6/29/24: Dave Smith VS Vaush: Did NATO Expansion Push Ukraine Invasion?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
ways we can up our game for this critical election.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
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Coverage that is possible.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
If you like what we're all about, it just means
the absolute world to have your support.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
But enough with that, let's get to the show. Ukraine
is losing this war.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
They are not going to drive Russia out of PRIMEA,
They're not going to drive Russia out of many of.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
The territories that they've taken.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Right now, we should be working toward a deal, a
peaceful solution, which has been on the table several times
throughout this war, and it's been the West who has
been trying to squash it.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Ukraine hasn't been losing. Both countries have been stalling. I
don't want this conflict to end in a way that's
going to guarantee the conflict reemerges in two years. If
the line just freezes where it is right now, are
we not guaranteeing another conflict in a few years.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
The United States of America holds all of the chips.
We could offer Vladimir Putin something that would probably get
him to do whatever we wanted him to do. And
you know that is the ultimate crowning jewel for heavy
How about we leave Nata.

Speaker 5 (01:05):
All right, welcome to Counterpoints Today. We're going to be
talking about the Ukraine Russia war. Emily, who are going
to have.

Speaker 6 (01:12):
Yeah, Well, we have two great guests joining us. We
were joined by YouTuber live streamer Vash and we are
joined by comedian podcast hosts Dave Smith Vous Dave welcome,
Thanks for joining.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Us, my pleasure, Thanks for having us.

Speaker 6 (01:29):
Well. Ukraine is a timely subject to debate right now.
Obviously we're two plus years into the war, but there
have been recent escalations and that makes it important, I
think to sort of go through some of those recent developments.
For example, the US recently greenld as many people know,
strikes with US weapons inside of Russia. There was the

(01:49):
strike that the Russia is blaming the US for in
CRIMEA just over the last couple of days. So I
think probably a good way to begin is to give
you both kind of an opening statement here, and I'll
start with you, Bosh. Should the US continue funding this war,
and then we'll go to Dave on the same question,

(02:10):
but go ahead first, Bosh.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, I mean, I don't like the idea on a
systemic level of rewarding Russia for invading a neighbor. I
just think generally speaking, that's bad for global relations, very destabilizing.
I think it's important that we support any system that
prevents that from happening. And not exactly a novel position
with regards to the recent development and strikes inside Russian territory,
I actually think that this is in the long run

(02:32):
going to be a good move for peace, just because
the previous US doctrine, which seemed to be provide just
enough weapons to stall the war but not like decisively concluded.
I think that was actually like the worst possible decision.
You know, if Russia did a sort of like early conquest,
or if Ukraine decisively held its territory, those both and
the war relatively quickly, but just in perminably stalling it

(02:55):
right at the river, you know, I don't think that
would have been good in the long run. Hopefully, these
increased attacks inside Russian territory, mostly of course the refineries
that they're using to sort of get up their war economy.
Hopefully that serves as an effective long term deterrent. I
don't want this conflict to continue. I don't want civilians
to die. Yeah, I mean, obviously we'll have to see

(03:15):
how things play out.

Speaker 6 (03:18):
Dave, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Well, of course, we should stop funding this. We never
should have been funding this war to begin with. I
think that in the original Cold War, which I still
regard as one of the worst US policies in modern
American history, that did so much to ruin our country
and not to mention, you know, like things like the
Vietnam War and the millions of people who died in it,

(03:41):
but at least in the original Cold War, I think
there was always a healthy respect for the risks involved
and that all of us should all same people should
recognize that the greatest priority in human history is that
the United States of America and Russia do not go
to war. And this something that people in the old

(04:01):
Cold War were very respectful of and aware of. The
Difference in this new Cold War environment is that no
one in the upper rechilants of power in America seems
to have any respect for this threat and any respect
for you know, you could think to yourself, Well, maybe
this will work out in a positive way that the
US is green lighting attacks inside of Russia, or perhaps

(04:26):
it could be an absolute disaster and we're playing with
When I say we're playing with fire, it's an understatement
where we're flirting with potentially the most disastrous thing that
could happen to the human species. If America is to
have any role in this conflict, it should be working
toward a peaceful negotiation, and in fact, the American role
in the Western role has been to kill peaceful negotiations

(04:50):
from the beginning of this war and to prolong the fighting.
I think that as John Meerscheimer said back in twenty fourteen,
the West is leading Ukraine down the Primrose path has
turned out to be the most accurate prediction on this
entire conflict. And essentially, I think since the fall of
the Soviet Union, American foreign policy, and just keep in

(05:11):
mind American foreign policy in the Clinton administration, in the w.
Bush administration, in Obama's administration, those are the same people
who are in charge of the Middle East. And in fact,
the neo Conservatives were very focused on NATO expansion back
in the nineties. You can go read the project for
New American Century Documents. And the same people who totally
blundered foreign policy in the Middle East have totally blundered

(05:32):
foreign policy in Europe, provoking Vladimir Putin and the Russians
at every turn, leading to this awful place.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
That we're in.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
That is, certainly, if you care about the Ukrainians at all,
has been more of a disaster for the Ukrainian people
than anyone else.

Speaker 7 (05:48):
And Dave Vash made a point that I think you
hear a lot.

Speaker 5 (05:52):
From defenders of US support for the Ukrainian war, and
that is, you can't allow other countries. No, you can't
reward other countries for invading other countries.

Speaker 7 (06:04):
You just can't do that. We can't have that. What's
the response to that we can't have that argument?

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Well, I mean, first I would just point out how
absurd it is that after the last twenty years of
terror wars, somehow the United States of America still gets
to put itself in the position of global peacemaker, as
if our major concern is that bigger nations can bully
smaller nations. I mean, over the last twenty years, there's

(06:32):
been no greater purveyor of violence than the United States
of America, who has imposed its will on tiny, helpless
nations across the world.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
As far as.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
That, yeah, it's not good that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine,
and yes, certainly that's something we don't want to see,
my argument would be that America and the West more
broadly had many opportunities, many off ramps to put this
fire out or at least calm it down, and at
every single turn forward more gasoline on this fire that

(07:04):
ultimately resulted in the invasion in twenty twenty two.

Speaker 5 (07:07):
Yeah, so bosh, how can the US say with a
straight face that it's not okay for other countries to
invade smaller countries.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
Well, I think it's kind of a cowardly non argument
because I'm not arguing in favor of the moral superiority
of the United States. That'd be a ridiculous position for
me to take. It's not football. We're not taking sides
like you know, waving banners. There are two levels to
this when it comes to agency. We're concerned about the
broader socioeconomic and geopolitical context that led to where we

(07:36):
are now, and that goes back to the Cold War
and even earlier. You know, if we listened to Putin's
justifications for the invasion, it goes back to the borders
of the Russian Empire, you know, and then there's like
the immediate decision making. We mustn't remove agency from the equation.
Russia invaded, by Putin's own words, in a sort of
territorial land grab. The idea that it was entirely because

(07:57):
of response to Western aggression or oposturing is ridiculous and
a historical but that doesn't mean the West isn't responsible
for helping to create the situation where it now. We
have to balance These two justifications are arrogance after the
end of the Cold War, the fact that rather than
reaching out to Russia as a potential future ally, we ostracized,
you know, with the shock therapy, the sort of economic

(08:19):
devastation of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states. These
contributed to an environment in which future conflict was inevitable.
It was reprehensible in the part of the Western governments
to participate in this. Look today at the divide between
former West and Eastern Germany. I mean, the reason that
East Germany is voting so heavily for the AfD is
in large part because they see it as a rejection
of the doctrine of the West that left them behind

(08:40):
after reunification. These should all be taken into account, and
we must acknowledge that Putin is a fascist who did
a territorial landgrap Those two facts don't contradict each other.
They work together to create a complete narrative with regards
to the invasion. Now, I agree we have to take
the threat from Russia seriously, and by that I mean
we don't want this to scale out infinitely. We don't

(09:01):
want this to turn into a global war. That's something
we have to take seriously. At the same time, we
have to acknowledge Russia does too, and they're constant threats
of nuclear war. The fact that they started this invasion,
the fact that they have been posturing and acting aggressive
towards Finland, towards the Baltic States, even like ramping up
aggression towards the rest of Western Europe. We must consider

(09:23):
again their agency. Now I think that in the long
run there is a very deleterious consequence to creating an
incentive structure where Putain gets to boost his national rep
his prestige with a successful land grab in Ukraine. I
think it would have been disastrous if he could have
just marched west and taken the territory, because it would

(09:43):
have reaffirmed and rewarded all the worst possible behaviors from him.
That doesn't mean I think that we should sort of
do a victory lap around Russia, you know, Cold War two.
Let's win, let's let's let's trounce them in Ukraine. I
do think that we're in a tough situation because we
can't just like magically make Russia a democracy or a
country less incentivized to invaded staples or reclaim historical territory.

(10:07):
It's a difficult question, which is why I don't like
simple answers.

Speaker 6 (10:11):
So, Dave, actually, here's an interesting point that Vauschist raised
about the beginning of the war, and if we may
all agree, correct me if I'm wrong, that we all
think it would have been bad if Putin had indeed
marched into Kiev and took all of Ukraine, et cetera.
But that leads us to the question, Dave, of how
much US involvement, if any, was just if we agreed

(10:35):
that it was good for the US to perhaps prevent
the Russian capture of Kiev, et cetera. At what point
did it become too much? At what point is the
support no longer just or moral? How do you respond
to that, Dave.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
I think that the point that it, I mean, you
could start at a lot of different points. I think
the first round of NATO expansion was unjust and was
unnecessarily provocative of the Russians. I'm not exactly sure what
vash is referring to as like a cowardly non argument.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
I simply was directly responding to Ryan's point.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
If you have a serial killer who's killed far more
people than another serial killer, and they claim that they're
trying to stop a serial killer because they're so against killing,
it's reasonable to point out that no, this is in
fact not what's motivating US foreign policy. That know, the
butcherers of Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and Somalia and

(11:29):
Libya and Yemen are not actually motivated by some sense
of we can't let big guys pick on little guys.
Let's have an honest conversation about what's really motivating this policy.
And it has been since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
To increase the power of the American empire, and Russia
has always been seen as a force that's outside of

(11:49):
the American Empire. That's what's been motivating American foreign policy.
This is what we're living through here is largely the
neo conservative doctrine. It is the worst thing that ever
happened in the history of our country is that after
we became probably the first ever true global superpower, about
ten years later, the neo conservatives got control of our
foreign policy, and this was their plan from the very beginning.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
So no, I don't think America should have been.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
Involved in Ukraine at all, and I certainly don't think
that that anything we've done has done anything except make
this situation much worse and much much more dangerous, because
now you are experiencing a proxy war with the two
biggest nuclear superpowers. I don't think saying any of that

(12:34):
is reducing things down to simplistic, simplistic worldview, And of course,
you know, you kind of snuck a straw man in there.
I wouldn't say that this conflict is entirely because of
NATO expansion, but to pretend like that's not a major
driving factor in this conflict is to not be dealing
with reality. And this has been admitted by all of

(12:56):
the top people on both sides, and this was why
so many peopeople within the national security apparatus in the
nineties opposed the first round of NATO expansion explicitly because
this will provoke a reaction from the Russians. Through the years,
the Russians have been crystal clear that Ukraine was their
red line. Thanks to the greatest journalist of the twenty

(13:16):
first century, the hero Julian Assan, who is thankfully now
a free man, we know that the current head of
the CIA, Burns told Condaleza writes this explicitly that this
was a red line, and not a red line in
the way that America makes up red lines, like Obama
will say if Asad uses a certain type of weapon
on his people, that's a red line for us.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
It's all just ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
This is a red line in a true sense, in
the sense that Jack Kennedy said, putting nuclear missiles in
Cuba is a red line for us.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
We will blow up the world if you try to
do that.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Vladimir Putin, and as Burns pointed out, not just Vladimir Putin,
the entire Russian establishment has been unanimous on this that
they will not tolerate Ukraine and jury to NATO. And look,
it was not it's not justified or reasonable for Vladimir
Putin to have launched this war, But on the scale
of geopolitical demands, the demand that Ukraine cannot be a

(14:14):
part of the American Empire's military alliance was a fairly
reasonable one, and we could have avoided this whole war
by just committing to that.

Speaker 6 (14:22):
I have a quick follow up on that, Dave, So
sure all things, you know, we're dealing in the reality
that we did push for the NATO expansion and twenty
fourteen and all of that considered. Is your position that
there should have been like basically zero aid, military, whatever
else a government aid to Ukraine after the invasion a

(14:43):
couple of years back, like basically just none.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Absolutely, if there was any role for the Americans to play,
it would have been trying to negotiate an end to
the war. Unfortunately, you know, if you're putting me in
the hypothetical of like, you can't change anything before this,
but you're already here, we had probably blown all of
that good will and there were better parties who would
have been more suited for that. You know, for example,
going back to even the Bootgres summit in two thousand

(15:10):
and eight, into the beginning of the Maydan Revolution, Germany
was much more hesitant to get to go down this path.
There were other European countries who were kind of like, hey,
let's not provoke the Russians. It's part of the reason
why Ukraine didn't get a full map invitation in two
thousand and eight. It's the objection of the Germans. So
probably someone else would have been better at it. Yes, Essentially,

(15:32):
what I'm saying is that the greatest purveyor of violence in.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
The world, the most war hungry country in the world, the.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
United States of America, shouldn't have been the ones at
the table at all, and there might have been some
goodwill from other parties who had more of an interest
to avoid this catastrophe, if I may.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
I just there are elements of this that I guess
don't make sense to me. First of all, the claim
that America's decision making is based on it tried to
expand its own geopolitical power rather than any altruistic interest.
That's true, but that's also the case for all countries.
That's basic ir theory. So the idea of like, well,
this Neokon theory of America expanding it's interest.

Speaker 4 (16:10):
That's just nation states.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Russia's doing that right now, India's doing that, China's doing that.

Speaker 4 (16:14):
Everyone's doing that.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
We're better at it because we're a superpower, of course,
but that's like a fundamental rule of national exchange. I
don't think that it's really a moral question. It's a
matter of material conditions. In a basic Marxist sense. Who's
motivated by what and where they are In the modern world,
you know, the imperial sphere of influence extends to the
entire planet. You know, American jets can reach any part

(16:36):
of the world in twenty four hours. Everyone's can if
they have jets. There's no we get the nation next
to us, Which makes me think the idea that like
Ukraine is more innately in the Russian sphere of influence
is I think it's a little bit old hat. At
the end of the day, the people in Ukraine were
interested in closer relations with the EU, and that is

(16:57):
ultimately what triggered everything from Euromi on Yuonokovich fleeing, the
annexation of Crimea, the invasion of the Dunbass following the
invasion of Ukraine. Broadly, this is again a complicated situation.
I don't mean to detract from the influence that Western
arrogance hadn't I would never never try to do that.
But I do think that, like your roadmap for how

(17:19):
things should have progressed from American perspective following the twenty
twenty two invasion is misguided, because I don't think the
world would be any farther from annihilation if Russia had
simply marched westward, taken give and we had a bunch
of ginned up Russian soldiers right up against the border
of Poland, you know, having just successfully annexed former Soviet
slash Russian imperial territory. You could imagine the propaganda coming

(17:42):
out of the Kremlin about how they're reuniting their people.
They're sort of like expanding the Russian interest in like
a diaganist ethnic sense, you know, reclaiming the empire. I
think that like the incentive structure behind that would be
really bad. Like that you're basically getting You're like you're
throwing chum into the water for you know, Putin is expansionist.
He's been sort of like preempting this for a long

(18:04):
time with Georgia, you know, his behavior with the Chechens.
I don't think that that would bring us any closer
to peace now. Is the current path we're on right
now the best possible road? Obviously not nothing we ever
do is the best possible road, But I think it's
closer to threading that line than just letting them march
westward with them. What I'm interested in, I guess, is

(18:26):
practical solutions now outside of just letting Ukraine get annexed,
which I really don't think would have been good for
world peace in the long run, even if it would
have quickly ended the conflicts. How do we incentivize Ukraine
and Russia to come to the table and bring it
into this war? Can Ukraine regain its lost territory? I
think morally it should be able to, because I don't

(18:46):
like nations being rewarded for annexing adjacent territory. But logistically
can they Would it be possible to end things where
they are now? Would Russia keep crimea and that just
be seen as a kind of like dull historical injustice
to fade away over time At one hundred years from now,
people would be like, did you know CRIMEA used to
be Ukraine.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
I just there's so much dogmatism, and whenever you bring
up like modern solutions, people go back to I don't know,
the end of the Cold War. I know, I mean,
I understand NATO is not exactly a global force for good,
But what can we do now? I mean, I so
rarely hear answers that are contextualized in the current moment.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
I want to answer your question at the end there,
but just like a few things I want to point out,
number one, I think this is almost like bigger than
just any political debate. There's kind of it's a broader
theme in life in general. I think anybody who's married,
who's on the show or listening to the show, knows
this is true in personal relationships. There's a tendency if
you're in an argument with your wife or your husband

(19:45):
or something like that, to focus on what they did
and what they did that's bothering you. But a much
more healthy posture if you're in a successful relationship is
that you also add in, like, Okay, well what am
I doing, how am I participating in this?

Speaker 4 (19:59):
What have I done?

Speaker 1 (20:00):
That's kind of led to this situation generally speaking, I
think that if you look at the corporate media, you're
going to hear all of this talk about what Putin's done,
and I don't think. I think a lot of times
in these debates people can kind of claim to be like, well,
I'm adding I have a more nuanced position. I'm not
simplifying things. I think the point of saying that, like, well,

(20:21):
all governments are expansionist by nature, so there's no difference
between the neo conservatives and say, other groups of people,
it's I don't know, it's I'm not saying they're the same,
but like a logical analogy, it's like, oh, well, all
governments kill people. So like what Adolf Hitler's doing is
just kind of the same as other governments. It's not
exactly true. It's kind of different in scale and in kind.

(20:43):
To sit here and say and look, if we have time,
we could go through the history of Chechnya and Georgia
and all this stuff, but to zoom out a little bit.
During the Cold War, we drew the line at the
Elbe River halfway through Germany. On one side was the
Soviet Union, on the other side was NATO, and we're now,

(21:03):
you know, We're now talking about Ukraine, and you could
sit here with a straight face and say Putin is expansionist. Okay,
I mean, if that's how you want to look at it,
It's like, let's just look at the actual reality of
what's happening here. It's not that Putin has been this
expansionist force. Putin has been almost at every turn reaction
reacting to the expansion of the American Empire and Ukraine.

(21:28):
That's not Listen, that's just not true. It's not denying
someone agency to say that they're responding to something that
does doesn't everything to everything.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
That's all life. Sue just acts without it. You didn't
gi just a cop out. That's just a cop out.
That's not the one. You're the one providing the cop out.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
You're saying that, like, it's not possible for Putin to
have like a distinctly expansionist element to his rule because
everyone's responding to so it's not possibility the expansionist element
to his rule.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
Okay, there's no, that's not a binary one. Is it's not?

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Hi, Instead of just interrupting me, let me make the
point you just laid out by a binary between is
it possible he has expansionist intentions and does he have
expansionist intentions.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
That's not a binary.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
There are some expansionist desires that he has no In fact,
if you actually like educate yourself on this topic, it
was our CIA director who said, and then yet means
yet memo leaked by Julian Assang that it verbatim, this
was a choice that Vladimir Putin did not want to
have to make. This was a choice that Russia did

(22:38):
not want to get involved in this war.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
And if he made the choice, he made the choice
to invade, to bring troops down to the Ukrainian border,
to commit to multiple years of like, come on, you
know this is again, this is the thing I ask
you for, Like what can we do now? And immediately
it's it's back to the iron girl.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Hold on, hold on, there's what happens.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
I just want to know in the modern I get.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Actually, what happened was you made a long statement and
ended with that question, and I said, let me answer
that question, but first let me deal with what you
said at the beginning of your statement, and then you
started interrupting me. So no, it's not that I'm not
willing to answer that question. It's that I had to
point out I think a lot of the errors that
you're making.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
Now.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
If you want just to say, what could we do
right now, well, look, we're going to have to be
realists about this situation and admit that Ukraine is losing
this war and that they're not going to drive Russia
out of Crimea. That's a joke. They're not going to
drive Russia out of many of the territories that they've taken.
Right now, we should be working toward a deal, a

(23:42):
peaceful solution, which has been on the table several times
throughout this war, and it's been the West who has
been trying to squash it.

Speaker 4 (23:48):
Well, that's what we should do.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
True at all, though you've seen, I assume you've read
the deals that Putin has put through, Zelensky hasn't been
particularly amenable to them himself. The narrative that the West
is squashing the deals, which is blown up largely because
of what that one Boris Johnson visit early on in
the conflict. Don't get me wrong, Okay, the West is
its own interests. There are plenty of Western leaders who
would like to see the Russian armories depleted, but that

(24:11):
doesn't mean that Ukraine would have been jumping in the
bit for any of the deals Putin's been offering since
the war began, and Ukraine hasn't been losing. Both countries
have been stalling. This has been like a slog and
it has been since the first like or after the
first like three months of the war. I don't like
the narrative that Ukraine's losing because the fact that they
exist at all at this point, considering the Russian armaments
aligned against them, is pretty impressive.

Speaker 6 (24:33):
Guys off the streets to ye fight.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Oh yeah, but like and and Russian has, Russia has
like their penal colony forces with the Wagner group, like
pulling from from their multiple rounds of like really unpopular
conscriptions waves of immigration out of Russia people.

Speaker 4 (24:50):
No, no, no, of course not.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
I'm not arguing that, like it's a matter of our
investment or whether or not it's moral. You know, war
makes unfortunately unethical decision making of every side, including the
good ones. The Allies did plenty of bad stuff during
World War Two. I'm only saying that it's been a
slug for both sides. I don't want to see this
out in like I don't want this conflict to end
in a way that's going to guarantee the conflict reemerges

(25:13):
in two years. If you end up just setting the
border right where the fighting lines are right now, we're
going to be exactly where we were back in twenty fourteen.
We're going to have a combination of like paid separatists
and Russian soldiers like moving around in the Dawn Bass.
There's going to be constant exchanges of fire across the border.
This needs like a real international solution. I don't know
whether that means like a proper DMZ. I don't know

(25:35):
whether that means like genuine reconciliation. Ideally, for me, it
would be some kind of like Hail Mary, where Ukraine
gets its borders back and there's like a massive like
coming together between Russia and the West and we like
reopen trade and negotiations. But that's a little bit, a
little bit of a pipe dream. I just we do
agree that at least let's agree on this. If the
line just freezes where it is right now, are we

(25:58):
not guaranteeing another inflicted in a few years.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
I don't know that that's possible to say, to be honest,
people to be pretty mad.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
It's not guaranteeing. It's not guaranteeing it.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
I don't know, especially at the front, are not positively
disposed to each other. I feel like we need to
give them something solid, a solid piece, not just like, oh,
we've decided now this slug has gone on for two
long they'd be throwing rocks at each other across the border.
You know, you could get a five mile wide DMZ
and those they'd still be like sending drones over with

(26:33):
bricks to drop at each other's heads.

Speaker 4 (26:35):
Maybe this is all be rough with the case of.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
In general, with all of the war hawks that everybody
who's supported every single war over the last twenty years,
it always kind of relies on this unfalsifiable counterfactual like, oh,
if we didn't do this, then Vladimir Putin would be
invading Poland right now, or if the lines were drawn
where they are, they'd they'd be throwing.

Speaker 4 (26:57):
Rocks at each other. It's very hard to say.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
I think the one thing that like, I think it's
again just to rely on a counter factual, if that's
what we're doing. I think the truth is that there
were a lot of much better options. There were off
ramps all throughout the path to get here. And the
truth is that, if you want to go back to
twenty fourteen, the West should not have gotten involved the

(27:23):
way that it did. That it was it was such
a provocation to back the overthrow of a democratically elected government.
If I mean, all you have to do is think
to yourself and just be honest here.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
Past what's talk about. Let me just finish my point.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
If Russia or China had backed the overthrow of the
government in Mexico or Canada because they opted to sign
a trade deal with US rather than the one that
they wanted them to side to sign, what do you
think DC would do? And we all know the answer
to that, they overthrow that government in a second. And
we have a Monroe doctrine for a reason. And you

(27:59):
can say that it's it's like some relic of the
past that faraway superpowers ought not intervene in the region
of other large nations. But we certainly wouldn't feel that way.
We wouldn't think it was a relic of the past.
If anybody tried to come over here and set up
a military alliance with Mexico or with Canada, tell me

(28:21):
how much DC would go, oh, yes, the Monroe doctrine
is just a relic of the past.

Speaker 4 (28:26):
Do you think debate of pigs invasion was justified? No?

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Because the Soviets invested economically and militarily into a country
that is just off our coast during a time of
heightened international conflict. They knew that it would antagonize us.
We already had strained relationship with Castro, even though we
didn't initially of course, because we recognize that he was
a much litter better leader for the Cuban people than

(28:50):
the man he replaced. Do you not think the Soviets
antagonized us in a way much comparable to what we
have done with NATO and Ukraine?

Speaker 4 (28:58):
Like I did? Oh they did?

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Okay, So do you think then picked well, well, this isn't
a gotcha, this is gotcha. I think it's an interesting
question because I do think the Soviets were a little
bit wacky with how they handle Cuba. But I feel
like in retrospect, we don't talk about the Bay of
Pigs invasion as an inevitable consequence of expansion, as Soviet
investment in like in spite of our national interest? What
you do think about it as like Kennedy's mistake, you know.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Right, okay, but see a lot of the reason why
we think of it as Kennedy's mistake as the logistics
of it. By the way, if you really want to
get into it, wasn't Kennedy's mistake as much as the
right the previous administration.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
But regardless of any of that.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
See what you asked me is if I thought the
Bay of Pigs was justified, and I would also say that, no,
I don't think Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine was justified.

Speaker 4 (29:42):
Do I think that the Soviets.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
And the Cubans were taking a provocative stance against the
United States of America? Of course did there. Did those
provocations lead to the Bay of Pigs? I think that's undeniable.
And the truth is that from Vladimir Putin's got a
much stronger case of out the provocations of the United
States of America because it's not just one little island

(30:04):
or one economic deal. It's been a steady push eastward
since since the late nineties.

Speaker 5 (30:11):
Now that we are where we are, oh no, before
we go too far, I just want to stand up
for the dignity of the Cuban revolution for just a moment.

Speaker 6 (30:17):
Please, it was surprising development.

Speaker 7 (30:20):
I mean it was not. It was not a Soviet project.

Speaker 5 (30:23):
This was this was a This was an organic Cuban
project against the corrupt elites in Cuba. Fidel Castro in
the beginning, I thought he could maintain some decent relations
with the United States.

Speaker 7 (30:38):
It was Shai Guwara who witnessed.

Speaker 5 (30:40):
In nineteen fifty four he was in Guatemala when the
US overthrew our Benz and he was the one always
saying to Fidel Castro, You're not gonna be able to
work with the Yankees, like, it's not possible. Castro wanted
to like, he was like, look, no, these jazz are
corrupt you. I'm just I'm George Washington here. It was
only when it became in possible for the Cubans to

(31:01):
work for the Cuban revolutionaries to work with the US
that they went.

Speaker 7 (31:06):
They went in the Soviet direction.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
And in fact Ryan but ahead. Correct if I'm wrong,
all correct, Correct me if I'm wrong about this.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
But I also believe that Castro had been rejecting communism
up to the point that the US started putting embargoes
on him before he then said Oh yeah, I'm a communist,
and so you could certainly argue that we drove him
into the hands of the of the Soviets.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
Right, And I think it plays further into the broader
dynamic where basically everybody acts as a reaction of previous acts.
Very rarely does something you know, sort of come up
whole cloth. You almost always, even even for the United States.
I mean, with all of our power, it might we
are still responding to you know, the the the actions
and decision making of agents that are of themselves responding

(31:48):
to others in the world today where we are now,
because there are a million places that I would have turned,
I could have turned the clocks back and like changed history.
It brought us to a different point. For me personally,
the big line wasn't with NATO. It was with economic
investment in Russia and the shock therapy, you know, I
think that was the real line where we like lost

(32:11):
the post Cold War world, where we arrogantly decided that,
you know, having like one over the Soviets, we would
do a victory lap by annihilating their economies, you know,
arrogantly like pillaging them and leading them to the oligarchs
who had worked with us in like in a business
relation sense. If there was anything I could go back
and change, it would be that. You know, I'm not
really particularly fussed about NATO in particular. Military alliances are

(32:32):
always going to carry with them, let's say, problematic elements.
NATO is just the Western military alliance everything that insinuates
and carries. If we got along with Russia properly, maybe
all of this could have been avoided. I mean, hell,
it could have extended far enough east. We could be
on better relationship with China. We wouldn't have people like
Trump trying to constantly push for a second Cold War
with like the tariff, and well Biden did that too

(32:53):
recently with the electric vehicle, So I guess everybody wants
the Cold War with China.

Speaker 4 (32:56):
Things could have really started with Obama.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Yeah, no, it's we all because we need a foreign threat.
We need a foreign threat exactly. Wasn't doing it for us,
and they're certainly not going to be doing it now.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
So let me just say, because I think there's something
almost being lost here where. Look that technically speaking, you
are right that everybody is reacting, and you are right
that every nation is you know, like I'm a radical libertarian.
I think basically essentially all governments are criminal organizations, so
you don't have to like convince me on that. The
thing here that separates things is that after nineteen ninety one,

(33:30):
America became the first global superpower.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
The level of power.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
It's funny I have to explain this to a leftist,
but the level of power that America had was totally
asymmetrical to anything else.

Speaker 4 (33:42):
And here, yes, the first kids, right.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
And so so yes, it is like, it is true
that there are all of these different nations that are
reacting to different things. However, if you actually look at
the role that the United States of America played and
then think about it from say the Russian personective that
this is not something that you and you may say
from your perspective that you know, the NATO military alliance

(34:09):
isn't your biggest concern, okay, but it is the Russians,
and you have to see from their perspective that they
would see this as a threat that they cannot live with.
And the fact is that the idea of Ukraine, the
Ukrainian entry into NATO was something that was floated out
for years, and not just in two thousand and eight
at the Bucharest Summit where they announced that Ukraine and

(34:30):
Georgia would be joining NATO, but for years after that
and then more and more involvement, especially after the coup
in twenty fourteen, joint military exercises with NATO and the
Ukrainian military, which is part of the reason why Vladimir
Putin did not have such a quick, decisive victory right
away as he probably would have before that time period.

(34:51):
But that from the Russian perspective, you have the global Empire,
the most war hungry country in the world, very clearly
committed to encirclement. Obviously, this is going to be a
recipe for disaster.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
And yet Ukraine's desire to be protected by NATO has
been validated by Russia's expansionism. Well, I just a couple oh,
I just want to finish that point, if I may
like again. You say, Russia's greatest fear is NATO. Ukraine's
greatest fear is Russia, who ended up being more justifle.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
Ok.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
NATO hasn't invaded Russia. Russia did invade Ukraine. There's no
getting away from it. At the end of the fear,
this powder keg was ignited by Russia, and here we
are now today, with the gunpowder having already left the blaze,
where do we move forward? Because I keep asking, I
feel like we're always It's always, like I said before
we started the show. You may recall, whenever I debate Israel,

(35:45):
you say it's wrong to genocide these thirty thousand such
and such Palestinians, And then the people you argue with
the Zionist they'll go, oh, but what about Camp David?

Speaker 4 (35:52):
What about the accords?

Speaker 3 (35:53):
They draw back into history because they want to avoid
the question today. They want to avoid and turn their
eyes away.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
But I'm certainly not avoiding that question.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
And as I just said a couple of minutes ago,
it was wrong for Vladimir Putin to invade and killing people,
right right?

Speaker 6 (36:08):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (36:08):
I also answered that.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
But look this idea that, first of all, the concern
from Vladimir Putin was never not even Vladimir Putin, the
Russians in general. The concern was never as simple as
is NATO going to invade us? The concern was moving
military hardware closer and closer to Russia's borders. Okay, so
the concern is more akin to the Cuban missile crisis,
not that we were ever worried Cuba was going to

(36:31):
invade US, but moving military hardware that close to our
borders was a legitimate concern and one that Jack Kennedy
said he would blow up the world over. Most Americans, however,
they feel about the Bay of Pigs, look at that
is fairly justified.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
That that was a threat. We couldn't live with a
knife to our neck.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Now to your point that Ukraine's biggest fear was Russia
and that they just wanted to join NATO because they
had this fear of Russia, that's not exactly true. Like,
if you know the history of this situation, it was
in two thousand man, I think it's two thousand and eight,
so it might have been two thousand and six, but
there was The State Department admitted that one of the

(37:10):
big problems they had is that Ukrainian entry into NATO
was just not popular in Ukraine. They estimated that it
was about thirty percent, and so they embarked on a campaign.
They literally said, we need the NED and we need
the USAID to intervene more to get this support up
for NATO membership amongst the Ukrainians. It's not look, Yanikovich

(37:32):
was elected in twenty ten. And this is these elections
were verified by the EU because we're all, you know,
neo conservatives are such believers in democracy, but only in
the places where we feel like we need to import
democracy too. I don't think not necessarily in Ukraine as
results well, okay, but I'm saying it's not as simple
as saying that overwhelmingly the Ukrainian people just wanted to

(37:54):
join NATO and DC was just you know, respecting the.

Speaker 4 (38:01):
Ukrainian vassals.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
I'm never saying that the West is acting out of altruism.
I would never be that silly, and I'm not.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
That's not I'm saying that you're in Ukraine just wanted.

Speaker 4 (38:11):
To Russia wanted.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
But let's turn the clock forward, right, The Russian economy
was stalling, the EU's economy was booming. The Ukrainian people
were more interested in economic ties with the EU than
they were with Russia. Yanokovich against the will of the people,
and yes, he was democratically elected. Democratically elected leaders can
do on popular things. That's life. He then turned towards
Russian and said, because Yanokovich wasn't, we don't have to

(38:34):
get into it. Let's say compromised by Russian interest. Uh,
the people revolted. America supported the Euromaidan revolt because we
were interested, of course in Ukraine having closer ties to us.
But nonetheless, and you can take a look at polling
from the time the Ukrainian discussed with Yuanokovic's decision was

(38:56):
authentic and widely reflected. Yanokovich fled, of course, fearing for
his life and well being. They took his little wealthy
boy palace. And then after that, of course you have
the annexation of Crimea and the separatist movement in the Donbass,
which was of course heavily supported by Russia. And then
of course after that they want to join NATO because
they realized that the moment they do anything that Russia

(39:18):
doesn't like, Russia's just going to turn the military on them.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
Do you have to keep moving the clock forward?

Speaker 6 (39:25):
Let me just interject there and ask, So we're one
hundred and seventy five billion dollars into this as the
United States, the Ukrainian deathel is at least thirty one
thousand people. It's probably much much higher than that. Both
sides minimum around one hundred thousand, but again probably according
to a lot of analysts, much much higher than that.
So to what extent can the United States? This is

(39:46):
like higher than the NASA budget last year? The amount
of foreign aid we're sending to Ukraine? Is that just
the United States? It's spending that much US taxpayer money
to protect every inch of the don boss with no
plan perceived as of right now, ostensibly no serious plan
as to what a peace process would look like going forward.

(40:08):
Is that a just outcome for the American tax pay Oh?

Speaker 3 (40:12):
Look, every dollar we give to you Ukraine, we don't
give the Israel. Okay, So it's like it's like convince
your friends.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
That's the best argument I've heard.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah, right, it's like convincing your friend has put me
own cigarettes, not fentanyl. But I agree that Washington should
have a more decisive plan. The lack of a plan,
which is a common pattern by the way, with both
the United States and alsodent in Yahoo. So not a
fan of that tendency on all sides is problematic to me.
Like I said, now, if we just froze the war

(40:39):
where it is, because of course Russia, like Putin's peace
deals are basically just like forfeit the territory you've lost
up until this. They're not like real conciliatory deals, right, which,
of course Putin wants to keep the territory that he's stained.
I think that if we just took that, if we
pressured Ukraine into taking that, a war would break out
again within a year two years maybe because you would
have like the military build up on either side of

(41:02):
the DMC would be like the greatest Oh sorry.

Speaker 5 (41:06):
Sorry, yeah, you started the conversation talking about not wanting
this to be a stalemate that goes on forever. So
you know, last year we had this much vaunted counter offensive.
At the time, there were tens of thousands of younger
Ukrainian troops who were alive and were well trained, they

(41:27):
were well equipped. They launched this massive, much anticipated counter offensive.
It was a complete disaster, led to an enormous loss
of life and a loss of equipment. And so to
your question of what do we do next, like why
is it the case that a new counter offensive with older,

(41:53):
less well trained Ukrainian troops and less well equipped troops
would be able to succeed against a more fortified Russian
military while the.

Speaker 7 (42:05):
Previous one failed.

Speaker 5 (42:06):
In other words, like what is this hail Mary that
you're talking about, that could change the calculation on the
ground to such an extent that it's worth it to
continue throwing Ukrainian men and women into.

Speaker 7 (42:18):
The maw of this war.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
Well, they don't.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
I don't like the term throwing only because like they are,
of course, you know, engaged in it, right, They're not
just being.

Speaker 5 (42:27):
They're being grabbed in many cases and literally throw forty
five year old men well literally threw.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yes, Yes, Ukrainian morale are at least interesting continuing the
war is still high. But that sort of nitpick aside,
I would only say, I look, the hail Mary is
something that I hope for. It's not something that I
think is guaranteed. With the introduction of attackers and other
relatively long ranged, you know, munitions, we have the ability
to sort of provide Ukraine the option to strike at depots,

(42:54):
refineries and like facilities that are closer to the sort
of back lines of the conflict, and that has had
like a massive effect in the past four or five
months since that was introduced. I don't know whether that's
going to be a game changer in the war in
the long run. I hope that it is, because ultimately
I do think that a conciliatory position from Russia would
be a better way of ending this conflict than one

(43:16):
in which things just freeze as they are now. The
DMZ build up along the line that people settled on
right now would be catastrophic, and I think it would
just guarantee further war. My hope, and this is I know,
perhaps a little naive of me, but I still have
a little bit in me that hopes for this. My
hope is that eventually, following the expansion of Ukraine's ability

(43:37):
to strike it further back targets, this becomes increasingly economically
untenable for Russia. There's pressure from both sides. Hey, this
has gone on long enough. We literally can't keep this
going anymore. We're both on fumes, and like two exhausted
boxers on the fourteenth round, they both clapsed into each
other's arms, and you know, they have a Christmas Day
in World War One, you know, there's a moment where,

(43:59):
for for a second, things get rough enough long enough
that they collapse and they just can't do it anymore,
and maybe the world like breaks a sigh of peace
as they finally do subtle on whatever line they're at.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
At that point, I think it's quite a dangerous game
to play, man.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
I mean, I know it was the all dangerous right well, sure,
but I'm just saying, you know, it was the neo
Kon's hope that if you overthrew Saddam Hussein, democracy would
sweep the region.

Speaker 4 (44:20):
And you know that would have been nice, I guess, but.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
You know, the hope that, oh, if they strike inside
of Russia, that will make Russia realize that, you know,
this war just has cost us a little bit too
much and we sure should knock off this war business.

Speaker 4 (44:32):
That's quite a quite a risky game to play. There's
a couple of things that I want to eat.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
So let me let me just respond to a couple
of things you said there, because the things that I
think are pretty interesting. So number one, just a couple
points of correction. I mean, I know I said it
was a good point in Jess, but now it's not
true that you know, the every dollar that goes to
Ukraine is a dollar that doesn't go to Israel.

Speaker 4 (44:53):
I mean, as you know, we print.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Money out of thin air, and the US government is
quite fine to spend well beyond its means. So no,
they can they can deficit finance through fiat currency both
of these wars at.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
The same time. Now, what I was gonna do to
our dollar equipment to not just money? Sure?

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Sure, yeah, no, Mostly we're just bribing the military industrial
complex and sending old weapons over there. However, you know,
there is as you brought up the talk of agency before,
it is true that individuals have agency. It's also true
that there's such a thing as moral hazard. So if
I were to just say I'll start giving a Ryan,
I'm gonna start giving you a million dollars a month,

(45:28):
and then you quit your job and you sit at home,
and I go, look, he doesn't want to work.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
It doesn't want to work. He wants to stay home.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
It doesn't want to It's like, well, yeah, okay, there
is some truth to that, but might that have you know,
the Ukrainians just want to fight, okay, but might that
have something to do with the blank check that they've
received from the world. So the whole point here, right,
is that and this is true with Israel and with Ukraine.
What happens is that when the biggest bully in the
history of the world, the US Empire, says we got
your back, people get a lot braver than they otherwise would.

(45:56):
If Israel didn't have unconditional support from the United States
of America, they'd be forced to make a deal with
some of their neighbors.

Speaker 4 (46:03):
And same with Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
You know, you say, like, oh, if the war ended,
Ukraine would just be ready to fight Russia again in
a few years without our backing, without US arming them,
without all of Europe behind them. No, they wouldn't because
they know they couldn't possibly win.

Speaker 6 (46:18):
Dave, what's a riskier game to play? I mean, I
think I know what your answer would be to this,
But what's a riskier game to play? Is it, you know,
allowing Putin to expand unchecked, just to go back to
the argument that Vash made earlier, or is it, you know,
escalating the war. It seems as though there are risks

(46:38):
in both scenarios, and why is one riskier than the
other at this point?

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Well, look, I mean, okay, so the biggest risk that, again,
as I mentioned at the beginning, we should all be
concerned about, is the potential of nuclear war. And what's
prevented the nuclear war in the past has been private negotiations,
handshake agreements and mutually assured destruction, the fact that you know,
nobody really wants to get into a nuclear exchange because

(47:07):
we all lose the only time, especially now, because the
current administration isn't doing handshake deals or even having conversations
behind the scenes with the Russians, the only thing that
could lead to a nuclear exchange. So, in other words,
the worst case scenario is that Vladimir Putin actually thinks
he's going to die. He thinks he's going to end
up like Momar Kadafi, And that's this scenario where you

(47:31):
might end up launching nukes because you know, screw it,
bring everybody down with you. In terms of the risk
of Russian expansion, I do think that Vous made a
somewhat fair point where look between the mix of this
is my point, not yours, but resulting in yours, between
the mix of NATO joint military exercises with the Ukrainian government,

(47:52):
the massive amounts of foreign aid, the weapons shipments that
Ukraine has got going back to before the invasion of
twenty twenty two, but certainly since twenty twenty two, it
has made Ukraine a tougher adversary than they otherwise would
have been. Vladimir Putin famously said back in two thousand
and eight when he was warning Burns, who was the
ambassador of Rush at the time, but I could be

(48:12):
in Kiev in two weeks. Well, I don't think that's
true anymore. I think it's a tougher battle for him
than that. But then also you think, because he ends
up getting the eastern part of Ukraine that what he's
moving on Poland after that. I just think there's absolutely
no reason to think that that's the situation.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
I don't think the bottom line.

Speaker 6 (48:36):
Is that right next to Poland, it seems like, given
the history of NATO and everything else, that's pretty dangerous too.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
Well, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
I mean, the whole argument that all of the people
who wanted to bring Ukraine into NATO made was that, well,
he won't attack them if they're in NATO country. Now
he's going to go after Poland. I just don't see
it as being very likely. I don't think the guy's
on a suicide mission. I think, as Burns told Condaliza
Rice that it wasn't for a suicide mission. It was
a choice they didn't want to have to make. That's
what our intelligence was saying at the time, and so no,

(49:07):
I don't think that there is to pretend. Look, I
think American expansionism has been more of a threat to
the American Republic than anything else. The idea that uten
is somehow some type of existential threat to America, I
think is aside from the nuclear question, just not true.
I think that there has been an effort for many

(49:28):
years now by the entire political class and the entire
corporate media to demonize Vladimir Putin in oftentimes the most cartoonish,
ridiculous ways. He stole the election in twenty sixteen, he's
got bounties on US soldiers heads in Afghanistan. Now, from
our perspective here right, people like insay this alternative media

(49:50):
space like Breaking Points is in, we all kind of
laugh and mock this stuff, like, oh, it's so ridiculous.
Look at how the cias lie in everybody and they
actually fell for it, and look how it's been. But
from Vladimir Putin's perspective, all of the most powerful people
in the most war hungry, powerful country in the world
have essentially been saying over and over again that he

(50:12):
declared war on us. I mean, you guys, you tell me,
because I know you guys have covered this stuff a lot.

Speaker 4 (50:16):
How many people in the corporate.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Media and in the intelligence apparatus said that the fake
overthrowing of the elections in twenty sixteen was worse than
Pearl Harbor. They were saying out loud for years that
he's declared war on US. Now, if you're Vladimir Putin,
you can't just laugh at that.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
You have to take that seriously.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
It was William Perry, Bill Clinton's Defense secretary, who said
that Vladimir Putin believes that it is the that the
US policy is to overthrow Vladimir Putin. I don't know
for sure whether he's right about that or wrong. It
wouldn't surprise me if he was right. That does sound
a lot like my government. But that's the perspective that

(50:59):
he's got to come to this from. And I think
all it takes is as I believe, it was John
Meherscheimer who coined the term strategic empathy, and that's all
you kind of need in this In this scenario, it's
not empathy for its own sake.

Speaker 4 (51:12):
It's strategic empathy.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
The same thing that you need to understand the Palestinians,
the same thing you need to understand al Qaeda is
that these I'm not saying they're good groups. Some of
them are, you know, some of the Palestinians are good people,
but some of them are are terrorist organizations.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. Vladimir Putin is a death.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Spot, but they also can have legitimate grievances, and we
ought to if if we want to ignore those, then okay,
but we ignore those at our own peril.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
I just I just want to say, if I may like, respectfully, again,
no talking about the present or what to do now.

Speaker 4 (51:45):
And this is my frustration firstation. I mean, oh, I'm sorry.
I promise I'll be very very quick on this.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
But the other point that I just did want to
make to you, as you bring that up again, it's
actually not the case that when I have all of
these Israel Palestine debates, that I want to talk about
what's going on right now and they want to talk
about all of the history that led to this point.

Speaker 4 (52:03):
It's actually quite the opposite.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Sagar made this point when he moderated a debate recently
for me on breaking Points.

Speaker 4 (52:08):
When he was recapping it the next day.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
The truth is that all of the pro Israel supporters
want to just talk about October seventh to today, and
everybody who's critical of Israel actually wants to go back
through the history and talk about all of it, because yeah,
it's important to understand the history to understand what position
we're in.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
Now.

Speaker 5 (52:28):
Let me let me bring you up to this week,
says you want to want to talk about today. So
this is from earlier, earlier this week from Zelenski's top advisor.
You probably saw this quote. He's got a couple others
out there publicly. He's saying this in English, so we
don't even have to hit the translate button, So very

(52:48):
nice of him. After the attack on the beach in Crimea,
he said quote, there are not and cannot be any
beaches Taurus zones. Those are his quotes and other fictitious
signs of quote peaceful life in Crimea. Crimea is definitely
a foreign territory occupied by Russia where there are hostilities

(53:09):
and a full scale war, the very war that Russia
unleashed for genocidal and invasive purposes only. Crimea is also
a large military camp and warehouse with hundreds of direct
military targets which the Russians are cynically trying to hide
and cover up with their own civilians, which in turn
are considered to be civilian occupiers. So he said this

(53:30):
after Ukraine killed civilians on the beach. So are we
the batties here?

Speaker 3 (53:39):
I mean, it's almost a perfect mirror of rhetoric employed
in the Hamas versus Israel conflict actually, where you know,
when Hamas killed civilians on October seventh, the argument was
that the civilians were settlers who were occupying stolen land,
and therefore you can't like reasonably argue their civilians. And
then on the other hand, of course you have like
Israelis who say that like Hamas uses the palace in

(54:00):
people as human shields in the West Bank, you of
the argument. It's remarkable, actually how many parallels there are
and how these are employed. Are we the baddies, Yes,
we're all the batties. Nation states the batties. That sounds reductive,
but that is just the way the game is played.
You will never find the nations.

Speaker 5 (54:16):
There are ways to play the game without explicitly justifying
the slaughter of civilians on a beach.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
But in practice, if you go back to basically any
military conflict where existential threat was on the line, which
it certainly is for Ukraine or is in the Israel
Hamas conflict. You will see that this rhetoric and these
standards are employed. This is not me arguing that it's justified.
It's morally important because war demands abhorrence of the people
who participate in it. You're not going to find any

(54:43):
large scale conflict where stuff like this doesn't happen, which
is why to me.

Speaker 5 (54:47):
The interesting question is it's not even a large scale
conflict in Crimea like why part of the broader Ukraine.
Why is the American public supposed to care all of
a sudden that Russia controls Crimea like four years ago
you would have been laughed at if you suggested that
Ukraine ought to go to war to kick Russia out
of Ukraine.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
Well, that's a separate question.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
The first one about like the abhorrence of this rhetoric,
which by the way, I agree with. I just want
to be clear that this is a consequence of like
these heightened tensions, which is why I'm interested in what
can be done to bring an end to this war,
a permanent end, not some middling ceasefire that gets broken
almost immediately. In terms of whether or not America should care.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
The average American couldn't find Kabul on a map. You know,
the average American doesn't care about anything outside of their
own tax breaks. My interest in what the average American
cares about is nil. The average American doesn't care about
the homeless. Why should I care about what they care about?

Speaker 4 (55:39):
What I care about? Nuclear? What's good? They sometimes they do.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
I don't know the average American with the state of
our education, I care about what's good. Nuclear war's bad.
By the way, that's where I land in that particular
moral equivalence. I think that if we settle with an
unjust tense quiet with the Russia Ukraine conflict, we guarantee future.
If you look, why would the history of expansionist empires.

(56:03):
If you take a look at what Russia is doing
now and compare it to the rhetoric employed by other
nations that have annexed adjacent territory, you will find they
tend not to quit while they're ahead. There's a pattern
of over extension.

Speaker 5 (56:15):
Let me ask you so on on this piece. You
know you hoped that, you know, if there's enough fighting,
that eventually these two fighters will become exhausted and kind
of peace will break out. But you've also said that
if we get a peace deal, then war will eventually
break out.

Speaker 7 (56:33):
So why would the peace from.

Speaker 5 (56:34):
Exhaustion not just lead to your your fear that two
years later war would break out again, Because I think
it means only war is the only logical endpoint of
your position.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
Heretion, I think it needs to be a peace deal
that the Russian and Ukrainian people are happy with. Right now,
we haven't even gotten close to finding that point, which
means the only real end to the conflict would be
the complete annexation of Ukraine and the annihilation of all
the militias and insurgency groups within it, which would be
very difficult considering the fact that Russia has logistical breakdowns
fifty miles out of their border, or Ukraine retaking all

(57:09):
of its territory, which is at the moment basically unthinkable.
It doesn't seem like there's any end to the conflict
right now outside of something that could be imposed by
a kind of international move to sort of like solidify
the line where it is now, and I do think
that would just lead to more peace in the future.
That's my question, and I don't come to this with
a solution. By the way, if I had a solution,
or if anyone did, I think you'd be hearing them

(57:31):
preaching it a lot more often. I don't like the
idea of treating this like team sports or like you know,
well in actuality, like we could have prevented this if
we went back twenty thirty forty years. I know there's
a lot of other cool stuff we could have done.
We could have invested in, like Apple early too.

Speaker 6 (57:45):
Let's say it. Let's say the US tripled the NASA
budget and sent it all to Ukraine. Do you think
that would be too much US support?

Speaker 3 (57:52):
I mean, if we oversupport Ukraine, if we commit to
it so hard that Ukraine starts pushing back further. My
concern would be that the the brass in Ukraine would
get arrogant and start pushing into Russia. I don't think
that's especially likely. Certainly, Ukraine doesn't have the same sort
of legacy and cultural pretext of expansionist sentiment the way

(58:13):
that Putin does, but it's possible. I also disagree, by
the way, with the strike they did on some of
those early warning systems. You showed an article with that
headline a little bit ago. I think that's dangerous territory.
I don't think that Ukraine has been particularly irresponsible in
this conflict, as military conflicts go, and that's a pretty
low bar. I do think that there's a risk the

(58:34):
more we gin them up, the more gung ho they get,
and I think that risk increases the longer this goes
on too. So again, we either let Ukraine get washed entirely.
I don't even know if Russia could do that at
this point, even if we divested from Ukraine, we sort
of pressure Ukraine to accept the Russian peace steel as
it is now, or we overinvest to the point where

(58:54):
they can reclaim their borders, which, given enough time and
enough money, you know, we unleash Area fifty one on
the Russia, and sure maybe Ukraine could do it. Of
these three options, which is the most likely to bring
about the fewest deaths the lowest likelihood of long term
nuclear conflict. In my opinion, the path will get clearer
the more time goes on, because we will increasingly test
the willingness of the Russian people to support this ongoing engagement.

(59:18):
That sounds horrible. I think this is a horrible situation.
That's not me blaming anyone involved, the Pentagon, the Kremlin,
whatever else. It's a horrible humanitarian nightmare, but it's also
a pretty difficult one to manage. You know. You look
back at history and there are empires that we're clashing
with each other for centuries, over and over again, borders
barely changing with each successive war. I don't want that

(59:39):
to happen here, not just because we've got nuclear powers involved,
but because, like it is a collective drain on these spiritual,
financial and military collective of humanity. I just don't want
to come at it from a dogmatic position, because I
don't want to blind myself to avenues of peace that
might be unintuitive.

Speaker 5 (01:00:00):
Were running up against our time limit here. But Dave
any kind of final thoughts you'd want to have on
how this ought to end, like from your perspective to
Vosh's question, what do we do now?

Speaker 4 (01:00:12):
Sure? Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Well, first of all, I would just say that I
don't think Ukraine has been very responsible throughout this whole thing,
and certainly when their missiles hit Poland and Zelensky immediately
called for preemptive attacks on Russia by the West, either
either lying through his teeth and claiming it was Russia
who attacked Poland, or being so clueless that he hadn't

(01:00:33):
even done any investigation to figure out whether it was
them or not.

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
Either way, it seems pretty irresponsible to me.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
But look, without even going back into ancient history, like
just going back to very recent history.

Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
It was Jens Straltenburg. I apologize to the Norwegians.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
I know I'm butchering that he gave the whole game
away last year, but he admitted that Vladimir And actually
sent them a draft treaty and said, if you just
promised to not bring Ukraine into NATO, I won't invade.
And he brags that they said, no, we won't sign that. Haha.

(01:01:12):
You didn't want NATO expansion and look at you. Now
you're getting more NATO expansion. It's like yeah, and hundreds
of thousands of Ukrainians dead, Like, could we at least
all agree that we should have just signed that treaty?
Why is it a vital strategic interest to the United
States of America that we have a war guarantee with Ukraine?

Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
Like what how many people in America?

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
It's like George Kennon said back in the first round
of NATO expansion. We have neither the political will nor
the resources to actually defend these countries. How many people
in America actually would be willing to sacrifice themselves or
their children to make sure that the Donbass region is
ruled by Kiev? Would you guys be willing to sacrifice

(01:01:54):
your kids?

Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
This is that ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
Anyone here The average American wouldn't sacrifice their lives to
protect East German or Poland either. Do you think the
average American would fight for warsaw? This report doesn't. That's fencing,
but it's empty.

Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
Now, let me explain.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
What you will explain to me. I'm what you want
today too. I'm gonna finish.

Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
I keep talking about it today, and then you keep
talking about NATO, NATO, NATO.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
We know I addressed and acknowledged and agreed with.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
You're interrupting me and then claiming I'm not addressing something.
So first, I was just saying, could we at least
all agree that a couple of years ago we should
have just signed that deal and committed to not bringing
Ukraine into NATO and avoided this war.

Speaker 4 (01:02:35):
Couldn't invaded anyway? Huh? Couldn't Russia have just invaded anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Sure, I guess in the worst case scenario it would
be as bad as it's not that you're laughing, but
there's no point to that. Yes, in the worst area,
we could have still ended talk about what we can Okay,
let me please, okay, okay, fsh let me just make
my point instead of this constant interrupting listen. Yes, in
the worst case scenario, I suppose it could have gone

(01:03:02):
as bad as it did in this scenario, but obviously
the overwhelming odds or that it wouldn't have come to this.
Now in terms of your point of saying, like, well,
the average American isn't willing to go die for Germany
or Poland, Okay, but so why are we adding more
of these countries, especially when our own intelligence community is
telling us that the risk of adding this other nation

(01:03:22):
that American's carabout even less, the risk of it could
result in this war very explicitly blatantly saying that. Now,
look again, I do think I actually answered this question
pretty clearly pretty early on in this But right now,
what we should do, being educated by what's happened in
the very recent past, is to go, hey, America is

(01:03:44):
going to announce that we will pull all of our
support for Ukraine in this war under the condition that
Vladimir Putin accepts some type of peace proposal. That's going
to look like not quite as good as Ukraine would
have gotten if they had taken the deal at Boris
Johnson broke up. But it's going to look like Vladimir
Putin obviously keeping Primea, obviously keeping some of the part

(01:04:06):
some of the territories that he's he already has control of,
and in exchange for him ending the war, we promised
that Ukraine will not be admitted into NATO.

Speaker 4 (01:04:17):
That deal is still possible.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Listen, let me just add one final point to this,
and then we could you can respond however you want.
Understand something here, the United States of America holds all
of the chips. We could offer Vladimir Putin something that
would probably get him to do whatever we wanted him
to do. And you know what, that is the ultimate
crowning jewel for him. How about we leave NATO if
you end this war right now, America will withdraw from NATO.

Speaker 4 (01:04:42):
Why not internet rhetoric that it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
We're you know this is this is like this is
like you know, like literally, what if we left the
key military alliance on the planet to incentivize a desperate
on the other side of the world to not invade
the country they unjustly. No, no, no, no, it's it's good

(01:05:09):
for Twitter likes, it's great for like the ultra libertarians
who are all like keenly interested in you Knowkovic's like
electoral legitimacy. Uh, it's not reality. You suggest that you
pointested that we offered a poll. Uh, there was support
from Ukraine in exchange for a peace deal. Okay, fine,
so let's finally talk about that. Then what happens then

(01:05:31):
if that divestment occurs naturally there's a DMZ of course
there would be, right, and then you have a build
up of the remaining Ukrainian troops and Russia's troops on
both sides. Don't you think it's likely that given a
piece deal that takes place under those circumstances, eventually like
the conflict would spark again. And this time, what are
we going to do provide a to Ukraine again when
Russia again.

Speaker 6 (01:05:53):
Respond to conflict like the ongoing slog for another couple
of years, I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
To the path through that allows the peace feal to
take place in a way that doesn't guarantee an immediate
future conflict. So if we pursue an unjust piece that
is immediately broken, it will have been for nothing and
will be in a worse position than we were before.
Because nobody's going to want to stop the second version
of the conflict five days after it starts. We need
to be careful with this.

Speaker 6 (01:06:20):
So first of all, let me just say that will
close with a response from you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Okay, So I think that Vousch's response of like, oh,
this is just what internet libertarians care about or something
like that. I just think there was a lot of
words without you actually saying anything there. NATO was created
after World War Two because we had the Soviet Union
controlling half of Europe and the West and Western Europe

(01:06:45):
had been destroyed. It was in utter ruins, and so
we felt like we had to subsidize the defense of
Western Europe to make sure that this very clearly expansion
has powered the Soviet Union didn't expand into Western Europe
at this point. Today, Western Europe is rich and we
are thirty four trillion dollars in debt. It makes absolutely

(01:07:07):
no sense. And by the way, Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore.
There is no reason for NATO to exist. There's no
reason for the US to be a part of it.
The former president of the United States of America and
the current front runner to be President of the United
States of America again has made this point many, many times.
This is not just something for Internet libertarians to be
interested in. This is something that should be a serious

(01:07:29):
conversation amongst the American people. And by the way, during
the fall when the Soviet Union collapsed, there were many
of the wisest gray bears in the American security establishment
who felt the same way, who felt that, okay, the mission.

Speaker 4 (01:07:43):
Of NATO is over.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
Anyway, to your next point, again, this is just an
empty argument. You could say this about any peace deal.
Well what if war breaks out again? Well okay, but
if your worst case scenario is war breaks out, your
solution is to continue supporting the war. We want to
continue the war because we're afraid of war. Listen, if
we actually as I just mentioned, which is a serious proposal,

(01:08:05):
we have the ultimate chip here. We have the chip
that could allow Vladimir Putin to claim, hey, I won,
which is what you want. In these situations, you want
to let everyone save face. You want to allow the
Ukrainians to say, hey, we thought and we kept this
part of our territory. You want to allow the Russians
to say, hey, we were pushed into this, but we
were victorious. You want to let everybody save face and
come up with some type of deal. And yes, Vosh,

(01:08:27):
you can make the point that it's never one million
percent guaranteed that it'll hold in another war won't break out,
but it's a hell of a lot more likely than
continuing the war. So the point is you want to
come up with a deal that's realistic that could maybe hold.
And I do think that America is all the leverage
in the world to make that happen.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
And if I may, I'll just say that, like, no,
the idea of holding out for a good piece, one
that actually incentivizes both parties to hand like keep their
hands off, rather than just the first piece that comes up,
is a good instinct. The idea that there is no
difference between a piece deal that immediately breaks down and like,

(01:09:08):
you know, a war that continues until a good piece
is found. There is a massive difference between these. You know,
look at the multiple attempts at securing peace between the
Ukrainians and the Russians over the twenty fourteen invasion of
the Dunbass. Right, you know, terms are set, conditions are
then not met by either side, and then nothing changes,
cementing a course of action that continued down eight years

(01:09:29):
until the proper invasion by Russia began.

Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
You need to find a good piece.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
I don't know where that path lies, which means that
I don't have the convenient, simple answer of saying, what
if we just divested, left NATO and the hope that
Putin never invaded the remains of Ukraine again. I think
that's a very easy thing to say. I think that
it's good for like getting up populist fervor. I think
it sounds compelling. I think it would do nothing. I
think it's a virtue signal. After all, America is in

(01:09:53):
NATO as a formality, Like most many nations that are
in NATO don't even meet the required two point five
percent GDP millilitary expenditure that they need to be there.
NATO is just a cementing of existing alliances. Do you
think we still wouldn't go to war with the interests
of say Britain or Germany or France. Of course we would,
because we're still allies. NATO's just the framework built around it.

(01:10:14):
The real, true underlying force, which has shared geopolitical interest persists. Nonetheless,
what would keep Putin from invading again? In my mind
it would be promises from the West, but not promises
of devestment. We shouldn't just leave Ukraine weak and open
to being invaded again, because again, if they just break
the peace and conquer the rest of Ukraine after giving
it a year or two to rearm on the Russian front,

(01:10:35):
what do we get then? Well, obviously the Ukrainian people
are conquered and they are subject to a great many.

Speaker 4 (01:10:43):
Violences and humiliations.

Speaker 3 (01:10:45):
But in addition to that, of course, we continue to
sort of throw fuel into the fire of an expansionist empire.
Putin's intentions on this are not subtle. He was invoking
the borders of the Russian Empire when he began the
invasion of Ukraine. I do not think there's any reason
to believe that he would be like sated after he
made his way all the way over to Poland. What
I want is real reconciliation, not just between Ukraine and Russia,

(01:11:08):
but the West in Russia. Russia has been, let's be
real here, a nuclear missile ridden backwater since the end
of the Soviet Union. Prostitution skyrocketed, child sex trafficking skyrocketed
after the end of the Soviet Union. Their economy in shambles.
Oligarchs effectively rule the country. There are many many Russians

(01:11:28):
who don't even have indoor plumbing. I think that a
promise of shared investment the thing we never did after
the end of the Cold War, and not just business investment,
not just Coca Cola opening up a factory.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
I mean real.

Speaker 3 (01:11:39):
You don't want the American taxpayer spending money on Ukrainian weapons, Okay,
I got a better idea for you, three times as
much money on Russian economic.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
You know, reinvestment.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
Give it, Give it to them to work with build
real economic bonds. One of the reasons Taiwan hasn't been
invaded yet is because China and America are so integrated economic.
We don't have that with Russia. That's one of the
reasons they're able to persist in spite of all the
sanctions on them, because they rely on a pretty primitive
oil coal, natural gas kind of you know, extraction economy.
I think that if we take Russia seriously as a

(01:12:13):
foreign power and as a people, we invest in them
and we care about them in the long run, we
could secure a better piece that both sides feel better about,
and we could build a world where there is no
longer any incentive for the West or for Russia to
get angry at each other.

Speaker 4 (01:12:28):
And that's my hope naive it.

Speaker 5 (01:12:29):
Maybe and probably cheaper if we just reached a piece
deal and lifted the sanctions and then kept dollar in gemony.

Speaker 6 (01:12:36):
Anyway, well, this is a good place to leave it.
And this has been super super interesting. Thank you guys
both for being game to talk some of this out.
We really appreciate it. Boush and Dave Smith, thanks so
much for joining us on counterpoints.

Speaker 4 (01:12:48):
I have a good week you guys. Thank you Dave,
Thanks guys. Thanks Bash

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