the Cuban Missile Crisis right the Soviets put missiles in Cuba and we had this crisis and Kennedy and Khrushchev cut a deal and the missiles were removed we still have sanctions on Cuba to this day we still have our gun sights on Cuba we have not forgotten right we we remember right great Powers don't forget so you want to understand that if you box Russia in and you treat it like a pariah and you weaken it they're going to be looking for ways to cause you lots of trouble these fins and these swedes who think that joining NATO is a really good thing I don't know about that I don't think the Russian threat is that great the Russian conventional threat right and I think you're giving the Russians all sorts of incentives to cause you trouble so my bottom line moving forward and this is hard for a realist to say but I'll say it if anything what we ought to do moving forward is try to back off as much as possible with the Russians and work out some sort of motives of endai that's certainly in your interest and then it's in your interest but not in our interest for you to trade with the Chinese and become richer and richer thank you yeah so thank you very much to Carl and to John for fierce positions and provocative statements and the good manners of identifying where you actually agree thank you for a very thoughtful and somewhat somber debate thank you thank you well done can we have can we have a photo oh sure sure [Music] foreign foreign foreign

Channel: Holberg Prize

Views: 773,083

Keywords: Humanities, Social Sciences, Holberg Prize, Award, Research, Lecture, University, Holberg Debate, Ukraine, Russia, China, NATO, Europe, War, Global security, International relations

Id: _aNMOEQ0248

Length: 165min 20sec (9920 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 01 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Abject_League3131]

"Putin doesn't lie" ~ John Mearsheimer

[u/Ramboxious]

Check out the youtube comment section for some grade A copium

[u/[deleted]]

Man this debate sucks. Where are the orbiters that randomly interject any devolve the debate? Hope the mainstream catches up to Destiny soon.