Lee Greenwood Here We Are at the Breaking Point Again So Much Closer to Good Bye Then Weve Been
Round table
Four Times Opinion Writers Analyze Russian federation's Invasion: 'The World Has Changed Overnight'
Lulu Garcia-Navarro , Farah Stockman, Ross Douthat and
Ms. Garcia-Navarro is a Times Opinion podcast host. Ms. Stockman is a member of the editorial board. Mr. Douthat is a Times columnist. Mr. Bruni is a contributing Opinion author.
Russian troops invaded Ukraine on Thursday, attacking over a dozen major cities and towns, including the capital, Kyiv. The attacks began the commencement major land state of war in Europe in decades. "This aggression cannot go unanswered," President Biden said equally he announced harsh sanctions against Russia, including blocking major Russian banks and "corrupt billionaires" from access to the U.S. financial system besides as deploying troops to NATO'southward eastern flank. Times Stance writers Farah Stockman, Frank Bruni and Ross Douthat talk over what'due south to come up with Times Stance podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
Four Times Opinion Writers Analyze Russia'southward Set on on Ukraine: 'The World Has Inverse Overnight'
A roundtable word about the latest developments in Ukraine.
The following conversation has been edited for clarity.
Lulu Garcia-Navarro: Russian forces are pouring into Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin is warning that any state attempting to interfere will create "consequences you lot have never seen." That'due south a reminder of Russia's nuclear arsenal. The Ukrainian war machine has mobilized to defend the country. In that location have been scenes of chaos in major Ukrainian cities, as civilians have flooded shelters or tried to flee on clogged roads. And Belgium's prime minister is calling this Europe's darkest hr since World War 2.
As European leaders vow to punish Russia for launching this conflict on their continent, what happens now? This is enormously consequential. It is not an understatement to say the world has changed overnight, I recall.
Farah Stockman: I really worry that Americans aren't ready for the consequences of this. What we're going to be faced with is the increasing bifurcation of the world between East and West. And it's fourth dimension now for the Us and Europe to actually think most how — well, to really human action, correct? We take to make this mean something. We accept to meaningfully stand up at this time. And I fear that a lot of Americans are embroiled in fights with each other. And nosotros have a lot of work to do.
Garcia-Navarro: Ross, Farah thinks that this is a fight between the East and the West. Do you see information technology the same manner?
Ross Douthat: I mean, I certainly concord it's an incredibly consequential and kind of amazing moment. Information technology's been clear for a while that the invasion was a live possibility, that Putin and the Russian government were taking it seriously as a scenario. Merely it is a actually, actually radical move that carries dramatic downstream consequences for, obviously, the United States and the Western world, just also dramatic consequences for Russia.
Information technology is a tremendous gamble that Putin has taken. And I think in that location are short-term and long-term questions hither.
Brusque-term, there'due south the question of: We're non going to go to war ourselves for Ukraine. That'southward been clear for a while. And I think nosotros've honestly had a somewhat failed strategy vis-à-vis Ukraine, and this has brought that to a head. Just we have to have a response, and there's questions well-nigh what is the immediate response, how far can you lot go with sanctions, what will European countries exist willing to practice and what kind of pain will everyone be willing to deport at the gas pump in particular.
Merely then longer term, this will reorient defense postures and free energy policies substantially for NATO and for the European Matrimony, again, in ways that volition not be good for Russia. There will exist some kind of sustained push button for free energy independence in Europe, I think on a calibration we oasis't seen earlier. At that place will exist a realignment of NATO forces in the East. It's possible that Finland and Sweden will join NATO. All of this — I remember those long-term responses are ultimately going to be more important than the decisions we make about sanctions today. But obviously, those decisions are the ones that are firsthand and necessary right now.
Garcia-Navarro: OK, lots to consider there. But fundamentally, what we're looking at is a sort of reorganization of the post-World War Two consensus. Is that the way you see it, Frank?
Frank Bruni: Yes, absolutely. And I'thousand struck, listening to both Farah and Ross, at this sense of disbelief that all of us seem to feel. And I feel it. I run across it all effectually me. Farah said Americans aren't set up for this. I think she'due south absolutely correct. Ross called this "astonishing." I think that'due south absolutely right. This feels like a page from the 20th century. And here nosotros are in the 21st century. And I'm struck by this sense I pick upward in everyone around me that the world, nosotros were somehow past this, that war in Europe was something that we wouldn't see.
And and so I don't think nosotros're gear up for this. I think people don't know how to process this. I don't even think they've gotten to the point of fear and terror all the same because they're notwithstanding in that country of shock. And I wanted to also follow up on something Ross said. He talked about the incredible take a chance Putin is taking hither. I think when people mention that, they're usually thinking of the adventure he's taking internationally. But he has taken an enormous, enormous take chances internally, too. The Russian people are going to feel this gravely in their economy. They're going to feel this in terms of lost lives. And he is betting — and information technology is fascinating and terrifying — he's betting that this flexing of might and the stoking of national pride is somehow going to transcend and recoup for all of that. I don't know that we know that to be the example.
Garcia-Navarro: Farah, what does the very brazenness of this deed say about Putin's plans?
Stockman: Well, look, Putin'southward been taking bites out of Ukraine since 2014. And before Ukraine, in that location was Georgia. And then nosotros might exist in atheism, merely there are people living in that location who have seen what'due south happening. Then I think he has nothing to stop him. He is not answerable to a democratically elected congress. He doesn't have an opposition. His biggest opposition is in prison. Then what'southward stopping him from doing this?
A lot of people consider this to be a personal obsession of his. He has a personal obsession with Ukraine. It has a lot of historical significant to him. But I also see this every bit a bigger deal. It'south bigger than Ukraine considering he'southward been watching for the final, I don't know, 20 years — he's been watching the The states do things similar this, in his mind. He hated what we did in Libya. He was furious. He hated the Iraq state of war invasion. He has been seeing us throw our might around and call it international constabulary.
And I recollect he'due south but proverb, well, I can play that game, as well. And this is really almost telling the The states that it'southward no longer the sole superpower and showing that we are weak. He went to Beijing earlier this and basically got some kind of agreement from President 11 that somehow China was going to back them upward with economical deals so that they could live maybe without Europe for a while. I worry about where this is all going.
Garcia-Navarro: Putin wants this, of course, because he sees what happened after the Soviet Union fell as a huge fault. Then that is one of the reasons why he's fixated on Ukraine.
Douthat: The irony of Farah's point is that, of form, nigh of the interventions that she's describing that the United States made from its own position of greater force ten or 15 years ago take ended very badly, with Afghanistan, obviously, being the most recent case. The Republic of iraq war was not exactly a sterling story of American success. The Libya intervention left that country in a land of civil war that has remained off and on to the present day.
And so for a long time, Putin wasn't just angry at America nigh those unilateral interventions, those symbols of American might. He also had this sort of reasonable critique of how they went badly, how they didn't work, how America was reckless and destructive and smashing things up and leaving things in pieces. And at some point, seemingly in his own vision of what'due south possible for Russian federation, he has abased that function of his critique of the U.S., or he has the idea that Ukraine is close enough to Russia culturally and weak enough in its own country capacity that he can succeed in conquest there in a way that all of America'south efforts at nation building and then on have ended badly.
But there is a real shift there from saying America is reckless and destructive and its wars take failed to saying we can succeed. We can do what George W. Bush-league was unable to exercise in Iraq. We tin conquer Ukraine in a heartbeat and reintegrate them into our own imperium. That's what'south then distinctive — and distinctive, as well, relative to what he had done previously. It's true that he had been taking bits and pieces and creating frozen conflicts around Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, elsewhere.
Garcia-Navarro: And Syria.
Douthat: And Syria. But all of those were limited efforts, oft in areas that had sympatric populations, that you could pull back from if anything went wrong. And the scale is merely different. The take a chance is simply different here.
Garcia-Navarro: Frank, we don't know even so if this will be an occupation, just it seems clear to me that the intention is to overthrow Zelensky and, in some fashion "repossess" Ukraine.
Bruni: It does, indeed. And at every footstep of the way for the concluding couple of days and weeks, things take gone across what people feared. Nosotros're seeing and reading reports now of explosions and aggressions throughout the country of Ukraine, non just in the areas that are closest to Russia.
And I wanted to follow upwards on something Ross said because I think it's interesting. In that location's a difference between Putin and Russia doing what he's doing right at present and some of our strange misadventures that I think is striking, and it has a lot to do with how we ended up in this identify. He has much greater command over the information that Russians receive, over the story that they're told. When our foreign adventures go misadventures, when we end up in spots that we were assured we wouldn't and everything goes wrong, we Americans get that information. We are the beneficiaries of a free press. I call back for the Russians, any they're thinking about all of this is colored mightily past a very selective and distorted version of the truth. And I think that volition hold true going forwards, and that's a real problem in terms of coming to any kind of solution here.
Garcia-Navarro: Farah, when you look at this in terms of what Ukraine has symbolized in the region, for certain Russians, Ukraine has represented hope. Ukraine bolstered its democracy in 2014 when it overthrew its pro-Russian autocrat. And for those living in autocratic countries in the region, the Ukrainian revolution signaled that there could potentially exist a different path. And that hope has now been shattered. Basically, the message here is self-decision will not be tolerated.
Stockman: I recollect that's true. I've been very worried almost this considering you lot can't merely pick up Ukraine and move information technology somewhere else. It shares a edge with Russian federation. Russia was always going to have the ability to influence what was going on in Ukraine either by buying off its politicians or having its pro-Russian propaganda Goggle box channels. And basically what triggered this buildup of troops was that the pro-Russian TV channels were turned off.
So I call up Putin decided, hey, he can't go along Ukraine past influencing its politics, so he'due south going to go with a military invasion. He's going to go Ukraine no affair what. That'due south what he thinks, and he might exist right. That's the existent worry. I wonder about how we can protect Zelensky. What are we going to do if they arrest the entire Ukrainian government and throw them in jail forever? Putin'southward proficient at this. He has washed this to Russia. He knows how to do this.
I've always worried that we might be giving them a little chip of false promise that they tin just do a full break with Russian federation and not accept to think most what Putin's able to do with his giant army. I guess perchance I'm a flake of a realist, but I call up that the Ukrainian people take such — they deserve to cull their ain path. And they deserve the commonwealth that they're fighting for. Just they're always going to have to deal with that very powerful neighbor. And I worry that we cannot protect Zelensky. I don't know what the plan is right now.
When information technology comes to how we tin can punish Putin for doing this, we're going to have to too go through some serious pain. Fifty percent of Germany's natural gas comes from Russia, right? London has been rolling in Russian coin for years at present. And so if Europe wants to stop Putin, nosotros're going to have to get common cold turkey in ways that are really hard. And they're going to be difficult on Europeans, also. This is going to be a suck-information technology-up situation, where people are going to have to say, we are going to take to quit Putin. We're going to accept to quit the Russian gas and oil that we're addicted to. And I simply hope that we're fix for that.
Garcia-Navarro: Ross, was this a massive miscalculation past Europe and Ukraine that they could even flirt with the idea of forming an alliance? Zelensky had explicitly said Ukraine wanted to join NATO. And Farah believes that possibly this was all actually a grave miscalculation that led to this.
Douthat: I think that information technology was a grave miscalculation. I recollect, in some ways, an understandable 1, precisely because the steps Putin has taken are and then boggling so fraught with risk for himself and his regime that you could ever tell yourself that he would proceed to sort of pick abroad at Ukraine's borders but information technology wouldn't come to this.
Only even down to the last few weeks, there's been this very foreign dynamic where the United states of america — which does, for all our intelligence failures, seem to accept pretty skilful intel on what the Russians are upwardly to — kept issuing warnings of, it'due south actually happening. The Russians are really planning to invade. And the Ukrainian government will say, oh, terminate sowing panic, and we don't retrieve an invasion is imminent and so on. I do think that for very idealistic reasons, some Ukrainian nationalists talked themselves into the idea that Putin would never move similar this or the idea that in the extreme outcome, the West would come to their assist more was ever quite reasonable and plausible.
At that place is too the question of to what extent — what is actually driving Putin's decision-making here, right? Is information technology NATO? Is it his sort of mystical idea of the Ukrainian-Russian connection and the thought that yous can't detach Ukraine from Russia? Is it sort of immediate things — the crackdowns on pro-Russian parties and Russian language education and stuff in Ukraine? Presumably, it's all of those at some level. But you lot tin can't say definitively that if in that location hadn't been this i provocative step, information technology wouldn't have come to this.
But what'south clear is that the United States' and the West'south policy toward Ukraine in full general was conditioned on this sense that we could invest there on a scale that wouldn't deter Putin. We knew it wouldn't deter Putin, simply it would all piece of work out, withal. And now that we invested heavily in a authorities that we tin't defend and is in danger of beingness destroyed, that is the sort of reality of ability politics right at present.
Garcia-Navarro: Frank, Putin has seized this opportunity in my view because he sees the W as weak and divided, and there's certainly an argument to exist made that that is indeed the case. And that has huge implications for the Usa and for our political organisation here. Many people are request, why hasn't President Biden washed more than? He plain can't ship troops into Ukraine, as two nuclear powers facing off would escalate things even further. But how do you lot see his handling of this crisis so far?
Bruni: Well, I retrieve he has limited options, as y'all've just said. And there are weird ways in which we feel backed into a corner, even though nosotros are and have long thought of ourselves as existence this superpower. We're not going to be sending troops. We've made that very articulate. Putin knows that, and he seems to be treating that equally a kind of dark-green light. It's unclear what at this point will deter him. I don't think the sanctions are whatever surprise to him. I think they do need to be equally severe as possible, as astringent every bit they can be in terms of the effect they're going to cease upwardly having on Western European nations and whether they're willing to tolerate the consequences there.
But role of what makes this so difficult to procedure and then incommunicable to predict is there are certain responses that we've taken off the table, and nosotros've taken them off the tabular array for very good reasons. But now that they're off the table, what happens? Where is our leverage? Where is our pressure? And how does this end? And if Putin gets away with this, and it looks similar he very well may, given his personality, given his megalomania, what comes later on that? I think these are existent questions, and they're scary ones.
Garcia-Navarro: At that place was just a poll out showing that Putin was more than popular amid Republicans than any senior Democratic leader, including the American president. We heard that former President Donald Trump seemingly praised Putin'due south deportment, calling them an act of genius. Ross, Republicans seem to be all over the place in regard to Russia. And on the one paw, there are decisions that President Biden volition have to make. But we also take to await at what the American political landscape is.
Douthat: I don't recollect that poll quite captured what was going on. What it captures is that yous have polarization in this country where Republicans don't think well of any Democratic leader at all. But the number of Republicans who actually said they were favorably disposed to Putin was small, as well, correct? So you're sort of conflating two dissimilar kinds of attitudes. If you polled liberals about Donald Trump at the summit of the pandemic, they would accept given him five percent blessing ratings, too. Then I'grand a petty skeptical of that.
I think what yous meet from Republicans is at that place's a mixture of things in play. There'south a faction in the Republican Political party that is sort of shaped past the Iraq experience, shaped by the failures of U.South. foreign policy that has get distinctly noninterventionist in a way that shades into a kind of excuse-making for Putin, a kind of attitude of, why should we care? Basically what you get from Tucker Carlson'south broadcasts, right?
But that's not at all the dominant mental attitude in the Republican Party. The ascendant attitude in the Republican Party is this more than of a partisan-inflected view that says, this is actually bad, and the problem is Joe Biden was weak and wasn't tough enough. And Putin didn't attack while Trump was president because he knew that Trump wouldn't let him get away with information technology.
Then at that place's Trump himself, who clearly admires authoritarian leaders. That's not in question, right? So when Putin does something like this, you get the firsthand Trump sound bite of, he'south being very smart and very tough. Simply then Trump likewise wants to say, this never would take happened had I been president, right? Then information technology's a complicated mixture, but fundamentally, there isn't a strong pro-Russian contingent in the Republican Political party, outside of, you know, something Steve Bannon says on his —
Garcia-Navarro: People though with pretty big megaphones.
Douthat: Right, there are some people with big megaphones. But if you look at polls, there was a poll of how involved should the U.Southward. be in Ukraine. And what was hitting, most people said non deeply involved, somewhat involved. The partisan breakdown was actually totally similar. Republicans, Democrats and independents looked quite similar. And then I think there's actually a adequately potent American consensus that this is bad. There'southward also a adequately strong American consensus that nosotros don't want to ship in ground troops. And most of our politicians, Republicans and Democrats, are going to operate within that consensus, at least until the next presidential cycle gets going, and and then things could become a picayune crazier.
Garcia-Navarro: So where does that leave President Biden, Farah, in your view?
Stockman: He's in a really tough space. This is the second big strange policy crisis. And a lot of people will say, well, the way the U.S. got out of Afghanistan is partly responsible for this. Look, we need to evidence that NATO is going to be stronger and more united and more than active along its bodily borders than always earlier and bear witness Putin that any he's doing right now is going to produce the exact reverse results of what he wants to achieve. I think that'due south the best outcome we can go right now.
Merely longer term, I think this idea that we can just buy gas from anyone, no matter whether they share our values, that we tin can merely rely on other countries to produce our medicines. And equally long as it's the cheapest, information technology doesn't thing. I call up Biden has got eyes wide open up virtually how vulnerable that makes u.s. and makes our allies and that he'southward, from twenty-four hour period one, been working on how to make the Usa more self-sufficient and more able to protect allies.
Because this is a long war. It's not going to begin and end with Ukraine. And then I merely think this is a large moment, and it should be a wake-up phone call for us to actually retrieve about how we desire to interact with the earth and how we need to exist with our allies in order to ready for a future that most Americans aren't fifty-fifty enlightened is coming.
Garcia-Navarro: Frank, I'm going to stop with what I started with. I'm going to ask you, what now?
Bruni: [CHUCKLES] Boy, Lulu, practice I wish I had the answer. For now, nosotros wait. We listen very carefully to what Farah but said about the magnitude of this moment and the fact that in a world where we like our gratification quick and nosotros tend to lose track of and lose interest in things very, very rapidly, we better hunker down and realize that nosotros're going to exist living with what happened today and what happens in the coming days for a long time. We're going to be living with it in any number of means. And if we tell ourselves anything dissimilar, we are being dangerously naïve.
Douthat: Nosotros've been talking a lot about the long term, and this is a huge modify for the long term. But we are recording this podcast on the first twenty-four hours of hostilities. And a great deal of that long term volition be determined in the very short term by what kind of resistance Ukrainians put up to this invasion. Grand strategy questions aside, nosotros should all be hoping that they put up some pretty fierce resistance.
Lulu Garcia-Navarro is a Times Opinion podcast host. Farah Stockman is a member of the editorial board. Ross Douthat is a Times columnist. Frank Bruni is a contributing Stance writer.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think nearly this or whatever of our articles. Here are some tips . And here's our e-mail: messages@nytimes.com .
Follow The New York Times Opinion department on Facebook , Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram .
Times Opinion sound produced by Lulu Garcia-Navarro and Alison Bruzek. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kristina Samulewski. Original music by Carole Sabouraud and Isaac Jones and mixing by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thank you to Kristin Lin, Kaari Pitkin and Patrick Healy.
georginaalmou1939.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/opinion/ukraine-putin-russia-times-opinion-writers.html