window over the next few months when they would have to move. there s no way that a treaty is going to be negotiated and proceed in that time frame. as you said earlier, this is a manufactured crisis on putin s part. he s got to be calculating on the one hand how much economic pain he s willing to take to get what he actually wants and giving biden s options, who has the upper hand here in these talks at all? first of all, putin is a bully and he s operating on his turf. so, you know, there are very short-term limited options. if the russian military wants to roll through ukraine, it would suffer a certain amount of damage but even the ukrainian military acknowledges that russia could successfully invade. and, remember, ukraine is not a member of nato, we are not obliged to come to the defense. it s not a treaty ally of ours. so russia unfortunately is like the proverbial nightmarish neighbor who actually does have
i want to ask you, you just said earlier that you believe begin what we re seeing with the troop build-up that an invasion is likely imminent in the next couple of weeks. what would that mean to americans? why should this conflict matter so much to every american? well, the first point to make is that ukraine is not a treaty ally of the united states, so the biden administration has been clear that the united states will not be directly involved militarily. there will be some degree of distance. but the notion that europe is a place where small states can be pushed around, where borders can be arranged, is something that the united states over the years going back to the second world war, that europe is something that the united states has never wanted and has fought to prevent. so those are the stakes in a sense. will it be a new europe, will it be a kind of lawless environment, or will some of these old rules still obtain, that will matter across the board to americans. bigger
talking about either. but here s the thingas. wasn t embarrassed about that . none of them are embarrassed about that . johnhiab bolton knows a lot. on the other hand , he spentow decades weakening americade with terrible foreign policy ideas and getting a lot of decent people killed for no good reason at all. foso you think at this point if justice were real, john bolton would be living in isolation and shame somewhere, spending his days in atonement? that s what you would do. butthis that s not what he s dog now here s john bolton, msnbc demanding w yet another war , this one with the nuclear armedj power watch. dodo you think that us forces should actually go in to defendd ukraine? well, i think it s probably too? late for that now. but i would say this the red line between being a treaty ally of the united states l not being one is significant. but the issue as innit b all iss like this is would a russian invasion and takeover of ukraine adversely affect american national security
that s still a few bridges to go, but, boy, that would be, again, part of putin s worst nightmare. joe, you are right to categorize this as a bit of a shift in the tectonic plates. and shifting, as you said, through a sudden acceleration of history. give us your take on the first four, five days of military combat in ukraine. we understand the fog of war stops us from getting a clear picture, but from what you have seen in media reports, from what you have heard talking to your military contacts, where are we four, five days into this invasion? many have been surprised, even shocked by the stiff resistance of the ukrainians. i have not been. i have had ukrainian troops under my command in afghanistan. they deployed with us forward. they ve been on many nato missions. again, they re not a formal treaty ally, but they re a
hit list of resisters, others that he wants to arrest or eliminate. do you think that u.s. forces should actually go in to defend? i think it s too late for that now. the red line between being a treaty ally and not being one is significant. but theishi arizona in all issues is would a russian invasion and takeover of ukrained averselyfect american national security and that of its nato allies? the answer is absolutely yes. would people say if russia invaded finland, not a nato ally, would they say that doesn t have influence on american security? you have a negative influence, even if you re not a nato ally and we did not act appropriately early. i think we should have had moerb american forces in ukraine early, not to fight but to train