Music. It talks about how to be honest to longtime partners, you know, how to be the big questions. You know, how to be true to yourself but also kind. You know, those are the difficult things about how to be a good person, but i dont think one can ignore the context in which the play was first put on and what it seems to have meant to people. Charlie tom friedman, david sanger, Hattie Morahan and Dominic Rowan when we continue. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Charlie we begin tonight with the ongoing crisis in ukraine. Sunday, residents of Crimean Peninsula voted overwhelmingly to sus seed and join russia. Vladimir putin recognizes crimea as a sovereign state. Kiev and ukraine have called it illegal. European union and United States have imposed sanctions on highranking russian officials. President obama spoke earlier today. Well continue to make sheer to russia thatter provocations will do nothing but diminish russias place in the world. International community will continue to stand together to opposed violations of ukrainian sowfty and integrity and continued military intervention in ukraine will only deepen russias isolation and exact a greater toll on the russian economy. Going forward we can calibrate our response based on whether russia chooses to escalate or deescalate the situation. Charlie joining me from washington, the New York Times columnist tom friedman and also from the New York Times david sanger, the National Security correspondents. His front page today looks at criticism leveled at obamas leadership on Foreign Policy. I am pleased to have them. David, let me begin with you. You say the obama policy is being put to test in ukraine and crimea. Whats the policy and what is the test . Well, charley, if you think about well, charlie, if you think about the first term in the obama administration, he deliberately moved to what in the white house they a called a light footprilhn strategy and we talked about it before on this show, and the theory of it was the era of sending 100,000 or 150,000 troops to a country of six or seven years, trying to do nationbuilding, that all had to end and the light footprint is about using drones, which he obviously used far more than president bush did, using cyber in cases like iran, using special forces to do a very quick in and out, and then using the Treasury Department as his favorite noncombatant command, and that was very successful, for example, in bringing the iranians to the table. We still dont know whether or not thats going to work. But if you think about the second term, the light footprint really has kind of, as one of president obamas former advisers said to me, run out of gas, an its run out of gas because, when youre dealing with problems like syrias assad or like Vladimir Putin going into a sovereign state and taking over crimea and threatening the rest of ukraine, drones, cybers, special forces and maybe even the usual economic tools dont work terribly effectively. And i think that, while youve seen president obama try to ratchet up the pressure and he did it again today with that announcement and sanctions on individual aids and the kremlin and so forth this is not a strategy that yields very big results right away. It may over time. It may in the long term. And more importantly, i think its probably not going to be effective in getting any of the recent invasion of crimea reversed. And, so, i think we are challenging cases today that after three years of the strategy, assad is stronger than he was, say, a year ago, and theres no telling whether or not any of this is having any real effect on putin. You said obama is surely the first president to be accused of acting in Foreign Policy like pollyanna, john wayne and Henry Kissinger in the same month. Which one is he required to be now . Well, i think hes acted in those ways in a way because hes reflecting i think the feeling of the American People. Theres a deep ambivalence about getting involved in a place like syria in the middle east, which really can only be involved in my view by boots on the ground, someone monopolizing the use of force there. There is no, i think, easy answer in syria and i think americans are deeply aware of getting involved in a place like that. In crimea, you have a peninsula, basically, that was part of the soviet union, given away in essentially 54 to ukraine, where the people there are russian speakers and want to be part of russia and the question is really, you know, how deeply are you going to get involved in trying to reverse that . I mean, what are our interests there . And i think our interests there are rather limited and i think obamas response is measured to our interest there. In a since, it kissingerian, is quite realest. I dont buy it that its manifest weakness. Ronald reaken at his angriest would not be going to war to reveers putins intervention in ukraine, lets be honest about that, and george w. Bush didnt go to war to reverse putins intervention in georgia. A lot of this is bhait called driveby criticism. Everybody laughs, but its driveby criticism. It has no connection to the real options at hand, but it doesnt reflect anything that the American People really want now. Charlie americans want to focus on their own self here and get their own nation building in order rather than involving themself in where else. If we do that, is that a vacuum of leadership in the world that someone else might inherit . Tom . You know, my feeling right now, charlie, is that the most important thing we can do is rebuild our strength. This is not its partly like vietnam but in a way its different. We fought two wars in the middle east, neither of which produce outcomes that i think anyone in america would argue were worth the investment. In treasure, we spent about 1 trillion in afghanistan, 1 trillion in iraq and under the bush administration, we cut taxes. For the first time in american history, we cut taxes while fighting two foreign wars, let alone one, and, as a result, we are fiscally in a different place, and that has obviously limited we see the impact in the pentagon budget and more broadly. My own feeling is we have got to rebuild our strength at home, and what worries me is, right now, we are neither doing nationbuilding abroad or at home at the speed, scope and scale we need, and that really does lead to the kind of vacuum youre talking about. My view on this is very simple in you know, we make lot of mistakes in the world, the United States, lord knows we do. But we have this hugely Important Role to play in the world in supporting the Global Commons, whether supporting protects the islands in the pacific or upholding the financial markets, et cetera. If we go weak as a country, your kids wont just grow up in a different america, but in a fundamentally different world so that, at this point, in the wake of whats happened in the last decade, we have to take one step back in order to rebuild our strength in order to play the role i think we need to play in the world, then i will support that. But what worries me is were taking a step back, and weve got this civil war at home between our own version of shiites and sunnis called republicans and democrats so were neither doing the kind of nation building we need to do at home or abroad. That is a scarier world. Charlie but, david, many people and youve seen this written time after time by both analysts, driveby and others, and countries like scrap saudi a and others, where the president says im going to get them to destroy chemical weapons, not going to bomb them, as a sign of weakness. Thats one thing in the arab world you hear the most. I dont think it has to do with how the president came out. A week or two he came out where the syrians are slowly dismantling the weapons. The problem is making a series of threats and backing away from them. You talked about National Interests and tom talked about National Interests and i think if there is a big difference between the obama and bush doctrines is obama is driven very much by National Interests. He says, if you can establish why this poses a direct threat to the United States, im there, and if its just a question of the Global Commons, as tom mentioned before, then he wants to make sure that others in the neighborhood, others who rely on those commons are in the game as well. So he wouldnt go into libya in a big way without the arab league and nato going there first. That makes sense in a world in which you have to rationalize American Resources and a world in which you have to recognize that we cant get into every fight. But it does create a vacuum and there are some Global Commons that were simply not going to go in and deal with, and there are some places like syria and crimea where you come to the determination its not really in our direct National Interests. Charlie tom, do you believe crimea will be a disaster for Vladimir Putin . I think it could be, charlie, for two reasons. One is, in the wake of what happened today as david said, the president announced sanctions on a limited number of senior russian officials but i think did not total up the number of people, but think about the signal that sends to investors in russia, and the signal that sends is beware, and thats the first thing. What are the longterm implications of that. Beware of investing in russia. I think the second thing that could really haunt putin about ukraine is about crimea and ukraine much larger is that, in effect, his seizure of ukraine could have the impact could, if were smart on the United States and on europe and particularly germany. Charlie right. In changing our Energy Policy the way the 1973 oil embargo had an impact on us. In the wake of the 1973 oil embargo, thats when we changed the oil standards, huge push to clean energy and renewables. We didnt sustain it, unfortunately. But i think that the signal this sends to europe that you need to end your addiction on russian oil and gas, otherwise youre going to be subject to their blackmail, that the longterm implications of launching us and europe, particularly germany at the center of this story, on a Different Energy path that produces far less western dependence on russias oil and gas, that could be a huge loss for putin, but only in the long run. Charlie david. I agree. I think whats notable about president obamas strategy and i think to, many people, one of the most commendable elements of it is he does play the long game and i think, over time, putin could welcome to regret this, even if he takes shortterm steps to cut off some gas to europe and so forth. The europeans need the gas, putin needs the revenue. But the difficulty is the the difficulty the president is running into now is if youre playing the long game, it can look like youre losing a lot of short, tactical conflicts and right now hes got to make sure putin doesnt move from crimea to the rest of ukraine. So he needs to escalate these well enough that it signals, as tom suggested before, that the price will be truly higher if he goes into ukraine. Im not sure putin is doing the same calculus that president obama is. Charlie charlie, to davids point theres a wonderful quote in the economists latest issue of russian reacting to putins intervention in crimea in the name of russian speakers, and it was a guy living in central russia. He says, with we have a lot of russian speakers here, too, and were really suffering. Were suffering with no jobs or i have beeinfrastructure. I dont remember the exact quote. But the morning after, numbers are up, putins popularity, solidarity with russian speakers at home and abroad. Lets see how it plays out over time. The ruble and russian markets have been hammered. Well see what happens to foreign direct investment. You know, theres always the morning after and theres the morning after the morning after, and the morning after the morning after is when the real laws of gravity start to take hold on currencies, markets, longterm investment. Lets see where we are in six months on that do. We assume putin will act rationally or will his messianic ideas about russians sphere of influence cause him to take risks he might not otherwise have taken in a more strategic mind . Its a very hard call on that because, if we understood more about putins mind, there probably would have been more Intelligence Agency warning that he was getting ready to react to what was a big loss to him in the ukraine by going in and taking crimea, and that was a surprise. Now, were not very good at doing this, charlie. We misjudged the chinese over the past year about how aggressively they would create an air defense zone or begin to threaten some islands. Weve misjudged the North Koreans whether or not they would act rationally. Two years ago, most intelligence reports suggested kim young uns uncle would be running the country and he would be a pup et, and now the uncle is dead. So were not good at understanding motivations. Theres something very old about this story and we talk about russias sphere of influence and connection to crimea and ukraine and kiev in particular. But there are new things going on and what is new is that we live in a world now of the amplified citizen, the super empowered individual. We saw it play out in egypt. We saw egyptians take to the streets and say to their leader, look, were not just a bunch of chickens, you get to pass to your son. Weve seen ukrainians now take to the streets in very large numbers and say to putin, you know, were not just a bunch of cattle that you get to decide whether our future is in the e. U. And russia. And, so, i would urge everyone to stand back a little bit and say, maybe were in the middle of something very new here. For the first time, every leader today is in a twoway conversation with his people. The day of oneway conversations is over. And, so, putin may have all these cold war instincts and all these russian nationalist impulses and they are not irrelevant but i would argue theres something new going on in the world today and im keeping my powder dry. I want to see how this plays out. I dont think this is like a Straight Line back to russia at all. Tom, tell me why, as you wrote in a column and as i interviewed, one of the political leaders in tunisia, why is tunisia the exception to the consequences of the arab spring . Thats a good question, charlie, and, for me, a very simple answer. Its two things. First of all, the tunisians, after some struggle and loss to life, came to the only political conclusion possible in any of these pluralistic societies, that is going forward. The central political doctrine have to be no victory no vanquish, that everyone has to be included in the political outcome and in tunisia, it had civil societies, unions, business groups, womens associations, lawyers associations that turned out to be mediators between the two big factions there, which was secular and religious camps. Those two things, the principal of no victory no vanquish, and the fact they had an internal moderator, did not have to ex oo exhort to key factors. Charlie when you consider the Foreign Policy, you have to consider the idea of drawing red lines and things like that. Sometimes are you better not to have put it in that way unless you are prepared to defend it in a certain way. I think youre exactly right, charlie, and weve seen this happen a few times. I mean, you mentioned the Syrian Chemical Weapons red line but, before that, you had the president come out nearly three years ago now and tell president assad and syria that he had to go, and, yet, there was no plan at the white house to assure that he did that. And, so, while its very important to play the long game, and while i agree completely with tom that its not at all clear how crimea, for example, is going to work out, you have to have a plan in place so that, when the american credibility is put on the line, youve got a way to enforce it and make sure theres a price, and i think thats been a pretty steep learning curve for this administration. I think he was more measured in the case of crimea, and i think, if anything, the president s been out ahead of his european allies. Hes sort of been dragging chancellor merkel of germany and other europeans along in trying to stiffen their spine on the sanctions. Now, they have more to lose in the course of this than we do, and, you know, here hes got, in the case of russia, some real leverage. Each is a case where our leverage is tender out to have been overrated. You know, how many times did you hear the president s staff warn, you know, if you continue to jail journalists, if you beat up dissidents, if you suppress descent, that military is going to go away. I had a senior official say they didnt care about much about our military aid in the end. We have to remember these arent really about us and we dont hold that much leverage. Charlie because the believed get it from other sources, in that part. And it wasnt that big. I go back to bankrupt minnesota, al shaver ended the broadcast saying when you win say little, when you lose say less. Ates great Foreign Policy principal. When you win say little, when you lose say less and never try to draw a red line in a pool of blood. Who is going to notice our red line . You know, in what was a pool of blood and in what is a homegrown civil war where either you are on the ground and monopolizing force or nobodys going to Pay Attention to you. At the end of the day, you know, the middle east only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them. And i think its a very important thing to keep in mind about ukraine as well because i think u