way we ve seen, not taking any steps towards diplomatic resolution, i think you ll see the krueuropeans support the sanctions. i want to make one point here in terms of their analysis. putin can stand aside politically, try to carve out this defiant, if you will, posture to the world politically. he s obviously rejecting he was part of rejecting a u.n. observer and ose observer in crimea to have an objective look at what was going on. russia is a member of those organizations. he can strike this defiant pose. what russia can t do in a globalized economy, of course, is to isolate their economy. and that s i think really where the leverage is here. someone wrote in a column the other day, i think in the new york times that in 1968, of course, in august of 1968, the russians invaded czechoslovakia. but and there wasn t the question is, what happened to the russian stock market then? nothing happened because they didn t have a stock market. russia is integrated in the international
covich putin was supporting a suppression on human rights. can putin allow independent ukraine that is allied with the west, at least economically? is that something you believe a russian leader like putin could allow? including or without crimea. give him crimea. probably so but it would depend on the conditions. i m struck by your introduction in the show. let me go back to that. i think we re two steps from a cuban missile crisis and three steps from war with russia for the first time. part of the problem is, as you pointed out, we don t hear what russia is saying. part of the reason for that is, is that anybody who tries to explain what russia is saying, it s called a putin apologist. we need to get a negotiation going on. we re told putin and obama are talking past each other.
that will stick, we need to recognize that issues at stake are not personal, and that they are larger than obama s weakness and putin s paranoia. let s get started. in the midst of a crisis like crimea, the president s national security adviser is charged with keeping the president up to the minute on developments, advising the president how to proceed, and ensure that the president s decisions are actually carried out. until nine months ago that job belonged to my next guest, tom donilon. welcome back to the show, tom. thank you, fareed. good to see you. good morning. my impression is on the basis of some intelligence reports that we ve heard about at cnn, that russian forces are consolidating their control over crimea. in fact, perhaps even poised to do more than that.
russian and almost no one in ukraine who doesn t understand ukrainian. the ukrainian leadership today people like clich kov, these are people who are much more comfortable speaking russian than ukrainian. this notion there is this deep hostility towards the russian language, towards russian culture, ethnic russians in ukraine right now is not true. but you say that even those these russian speakers want to be part of the west? absolutely. and it s not the other thing i would say is what i was very struck by this week is for ukrainens this was less about a choice of the u.s. and russia, and more about a political choice, a belief and reality that the regime was deeply corrupt, was deeply violating of human dignity and in the end, murderous towards its own people. it was a rebellion against that and the perception which is the reality that in backi ining you