Okay, Heather, we know President Trump wants to end the war, but what do you make of how he seems to be approaching this?

Yes.

Well, wonderful to be with you.

And I think the first thing the president said today is he he said this proposed three way summit between Russia, China and the United States would be about nuclear or denuclearization issues.

And then mentioned perhaps the war in Ukraine would be raised.

There is a lot of confusion there.

about what this meeting would actually accomplish.

So what do we know at this point as far as what happened with that?

And the Arctic is important not only for Europe's and America's homeland security, but also for Russia's and for China's.

100%.

So Russia is the Arctic superpower with over 53% of the Arctic coastline, and the Arctic is so important for Russia's military future, its economic future.

Russia's nuclear submarines are based in the Russian Arctic.

It sees future oil and gas development, critical minerals, and a maritime route, the Northern Sea Route, as critical to Russia's economic future.

Its economic future is under question right now as it's entered at the fifth year of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

So the Arctic is very, very important, and you're absolutely right.

Can you talk about the forbidding conditions in the Arctic?

were loading bombs onto planes when he changed his mind.

This is what I mean.

You have to be clear, you have to make the call, and you have to carry it through.

And so allies can't support us because they don't know when we're going to U-turn, and adversaries are going to take advantage of the ambiguity, the weakness, and will continue to probe as the Houthis have done.

So the Saudis really have an enormous challenge.

If the U.S. is not going to step forward, they had developed a Mecca defense agreement with Pakistan and Turkey, but that is something that's not appropriate to pre-existing conditions, which sounds like a health issue.

But it's the conflict with Houthis, and they haven't come forward.

But is he right that Russia is starting to lose control in some way, Heather?

Mm

... what you were talking about before we came online.

You have now, uh, uh, suggestions that North Korea is going to introduce 30,000 troops on the Russian side to fight in the war in Ukraine.

This, uh, vessel allegedly was carrying components and parts to, to go to Russia to help Russia build additional ballistic missiles-

Mm-hmm.

I mean, this is, we have to watch Russia's, uh, escalation.

Putin, we, you're starting to now see that Putin is feeling the effects of both the Ukrainian strikes, um, if the sanction bill goes into place.

It's more of a tariff bill than a sanctions bill, but that-

How significant is this?

Well, I think it is absolutely significant.

I think it is just part of President Trump's changing view about Ukraine because Ukraine is now being much more successful on the battlefield and certainly having an impact on the Russian energy sector.

But, you know, production doesn't mean instant delivery of desperately needed Patriot batteries to defend Ukrainian cities from ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, glide bombs from Russia.

So it is important.

I think the general trajectory is very positive.

I just wish there were enough Patriot batteries to go around to be able to more adequately defend Ukrainian cities from Russian missiles.

Will this escalate with Denmark? And if so, how will Europe respond?

Wow.

Uh, and, and I think this is, we have to take this in very measured steps.

First and foremost, it would be great to get the IAEA back into Iran to see exactly what the state of play is, but I think we have to be extremely cautious.

The Iranian regime is not going to allow the transparency that we're going to desire.

Even when the IAEA was allowed in, we know that they were, you know, hiding, uh, their enriched uranium in some of their, uh, nuclear facilities.

So I think we have to be cautious.

This is a good step.

Mm.

Would you describe that as a, quote, unquote, "great deal" for the United States? Because the president says it's either great deal or no deal.

Yeah, I mean, I, I think a great deal would be making sure that the nuclear dimension of the deal is up front, and this is the problem with the sequencing.

Uh, and it's the, the challenge that Iran has the strategic leverage by having, uh, control over the strait, that the first thing that they focused on is opening the strait, which I think is basically, um, acknowledging that, uh, Iran will control that strait through a variety of means.

So it's not a great deal until we get that nuclear issue resolved.

Mm

...

the, the, the war, and really that has not resolved itself in helping a Palestinian authority create itself.

Those countries will not be able to go forward in any way, in my view, with the Abraham Accords unless there is much greater prog- uh, progress in Gaza.

Yeah.

Right.

So I think this is actually where the vice president has the most coherency of linking his role in the domestic agenda of being a, you know, a key rally point and spokesperson for the, for the Republican Party, the MAGA, the new right.

There's an international component of that new right, and Orbánism was central to that.

And absolutely, Matt, you're right.

This administration, um, has moved away from, look, in America's interest, we want to make sure we have great relationships with all of these countries because we wanna further US interests.

And when you pick a winner, you run the risk of having that backfire spectacularly.

Kurt.

So just give us your sort of overview on Arctic security for what you believe is critical and not so critical about Greenland.

David, thanks.

It's great to be with everyone.

I mean, I begin to say that the Arctic is incredibly important to U.S. national security.

And we've been slow to, you know, really awaken to that fact.

But we're getting there.

And the president, though, in the focus on ownership, acquisition, that's moving us off into a different direction.

Thanks,

Why does it matter so much? Why is it a strategic piece of land geopolitically?

So it's helpful for listeners to grab a map because it's always hard to do this without a map.

But so Greenland occupies a very strategic part of land in the North Atlantic and obviously from the North Atlantic to the Arctic region.

So certainly, as I mentioned, during World War II, it was very important for us to be able to control and militarily support Greenland to keep these sea lanes open so U.S. forces and equipment could go to Europe to continue to supply U.S. forces to fight the Second World War.

During the Cold War, The Arctic also became very important as the Eisenhower administration created the distant early warning line that called the Dew Line.

And basically, it's the arc of the Arctic region.

It's where, you know, we protect North America from first Soviet Russian attacks.

To what degree have Russia and China tried to gain a foothold in Greenland? What has that actually looked like? What are their aims? And how serious a threat is that?

So Heather Conley, take that, taking that thought on European decline but also strategic stability is in US interest with Russia.

I mean, I agree with Dan.

The document is clear we are concerned about Europe's economic competitiveness.

Certainly, uh, many American presidents have been concerned about low European defense spending, but President Trump, in the letter before the security strategy, says th- look, they've agreed to do 5%.

It is exactly, though, the message about the cultural erasure, uh, that, uh, Europe's a- democracies, they have political parties, and we're putting our thumb on particular parties that the current administration agrees with on strategic stability.

It is Russia that, over the past 15 years, has violated basically every international arms control agreement that we have had, and even the Trump administration has acknowledged those violations.

To achieve strategic stability is to do that with our allies, to present, again, peace through strength, the strength of a strong nuclear deterrent, a strong military defense, and then we can come to the table.

Is that right?