What Putin's defeat could mean for the West | Ivo Daalder

hello it's James here sorry to interrupt today's episode of Frontline we'll be right back in just a moment but I wanted to tell you about a very exciting new channel it's called history undone with me James Hansen and if you love Frontline I have a feeling you're going to absolutely love this each episode we go back to an iconic moment in history and replay it in other words asking ourselves what the long-term consequences would have been had certain key factors played out differently for the first episode we are rewinding the clock 80 years to the 6th of June 1944 Operation Overlord D-Day and in particular the landing on Omaha Beach we're going to put a link to the channel in the description of this video please do like share and subscribe and join us for history undone that defeat uh of Russia uh which is already very costly 500,000 uh uh casualties according to the British mod uh on the Russian side um uh to that defeat is important because without that defeat our security will be less uh than it is today hello and welcome to Frontline for times radio with Me Kate chabo and this time we're joined by Evo doer US ambassador to Nato from 2009 to 2013 Ambassador dder was also a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings institution and was director for European Affairs on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council he's now CEO of the Chicago Council on global Affairs author of many books and has his own we weekly podcast World review with EVO doer Evo doer welcome to Front Line great to see you let's start with President Biden's comments to Time Magazine over Ukraine joining NATO and he said I am not prepared to support the NATO isation of Ukraine and then he also said Peace doesn't mean NATO what's your reaction to that uh well the President Biden has made very clear that this is not the time for uh Ukraine to uh to be brought into NATO there's an active war going on uh if if if Ukraine were to join NATO today that would mean uh under under the collective security agreement and commitment that is inherent in the treaty in article five of the treaty that NATO will be at war with Russia and one of the guide posts that President Biden has laid down but frankly all of NATO governments have laid down is we will support uh Ukraine in every way we can except directly getting involved in the War uh so I think that is first and foremost a a message that he has uh made I know privately to president zalinski and and publicly uh that this is not the time for Ukraine to join NATO uh I do believe however uh that ultimately uh this conflict will not end uh until there is a um an understanding that Ukraine is safe and secure from Russian aggression and the best way to do that uh we have found over the last 75 years is to be a member uh of a military Alliance uh like NATO the more secure Ukraine is which it would be as UK as a member of NATO the less likely it is that Russia will be a threat uh to Ukraine and in the long term uh the President Biden and indeed all NATO leaders have agreed that not only that Ukraine will be a member of NATO but also that its future is in NATO that's not going to change and I don't think that will uh he he implied or S sought to imply that that wasn't going to be the case so um for president zelinski membership of NATO can't come soon enough uh when Biden says uh peace doesn't mean NATO I mean it's being interpreted in different in different ways one that he's saying okay it's not coming anytime soon or or that a peace deal seeding territory to Russia thereby freezing the conflict is no longer a way to become a member of NATO that that is off the table H how do you see it yeah I so I don't quite know I mean I wasn't there in the president uh I I haven't talked to him about this uh in these details for well not since he was a vice president uh you know he he has he is someone who who believes that if you're going to be a member of NATO then then you need to be willing to defend uh that country and right now uh given the situation that exists uh the United States has made very clear and all NATO members have made very clear that they're not prepared to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression they're prepared to do everything short of that provide arms provide intelligence provide training uh provide uh support for a long-term uh uh capability of the of the ukrainians to defend themselves and after a war to deter a Russian attack um but not at the moment to get directly involved I think that's really what he's saying the question of how peace or you know an end of the war will come about is is something that uh the administration and and President Biden himself has said is for the ukrainians to decide it's not for us to decide um you know personally I believe that you won't get to an end of the war an end of a true peace uh without uh Ukraine feeling secure which is something that it can only do by being a part of NATO uh and therefore tell the Russians that further military aggression just won't pay uh we're not there yet how do you make Russia understand that further military aggression just won't pay well for now uh by by doing everything we can to support Ukraine in in its ability to defend itself and when I say everything I mean everything short of a direct military engagement by uh by us and and NATO forces uh I was glad to see that President Biden has now uh finally allowed uh Ukraine to defend itself by targeting Russian forces that are directly attacking uh Ukraine from uh uh from their territory I would like to extend that uh to uh any military Target that is directly or even indirectly uh related to Russia's capacity to continue its aggression against uh against Ukraine I I do think that we should raise the priority uh generally speaking in terms of what kind of weapons and capabilities we have and should be shipping to uh to Ukraine uh you know I note that when Israel was attacked in the largest missile attack and drone attack any country has uh uh suffered in a single day from Iran that the United States and Britain and France and indeed Jordan uh actively help to defend uh uh Israel against that attack uh I would like to see that capability uh sent to the ukrainians they have lost half of their power generating capab capacity in part because they don't have enough uh air defense systems to defend their cities and their power generation capacity uh so there's more we can do we've done awful lot uh no country has received as much weapons uh and as much intelligence and as much training uh from uh NATO countries led by the United States but Britain and and and and Germany and others as well um H but I think we can still do more the Germans could send long range missiles the tourist missile uh we could spend more long range missiles and air defense systems um and I think that's uh that's where we need to go because that will convince Russia that it can't outweigh either the ukrainians or the United States or NATO and at that point the Russians will have to rethink uh what they're all about and in terms of what is at stake here um President Biden did say the West has a duty to defend keev from falling to Russia Russia as it would quickly see Poland and other bordering Nations go down too he said but Putin came back and said he made this rare appearance before foreign journalists he dismissed imperialist Ambitions and the idea of attacking NATO why would he say that now well he's uh he's trying to uh prevent uh and deter uh the United States and NATO allies from continuing to Pro to uh provide assistance uh to Ukraine he's trying to tell them you do that you may risk a war with Russia and no one wants that uh uh so just as we are trying to help Ukraine defend itself and ultimately deter Russia from continuing uh uh the fight uh Russia is trying to do the same thing I do note however that the president uh on uh on D-Day in Normandy made probably the strongest case yet uh of the importance of Ukraine to Global Security uh and not just making sure that Ukraine which is defending Freedom against the kind of uh domination that we saw and and we're fighting against uh in in World War II uh that Victory uh in World War II is now at stake because uh the Russians are um are are on the march in Ukraine uh he's made that uh that commitment and I think that's the right commitment to make sure that Ukraine ultimately can control its own future and does control its own future it's less about territory this war it's about Russian will willingness to accept that it has a neighbor with the freedom to decide for itself and its own future Russia hasn't been willing to do that it's time it does you were US ambassador to Nato from 2009 to 2013 when Demi medev was president in a brief swap with Putin what what were Russia's relations like with NATO at that time well they were improving um of course it did come after the Georgia uh invasion in 2008 uh which happened before uh before I I was there uh there was a big debate within uh NATO to to see if we uh could continue to do business as usual uh with Russia we decided that the answer to that was no uh but that if there was an opportunity to create a better and more a more um meable strategic partnership or a relationship with Russia we should try and and clearly at the time uh contrary to the kind of language we now hear from Mr medv uh there was a willingness by Russia to seriously consider doing that uh and we had a uh a an intensive dialogue uh with the Russians to find ways in which we could cooperate and Russia was very very uh critically important for example in allowing the west and the United States and others to ship uh military uh capabilities to Afghanistan in order to continue our war there lots of equipment was uh traveling through Russian airspace and uh Russian real over Russian real uh uh railroads in order to get to Afghanistan uh a landlock country that otherwise you'd have to go through Pakistan uh which was hard and difficult so there were many ways in which we were cooperating and medva seemed to be genuinely interested uh in in in doing so uh of course it turned out as as uh you know some some were fearing at the time and uh what became pretty evident afterwards that the real master behind the scene remained Vladimir Putin uh and Vladimir Putin certainly had no particular interest in having a Cooperative uh relationship with with NATO and you seemed quite optimistic after the the third ever Summit of the NATO Russia Council when NATO was on this path of a strategic partnership um with Russia you met to to review 21st Century Security challenges agreed on a program to deal with them um so you think the the the understanding was genuine at the time I don't know whether it was genuine or not I mean people uh will uh uh uh you know history will tell but it certainly we were we were attempting uh to find a way you know the the Obama Administration was engaged in a reset uh as we called it to uh to try to find a new way of engaging Russia on the kinds of issues that uh that were of common concern terrorism being one of them stability in Afghanistan being other uh nonproliferation being a particular big issue we we had concluded a large important uh nuclear arms control agreement the one that that is set to expire uh in uh in about 18 months time um the last one left uh so we had a a a Cooperative relationship and we were working to see if we could develop ballistic missile defenses together uh in order to defend the Ken's the kind of threat that Israel now faces from Iran um and uh you know we had relationships with President medf um I had a relationship with Demitri rosin who was the uh the Russian ambassador to Nato at the time uh a nationalist but uh but but someone who seemed at times to be willing to find ways to uh to cooperate were we naive probably certainly our polish and and Baltic friends were constantly hammering away and saying you know you can't trust these guys uh uh they turned out to be right and for those of us who tried to find out uh if there was a relationship still was worth trying but in the end it didn't work um and uh and here is where we are and what did you think of uh demit medad Dev because you met him didn't you on several occasions yeah I did meet him he was at the at the NATO Summit in in Lisbon which is probably the most positive Summit we had with the Russians uh um in in a very long time certainly the last time we had a positive one with them in 2012 the Russians didn't show up uh Putin was already president at that time uh again president uh as he said and I I met him in in Sochi the North Atlantic Council travel to uh uh to Sochi and met with him at the at the presidential uh data there uh you know he was genuinely seemed to be genuinely interested in uh in in the Cooperative relationship uh and trying to figure out ways in which we could uh uh we could move forward I met with um uh foreign minister lavro uh many many times and and we had the relationship in which we had a list of Grievances and they had a list of Grievances and we try to go through them and tick them off and see how we could uh resolve them we resolved some we didn't resolve all of them um but in the end uh uh Vladimir Putin when he came back in 2012 after the large scale protest that had occurred uh in in Russia surrounding the both his reelection and then the Parliamentary elections afterwards uh uh had changed and he clear really was um uh moving towards a a uh a sense that we could not have a relationship with NATO that NATO was the enemy uh that NATO was imposing uh its own uh desires on countries that uh that were um where Russia thought it needed to have uh its say uh what it calls it near abroad uh and uh and we've seen the consequences since 2014 when the war against Ukraine really started this War's now been going on for over 10 years um we've been living with the with the consequences When Donald Trump effectively invited Putin to do whatever he liked uh to alliance members who didn't pay up as he put it in other words not spending 2% of GDP on defense how much damage do you think it did to Nato and what kind of opportunities do you think that kind of comment presented to Putin I think it did extraordinary damage uh I was at uh at the Munich security conference um which uh each year sort of you know call it the the Academy Awards for global national security wonks uh uh in in Munich uh shortly after Donald Trump had made those remarks and at the same time uh was also uh a time where um uh uh naali uh was uh was found dead uh in in his prison and the Russians had taken a a critical town in the denet area and the mood among Europeans among allies uh was that they were squeezed between Trump and Putin Trump that is a country that uh in the United States should he come back as president uh could no longer be relied on as it had been since 1941 when you think about it uh as a country that cared about European security and Putin because he was willing to do whatever it takes uh for him not only to stay in power and eliminate his opposition but also to extend Russia's territorial uh and and ideological Ambitions uh as far beyond its borders as it possibly could so it did great damage uh and it has raised fundamental questions among Europeans both at official levels and and I'd say even more uh among uh uh publics about can we trust the United States will the United States be there when it matters uh and alliances are based on trust they're not based just on capabilities they're certainly not based on dollars and cents they're based on the idea that if I uh do my part that others will be there when it matters Estonia and other countries sent most of their military to Afghanistan not because they thought there was a threat from Afghanistan but because they wanted to be good allies and they did that because they want the United States to be a good Ally in return and that is what Donald Trump in making these these really outrageous uh statements uh that suggest that uh our commitment to Security in countries depends on how many dollars and cents they spend uh is uh is calling into question that in the 75th Anniversary uh year of of NATO what do you think is the greatest threat to Nato uh to the alliance is it Putin or Donald Trump if he ever becomes president well it's Putin because he has aggressive Ambitions to to divide uh uh NATO so that he can extend his influence uh uh and control uh uh further uh further Beyond his borders not just Ukraine not just bellarus but the Baltic states Poland who knows where it will end so it is that drive uh uh this this aggressive uh imperialist Drive uh that has uh is at the core now of Russia's uh foreign policy uh that is the threat the problem is that Donald Trump is undermining the best instrument we have for dealing with that threat and in fact making sure that it doesn't doesn't come about um because he's undermining uh the one thing that the United States and its allies have that the Russians and by the way the Chinese don't have and that is a faith in alliances the idea that alliances make us more secure uh not because they are paying us not because they are spending money on defense but because we have common interests to come together and defend those interests together uh so ultimately without Putin you don't worry as much about the strength and unity of of NATO uh but given that we have Putin uh Donald Trump's question questioning of alliances r large not just in in Europe uh but also in in East Asia is a is undermining uh American Security uh American prosperity and ultimately American Freedom uh and that is uh What uh in some ways this election is about um but also what this debate is about about how to think about uh our engagement and continued engagement in the world the NATO 75th uh anniversary Summit is fast approaching its next month month um in Washington if you were US ambassador to Nato right now what would you be saying and doing and what would your priorities be at that Summit well we have a terrific Ambassador at NATO and and Julian Smith uh so I know that she's doing everything that uh she can possibly do uh to uh to strengthen the alliance I think there really are two things uh that we uh that we need to focus on uh one is uh to continue the implementation of strengthening deterence and defense capabilities of an now and large NATO that includes Finland and Sweden uh to make sure that NATO will always be there uh to defend every inch of NATO territory against uh the aggression uh both both military and in terms of hybrid capabilities that the Russians uh continue to um to focus on on on NATO uh and NATO territory that's number one I'm very confident that we will continue to do that the spending is is is going up because uh Europeans understand there is a real threat uh it's not because the United States tells them to it's because they actually think it's important for uh for their own security to do it um uh thank you Mr Putin is the one thing that you can thank him for um um and and the second thing is really to make sure that there is a complete and utter Unity uh uh on the question that Ukraine cannot fail uh that Russia cannot succeed in Ukraine uh that we do whatever it is that we need to do uh in order to ensure that Ukraine uh uh succeeds uh success doesn't necessarily mean the uh reconquering of every inch of Ukrainian territory that the uh that the Russians have occupied either since 2022 or indeed since 2024 2014 that's really for the ukrainians to decide um but it is to make sure that Ukraine uh succeeds as a state in which it can determine its own future including its future to be a member of NATO uh and the European Union should it so desire uh and should uh uh the Allies agree as I think they should and will um but also uh to be uh uh to be able to control uh their Destiny in without fear or or favor to uh to an aggressive neighbor uh and that defeat uh of Russia uh which is already very costly 500,000 uh uh casualties according to the British mod uh on the Russian side um uh to that defeat is important because without that defeat our security will be less um than it is today the next secret General is expected to be confirmed in Washington next month your fellow Countryman U Mark rter what will he bring to Nato and to Ukraine well you know he's the most senior European States person uh uh around he uh he's been in power for 13 years uh he is an extraordinary consensus Builder you have to be in order to be in Dutch politics certainly to be a successful as he has been uh four four different coalitions four different governments uh with uh of wide variety of political parties he's well known within the European Union as a consensus Builder as someone who brings coalitions together uh uh and and that is the core of what a NATO Secretary General does uh a NATO Secretary General is far less General and far more secretary uh that is to say the person has no vote uh uh all it has is the power of persuasion uh and the leadership that comes with the power of persuasion and Mark rid is singularly capable of doing that and is demonstrated in the EU will do it having the most senior European Statesman to be uh the Secretary General of NATO particularly someone who uh who is a genuinely nice person uh uh and uh and willing to work with anyone at any time uh is is particularly useful at this at this time so uh I uh you know we're they're still uh dotting the eyes and crossing the tees on uh on the consensus there's still some some issues to be overcome but I expect that NATO will in October have a new Secretary General and it will be Mark R and I think the the alliance will be the better for it Eva doer a pleasure to speak to you thank you very much for your time my pleasure you've been watching Frontline for times radio my thanks to Louis Sykes our producer to support the work of Frontline hit the Subscribe button you can also listen to times radio throughout the day or read it at times.co.uk thanks for watching bye-bye

Channel: Times Radio

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Id: DMWTjTGgpKY

Length: 23min 22sec (1402 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2024