#240 – Samuel Charap on how a Ukraine ceasefire could accidentally set Europe up for a bigger war

Russia is at war, full-scale conventional war involving a whole range of high-end weapons systems,

including long-range strike, in a country that borders for NATO allies.

The idea that Russia would be completely deterred by the presence of a small number of UK

and French forces inside Ukraine, I think, is low probability. I think it is higher probability that

the promise of such a presence will deter Russia from accepting a ceasefire.

If Moscow were to see itself as losing Belarus, it would not hesitate to act.

There are lots of risks attended with this war that we've become accustomed to,

but every once in a while, you know, we see an incident and we're reminded that at any moment,

this could spiral out of control.

Sen. Terrup is the distinguished chair in Russia and Eurasia policy at the RAN Corporation,

and one of the most influential voices in the US policy debate on how the war in Ukraine should end.

He's argued for a negotiated settlement since early in the war,

sticking with that position even when it has been highly unfashionable in DC and attracted

heated criticism. He's been specializing in Russia Ukraine relations for decades,

speaks both Russian and Ukrainian, and in 2017, wrote everyone loses the Ukraine crisis and

the ruinous contest for post-Soviet Eurasia, if anything, I would say an understatement in

any hindsight. Welcome back to the show Samyo. Thanks for having me, Rob.

Your most recent piece, Europe's next war, the rising risk of a NATO-Russia conflict,

argues that the risk of a direct NATO-Russia confrontation could actually be higher after a cease

fire in Ukraine, which I think to many people will seem kind of counterintuitive. It's somewhat

kind of intruded to me. So let's start with a bigger, big picture question. I guess

how seriously should we take the risk, the probability of a direct military confrontation between

NATO and Russia? Well, I think in looking at the security environment after the war,

so after the hot phase of fighting between Russia and Ukraine is over, we can see a lot of the

trends that have emerged during the war, that is the remilitarization of Europe, the militarization

of further militarization of Russia, a deep sense of sort of resentment, and in fact

even stronger feelings towards the West after so many Russians have died, as Russians see it at the,

at the hands of a Western proxy, the fears that are quite pervasive in Europe about Russian

aggression and the lack of communication and the sort of breakdown and the entire infrastructure

of interaction that used to exist both on a societal and on a state-to-state level

between Russia and NATO and its member states. So it's an environment that's ripe for the kind of

miscalculation, misunderstanding, miscommunication that can lead to conflict. And

what we're saying in the piece is essentially that there's got to be some thinking put in now

to how to stabilize the post-war environment and avoid the worst-case outcome.

We caution against maybe focusing too much on the opportunistic aggression scenarios,

which you hear a lot about, like Russia up and deciding that it wants to take Lithuania

or accomplish a sort of fade out complete in a Russian-speaking area in Nostonia, say,

rather than more sort of breakdown in the security environment that causes one thing leads to

another and you end up in a war not necessarily because one side had initial aggressive intent

or intended for that outcome to occur. Yeah, what do you think of the most likely accidental

escalation scenarios? Well, I mean, we could easily imagine, for example, the ceasefire in Ukraine,

if there when there is one and I'm sure there eventually will be one breaking down

because often ceasefires do break down. And when that kind of thing happens, I think a future

Russia-Ukraine war could drag in European neighbors and not only European neighbors,

much more so than now when they're sort of unwritten rules of the game that direct involvement

is off the table. But I think a lot of European leaders have basically said, if this were to happen

again, we're going to be much more deeply involved. So that's one scenario. Another is, for example,

instability in Belarus. So Belarus is essentially Russia's most important ally. It provides Russia

with this sort of strategic depth between itself and NATO. And if it were to be, if Moscow were to

see itself as losing Belarus, it would not hesitate to act. And we've seen the potential for

instability in Belarus given that it has a highly authoritarian political system. In 2020,

in the summer, we might recall there was this large-scale protest movement after the results

of a presidential election were falsified. We have Alexander Lukashenko there as president for

now going on 30 years. So the potential for instability in a authoritarian system like that is

always there. Between Russia and NATO directly, one can imagine any number of different scenarios.

I mean, I think since the news, these sort of hybrid incidents where that, I mean, I don't

love that term, but nonetheless, sub-threshold of conventional war. So sabotage, you know,

these Russian-paid agents apparently blowing up factories or attempting to subvert

Western military aid for Ukraine, never involving uniform Russian military personnel,

firing direct shots, but nonetheless, are getting increasingly more assertive.

There's an increasing demand that a lot of countries, particularly in central eastern Europe,

to respond, a kind of response could easily engender the kind of snowball effect that you've

seen in the past when wars like that break out. Equally, you know, Russia conducts or has in the

past conducted snap exercises so there are no notice exercises. Most military exercises are

scheduled in advance and press releases are made and so on, but Russia's gotten in the habit of

having these no-notice exercises. And that has been the cover for aggression against Ukraine

in the past. So if it were to occur on the border of a NATO ally and we should note, of course,

NATO and Russia's border has expanded greatly since Finland's entry into the alliance in 2023,

you know, we would be in a potentially dangerous situation where an ally might see what Russia

is doing as preparation for aggression and might respond in kind.

Why do you think of the risk of Russia deliberately attacking a NATO country as being that likely?

I mean, I guess the scenario I've always been most worried about, I guess, is a Russia attacking

one of the Baltic States, trying to engage in a fake accompli there. And then I guess like

that that could just quite clearly escalate to a full war.

Right. So I think to be clear, neither in that piece nor, you know, do I personally rule

that kind of thing out? I think, you know, militaries have to plan for worst-case scenarios.

That's their job. And so having some plans on the books to think about how to respond to that would

not having them would be negligence. So I think it's important to do that. But when we're thinking

about what, you know, should be, we shouldn't be exclusively focused on that scenario,

in part because Russia itself sees itself as the weaker party, vis-a-vis NATO, and it sees

itself as likely to lose a war and therefore has been hesitant to engage. Now that might change

if the US were to say withdraw, but for the time being, despite all the ambiguity that, you know,

political shifts in the US have inserted into all of this, I think the fear about a united

western response to anything that looks like a conventional attack on a NATO ally serves as an

effective deterrent. I think Europe's going to have to put a lot of effort into trying to bolster

that as the US, you know, I think inevitably under this administration or another shifts its focus.

But nonetheless, I think for the moment and I think for the foreseeable future,

Russia is deterred precisely because it thinks it's not a war it could win. It entered Ukraine,

I should note, thinking that that would be a war that it could win easily.

Something that surprised me, so in the article, you're saying, it's plausible that it could be

an even more dangerous period after we have a ceasefire in Ukraine. That makes me wonder,

do we actually desperately want a bend of a backwrest to achieve a ceasefire? If we think that, in fact,

that is only going to be the beginning of another stage of set of provocations or of risks

that are created, maybe in a sense, I mean, it's horrific for Ukraine, but in a sense,

you have Russia bogged down in this quagmire in Ukraine, they don't have attention or resources

to focus on anyone else to be has to think other countries. So maybe it's actually quite a

convenient place to leave them stuck. So I think what we say in the piece is that the risks won't

dramatically decrease with the ceasefire that they won't disappear, not that they're necessarily

going to be greater after a ceasefire than they will before. I think you hear a lot of that rhetoric

that essentially, if there's a ceasefire in Ukraine, then Russia is going to be coming for us,

NATO next, that I don't buy. But, and I also would say that there are lots of risks

attended with this war that we've sort of become accustomed to, but every once in a while,

we see an incident and we're reminded that at any moment, this could spiral out of control. So

Russia is at war, full-scale conventional war involving a whole range of high-end weapon systems

that, including long-range strike, that in a country that borders for NATO allies. And meanwhile,

like Ukraine is fighting with weapons that have been supplied by the Alliance, Russia is engaged in

all this activities to subvert that supply chain. So the potential for escalation in this war,

I think, is quite high. And for that reason alone, if not even taking to account the Ukraine piece

of this, which I think, it's in their interest, too, to see this end, as they themselves have now

articulated. But I think it's certainly in the Alliance's interest to have an end to this

conflict sooner rather than later. I mean, the escalation risks are one factor, and another,

of course, are the resources. It's going to be an ongoing struggle for Europe to arm itself,

while it is emptying its caches of weapons to provide to Ukraine. And the fiscal challenges

aren't going to get easier as time goes on when this war, and you know, and Ukraine becomes more

reliant on the UK and the EU for financial lifelines and so on. So there is a resource

argument here, too. But I think, first and foremost, the escalation risk and the sort of broader

security environment being so volatile, and trying to get that under control, I think, would be

certainly a stronger case than saying, well, Russia is bogged down here, and so therefore,

they're not going to engage in this, you know, active opportunity aggression against NATO.

So back when we spoke in 2022, you thought that the war was, as I understand, was primarily

motivated by Russia's security fears, as you know, Russia, NATO encroachment, and encirclement,

as opposed to kind of a genuine ideological belief that Ukraine is, and always has been Russian,

and that Ukrainian nationality is basically fake. I guess since then, we've got like many years of

track record of Russian behavior, including like forced rustification, child deportation on a very

big scale. Does the identity or nationalist motivation now seem kind of any more central to you

than it did back then? So I don't think I ever argued exclusively that it was one set of issues

that drove this decision in the way that some like John Muir's timer have argued. I don't

think that that is the case, and usually decisions to go to war are motivated by a variety of

factors. It's sort of monoclesality is very rare in these contexts, but it's clear that, you know,

as Putin has articulated in his decision-making, there were both these sort of imperialist

drivers and security driven factors. So to say that it was exclusively one or exclusively the other,

I think would be two black and white. Now, I also think that the question about why the war

started and how it might best be ended or how it could end have really now diverged, in part because

so much time has passed, and also because this hasn't gone how the aggressor Russia thought it

would. So, you know, whereas I think it is a there's enough evidence to suggest that Russia was

initially seeking regime change in Ukraine. You know, since it retreated from the capital in the

spring of 2022, almost now four years ago, it's hard to argue that they've been pursuing that same

objective. They've been pursuing other objectives that are perhaps no less objectionable, so to speak,

but their goals have shifted over time. So I think it is an important question about what motivated

Putin to go to war, and I see a mix of motives there, but I think in a way the question now is

much more about what, you know, he'll need to stop essentially.

Do you think, in a sense, Russia's security position seems worse now, right? It's like a

NATO in many ways is like more up in their business. It's got like a bigger border, like Europe is

rearming, like the negativity towards Russia is enormous. I guess is it possible that if anything

like the security concerns are more salient to Russia now, perhaps than there were years ago,

because they've like accidentally, I guess weakened themselves. I think that's absolutely right.

I mean, I think if you take a step back, this is a strategic catastrophe for Russia.

It is set itself back in terms of economic development by generations,

demographically, strategically in terms of its place in the world and its reputation.

I think that it's hard to, you know, really no matter how the war ends now,

this is a strategic catastrophe for Russia. I think many in the Russian elite recognize that,

but in terms of their threat perceptions now, I mean, they have a whole lot more to worry about

to their West. If we look about that European military budgets before the war, and now it's

almost doubled. The German military, which was previously sort of something of a laughing stock,

is now spending a lot of money with the chancellor saying we want, you know, German, the German,

the Bundeswehr to be the most powerful military in Europe. And that not to be controversial also

anymore. So I do think that Russia's position geopolitically and particularly in Europe has,

you know, been seriously set back, regardless of how, you know, where the line is drawn. And I

think that was clear from pretty early on because that this had been a huge blunder.

I guess the reason why I ask about the balance of motivations is that I think so much of the

discussion about how to achieve a ceasefire is focused on the secure, like a swaging Russian

security fears angle. If in fact, the biggest, like, I guess, you know, it's a very centralized

authoritarian country in a way where Putin's personal opinions, unfortunately, carry so much

if he just literally is like incredibly motivated by absolute contempt for the notion of Ukrainian

nationality and independence, then satisfying, like, making pragmatic concessions on, you know,

Ukrainian neutrality or, you know, bringing weapons back further from Russia's border. Maybe

that won't be the thing that will enable a ceasefire to get over the line.

So I think that we can't rule that possibility out, right? But we need to test the proposition

that there might be some mutually acceptable accommodation that can be reached and that, you know,

the security motives, which I think, you know, even those who would point to imperialist motives

as being the more significant ones can't deny that they're there, right? That appealing to those

can be compelling enough to overcome any of the sort of lingering imperialist drive.

Now, I should say that I don't think that Putin is going to be happy about the existence of an

independent Ukraine regardless. The question is, like, what he can accept in order to end the

fighting and the bombardment of Ukraine, right? And so this is not going to be his ideal outcome.

He's still going to be contemptuous of Ukraine and Ukrainians. I think the question is,

is there something that we're basically, we can get to an end of this conflict and see some

degree of stability on the ground? So what are the main obstacles to a ceasefire deal right now

in your mind? And what are the elements you think need to be in it so we don't just set

us up for some other future disaster? So maybe we start with the elements and then get to the

impediments. So I do think that the question about Ukraine's status, as you mentioned,

is going to be a big piece of this and how the reality of Ukraine's non-alignment would be

codified. Russia is going to be and has been quite focused on the nature of Ukraine's post-war

security relationship with the West more broadly. In other words, how much

and what kind of weapons western countries will be supplying Ukraine in the post-war period?

They've been focused on the nature of the post-war Ukrainian military, how they would be postured

these of irussia. So I think those are all elements of Russia's going to have on the table. I mean,

the Ukrainians have been insistent on getting some security assurances essentially from western

countries that if this were to happen again, that they would have some, you know, that they wouldn't

be on their own. So basically security guarantees, Ukraine's status and the nature of both sides post-war

military posture. I think those security issues are going to be front and center. There are other

secondary ones. I mean, Russia might raise the question about the section of the Orthodox church

previously was part of the Moscow Patriarchy in Ukraine, complicated story, or the nature of the

Russian language and with status in Ukraine. But I think the security issues ultimately are the

ones that are going to be front and center. Then there are also questions about ceasefire modalities.

This is a huge line of contact by global standards, you know, almost over a thousand kilometers.

And that is extremely difficult to monitor and to have disengagement, effective disengagement of

forces that are quite close. So, you know, and one could imagine also the importance of having

thinned out zones, so like, you know, major cities, not in artillery range and so on.

One of the big issues that's on the table now is territory and specifically Russia's demand for

the part of the Donetsk region essentially that it doesn't control, which Ukraine refers to as

its fortress belt. You know, I still consider the territory issue, despite all the ink it's getting

as a secondary one that could be potentially more easily resolved if the bigger picture security

issues were addressed. That said, that territorial question is going to be, I think, based on what we've

seen from the negotiations so far, a really important one to resolve. And, you know, the actually

both sides have indicated some degree of flexibility. I'm not saying this is necessarily grounds to

conclude that there will be a compromise on that issue. But, for example, the Russians have said

that, well, they don't have to have their military there that could just have the national guard

and the Ukrainians have said, well, we could do this as a DMZ, even if we're, you know, so that

Russians would retreat to a certain distance if our forces were pulled back. So neither are saying

that, you know, we must have 100% control and we're going to treat this like the rest of our

country. In Russia's case, of course, this is occupied Ukrainian territory, but nonetheless,

they have told themselves that it's theirs. So those are all big and important issues. I think

need to be resolved. Frankly, I could imagine with some creative negotiation and all the parties

at the table coming up with compromise solutions along these lines relating to all these issues,

it will take a long time and it will require some, you know, well-structured and well-managed

negotiations. I mean, think back to how the Good Friday Accord was negotiated or the Dayton

in Bosnia and so on. So to get to the question of impediments, so one major one, and I think we

need to start here, is Russia's current optimism about the course of the war. I don't think they are

in a rush to end this because they think that time is on their side. Regardless of what an objective

military analyst might say, and there are different views on that, but I think it's clear that they

view time is on their side and that they have the momentum and that therefore they're in no rush

and they see their position improving in six months compared to where it is today. So why, you know,

make major compromises if you don't have to, and particularly that pertains to territory where

they have been slowly but surely gaining territory essentially for the last three years

or even longer since the Ukrainian successful account of offensives in the fall of 2022.

So that's the big one. The second one I would point to is that these negotiations have been

structured in a very, in a unique way. Let's put it that way. There are siloed that is, you know,

arrangements between certain parties that are not where the others are not privy to them. So,

for example, there's a Ukraine, Europe, security guarantees document. There's a Ukraine, US

security guarantees document. This has all been reported. None of it's been published yet,

and which is a good sign that the confidentiality has been maintained. There's an agreement about

post-war Ukrainian reconstruction. There's some US Russia document, and there are then there's

this direct question about territorial compromise. So my concern is that you don't have all the

parties at the table at the same time talking about all the issues that are central to their

concerns. So, you know, it's all well and good if the UK and France and several other members

of the so-called coalition of the willing have committed to deploying a force to Ukraine to,

you know, I think they're calling it the multinational task force Ukraine after a ceasefire.

If Russia says that's completely unacceptable, and we're going to keep fighting if that's the

that's what happens when there's a ceasefire, then it's not going to work. And so I think getting

all the issues on the table with all the parties at the table, and that would include

the Europeans and the Americans as well as the Russians and the Ukrainians,

I think would be an important step. So there's sort of a structure of the process problem that I see

in addition to the big open question about Russian willingness to compromise.

Yeah, I guess on the Ukrainian side, their reluctance to reach any ceasefire agreement with Russia

is like a logic based on the fact that I think they don't expect Russia to stick with it,

right? I mean, Russia's torn up all of the previous agreements that they've had with Ukraine,

and there's an understandable suspicion that basically Russia will just take the opportunity

to rearm, to refocus, to regroup, and then whenever the time feels right to them to basically

reinitiate the war and try to take more territory. What sort of do you have in mind for

asswaging that fear, and indeed like making that outcome less likely?

So as a general matter, I think it's important to note that this is a fear that is common to

belligerence who are trying to end a war, right? Like a particularly one that's been

protracted and been quite bloody. In other words, that they both will suspect that the other side

is just going to use the ceasefire period to rearm and potentially then refocus their efforts

and re-attack. And by the way, I think Russia's convinced that Ukraine might do the same.

So both sides, I think, are going to be preparing for that outcome. But it is important from,

I think, a Western perspective, any Ukrainian perspective, it's a structure and negotiated

outcome that leaves Ukraine in the best position to deter a potential future Russian attack.

And so there are multiple layers of this. The first and most important piece is having a

capable Ukrainian military. I think the Ukrainians have come to terms with the reality that nobody is

going to do this, nobody's going to fight for them. And therefore helping the Ukrainians assisting

them to have essentially a defensively oriented, in other words, a military that is capable of

holding territory and making any gains for Russia to be incredibly painful, too painful, in fact,

to initiate will be the first layer. That does involve, of course, Western assistance, but first

and foremost, it's a job for Ukrainians. I think a second and important piece of that is external

guarantees or commitments. And here, I think it's less a question about, and as much of the European

debate has been focused on this issue of boots on the ground, I don't consider that a particularly

credible option, nor do I think Russia would accept it, even if it were. But I do think there are

ways in which we can structure a sort of snapback arrangement. In other words, that any benefits that

Russia gets out of a ceasefire, be it sanctions relief, be it, you know, Ukraine's non-alignment,

be it limitations to Western assistance, say we wouldn't provide targeting data in peacetime

that we would in more time. So a snapback, meaning that all of the benefits Russia loses them all

if it chooses to have a major violation of the ceasefire and attack Ukraine again.

So the deal with the snapback guarantees is, I guess, that you might worry that Russia's

strategy would be to have a ceasefire for a bit, to weaken, I guess, the assistance that the

West is providing to Ukraine. And then they can restart the war, and then we have to reorganize

ourselves and very gradually ramp up the support for Ukraine again. And at every point, we have to

have the political debate again about whether we want to do the sanctions, and whether we want

to arm them when this and that. And so the way to deter them is to pre-commit, to say, as soon as

there is any violation, all of these things automatically come back into place. And I think,

did I read your proposal right, that they would, in fact, come into place automatically,

always like, you would need to vote them down rather than vote them up, basically, so that they,

they, I guess, somewhat, someone would have to adjudicate, I suppose, whether the ceasefire has

been violated. But has that approach been used in other ceasefires successfully?

So the snapback concept is actually from the joint comprehensive plan of action, the Iranian

nuclear deal, where there were sanctions that were relieved, and that would be reimposed,

that were, in fact, reimposed in the event of Iranian violation of it. But essentially,

you know, the idea of having commitments to undertake certain activities in case of certain

contingencies, as a general matter, I mean, that's sort of the basis of most treaty obligations,

mutual defense clauses, you know, basically even Article 5 says, essentially, in the event of

attack, you know, we will treat it as an attack on ourselves, and then think about what we should

do in accordance with our constitutional obligations and so on. So I think that the generic form of

pre-commitment to at least consider undertaking certain actions is, you know, has been legislated

before and could be legislated in the future. And, you know, we've had sanctions being contingent

on certain things, for sure. I think the point we tried to make in that article, which

I co-wrote with Jeremy Shapiro also in Foreign Affairs, was that essentially legislating it,

and having a some sort of review mechanism avoids the messy political debates problem,

and gets political buy-in in key countries, so that if there is, in fact, a violation, Russia

denied the opportunity to use the Salami slicing tactics that you describe to sort of whittle away

and get what they want without having any consequences. Now, it is true that the, you know, even what

we propose in the pieces is a slightly more severe version of what the West is doing now in terms

of what would happen if Russia were to attack again, and that's in terms of sanctions, military

assistance, and financial assistance. But ultimately, I think that's not going to in itself be,

you know, a deterrent, Ukraine is also going to need its military to be to serve as part of that

deterrent, you know, as well. But I think that, yes, having a sort of a degree of

automaticisticity will help make it more of an effect of a deterrent. Yeah. I think part of your

model is the pocket-buying defense model, which I guess is during the period of a cease-fire,

as I understand it, you're thinking the West would say, we will only supply Ukraine with weapons

that would be useful for defending and retaining territory, not for regaining territory,

but that would immediately flip if the cease-fire were violated by Russia. Then we would start

rearming them with materials that they could potentially use to regain territory from Russia.

Is that the idea? Yeah. And there's also another piece of that, which is deep strike. So, you know,

the key weapons that have been the subject of the most heated debates in the West have been

those that Ukraine could use with significant payloads to strike deep into Russia,

missile systems. Essentially, they can do that now with their own domestically made drones,

but the payloads are much lower. And so, the impact is much lower. But those are weapon systems

that are not necessary for, you know, defensive fortifications or for holding territory,

but could be provided. And we, in fact, propose having like stockpiles and neighboring

countries ready to go if Russia were to attack again. What sort of weapons can you use to defend

territory? Like we're talking like landmines or things that prevent vehicles from traveling?

That's right. You know, there's a whole range of things that could be used defensively and

most important, I think, in Ukraine's case as air defense, right? But yes, territorial defense

it goes everything from landmines and obstructions to prevent armored assault to, you know,

a full-scale, essentially surveillance network so that you can see and detect any, any

incursions and particularly any air incursions. So, yeah, anti-tank systems, anti-aircrafts,

right? So those kinds of weapons, of course, there's not a 100% clear dividing line between

offensive and defensive. There will be those who will make the case that in order to deter,

you need to be able to strike deep into Russia so that they will know that they'll feel the consequences

there. I think, you know, that's not completely unreasonable, but the question is,

can you use that threat as an incentive both to agree to a ceasefire and to comply with it?

So, if Russia knows that if it complies with the ceasefire, it's not going to be facing that

missile threat from Ukraine, then maybe it has more of an incentive to do so.

So, as I understand it over the last three years, four years, just by a lot of fighting,

there's been relatively little territory exchanged, given the amount that's been going on.

That, in a sense, the technological equilibrium or the military equilibrium is quite

advantageous for someone who's defending territory. I don't know the specific details,

if that is generally the case, could it be the case that during the ceasefire, if we do supply

an enormous amount of defensive equipment to Ukraine that they could bolster whatever frontiers

they end up on, such that it just would become like, I mean, I heard that one reason why it was

difficult for Ukraine to reclaim territory was basically like Russia put up landmines everywhere,

they just made it incredibly difficult to reclaim space. It's just that you lose so many staff,

it takes so long. Ukraine basically used that strategy to their advantage, making the ceasefire,

that would worry about Russia re-arming, but they could defensively arm even more effectively.

Absolutely. I think you could imagine Ukraine being in a position with defensive fortifications

and defensive weapon systems that any Russian general staff officer looking at the situation would

say, this is going to be a nightmare. Now, again, that doesn't necessarily deter rational decision

making. One has to imagine that there were people in the Russian military who knew something

that the Ukrainian military thought the initial plan was crazy, but in any case, I do think that, yes,

what we're seeing now at least is that with the use of the pervasive use of UAVs that has come

to favor the defense, essentially, because both armored assault and even small infantry group

assault is become impossible. There's this sort of kill zone, and the battlefield has become

essentially transparent. So, yes, I do think that you could imagine quite an effective defensive

fortification line, and we can also think about how a ceasefire could essentially create zones where

Russia and both sides, but in this case, Russia would have to withdraw weapons from so that

they would be ample warning if it were to seek to cross that line again.

Of course, none of this, I should underscore, a determined aggressor will do what it wants.

Sometimes, despite knowing that it will, in fact, lose. So, I mean, not a guarantee in the sense

like you buy a webcam with a guarantee. You can't bring it to the store and get your money back,

but these are, I think, the best we can do under very disadvantageous circumstances to

create a sort of web of incentives and disincentives that make further future aggression far less likely.

Some, including Ukraine, I guess, they would like a security guarantee that is the security

guarantee of the form that NATO will come to its defense with its own troops and things if Russia invades

again. Of course, that's extremely precarious commitment to make. I guess, obviously, it's

like potentially not very credible to Russia because, like, do we are we actually committed to doing

that? Would we be willing to accept the cost of all with Russia? And because of that, I guess,

it's very risky because they will potentially pull up bluff, and then maybe maybe in the 3AM

phone call, we will join and wind up with World War III as a result. Do you think there is any room

for this kind of security guarantee, or do we just kind of have to give up on that approach?

Well, so I think, perhaps most importantly, the Ukrainians themselves have taken a step back while

sort of saying that, ideally, of course, we would want to be members of NATO. They haven't really

objected to this being taken off the table, politically, how that is formulated is quite

challenging because of the way it's been inserted into the Ukrainian constitution.

But nonetheless, when I was last in Kiev in December of last year, consistently hearing

the view that no one is going to fight for us, which is a logical conclusion to come to after four

years of no-one fighting for them, that I think that has essentially been taken off the table.

Now, there is this question about, again, and there's a lot of planning going on, including the

UK and, as well as France, and in fact, President and the UK Prime Minister are publicly committed to

deploying this force to Ukraine after a ceasefire. Here, I'm quite skeptical. I mean, I think that

the credibility question really does come into play. And then, we'll face a question

or the alliance will, essentially, if these forces come under attack of either

retreating and essentially losing a lot of credibility that way, or of launching a Russia

NATO war, neither of which is a particularly good outcome. The idea that Russia would be

completely deterred by the presence of a small number of UK and French forces inside Ukraine,

I think, is low probability. I think it is higher probability that the promise of such a presence

will deter Russia from accepting a ceasefire. So what's the motive on each side to accept

a ceasefire? I guess you're saying on the Russian side, they feel like time is on their side.

I mean, I guess above and beyond the fact that they've been gradually reclaiming territory

and rate their prospects to gain more territory this year, there's also the fact that Trump,

I guess, has signaled so much impatience with Ukraine. He's like quite mercurial.

It seemed at some points last year that he maybe was going to basically withdraw support for Ukraine.

Doesn't that create like an enormous incentive for Putin to just hold out and hope that at some point,

US support for Ukraine will be completely cut off, and then they'll really be in the driver's

seat in the war. Well, I think that the Trump factor plays both ways, because while it is true

that there's a plausible case to be made that Russia might have concluded that all they have

to do is wait, and Trump's impatience will lead to a full end to US support for Ukraine.

I think on the flip side, they also recognize that Trump's interest in negotiating

a end to the war represents a window of opportunity, and the open talk about some normalization

of US-Russian relations after a ceasefire. I think they recognize this is not something that's

going to be on the table forever. I think Russia does have incentives in that regard.

I also think there are many in the Russian establishment that don't view the acquisition

of a few more kilometers, or the destruction of X more percentage of Ukrainian energy generation,

as worth the cost to Russia, and that the economic pressures that have been created both by the

distortions of the war economy and the sanctions are mounting that do represent an incentive to

bring this to a close. I think Russia does have reasons to want to end this. That doesn't

mean that, therefore, they'll be willing to make enough concessions to get there, but I think

it's not just true that everyone in Russia is confident that they'll be a glorious victory

in a year. I just think that the narrow military lens on this is probably one of optimism to

get back to my previous comment. Ukraine has come to the view that essentially, the longer this

goes on, the worse off they will end up being in the post-war context, and that, therefore,

they have accepted the idea that this ceasefire is in their interest. In fact, they would accept

an unconditional ceasefire. It's Russia that is essentially pushing to attach its political

conditions to ending the fighting, but both sides are paying tremendous costs. Obviously,

Ukraine disproportionately so, as this war continues. You can see the logic of a ceasefire being seen

as both as beneficial to some degree. I see. That's something that creates room for

to negotiate a deal that might be seen as mutually beneficial. It seems like we're threading between

many different challenging constraints that we need to deal that we believe that both sides

will plausibly stick to where Ukraine doesn't feel too vulnerable about potential more Russian

aggression. We need Russia to view it in their interest, despite the fact that they feel on the

front foot militarily, but we need Ukraine to swallow an incredibly bitter pill, effectively

seeding a lot of territory and closing the window. I guess I'm getting revenge against a country

that has caused them enormous harm and committed war crimes and so on.

Could you pay me a picture of if things went really well of the next year or two, and we did end

up with a ceasefire? In broad strokes, what would the process look like and what would the

ultimate deal look like that that seems most plausible? That's a good question.

There are multiple dilemmas here, but the biggest one in Negotiations to End War is fundamentally about

the how sides that are currently fighting each other can credibly commit to stop

in the other's eyes credibly. That requires a process whereby through the negotiation process,

the other side can see that, hey, they see it as in their interest to end this,

and that they're willing to take steps that potentially are costly to them militarily

for example, to get them there. So, process-wise, since we're at such a phase of high

intensity war at the moment, you would want a phased ceasefire, so moving from one domain to

another, say starting with, right now would be most important for Ukraine, energy infrastructure,

moving to no deep strikes at all, so that is a certain distance from the front line,

then maybe excluding the maritime domain, eventually moving closer and closer towards a

ground, a full-fledged ceasefire on the ground. So, have that process be gradual so that both sides

can have a degree of confidence in it. That would be part of it. I think you'd want to have

sort of comprehensive negotiation that would get you a ceasefire as soon as possible at the end of

that phase process, and potentially link to that a framework for this broad and complicated

deal that would get enough commitments, essentially from both sides for them to feel confident,

but without having to spill out all the details. That kind of thing is called a framework agreement,

and so if you've got a framework agreement and a ceasefire, and essentially a commitment to

launch a process that would produce essentially some sort of political settlement is not going to

be a peace treaty in the traditional sense, because Ukrainian Russia will have territorial disputes.

There will be lots of unanswered issues, but I think I would prefer to see the ceasefire up front,

and thus some sort of framework agreement to go along with it, because I think that's what we'll

get Russia to accept it, and then have a sort of much more detailed and drawn out negotiation

process without people dying and infrastructure being destroyed and so on.

Then there would be a process on the ground of withdrawal. You would want to have a monitoring

mission there to ensure that. It's quite complicated. At the end of it, Ukraine does have to,

there are, this is not going to be easy, and Ukraine is obviously the victim of aggression here,

but there are ways to incentivize the peace for Ukraine too, keeping the, you know, an accelerated path

towards EU membership on the table, having significant financial incentives in the form of

reconstruction and post war military aid, a commitment to essentially build up the Ukrainian

military into a very capable defensive force. So, you know, there are ways to link a settlement to

benefits to Ukraine as well. So, yeah, but I was a little bit surprised to find out that the idea of

Ukraine joining the EU is on the table as much as it is. That's what seems like things are

trending towards Ukraine agreeing to be neutral and not joining NATO, but it might be acceptable

for it to join the European Union. Is that, does that look like plausible for Russia to swallow that?

Russia has accepted that since 2022. That was actually part of the Istanbul communique in March

of 22, the sort of deal that almost was in the early weeks of the war.

Yeah, what, what, what, what, what, why do I, I guess I have the perception that Russia really

didn't want Ukraine to be pulled into the Western sphere of influence, and it feels like joining the

EU was like really quite getting pulled into it. That's, I think you're absolutely right, and I

think it's an underappreciated concession in a way, or in a concession not necessarily to Ukraine,

but to reality, to the reality that there are, Russia is not going to be able to stop that process,

but yes, going back to 2013, of course, Russia undertook some pretty extreme measures.

This is before the annexation of Crimea, but like put a lot of economic pressure and provided

a lot of economic incentives for the then President Yanukovych to not sign an association agreement,

which was with the EU. So basically, I think this is another element of the strategic catastrophe

from a Russian perspective that they will, that they've essentially politically and economically

ceded the point that Ukraine, the government controlled Ukraine will be beyond Russia's

sphere of influence, so to speak. Now, EU membership is a long and winding road. It wouldn't be,

you know, the, the US side seems to think that the EU could commit to doing that in 2027,

which is just not going to happen, and it's a very bureaucratic process, but it can,

you know, move relatively quickly, and I think Ukraine, you know, and the EU are both committed

to making that happen. I guess we've mostly talked about how we could make this palatable to

Russia and Ukraine. Are there characteristics of any ceasefire that would be important to have

primarily with a view to preventing escalation between NATO and Russia in other areas,

you know, the Great War stuff that the hybrid war or like incursions elsewhere? Is there any

relationship between these? Well, I think that, you know, this conflict, generally speaking,

you can think of as having three rings. Essentially, there's the Russia Ukraine piece.

There's the Russia NATO piece, which I think is part of this dynamic, clearly, you know, given both

the assistance and the breakdown in relations. And then there's the broader strategic stability,

mostly a Russia US ring, which has been directly affected by the conflict with Russia's suspension

of implementation of new start and the lack of a treaty to replace it, which I think is largely

a function of the breakdown in relations that were caused by the war. So I do think that trying to,

in attempts to resolve it, we need to think about addressing all three rings, even if not

immediately. So what I could imagine being important to embed in a Russia Ukraine ceasefire or

framework agreement is a commitment to start a process, a Russia NATO negotiation process to,

you know, ensure broader stability in the continent. That is going to be a long term

negotiation, not something that can be done in weeks or months, but nonetheless that the size

would commit to begin it. Could be because right now there just isn't any discussion of that.

And I think we need to begin that. It's going to be tough, but having some forum through which those

kind, the broader concerns that you mentioned in terms of European security can be addressed

I think would be important. Yeah, let's let's talk about the nuclear arms control treaty. So

yeah, new start, I think, expired a couple of weeks ago. This was, I guess, a treaty that had

limits for US and Russian active nuclear arsenals that had been in place for, I guess, the current

version, the previous version for a couple of decades, I think, very sad to see it go. Russia,

I believe, offered to extend it for a year and the US just batted that away and said it wasn't

very interested. Do you think, if we could accomplish this kind of ceasefire, do you think we could

have a new era of negotiations over these like mutually concerns about like these most severe

issues that both the US and Russia, despite the differences, like really probably would like

to reach agreements on? Yeah, I mean, ultimately strategic stability is about avoiding, again,

inadvertent conflict making crises, less potentially escalatory, avoiding first use pressures

in a crisis. So use them or lose them concerns and misinterpretation, avoiding this interpretation.

I mean, you know, under a new start, every, you know, test of an ICBM was notified,

every, you know, movement of launchers in and out of service essentially was notified there

were opportunities for inspection and so on. So I think the way the Trump administration has

approached Russia and the negotiation since it's taken office has basically been we can talk about

a lot of things after a ceasefire, but we need to see the war in Ukraine ended and that they're

very focused on that as a first order priority. Now, the question of what happens after that is

more complicated. I mean, you've heard voices from the administration, including President Trump

himself talk about the need for a trilateral agreement, one that involves China and in fact,

that was the Trump administration position toward the end of the first term. Now, my personal

view is that there is grounds for having US Russia arms control despite the build up of the Chinese

arsenal, which has become much more of a, you know, their build up is much more significant in the

last few years and they're projected by 2035 to have, you know, as many warheads as the US has

warheads deployed under new start, at least. So although the US will still have something like

three times as many warheads overall, that's a huge build up of five times larger than it was in,

you know, 2019. But the deterrence relationships between China and the US and Russia and the US are

fundamentally different. And therefore, in my view, you would want two separate arrangements.

Moreover, at the moment, China's arsenal remains, you know, a fraction of the size of the US and

Russia, we still control over 85% of the world's nuclear weapons. And thus, I think, have a special

responsibility to minimize the chances of their use and to at least have limitations if not for

the reductions. I mean, I think there's a debate in the US now about how many we need in light of

the Chinese build up. And maybe it's going to be more than 1550, which was the limit under new start.

But I think having a limit avoids, but that is verifiable, particularly avoids, you know, the kind

of worst-case assumptions that often drive these things. Back in 2022, when we spoke, you argued,

I think, against Sweden and Finland joining NATO on the grounds that it would create too much

a risk of escalation with Russia, enormously expanding the border between NATO and Russia.

I guess in the event they both did join, I think in 2023 and 2024, and Russia kind of accepted

it without, well, I guess they complained a bunch, but you know, we're all still here. And I think

arguably it made NATO's eastern flank somewhat more defensible. Is the defense of the Baltics

is substantially more feasible now than perhaps it was before they joined? Do you think your analysis

at the time was mistaken or do we get lucky or is there something else going on?

Well, I'm not sure necessarily I argued against it. I think that pointing out the potential

escalation risks at the time in early, in mid-2022, of course, I think we had no idea about this

environment we were entering into. And if someone told, you know, anyone in my field that the US would be

providing long-range strike to Ukraine, that Ukraine would be using to hit cities inside of Russia

in 2021, I would have looked for the nearest bomb shelter. So we've been learning

because these these are unprecedented situations. I think the reality is that public opinion in

Sweden and Finland shifted pretty dramatically and they had always been in the position of being,

you know, as integrated with NATO as possible without actually being members and thus positioning

themselves to become members quite quickly. And so, you know, that has happened. I think the

question really is how we manage that after the war and after Russia's sort of attention is not

as directly focused on Ukraine. I mean, you know, from Finland's perspective, the security

environment and the immediate sense has somewhat improved because a lot of the units that were

previously stationed along its border have been, you know, chewed to pieces in Ukraine.

But Russia has announced plans to dramatically increase its presence near Finland in the Baltic

in, you know, by in the years to come. And, you know, while I'm sure they will be behind schedule

and it won't be quite what they advertise, I would imagine that some of that will come to pass.

So the real question I think is now that we have this new environment of reality and you're right,

logistically, it makes defense of the Baltic states much easier. But it does create, you know,

a potential more unstable security dynamic involving Russia. And we just need to keep that in mind.

Finland has a long history of managing this, at least in the pre-2022 era. But, you know,

since then, their relations with Russia have been, you know, almost completely cut off. And to the

point of like border crossings being closed. And, you know, I think in the post-war context,

we're going to have, as an alliance, have to think about how to manage what is now a much longer

border between NATO and Russia to avoid, you know, miscalculation and misunderstandings.

I guess, yeah, you as a general feature of your worldview, you favor negotiations and trying to

aim for pragmatic deals with powerful countries. Even ones that we think are led by bad people

doing evil things. And that's kind of my realist pragmatic instinct as well. But I think,

preparing for the episode, I was looking at like, what are the best objections to this to this

entire mentality? And I think there are at least like some reasonable reasons to think that

perhaps it's right, it's wrong-headed, at least in some cases. So, I guess first, meeting

a Russia, a Russia country's halfway, a country like a Russia halfway, could encourage other

countries to kind of engage in their own territorial conquest. Second, countries of this type do

tend to violate agreements whenever it's convenient. So, you might find that you, you negotiate

in very good faith, but then you give up stuff and then you don't get very much in return in the

long run. And third, maybe the one that stands up to me the most is that there's maybe a case

that the West should just cultivate a reputation for being like completely immovable in the face

of aggression, like even unreasonably sto completely, you know, stubbornly so because that

reputation is itself a deterrent to other countries. So, you might, you know, suffer more in this war,

you know, out of all proportion to the, to the narrow stakes, but you'll end up facing fewer wars

overall if everyone expects that there's nothing to be gained by invading countries that you're

friendly with. Yeah, given all of that, I guess, why do you still prefer a pro-negotiation mentality

on balance? I think, you know, I think that there's this sort of Hitler analogy that does distort a

lot of our views of nasty autocracies, right? Like, most autocracies in historic, we have not

the kind of world domination that Nazi Germany did. But I think that that, you know, and particularly

the sort of Munich analogy of any agreement just being a sort of pause before the inevitable

aggression and, you know, seeing that as more about the nature of the attempt to find agreement

then about the nature of the the adversary in question, in this case, you know, Nazi Germany and

its plans for continental and global domination, I think that does distort things. So, but more broadly,

your question relates to one of reputation, right? And I do think that, you know, what we know from

political science studies of this is that essentially states look to other states' behavior

in the particular case, not from somewhere else across the world. So, just to be quite concrete,

you know, from what we know about how reputation has functioned in the past, China's

view of whether the US would, you know, respond to an attempt to take Taiwan is likely to be more

shaped by US activities in Asia and the Asia Pacific than it is by the US response to Russian

aggression in Ukraine. Now, that's not an argument for not responding to Russian aggression in

Ukraine. I do think that we need to attach costs to norm violation that, you know, if we take

the norm of territorial integrity seriously, if we take the norm of non-aggression seriously,

we need to impose costs to states that violate it. I think that's a sort of clear cut case.

But, you know, since the advent of nuclear weapons, I think we, and given that Russia has

more than any other country, there's not going to be an outcome in confronting Russia that looks

like Nazi Germany's capitulation. And ultimately, we found ways of having stability, particularly in

Europe, with even the Soviet Union. And it's that history I would look to, where we don't, you

think of agreements as transforming a relationship to become, you know, fundamentally, friendly or

something, but about how to achieve stability through negotiation, viewing negotiation as a tool

of statecraft, along with course of elements, rather than some alternative to using course of elements.

I think, you know, it's an important way to think about how to deal with the problematic,

just put it mildly, countries that exist in the world today that are ultimately unlikely to

disappear like the Soviet Union did. And that, I think, also colors our view of how

confrontation with autocracies end, the geopolitical miracle of 1989 to 1991, where an empire

on, you know, largely peacefully of a sort of overrated, because there were some violence

imploded. And, you know, basically not only imploded, but also said, our model was wrong, and we

accept yours. That's unlikely to happen, or at least betting on that is not a wise

foreign policy move. So I think we, you know, we need to accept these countries for what they are,

not sugarcoded, but also see that in the past, even with countries that are objectionable both

in their domestic political regimes and their foreign policy behavior, we have been able to find

agreements that serve our interests, while, you know, not giving up on any of the elements of sort

of shaping the environment using military and other means. Last year, I interviewed Hugh White,

who argued that we're overall training towards a multipolar intention or an order, and that

for better or worse, the US should accept the reality of Russian military power.

They're greater resolved to fight over some neighboring countries and like issues that

are important to them in their near abroad. Your work, I guess, sometimes gets lumped in with

that kind of thinking. And you've argued against that Ukraine shouldn't have been encouraged,

or we shouldn't have created the perception that Ukraine might join NATO in the past, for instance.

Yeah, how is what you're proposing different than seeding Russia, basically, a sphere of

influence in it's like near by area? So, I mean, I don't think a Russian sphere of influence

is a viable solution to the problems that exist in terms of Russia's relations with its neighbors,

and you know, contestation between Russia and the West over influence there. A lot of these

countries don't want to be subjugated to, particularly this Russia, but just generally speaking,

they want, you know, their independence, their elites have come to have a structured incentive

to prioritize that. And so, as we discussed earlier, even with Ukraine, in the 80% of Ukraine that

Ukrainian government is likely to end up with, Russia's influence will be dramatically attenuated.

So, I hardly see the outcome that we're describing as one of seeding

influence to them. You know, I also think that there's no reason, you know, for example,

the United States now interestingly under Trump has taken upon itself to lead a process of

reconciliation between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Russia's near abroad, right? That seems to make

sense to me, you know, if the U.S. can get it done, great, that war has been going on

essentially since the Soviet, or since before the Soviet collapse. In other words, I think just

saying this is Russia's sphere of influence and we must retreat is not really a viable policy

option, nor is it a desirable one. So, I think, you know, I end up with a somewhat more nuanced view

that it's not a matter of just sort of recognizing Russia's interests and therefore retreating,

but taking into account the reality that Russian influence is not going to go away.

We can try to counter it, but acting like, you know, there's no consequences for any Western

policies. I think it would also be equally foolish. I would also say, you know, he and his

interview with you made the case that the lack of Western and particularly U.S. military response

to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is somehow a demonstrative of a broader lack of U.S.

commitments in NATO. And I would just disagree with that. I think, you know, the distinction between

NATO and non-NATO Europe, particularly under the Biden administration, but even going forward

under Trump, where we have just heard the undersecretary of war, I suppose now, make the case for

returning NATO to its sort of factory settings. In other words, focusing on territorial defense and

deterrence, I don't think that the U.S. is going to seed the alliance commitments it's made in

Europe, and I don't think it should. So I think, you know, there's, I think each of these regions,

and I obviously know Asia a lot worse than I know the European theater in this context, but I think

there are lots of nuances here that make broad brush arguments about how the implications of

multiple polarity are that we should just accept through as an influence a little bit to black and

white. Yeah, and that interview, Hugh White also said that he suspected that Europe would end,

he said that Europe would end up seeding to Russia everything that it couldn't convince them

that it would be willing to fight a nuclear war to defend. Is that exaggerated in your view,

or does like NATO slash the EU need to convince Russia that there are lines beyond which it really

would be risking its own existence? I mean, I am convinced that Article 5 is an effective deterrent

that Russia believes in it and believes that it would be at war with the United States if it were

to attack a NATO ally. And I think Russia sees that war as one that it could not win conventionally

and that would have, therefore, the potential for nuclear escalation. This is not a scenario that

Russia sees as beneficial, nor do I think it sees a particular urgent reason to do it. So

ultimately, extended deterrence, which essentially means that the US is not only deterring an attack

on itself, but it is extending that deterrent commitment to its allies in Europe and in Asia,

rests on something of a bluff or something of a commitment that we don't know what will happen,

if called, uncertainty. And that risk that leaves something to chance is precisely the kind of

fear that deterrence is meant to create after all deterrence comes from the word terror. And it's

a psychological, it's the idea of affecting adversary psychology so that they are afraid of

undertaking aggression. And I think, you know, there are ways that we can effectively convince

continue to convince Russia that the consequences of attacking an ally would just outweigh any

possible benefits, and therefore that they would be deterred from it.

Yeah, I guess Hugh was pessimistic about the chances that the US would intervene to defend

the Baltic states. But I guess there's another aspect to this, which is the risk reward for Russia.

And they might decline, they might decide not to attack any of those countries, even if they

thought there was only a 5% chance that the US or France would come to their aid. Because

what they stand to gain is so much less than what they stand to lose potentially.

Exactly. Yeah, so I guess maybe you could modify and say that the

Europe will end up sitting to Russia, everything that it can't convince Russia that there's

some meaningful probability that they would be risking nuclear war over. They don't necessarily

have to convince them that it's a certainty. Yeah, I mean, the same problem existed in the cold war.

I'm not sure why this is necessarily so novel. I mean, there was always the question of would we

trade Boston for Berlin? Yeah, Hugh's explanation, I think. He says that basically the US

spent enough money and like put enough equipment in Europe to convince Russia that it actually

was serious. And I guess he would say like the president also convinced the US public that it was

in their interest to like draw this line and be willing to bear those costs. And it's just that

that conversation hasn't happened today. And it's like maybe not credible that the US would view

it as worth the cost anymore. So I think that there isn't there is something that I mean,

he makes an important point about the pervasive fear of communism essentially in the cold war

as being something that drove people to consider making, you know, unpalatable decisions

for that reason. So, you know, it's not completely off base, but, you know, the, the,

the, you know, and obviously this, there's a lot of political will questions here and accounting

for different US presidents and their different proclivities, which is sort of in a way contingent.

So, you know, it's right to raise the question. And if I were living in Estonia, like I would be

concerned that the US public is not as taken with the Russian threat as they are. But I do

think the US still keeps skin in the game. It has, you know, 80,000 forces in stationed in Europe.

It has nuclear weapons, reportedly stationed in Europe. And it maintains, you know, including

forces that are conventional forces, but nonetheless, in the Baltic states themselves. So,

you would have, you know, what they call a tripwire, which is what existed in West Berlin.

In other words, a force that's not going to defeat an invading Russian army, but will

in other part to ignore. Yeah. Well, also make it harder for the US president to ignore a bunch of,

you know, US soldiers being killed in the process. Or British or French or German.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Find a question. I guess if you were briefing US officials or I guess

NATO officials today on one way that they're kind of getting the ceasefire negotiations wrong

or overlooking something in their approach to ending the war. Yeah. What sort of messages would you

focus on? I guess what I would say is two things. And I'm sort of repeating myself, but nonetheless,

I think everyone needs to be in the room that despite the current focus on territory, that ultimately

both countries bottom lines relate to their future security and their desire to have whatever

ending comes be the end. I don't think either side wants to have reason to fight this war again.

And that essentially thinking through the sequencing and moving with some degree of haste

towards a phase ceasefire, combined with some sort of framework agreement that can end the

bloodshed and begin a more a longer term structure negotiating process.

Well, I guess today has been San Mateiro. Fingers crossed. We'll finally see the end of this war

in the in the next year or two or three. I hope so. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.