Putin,

and it looked like there was a territorial compromise on the table that the Russians say they agreed to.

The Ukrainians and Europeans did not agree to that.

And I think Secretary of State Marco Rubio was quite candid about this just a few weeks ago when he told reporters that that Anchorage proposal was dead in the water because the Ukrainians said no.

So I think we're going to move on now away from some sort of artful territorial compromise towards some other basis for bringing this war to a compromise end.

And my guess is that was what the focus of the discussions in Moscow was.

President Trump followed up on those discussions in Moscow with a phone call to President Putin today, which according to the Kremlin lasted an hour and was quite substantive, and did involve, at least according to the Kremlin version of this, both presidents saying that they thought progress had been made and they supported continuation of these talks.

Has that changed because of something on the battlefield or something in Russia? For example, the long lines at the diesel fuel stations and the unhappiness of the population, have they changed the formula?

in

any condition to become a steel porcupine.

It will be a country that is not only lost a fair amount of territory, but also a country that can't rebuild itself economically, that can't be reconstructed by outside donors, whose infrastructure is so devastated.

that it can't, you know, heat itself.

It can't trade.

It can't bring economic goods to market.

It can't meet its own budgetary requirements and is perpetually dependent on European cash flows in order simply to meet its budgetary needs.

So, I mean, how do you think this is going to affect the war moving forward? Is it going to take on a different format because, again, the front lines are cracking and the economic problems are building up, political problems are developing?

It's an alliance built entirely on shared grievance against the West.

And the brutal irony that Bibi highlights here is that U.S. policies over the last few decades have actively encouraged this exact Russia, China, Iran alliance to form.

Yeah.

By refusing to acknowledge Russia's security concerns in Europe and by pushing so hard on the absolute principle of NATO expansion, we've inadvertently driven our biggest adversaries right into each other's arms globally.

We're looking at Eisenhower's advice not just as a neat historical quote, but as a literal survival manual for a multipolar world.

Yeah.

And applying it to Ukraine means resisting the urge to escalate tactical violence, which, as we discussed, just confirms Russia's paranoia and instead enlarging the scope to fix European security as a whole.

It requires the incredibly difficult diplomatic work of balancing a nation's sovereign right to choose its allies against the unforgiving reality of the security dilemma.

But what, what has to be done with the European security architecture? What is, I, I guess, the solution here?

Well, I was laughing as you were describing the, the reasoning that's been going on in the West about, you know, the potential impact of escalation against Russia, and, yeah, I remember when, uh, President Trump was meeting with, uh, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in the, in the White House just a few weeks ago.

Um, he said, "Yeah, what, what's going on here is an escalation." Uh, but then he said, "And, and we're hoping this is an esca- an escalation that will lead to peace." In other words, you know, the rationale in the West is escalate to de-escalate, and I think it followed exactly the logic that you just laid out here, that this is largely a bilateral conflict.

If you increase the pain level on the Russians, they calculate, "Well, you know, it's not really worth it to us to continue this war.

Let's find a way to make peace." But in fact, you know, if you zoom out and you, you acknowledge, boy, the Russians actually see this as a bigger geopolitical conflict over Europe and over the relationship between the West and Russia, then that kind of escalation only reinforces Russia's conviction that that's exactly what's going on here, that this is not a bilateral conflict with Ukraine.

It's a conflict with the West that's using Ukraine as a proxy to weaken Russia.

So it exacerbates the sense of existential threat in Russia.

But wh- what, what is the problem here? I mean-

What's your take on that whole campaign?

Well, when you're talking about what we'll call these medium-range strikes, not deep strikes into Russia, but attacks on Russia's logistical supply chain, the rear areas that support the people on the front lines, that support drone operations, that support infantry, that support supplies from Russia proper onto the Crimean Peninsula, those are having an effect, no question about it.

I'm not sure that this is a war-winning strategy.

It's a tactical phase of the war That we went through once before.

You recall a few years ago when we first provided the Ukrainians with the HIMARS system.

What Ukrainians used that HIMARS system to do was to take those weapons and target exactly these same rear logistical supply areas, and that forced the Russians to adjust.

And what they did was they dispersed these chains, they moved them further back from the front lines so that they're out of range of these HIMARS.

[upbeat music] In your judgment, how much danger, if any, is there that we and the Russians could stumble into each other in a way which would lead to a really significant war?

So what's your reading on it so far, the NATO summit?

Well, no surprises so far.

I think we knew going into this summit that President Trump was in a very sour mood when it came to our NATO allies.

And I think his public remarks so far have demonstrated that that's entirely the case.

And I think this goes beyond personal hostility.

I think there is a real division between the United States on the one hand and the bulk of our European allies on the other.

about the world order, the kinds of challenges that we face in the world.

What is his strategy? Why is he going after apartment buildings and killing people in Kyiv? Is he being forced to do that by the nationalists or what's his strategy?

No

... understanding what's going on in the world is, uh, a huge challenge, uh, because you have to get out of the American mindset.

You have to see the world through other eyes that are foreign eyes.

It's, these, these are the perspectives that other countries have, um, how they perceive the United States, how they perceive developments in the world.

And you have to do that in such a way that doesn't justify them, that doesn't say, "Oh, you know, here's how they see things, and they're right." Um, it, it has to be, uh, an, an understanding that allows you to anticipate what they might do, how they might react to what the United States is doing.

Um, you need to account for misperceptions and misunderstandings which frequently play an enormous role in international crises and conflicts.

But that kind of understanding not only helps, uh, US policymakers prepare to defend against threats, but it also, uh, en- enables and empowers American diplomats so that they can be most effective in dealing with their counterparts abroad.

How would you square that circle?

But, uh, you coming from, you know, such a high-level position in the CIA, uh, when you look back at the '90s, what do, what do you f- what did you see was the main concerns, uh, within the US, um, intelligence community, and indeed the European one as well, regarding NATO enlargement and the potential, uh, impact on the relations with, uh, Russia?

Well, you know, when the, the Cold War ended, the Berlin Wall fell, the Warsaw Pact broke up, and then ultimately the Soviet Union itself broke apart, there was a big question that, uh, arose in, in the West, both in Washington and in European capitals, which is, "Okay, what is our foreign policy about anymore?" You know, for, for, uh, more than a generation during the Cold War, we, we had a very clear purpose.

It was to contain the Soviet Union, to ensure that Europe would not be subject to yet another great power conflict, uh, to make sure that, uh, the states in the, the Western bloc did not fall prey to communist ideology and Soviet domination.

Um, we knew how to do that.

We established deterrence militarily, and we put in place a series of rules and institutions that were designed to, to minimize the risks of, uh, direct warfare, which everybody knew would, would go nuclear and would be catastrophic for everybody involved and, and for the entire world.

So we knew what we were doing and, and we had worked out how to achieve the goals that we had during that period.

Then suddenly there's no more Soviet Union, there's no more Warsaw Pact, and I think [chuckles] people in Washington and Europe said, "Okay, so what, what do we do now?" And we came to a judgment, and the judgment essentially was, well, you know, the, the Western community that we had built during that Cold War period was very successful.

Um, but what do you think are the main misunderstandings then, uh, not just in Europe, but also across the West, about how Russia interpreted the developments in Ukraine after 2014, that is, after Yanukovych was toppled?

Why would they, why would they not trust a handshake, George? He, he promised to Iran twice, and it worked really well.

R- right.

Yes.

I, I, I take your point, and I think, uh, your tone expresses perfectly why the Russians don't want just a handshake deal here.

Um, they feel like they've been burned many times, not so much by the Trump administration, but by previous American administrations.

So they're, they're not just gonna take a, a, a handshake and a promise on this.

But to do that, Trump has to have some political, uh, oomph here, and Iran is...

But does he have the, does he have that ability?

So it looks as if, um, unintentionally, possibly, [chuckles] or likely, but nonetheless that, uh, we, we, we could head into a direct war as a result of this.

Well, I think that's exactly right.

I, I wish I could disagree with your analysis, but I, I think, uh, your logic is, is difficult for me to argue with, which, which means we're headed toward a very unstable, uh, a- and, uh, crisis-prone period.

Um, just to elaborate a little bit on your logic, I think one of the reasons why the Russians have really held back from employing a lot of their military firepower in Ukraine, and I know that, uh, that characterization strikes a lot of people as odd, but I think it's nonetheless true.

The Russians have an awful lot of air power that they could employ against the Ukrainians.

They have not done so, at least not to the extent that they could, in part because they don't want to get into a direct conflict with NATO, um, and in part because they wanna keep the door open to a, a compromised settlement and a normalization of the relationship with the United States, which I think is important to Putin for, for a variety of reasons, largely geopolitical.

Um, but if we're headed into a situation where-Uh, Putin judges that normalization of the relationship with the United States is just not gonna happen.

Uh, but, but how would they go after the Europeans? Would they do strikes which can be, you know, a strategic ambiguity, they can deny it, or would they go direct and claim? Uh, I mean, how, how do you see them going forward?

When Putin talks about the fact that Ukraine is not a legitimate state, and that his real goal is to eliminate Ukraine and guarantee that it could never function as a part of NATO or it would be a threat, do you think that's mostly bluff or do you think he means it?

Well, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding surrounding this question of whether Putin regards Ukraine as a legitimate state or not.

On the one hand, he has argued repeatedly that Ukraine in its current borders, its current condition is something of a historical accident, that it is the result of conquest wars repeatedly over the centuries, the breakup of empires, one of which was the Soviet Empire, of course, but another was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

And, of course, when you're talking about Crimea, there's also the prospect of Turkey and its involvement in all of this.

So, it is a complicated history, and I think what Putin is saying here is, "We have wound up with an artificial state that has been sewn together from the remnants of these old empires, and it can't continue to exist if it continues to be the object of a geopolitical tug-of-war between NATO and Russia.

We're going to have to find a way to address that bigger geopolitical context or Ukraine itself will come apart.

It won't continue to exist in its current form." Now, that's something he's been warning about since the early-2000s.

It seems to me the Russians have been pretty clear that they will not accept a Ukraine strong enough to defend itself.