well, it s unclear how many russian sailers died in the attack, the u.s. believes there were significant casualties. at the on set of vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine, more than two months ago, president biden was insistent he didn t want to make this a contest between the u.s. and russia. direct confrontation between nato and russia is world war iii. something we must strive to prevent. fearing potential nuclear conflict, his goal it seemed was to stand behind the ukrainian people without military intervention and put pressure on putin with sanctions, hoping that he would back off. when ukraine begged for more military support, the u.s. at first appeared willing to support a transfer of mig fighter jets from poland. that deal was rejected by the pentagon over fears it could lead to open conflict between nato and russia. but, the discretion exercised in that decision has evolved into what increasingly looks like a proxy battle. consider this the biden
former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy rick stengel. thank you so much for joining us today. rick, i ll start with you. i listened to what president biden said with lester holt last night. he basically said, we re not trying to do this. direct conflict with russia is world war iii. those were literally the terms that he used. he said, everybody get out. this is not going to be argo. what is the purpose of the united states right now engaging in diplomacy or sending troops to poland if the president s made it pretty clear that we re not going to get into armed combat over ukraine if the russians invade? well, we were never going to get into armed combat, jason. i mean, ukraine is not a nato country, as we all know. i mean, i think what happened with between president biden and that kind of extraordinary press briefing that jake sullivan did is they said the die is cast, which is kind of an appropriate expression because
looking with an armed engagement between the united states and any nato country and russia is world war iii. and frankly, the ukrainians are not asking for american troops. they re asking that we continue to supply and equip them. and i m not saying that this fight is over. i think the will to fight, which is one of the hardest things to measure, is extraordinary on the ukrainian side. there are real and growing questions about the morale and the technical capability of the russian forces. that said, if in fact putin is able to achieve, for example, a military victory, that doesn t mean he s won. because he ll face ukrainians that will fight him and carry that out. there will be a legitimate ukrainian government no matter what happens militarily on the ground. i still think there s open questions about how long and costly this is going to be from a military standpoint in ukraine. i think the costly war situation is probably his best case
to congress as required by the constitution to be submitted as a treaty. if it was submitted as a treaty and we voted on it, there would be a deal. there is no deal. even if the biden administration signs. they have what is called an executive agreement with iran. it will not last past the next republican president that is elected just like the last deal did not last the minute that the republicans took over. look, if you are going to get this done, everybody needs to get together on this and we need to have a deal with this. a good deal. this is not even close. let s turn to ukraine. how do you stop vladimir putin without starting world war iii? well, there is no doubt, you always have to keep in mind that you do not want to escalate direct confrontation with russia. i would not call it world war iii, i think that if the thing
but that s their doctrine. and i think he was reminding us of that. do you actually think he would use battle field nuclear weapons? i think no matter what his state of mind is, i think he understands if he were to use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield, that would trigger the third world war and he wouldn t go down as a historic figure because there wouldn t be anyone else to talk about it. but you worry when someone begins to run out of escalation options and left with things like attack space and cyber, that these things begin to escalate. that s the point. escalation at any kind what if the russian navy decides to ignore that order and proceed through and they re confronted by nato ships? now you have a nato conflict. there s a real danger in this. that just means we need to be aware there are dangers of escalation being underappreciated by some.