The geopolitics of the russiaukraine. This is cspan2. Good afternoon and evening to those of you who may be joining us from other parts of the country or other parts of the world. Im suzanne maloney, im vicepresident and director of Foreign Policy here at Brookings Institution, on behalf of Foreign Policy and the Talbot Center for security and technology, im truly delight today welcome you to the special event today. Our first annual night forum on politics. This forum is named in honor of brookings Phillip H Knight and made possible through his gift to the Foreign Policy program. And the overarching goal of the phil knight gift is supporting essential research into international security, grand strategy, military affairs, american alliances, and security partnerships and Trans National threats. Were deeply grateful to phil for making this ambitious effort possible and for enabling us to bring together a truly Phenomenal Group of scholars today to discuss u. S. Grand strategy and u. S. Foreign policy at a time of heightened frictions among great powers and tremendous risk within the rulesbased international order. Its hardly surprising that we chose to focus on russias war with ukraine. With the farreaching global consequences, its essential for us to take stock of these devastating events and their impact. Im especially grateful that the knight forum has created an opportunity to hear analysis and insights of several of our top brookings experts. We have three Panel Discussions focusing on different aspects. War today. The first panel focuses on the trajectory of the war itself in battlefield dynamics. And our second europes Security Landscape and the impact and crisis on the transatlantic relationship. Our third and final panel, examines the Global Security architecture and focuses on asia, south asia and ahead, theyve contributed to a series of papers which analyzed the crisis and provide crucial commentary on ways to help end the war and repair its damage, adjust transatlantic and european Security Architecture and policies to handle the fundamentally transformed strategic landscape thats resulted from the war and to assess the broader implications of the conflict. These papers are named in honor of american statesmen and our former Brookings Institution president , the talbot papers on implications of russias invasions on ukraine have offered critical policy options during a time of crisis. Played a pivotal role in shaping american Foreign Policy in the region as deputy secretary of state and ambassador at large and special advisor to the secretary of state for the newly apartment states for the former soviet union during the Clinton Administration and in subsequent scholarship during his time as president of brookings. While strobe could not be with us here today, we know he and his wife barbara are watching from afar and we wish them well and look forward to welcoming them back to brookings soon. Id like to take a moment to one of my colleagues who helped bring this together. My colleague is the Phillip H Knight and Research Policy program here and returned from a meeting with president zelenskyy himself. This is one of the many ways in which brookings scholars have drawn on their expertise to meet the demands of this extraordinary moment and to provide insights and analysis of the far reaching consequences of the war. Before we get fully underway, a final reminder that we are on the record today and were also streaming live. So, those who are viewing virtually, please send your questions via email to events at brookings edu or on twitter using the knight forum. For those in the room well reserve a few moments at the end of each panel for questions and answers. Staff with microphones will come around. Now, over to you, mike, to introduce the first panel. Thank you, greetings, everyone. Suzanne, were lucky to have you running the program and amy lou in at the institution. And thanks to phil knight. You may notice im not rachel martin, she was originally to be our moderator for panel one, those of how will listen to morning edition will know why shes not here, shes covering the queens funeral in london on location and were congratulate feud as we honor the queen in our own way that youre here with us. And we will have three panels, concentric circles, moving from the immediate conflict to think about the broader europe future and it will go al 10 00 and were talking about the war. And let me talk about the war, i dont just mean the battlefield, its the west trying to apply pressure to Vladimir Putin including with economic sanctions and the way in which that influences Global Energy and markets among other things. And two of our four panelists focus on these as well as military matters. We have the whole spectrum as well as broader dynamics covered here and well proceed with cat lynn kaitlin talmage speaking first, a fellow at georgetown university. She and melanie, sitting next to her are two of the best. And doug works with brookings nonresident senior fellow one of the worlds best economic sanctions and warfare experts if i could say so myself and ive learned a lot from him the past seven, eight months as well as before and thinking through the ways in which economic pressure can be applied against russia and the ways which we can make ourselves more resilient. And samantha to my immediate left is adept at describing these issues. One of the experts at the Energy Markets here at brookings and think through who had as got the upper hand, putin or europe on issues of natural gas, as well as the broader question how the world is adapting to this crisis and trying to respond to keep the oil and gas flowing, keep the Energy Prices reasonable even as we also see how we can try to give Vladimir Putin greater incentives to end this terrible conflict. Im going to stay a couple of words as i warm up here and begin, based on my recent trip of last week, to poland and ukraine and starting with questions for our panelists and as suzanne said, have time for all of your thoughts in the last 20 minutes or so of the hour. Let me just make, if i could, maybe four broad observations about the trip and im not going to overstate what i accomplished or what i saw. I was only in ukraine for a couple of days, only in kyiv, for a little over a day and with hats off to a polish think tank, called pism, polish institute for International Affairs and organized the whole trip and provided security and so forth and set up the meeting with president zelenskyy. So, one observation, and these are not meant to be comprehensive, just a couple of points to help set the context for our conversation. One observation is that ukraine itself, despite the ongoing tragedy, and i didnt get close to the front lines, but the preponderance of the country and certainly the capital looks pretty good and hats off to the ukrainian people for their resilience. You know, when youre looking at the faces of people walking on the sidewalks of kyiv in the outdoor cafes and the restaurants, where life almost seems half normal, you know, theyre all anxious and worried about the future, well aware that the moment now of semi calm in the capital may not last and undoubtedly in most cases or at least in many cases, grieving and mourning the loss of loved ones who have already perished in this terrible conflict, but the appearance and reality of kyiv and even of bucha to the north, with mass killings of ukrainian people, people are walking in the parks and buildings are being repaired, a fair amount of life as far as activity and impressive. The ukrainian people are proving resilient. Observation number one and number two, president zelenskyy is more awesome in person than i would have expected. What incredible poise and courage. Certainly, a resolute and focused, you know, concentration on the conflict. Constantly on his toes. Very aware of the need to maintain security, even within kyiv, knowing the attempts by russia against his life in the past, but still, with a very respectful, affable nature towards other people, very interested in what we had to say. Very friendly, very modest, and even with a little bit of a wry sense of humor he was able to maintain in this kind of a tragic time and the reason why i like seeing that, not just that it makes him for charismatic and appearing, but makes him appear as he can handle this indefinitely and i think the war could go on indefinitely and the ukraine is going to need its Leadership Team and people for the fight if thats what it takes. I dont see signs of exhaustion. I dont see signs of any kind of loss of balance or composure in the way he conducts himself and it was encouraging. This is the morning after his little car accident, too, so i can happily report, no limp, no measurable impact of any kind on and he had been in the day before honoring the liberation of a city by ukrainian forces. And n. A. T. O. , and polish efforts for the supply lines into ukraine are impressive. Im not going to say much about the details, obviously, some of the details are out in the press, but a big part of the effort is, of course, not to give away too many of the details and maintain concealment and resilience in the event that russia tries to interfere more with the flow of supplies going into southeastern poland and from there into ukraine by various means and its quite wellorganized. My hats off to n. A. T. O. And specifically the poles to do what with the supply of material into ukraine and fourth point, ill make this brief and we can come back to it later in discussion, if you wish, probably carefully clear to most, this fight is nowhere near over and the fact that recent momentum has shifted a little bit more in favor of Ukrainian Armed forces should not make us complacent in any way, shape and form. Im happy to report ukrainians are not complacent. And some like pundits saying it could be by the end of the year, optimistic interpretation, policies should certainly not be based on that presumption and the ukrainians are not basing that on that presumption. Were asking for help and from the press, asking for more weaponry, and im going to quickly mention that my own observation, just this past week, we should indeed continue to provide more than the 15 billion in u. S. Assistance and other allied help thats already come through by way of military aid, but im more inclined to think that we should beef up the missile and air of cities and tank force, in western, providing long range attack missiles not because Vladimir Putin says its a red line, but when i look at the various target sets and missions that lie above, tanks look moreltively to me. Thank you for putting up with my long introduction and i wanted to give you that quick battlefield report and now if i could turn to kaitlin and ask you if there are any comments youve got how you see the battlefield dynamics and youve been thinking about your expertise with Nuclear Affairs and escalatory dynamics and the role of Nuclear Threats and deterrents in this conflict and the question whether we could at some tragic point in the future see an escalation. Thats a lot to put on your plate at once, but maybe first you could comment on how you see the battlefield itself and then we can go to the conflict. Thank you mike and everyone and for being part of this discussion. I would say in response to your prompt that i kind of would begin where you ended which is to note that its just not over. Were very much in battlefield terms at an early point, a midpoint, we dont really know, but i think we have to pump the brakes on some of the euphoria about recent ukrainian gains. And the reality russia controls significant ukrainian territory, not only crimea, but cities, and we dont want to be overambitious what we can infer from the battlefield dynamics thus far. With that being said, i think there are some preliminary observations we can make about the battlefield dynamics and portend in ukraine and more broadly. I think this is an opportunity to think hard about modern warfare and what that could look like not only in ukraine, but potentially in other theaters which i know is something melanie will discuss as well. The big take away a 30,000 foot level at battlefield dynamics in this war has to do with the importance of nonmaterial factors in battlefield effectiveness, which i think has surprised a lot of people, and by nonmaterial factors, i mean things besides the number of men you have under arms, hardware, tanks, planes, bombs, bullets, that stuff. That stuff matters clearly, but i think if that were what determined military joult outcomes in the modern era, this war would have been over, and there is a difference between ukraine and russia, prior to the war and many of us, including them, as guilty of this as anyone, really underestimated how well the ukrainians could use the material capabilities that they had in order to generate military power. And in fact, i think what weve really witnessed over the last six months is both an over performance by the ukrainians relative to what we would have predicted based on material capabilities, as well as, frankly, an underperformance by the russians based on what we would have predicted and that has produced a large delta between, you know, what we would have thought based on prior to the war and what actually unfolded which has been effective and powerful. Ukrainian resistance. And of course, some of that is clearly due to the infusion of Material Support to rescue from the west in terms of weaponry and in terms of training efforts. Im in no way trying to downplay those, but i would note that building partner militaries and providing military aid to clients and something that the United States have tried lots of places around the world. And spoiler alert, it doesnt always go the way it does in isaac. If you think about the billions of dollars that the United States spent training the iraqi army, the Afghan Military forces or even, you know, think about the efforts with the south vietnamese military. Just because an outside power pumps a lot of aid into a country doesnt mean theyll do what ukraine has been able to do. I think theres some kind of special sauce with respect to the Ukraine Military performance and i think they were very effective after the shocking loss of crimea in 2014, for instance, in terms of getting their house in in order militarily, developing more hormoneious military operations and preparing to mobilize their population and have that population be not only motivated to fight, but trained well it fight and the result they have an army with very high morale and good military skills that are able to actually take advantage of the Material Support that they have received. And we have seen, i think, lots of impressive innovation by the ukrainians with the military capabilities that they have. I mean, its interesting to think about himars. The United States has provided these and theyre an important capability, but ive been impressed by the fact that the ukrainians have gotten good at making himars decoys and theyre like dummy himars and the russians have said theyve destroyed more than given by the United States. And because some are decoys. But my point is thats innovative and something that you do with tactical skills, were seeing the ukrainians able to watch these high speed antiradiation missiles that go after russian air defenses from migs, and using a western missile on a soviet era, soviet legacy aircraft, which again, that takes innovation and suggests not only theres innovation in the field by these forces about, but their command and control and structures with that centralized innovation. Its not just what they have, its what theyre doing with what they have. And i think their performance, you know, in this regard goes beyond that sort of tactical and operational level. If you think about kind of the operational strategic level, the way that the ukrainians have pulled off the recent counter offensive, how they chose the specific access of advance. The way that their information operations, frankly, before the launching of this counter offensive gave the russians, impression that maybe the effort or the only effort will be to the south and allowed them to deploy away from the way that ukrainians are from the east. And thats impressive. And if theres one preliminary conclusion i would draw, theres one war the ukrainians are winning and thats the information war. Thats an example of it. I think their ability to spur continued support in the west is another facet of that. And conversely, if i could say a couple of things about the other side of the coin, now, i talked about how i think the ukrainians have overperformed relative to what we would have expect based on their material capabilities. I think the russians, as ive said, have underperformed based on what we would have expected. Weve seen a lot of tactical and operational mistakes, where theres just basic military skill that seems to be lacking from some of their operations that may reflect poor training, certainly poor morale, poor logistics, overly centralized command structure where youre not seeing the innovation in the field that i think has characterized the ukrainian performance and of course, at a higher level, i think its uncontroversial to say that the decision is it to start the war itself reflects some really serious pathologies in russian Civil Military restrictions that frankly stem from the fact that, you know, russia is a dictatorship in which Vladimir Putin probably does not get told a lot of things that he doesnt want to hear from his high command and from his military intelligence and i think that that has set russia on a course where, you know, reality is a colliding with expectations in a way thats leading to underperformance. You know, its interesting if you think with, what is russias next step after this counter offensive and these successes, you would think, based on capabilities, that russia would have a greater ability to mobilize manpower from its society. And this is the bedrock, getting people into uniform yet, weve seen hesitation for putin to pull that lever, to call it a war, to call for general mobilization and we have others who i think will be speaking this morning who know a lot more about russian domestic politics than i do, that it points to something going on in putins domestic calculations hes not willing to utilize this potential source of russian power. But if he wants to reverse ukraines recent gains and hold onto what he has, id expect him to do that or failing that, id worry that he might try to turn to other means of escalating the conflict as a way of trying to coerce a favorable outcome for russia or an outcome that he could say was a success. And to think about it the big conflict, Russian Strategic or Tactical Nuclear weapons and russia has a big arsenal for a reason and they are for some weapons that can break up large concentrations of aversary forces and even weapons would have Strategic Effects and be a coersive tool and not only on the battlefield, but a message to the west, if this doesnt get solved the way i want this, i have more of these in the garage and other things in the back yard. All right, and so, its a potential outcome there that i think could be, you know, really concerning and i think the administration is very aware of that and has done a lot of things to manage that escalation that you referenced, and i think its partly for that exact reason to respect those red lines, but i think we need to keep in mind that russia is a Nuclear Power and of course, its not to say that Russia Nuclear use would be a good option from putins perspective, but, you know, we could get into a situation where hed use it as his lease bad option if hes not willing to do things like mobilize his conventional military power or whatever set of domestic reasons. And states have historically sometimes in situations where the status quo is gambling would be a better option if you think, for instance, why did japan attack pearl harbor did they think they could defeat the United States . No, in the status quo they knew they would be strangled by the u. S. Oil embargo, there was a chance engaging in this attack and wiping out the u. S. Fleet in pearl harbor they could get the United States to back down and doe destroy one of the u. S. s way of enforcing that embargo and we all know how that ended. They didnt go into the attack thinking yes, this is guaranteed success, they went into it thinking the status quo, if this continues, im doomed. Maybe ill gamble on this other possibility. So i will just, now, stop there at the moment, but i do think that thats kind of where we see the battlefield dynamics now and some things down the road. Thank you, caitlin, thank you. And doug, if i turn to you, how do we see the economic war, im intrigued, its obviously complicated and many types of sanctions probably far and beyond what Vladimir Putin expected and a lot of inability on his part to bring in High Technology goods. Weve read a lot about that, a lot of digesting of western firms with the supply chain, you know, operations inside of russia and russia seems to be making as much money on the nat gas and oil as ever. Who has the upper hand and where is this headed the next few months . Thats, first of all, thanks to mike and everyone for joining this morning. Its complicated and let me take a step back and first of all, there are multiple layers to this. First of all, theres the support that we, the u. S. , the g7, the eu are providing to ukraine, which is a huge economic financial component and second, the more aggressive warfare elements that were using against russia. Im going to start with the latter ones, that you pointed out and i dont want to forget Ukraine Support as well,its not just himars and other military, ukraine needs money and where its going to get that money is important of the shortterm aspect of the war, but the longer term, what happens next and i dont think we can lose sight of that. Let start with the russia side. We collectively and the u. S. Made a decision at the earliest stages of the battle that we were not going to engage militarily in direct confrontation with russia. N. A. T. O. Was not going to cross the line. We were going to limit our support. That does not mean that we were not going to use tactics. There was not handtohand, there was not an enormous emphasis placed on the economics. I think there was a public misunderstanding or appreciation of the asymmetry in terms of timing of that. So youve read countless articles about are sanctions against russia working . Well, theyre not working the same way if you drop a bomb on somebodys house. It is destroyed instantaneously, no, sanctions dont work this way, theyre not designed to work this way. So i think that they should first of all, have the idea that sanctions are a direct replacement for military engagement and the timing and effect of the sanctions is going to be symmetric to russians against ukraine militarily, that does not mean that theyre not working, but if you highlighted the one that people probably understand the least, but thats the most effective in the longterm and of course, we live in the so tight that nobody cares about longterm. And Everyone Wants instant frat gratification. And the product rule under the export control act, a lot of words there, what you need to know about that, it means that the u. S. Has said any Semiconductor Chip that is even remotely hightech, thats not only what goes into military hardware, but it goes into everything that Vladimir Putin was contemplating as the core of his post fossil fuel economy. Weve put a global stop on the export of those chips into russia. Thats huge. But it doesnt mean its going to impact russias economy tomorrow. Whats interesting is were six months into this war and its now actually impacting russias military capacity on the battlefield. I would argue, if you go back to 2014 and the invasion of crimea that some of the restrictions we put on then is also impacting russias ability to fight on the battlefield now, but its hard for the public to actually say what we did in 2015 is impacting the war in 2022 because theres not just a direct line that you can draw, but its meaningful. So, the sanctions that we put on are huge, median term and longterm. Not leslie necessarily shortterm. And the question is if its already. Lets step back and other sanctions, the other sanctions, sanctions have three different purposes, to deter, to negotiate their leverage and to punish. President biden said were not using these sanctions as deterrents. Whether it was originally the intention to use them as deterrents is water under the bridge, they didnt deter because theres a big war going on and lets take that and park it. Negotiating leverage, its very, very interesting because a lot of people assumed that we would roll back sanctions as part of some negotiated peace deal. While i think thats still we mostly plausible, i think i would emphasize the word remotely rather than plausible because its very hard, even someone like president macron in france, negotiated into a peace outcome, has seen the war crimes that were all seeing, and has started to exhibit behavior inconsistent with rolling back sanctions against an alleged, but fairly obviously, a leader thats engaging in war crimes, repeated multiple war crimes, its very hard to say were going to roll back sanctions against you and your regime because we want to sue for piece. So that leaves punishment and were doing a pretty good job of punishing if you take what i said before in the medium and longer term. In the storm, russias economy has been resilient and its resilient in a way, i would push back on the argument that were funding russia war machines by providing them dollars in euros, and weve stripped them, they can build up a huge oment of reserves of dollars and euros and they cant do anything with them. One of the problems as a strategic super power we are creating alternative means by which russia is transacting, trade, finance and commerce, not just russia, were creating sing nalg to russia and china, not so, im not going to say adversaries, but not our friends in todays and tomorrows worlds. Were creating in which the world is migrating away from a dollarled, euroled global enforced financial and trade system. I worry about that and i worry about something that samantha is going to talk about, and the potential Oil Price Cap and i think that has an enormous amount of down side and unintended consequences, while it appears if you look at the rubles strength that the sanctions are not working, well, throw that metric out of the window and sanctions are working to just working in a longer term horizon than people are thinking about. Let me just move over to ukraine for a moment and then ill hand off, but on what worked for ukraine, the way you need to look at ukraine from a financial and Economic Perspective is through three basic phases, one, relief. Two, recovery, and three, whatever is next. I would argue that its the likely outcome in a positive case is eu accession. In terms of relief, were providing ukraine with money, grants, congress is appropriating it, we are giving it to them, and they are receiving it, and they are living hand to mouth. Europe is having a harder time of that because a lot of the way the world is structured, particularly, the eu, is to provide debt, not grants. And the problem with providing ukraine with debt is at some point, that debt needs to be repaid. So every dollar or euro that we or europe or the imf, or the world bank or others provide to ukraine through debt is actually its a good thing they need the money, but it adds to the debt stock and the debt stock ultimately has to be dealt with, if you believe as i do, and most people do, that the relief phase has to include private sector involvement, well, the private sector has, you know, that they want to be good citizens and im sure, they also want to get a return and if youre burdening ukraine with enormous amounts of debt, then it is harder to see how the private sector comes in in that next phase, in the rebuilding phase, to actually figure out when i said relief, i meant reconstruction, in the reconstruction phase how theyre actually going to invest. So this is tricky, in any of the institutions that provides them conditionfree, here is the check, go run with it for the next phase and theres jockeying thats going on. So i would say that were enormously generous in our relief efforts, were being more circumspect in the Recovery Efforts and those two are very much linked and as i mentioned in my opening comment, eu succession is the ultimate goal for ukraine and thats a processladen process which will take a decade, but i think thats the goal and that provides the conditionsbased Structural Reforms for ukraine coming out of this, most of which is really based on economic and financial. Doug, thats great. Samantha, ill go to you, please, and see how you see the Energy Situation shaping up. Who has the upper hand, how well is europe getting through this winter and if this is potentially a multiyear war, how does it has more disengagement from dependence on russian gas, and what putin might do next, over to you. Thank you, im here to talk about the Energy Theater of the war and first asked to speak on i dont know a darn i think this about military action, and excuse me, the way that most of us are experiencing and feeling this war is through Energy Markets, how its affecting most of the people in ordinary lives. Russia is the Largest Energy exporter on the oil side, along with saudi arabia, if you add in natural gas and coal, russia is the largest provider of exports of energy. Naturally well feel that and its important to point out this is different from the oil stocks of the 1970s or more recent things weve seen like sanctions on iran. In the 1970s, that was an oil producer saying we do not want to sell you our oil. This is exact opposite. These are Oil Consumers saying we do not want to buy your product because of what youre doing with the revenues, it does point it out and because were trying to make you an International Pariah in the realm of punishment. Very different than anything the world has tried to do before. And so i think its important to think about what it is and what weve experienced before. I also want to point out that sanctions serve all the purposes that doug pointed out, but its also important to point out that they cause pain on both sides. Anything that puts sand into the gears of International Trade is sure to cause pain for everyone. The idea is just to cause more pain for the party that were sanctioning rather than for the sanctioner and in this situation with russia as the worlds Largest Energy exporter, thats not an easy calculation and were feeling that. The place theyre feeling it the most by far is europe, and thats because of europes reliance on russia natural gas. Before the war, 40 of european natural gas were from russia increased over time and in part because of policy decisions, but in part because europes own native natural Gas Production was going down. And rather than work on producing a lot of gas fields in europe, which is not really what theyre trying to do with the energy transition, they were looking to russia to get them through the transition and into a renewable future. And turns out that hasnt worked out and where the rubber meets the road is in natural gas in europe on its not just likely that russia will cut off to natural gas in winter, the most likely outcome, if you look at where russia exports to europe come from, from the peninsula that you can turn on and turn off. I talked a lot about oil exports not being a spigot, but the gas exports largely are. And the oil exports, natural gas, they have the ability to do this. It will not harm their future production, and also, they have every reason to do it. I fully expect gas to be, if not completely largely cut off to europe this winter period, thats a very frightening prap proposition for europe and we think of natural gas and Power Production in the United States, where we use a lot of it. A lot of parts of europe use it in places that are not easily replaced, namely home heating. Think of replacing boiling systems and heaters in millions of homes and thats not going to happen by november and heavy industry where you need high heat and you need to burn something to produce the heat and theyre not set up to use any other fuel, i think youre likely to see extremely high prices. Youre already seeing talks of rationing and i think youre going to so important tradeoffs for homes in Northern Europe and in the industrial use of gas and everything from steel to glass, this is going to be a real challenge for industrial europe. It is not going to be a pretty winter. And i realize that thats very much a downer forecast, but i also think its what we should not just prepare for expect. On the oil side, things are different. Doug touched on this and touched on the eu and the g7, focusing on putting cap on the prices of russian exports. This is a policy that looks elegant on its face. We want to buy your oil. We need your oil. Youre one of the Worlds Largest exporters. What we dont want you to do is make money off of it. This is a completely new idea. Again, elegant on its face, but i have grave concerns about our ability to implement it. Both in terms of putins ability to retaliate and also in terms of the implementation of it itself. The idea is that this will occur through the prevention of western suppliers of insurance and shipping, not allowing them to ship russian oil unless theyre following the sanctions. Doug brought up what this does, it pushes business away from these western businesses and this may be ugly in the shortterm, but it may actually change the shape of markets in the longterm. There are a million particulars on this, everything from the ability of tanker capacity to go the distances they need to go and it will be early interesting to hear how this plays out, but i think the details on this are devilish and it will be interesting to see how it happens. The last thing id like to talk about, a bit more positive in terms of recent positives in the west. I expect putin to react badly to the Oil Price Cap. And what is he going to do, what he does in response is the question. Over the long longterm, russia loses period. A transition away from fossil fuels was going to be hard with russia and doug brought up what russia is thinking of doing in the postfossil fuel economy. What this conflict has done is made that change steeper and brought it forward in time. Because countries arent just moving away from fossil fuels now, theyre preferentially moving away from russia fossil fuels and changes the game for russia, and makes the problem more difficult. If the oil cap, even Oil Price Cap even partially works, a lot of russia oil fields are old, soviet era fields and you cant turn them off and on by turning a spigot. Youll see real reservoir damage in turning off the fuels if they cant produce because the oil has no buyer. No matter how this goes out were looking at shortterm pain for sure, but over the longterm, this is the pain really falls on putins russia and i think ill leave it there and leave it on a slightly more optimistic note after a gloomy five minutes of talking. Samantha, that was sobering and helpful. Now, melanie, you have the job not only extending this analysis to the globe and perhaps the chinataiwan question and integrating so i have two questions for you, one is indeed about china and taiwan and what china may be learning about this conflict and the chances of war and what war could occur over taiwan, heaven forbid, but as you hear the different analyses and integrate them, who might have the upper hand and where the war could go. Youve heard kaitlin and i myself point out what it means for the next few months and russia may have the upper hand on escalation options. Doug and samantha have talked about how russia is hurting and over time, that the economy really is going to suffer for a variety of reasons and short to medium term, they could be whether they have the resoluteness to get through a tough winter and i expect putin not to concede whether he sees whether he can break europe in the next few months. How do you see that question and then again, please extend this problem and analysis to east asia. Thanks, mike, very much for inviting those questions and i will try to only disappoint you slightly by saying that im not in the business of making predictions, but i hope to access a lot of the content that youve identified, along with my colleagues, and thanks very much, im really pleased to be here for a wonderful occasion like this. So, what id like to do is make a couple of observations from the perspective of somebody who thinks very much about u. S. Defense strategy and including the alliance structure, and it will touch on a lot of the elements that have already been raised. When i think about the manner in which the United States chose to engage this conflict both prior and during its emergence, i think one of the real positives for me was that the biden administrations position really reinforced the meaning of u. S. Defense alliances. Defense alliances are the most Serious Business there is and theyre very serious because theyre high cost and high risk. You have to pay the cost of making them credible in terms of military commitment. And the risk, of course, is that they can fail. A Defense Alliance is essentially, the most extreme form of military deterrents and when they fail, which they have in the past, that means the United States is at war. Thats a nontrvial risk which im sure everyone in the audiences understand. And they are measured and few and selected because the issues at stake are vital to the interests of the United States and theyre confined to those sets of interest. The United States does not have a defense eye lines with ukraine. Now, this didnt mean and doesnt mean that the United States cant contribute military tearily or they couldnt have decided not to go to war on ukraine. The current posture was not one of purely military deterrence as youd see in the Defense Alliance or primarily military deterrence. Instead as doug and others have highlighted, the United States and likeminded partners coming to be called the strategy of integrated deterrence, its not exclusive to military tools, but includes diplomacy and economic tools of influence. So, of course, we know what has occurred since that time and theres a lot of interest in sort of what we can he can traffic extrapolate for china and taiwan and there are tactical and operational lessons to be learned and every one of the negatives that caitlin outlined is not lost on beijing or on the United States for that matter. When it comes to the United States, i want to emphasize that i think the very first question about the implications for taiwan goes back to the first principle of Defense Alliances. Is the status of taiwan of vital, National Interest for the United States . Does it rise to that level . And that is a question, i think, thats being debated very much around town and last night on 60 minutes as well and its not clear to me that theres a consensus around that as yet. Well see. If the answer is that, yes, the United States does have a vital interest in the status of taiwan, then it will have certain policy implications, if the even is no, then there would be policy implications. And one we would pursue robust strategy china against the island. Well skip made to say, okay, were going to choose our strategy to deter either military or integrated. All of the deterrents might fail and the next yes, what is the after strategy. For military alliances, if deterrence fails, the active strategy is a war fighting strategy. The question about integrated deterrence is not so clearcut. What is the active strategy, one of the things that were working through right now, it could be in the case of failed intgrated deterrent posture, the United States does choose to engage, it could be decoupling, could be more than one option. In any case, i think the important thing i would emphasize, there needs to be clear objectives of that strategy, if its a punishment strategy, a decoupling strategy, what are the clear objectives. I have to confess, today, im not sure what strategy were pursuing, we collectively in terms of russia. We cant i dont think anyone believes that we can punish putin into submission and that hell retrench, ale give up. Hell return territory or tuck his tail between his legs and go home. Thats not what anybody expects. So what is our goal with this over time . Is the objective to punish very severely into the near to medium term and then expect that rusia in some way, shape or form, returns to approximately similar status or role in theically that it had before or is it to decouple and fundamentally reshape the role in the Global Economy. Its, again, not clear to me which were pursuing in earnest and thats in part because i think, you know, the option for how we would pursue either of those strategies or two. There are two ways to decouple, you can decouple fast or slow and similarly with punishment, two ways to do it, for a short time or a long time. No matter which quadrant youre in, as theyre knowing too well. Im not sure which quadrant were in right now. Im going to be watching not just how the conflict itself unfolds and learn from the operational element and strategically how the west is positioning its goals for russias role in the Global Economy moving forward and what those policy measures can and cant do. In that regard and including the price cap on oil. So, i hope thats enough interest, you know where to find me, you can always follow up. Thank you very much, melanie. Lets go to the audience. Well go until 10 00 or a few minutes after with this panel, have a brief coffee break and resume at 10 15 with our superstar europe panel. So lets talk maybe one round of questions ill ask each panelist to respond to one of the group and well wrap up. If i can start here and then well go to the gentleman in the sixth row. Im an Intelligence Analyst and former diplomate. When we do well to establish the principle right now that all the damage in ukraine will eventually be paid for by russia and we dont want sanctions postwar so detrimental that we end up with a world war i situation, but we can make it clear this will be a generational tax on all Natural Resource exports from russia to pay for what they are doing right now in ukraine. And this would have the effect to let russians know that every single day theyre going greater and greater in debt to pay for the ukraine. Thank you for at that question and over here, please. Coming right up behind you. Hi, im a law student at gw. For mike, two things that you mentioned tied together, theres an element of the war were not sure how long things are going to last and a material need for things like tanks for maneuver warfare, to what extent can we continue to rely on the kind of trickle down of back filling polish or czech tanks and apcs to give to ukraine and when are we going to have to deal with the logistical problems of training and supply chain for more western like leopard systems . Excellent. Lets see if we have a final question from the audience before we come back to the panel, yes, well go here to the gentleman in the second row. Thank you. Im a research internet, when it comes to Holding Russia accountable for war time war crimes and aprosecutor atrocities. How can the europe and United States, such as the wacker group, not beholden to the military apparatus. Before we start, and one question was for me, ive got the mic. Ill ask a question for the mix for anybody not withstanding melanies protest not to make prognostications, anyone on the panel, whether the war would be largely over this Time Next Year or extending onward from this point. An unfair question and that these folks specialize in these difficult queries. I guess i would say the likelihood of future supply provisioning of the west, is that the greater dilemma here is going to be in munitions not in hardware or systems. Nty of m1 tanks, if we states wanted to use some of our surplus to provideithe ukraine directly or countries like poe tend who have provided a lot of the stock from poland, and not worry that well be underprepared or defenseless in places and somehow that would threaten n. A. T. O. Territory soon. And im more concerned about the hightech systems and munitions, drones, capabilities, it appears weve been drawing down other stock rather quickly to help ukraine. I think we should sort of lean in to do that, ukraine is doing well and you hear that its everyones fight and ukraine is sort of carrying this out for us and theres a fair amount of truth for that. Bob kagan is going to speak and he wrote an oped, and that russia would potentially take all or much of ukraine and have the pocket and belarus and its own territory dependence astona and latvia, that would have been for forboding and even if russia couldnt take on n. A. T. O. , and ukraine has exacted a price on russia, and continue to do so partly for our own wellbeing. And down the panel and samantha, any questions youd like for yourself. Ill make an attempt although probably to answer the tax on Natural Resources, the reconstruction of ukraine. It is a very interesting question and a question that comes to mind in response for me is those are Natural Resources that the world is wanting to move away from and russian oil is not particularly Climate Friendly in terms of the way it is produced. Russian gas has had a lot of flaring and a lot of methane emissions associated with it, so, ideally we would actually like to phase out Russian Energy resource production for other reasons as well so i guess my question would be, in the future would russia be seen as a reliable enough supplier and are we going to continue this theme of preferentially phasing out russian Natural Resources to for climate reasons, its elegant on its face, but those are the questions it raises in my mind. Thank you, doug. Ail he take a different tack on the same question. I think its a smart idea, but i dont think that anybody should talk about it. Because i think at the end of the day, the framing of what will or will not be on the table in any potential ceasefire, peace talks, is so prospective, that first of all, this point, its premature, those talks are not in the question the world war one scenario, of course, the way you described it is different, but im not sure it would be perceived as different from those that would know that they are going to be asked to pay for the sins of their leaders in generations to come. So i think that the way that reparations are actually crafted is an open ended question. One thing i would argue is a bad idea, even though there are a lot of people in congress and others that are talking about it, is to seize and repurpose Russian Central Bank reserves. Its a very attractive idea. Its also a very bad one, from my perspective, because Central Bank Reserves play a very unique role in the global landscape. They are supposed to be sacrosanct and if you take them, even in light of a terrible, terrible set of aggressions like those being undertaken by russia under putin right now, what youre basically doing is telling the chinese in every other central bank in the world that there reserves being currently held in u. S. Dollars at the new york fed are actually subject to seizure, depending on what the political winds are at any given time in the future. That is a very dangerous precedent to set. So even though that wasnt what you were asking, i want to raise that because i think the consent of how you pay for reconstruction is a huge issue, but its probably premature to be talking about specifics. Thank you, melanie, over to you. Yeah, ill just add on to what doug has said with less nuance, which is my question would be to what end would we be making that expectation clear for the population of russia . I think there is a real risk of overdoing it and in a way that can rebound very poorly into the future. And so i would just sort of continue to think about what kind of russia and what way in which do we think we can interact with a future russia . Are we looking to achieve and take care in the policies that we establish so we dont foreclose any options or push too far in in directions where the unintended consequences could be really severe. And caitlin, so a couple of questions on the table. Sure. Im aware of that. Yes. So before i get to that, the one thats hanging out there, i just want to briefly stop your munitions point. I think thats spot on, but its less a question of platforms and more the munitions, which is also a very relevant concern for the sorts of taiwan scenarios that that melanie was talking about. And i think its something we really should look at with respect to our defense posture in asia. This war is kind of showing us that the importance of munitions and not just platforms. Im sure i will i will take a swing at your other question. I mean, you know, i think it was yogi berra who said prediction is hard, especially about the future. And so i dont want to i dont want to overstate predictions. But i think your your question does make me step back and say, well, where do we think the military situation might be in a year . And i will say i wouldnt be surprised if in a year russia still controlled parts of ukraine, including perhaps some swaths of ukraine that it controls right now, particularly in the south. If you think about her son, crimea and donbas, like all places, particularly donbas, where russia is relatively well dug in. And i think my my impression, correct me if im wrong, is better prepared in some ways than perhaps they were in the recent areas where ukraine has had successes. But i think thats the critical question. And i think this is actually a good note to kind of ten tend toward as we wrap up the military ish panel where were looking at the war and battlefield dynamics is that i think whether the war is actually over by this Time Next Year may not just depend on those military questions of what what territory has or hasnt been achieved, but that will really be a political question. And it gets back to some of these, you know, energy questions like what is europes will to continue this war after they get through another winter . What will the ukrainian population be willing to continue fighting for . Are they are they willing to to cede some of that territory in ways that, you know, frankly, today, i think theyre not. And likewise, what does putin define as success in this war . I mean, he, you know, has the ability to define and redefine what his objectives are. And so i guess i would just say on a purely military level, i can see the russians still controlling areas that they control today. A year from now, the question is, you know what . What does that mean politically for both sides . And does that does that result in an appetite for political settlement between those two sides and also between, you know, the western backers of ukraine and ukraine . Its all just its up there. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Were now going to take a ten minute coffee break and then well have a panel with three scholars combined roughly 50 Years Experience at brookings, constanza, seltzer, mueller, Jim Goldgeier and fiona hill, moderator by a scholar whos now got about an hour and a half of brookings experience. And were very happy to be welcoming also to brookings from our turkish american chair studying turkishamerican chair studying europe along with the rest of the europe center. So thank you all for being here. Again please thank this battle. At a quick cup of coffee and be back at 10 15. [applause] [inaudible. European politics and european security. 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