Our ‘remarkable period of peace’ could be coming to an end
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Summary
General Tom Lawson served 40 years in the Canadian armed forces before retiring in 2015 and his final position was as Chief of the Defense Staff. During his time as CDS, General Lawson commenced Operation reassurance in 2014 which saw canadian forces move into eastern Europe to bolster NATO and serve as a check on Russian aggression.
Transcript
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hello i'm anthony fury thank you for joining us for the latest episode of full comment
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please consider subscribing to our show if you haven't already
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war has commenced in ukraine but what is the scope of that war is vladimir putin taking the
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whole country over or is it less than that or is it more than that what does it mean for us in canada
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to what degree should we be involved to what degree can we reasonably be involved how will
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this end and is this the beginning of world war three i'm really grateful that general tom lawson
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has agreed to join us today general lawson served 40 years in the canadian armed forces before retiring
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in 2015 and his final position was as chief of the defense staff the highest position the head of the
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canadian forces during his time as cds general lawson commenced operation reassurance in 2014 which saw
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canadian forces move into eastern europe to bolster nato and serve as a check on russian aggression
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let's get his insights general lawson welcome to the show thanks for having me anthony thanks so
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much for joining us what what what a fascinating time it really is uh probably uh hasn't been a more
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uh mercurial leader mixing with nato uh than over the last year and and we're kind of at where the
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crux of that takes us yeah and i say fascinating but i should of course also say scary in many other
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words in that direction of course uh late wednesday night our time vladimir putin announces a military
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operation within minutes of his announcement concluding it became clear that uh this was not
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just limited to eastern regions of the country that there were attacks on the capital beginning
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boots on the ground throughout the country what did you think when you watched this initially unfold
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well we've been kind of watching it unfold in slow motion for nearly two months now haven't we and
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uh there was a a thought um amongst uh observers um that this could be a bluff to achieve strategic
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uh outcomes uh that couldn't be achieved in any other way so quickly uh and yet um you know all
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intelligence pointed to this being far more than a bluff so what's happened overnight really um
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is almost an inevitable outcome of the movements and troop troop uh and uh equipment movement that
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has been happening over the last couple of months what would the decision makers be doing right now
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the cds saw this unfold in real time of course uh one has to brief i guess the prime minister cabinet
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the defense minister on on what's going on what the intel says what the options are that's available
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what is this kind of behind the scenes nuts and bolts of what transpires at a time like this
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well it's interesting although nato has uh you know 27 member nations of which canada is
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you know amongst the most important top uh five six seven um canada has a a greater interest than
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than many uh nations uh because we have so many canadians who uh declare uh a ukrainian background
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you don't get about a million people which is the second largest um diaspora in the world other than
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uh than ukraine so this is uh this hits canadians hard and um therefore back in 2014 when there was the
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grab of crimea and the war started in donbass about uh eight months later um the prime minister harper at
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the time was uh was very very interested in a strong response and uh made it very clear to nato
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that we would uh back up our strong talk uh with troops and ships and aircraft and that's largely
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what began as you mentioned uh in operation reassurance back in 2014 and has continued for
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eight years now and in fact been expanded we've got uh company size uh troop troops together with a
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leader in in latvia as part of operational reassurance and and now uh now that it has turned into
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something else not just a conflict in donbass and the loss of crimea but perhaps the the threat to all
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of ukraine uh this prime minister uh and the chief of defense together with the minister of defense will
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again make very clear and have made clear to nato that we're in we're into discussions on uh on
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where we go in in reassuring uh you know first of all in uniting as an alliance a nato alliance but
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also reassuring those countries on the eastern flank of nato that are most concerned about what is
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happening in ukraine so all efforts all discussions will be to develop plans as we've seen more canadian
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troops are going to go over there to bolster those we have in the eastern regions right now what about
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options when it comes particularly to reassurance for those folks in ukraine who don't like what's
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going on right now because of course ukraine not a nato country and things happen so quickly within
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the first 24 hours uh we see so much going on in the capital uh various different reports of different
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airports or naval bases being taken over by russian forces very quickly with really within hours it seems
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like so much was already done just in in the first few hours in the first day absolutely it almost seems
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trite to say that for the most part ukrainian military um uh those leading the response to russia and
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those actually carrying it out boots on ground and the leaders uh of the uh regime the government
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in ukraine are kind of on their own at this point certainly uh intelligence will be sent to them uh
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equipment has been sent to them you know they've been provided pieces of fairly significant punching
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equipment like stinger missiles to bring down uh russian aircraft uh and and you know early reports
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are that some have been brought down already you know it's difficult to determine the veracity of
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early reports but it looks like they are inflicting on their own uh some uh some price to russia even in
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these early hours but to your greater point and that is what can nato what can canada do for those on the
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ground in ukraine right now it's very little other than uh you know sanctions and other things that could
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have an effect in the long term but for someone like you or i on the ground in ukraine right now who
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have leaned towards the west for really since the early 90s away from russian towards the west i think
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it would leave them feeling uh fairly unsupported by the west however i will say that this is part of a
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choreography uh between the superpowers if if we can say that russia is a superpower they're definitely a
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fading superpower but if we include them uh as we're going to have to for the next little while
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anyway as uh as an important uh power in the world uh there is a choreography between nato and russia that
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all efforts will be made to make sure russian soldiers don't meet up with nato soldiers because
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that now has us all looking into an abyss that we're not sure of the effects on the entire world so
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that's that's kind of why biden and nato has made it clear that we will be sanctioning russia there will
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be huge sanctions and huge prices to pay but they do not include western uh soldiers meeting russian
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soldiers over ukraine now when it comes to operation reassurance how many and to what degree and at what
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times were troops in ukraine because we did hear that there was some canadian presence in ukraine involving
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military personnel and they were quickly withdrawn and they were moved i guess from the the western
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border into poland that's right so we've had hundreds uh in uh separated uh and allotted to
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various bases uh to help with basic training uh you know uh ukraine has about 215 000 active personnel
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a lot of those will be recent recruits they've got 12 months of prescription so when they come in
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you need to get them up to speed and canada's been helping with that they've also got 250 000 reservists
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all of whom will have minimal training so canada has been part of the nato response to help them
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bring their military to a higher level than it was at in 2014 and largely i think they've done that i think
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russia will meet some of the people uh some of the soldiers that have been trained in basic military skills
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uh to a much higher level um but uh but those few hundred of course were only trainers uh they
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they were never supplied uh with their own weaponry with an idea that they would help with uh and defense
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of uh of ukraine proper so that's why they were taken out once intelligence indicated that there was a
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likelihood of an invasion general lawson you mentioned uh prime minister stephen harper former prime minister
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uh wanting to have a very firm response back in 2014 he's released a statement uh just the other day
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saying immediately after of course uh russia went into ukraine there can be no further compromises no
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naive resets or diplomatic niceties dictators must be dealt with like all bullies with resolute unity and
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force now when we talk about the nato response i see the unity there what do you make of the invocation of
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the phrase force and we've heard other people talk about that uh to your point and i think president
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biden has signaled there's not going to be any particular military response right now prime minister
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trudeau uh similar tune pretty much from all of nato but we hear that word force brought up a little bit
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here and there what what can that possibly mean well i really don't think uh prime minister harper in
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that comment or uh really any nato leaders right now are speaking about force being applied uh to
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russian soldiers as they enter ukraine uh that may be the strong desire of uh people in on on the ground
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and in leadership positions in ukraine right now but it's been very clear uh not only over recent months
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but recent years um that ukraine uh it has a special uh status although they lean west and are on a
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development program to become a part of nato they are not yet part of nato so the the idea of the use
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of force i don't think refers to uh nato troops um responding to to uh russian aggression in ukraine
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however and i think that this needs to be made very clear and it has been by statements today
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by president biden but also by the secretary general of nato uh and the um the head of the
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european union uh that if uh to to quote the head of the european union if one single square meter of
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nato territory is attacked by russians it will be met with force and and i think um as strongly as that
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said it will be received uh by uh putin uh he will not risk that i really don't believe uh i think if
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he did and the full force of nato came to bear i think that it would be the end of russia as uh at
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the nation that we right now that we know right now so back in 2004 ukraine had something known as
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the orange revolution which was seen by many people as a sign that they were going to become uh further
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westernized after that in a symbol that they wanted to embrace europe and that they would be on the
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pathway to nato and when you were chief of defense staff here in canada you you were part of uh
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discussions around the plans for ukraine to join nato and there were some people particularly putin
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who absolutely did not want that to happen and it did not yet come to happen many people who wanted
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to see it happen what what went on there because i guess to your point were they members of nato now
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we probably wouldn't be in this situation right well well i i think there was a uh perhaps an
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underestimation of um whether or not putin saw ukraine as a red line uh it's leaning towards the west as a
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red line uh and as with so many other former uh countries within the ussr romania hungary czech republic
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called the baltics uh as they became uh members uh went through their own development programs and
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became members of uh nato i think there was a belief especially in 2014 after the protests uh that saw
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the uh uh the ousting of their president in came poroshenko uh you know the protests were called euro
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medan at the time um there was a clear indication that ukraine's national policy would be euro atlantic
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integration with the european union and with nato uh and so at that time uh nato responded as they did
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to as they have traditionally to every nation uh as they make it clear they want to join nato that
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you've got a program to go through and we should be careful not to get the impression that ukraine is uh
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like most of the countries that are already in nato what i mean by that is you know although ukraine
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uh is uh you know the second largest nation in europe second only to russia uh they they really
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are in uh in dire straits uh economically i mean they've they've got a uh a gdp that places them 119th
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in the world somewhere around the equivalent to el salvador the per capita income is
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five thousand dollars they're the poorest country in europe very high poverty rates severe corruption
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that continues and yet they've got many things going for them extensive farmland huge reserves of
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uranium but they are not a nation that would have found it easy to declare in 2014 that they want to
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be a member of nato and then quickly become a member of nato they would have to bring their military
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under parliamentary control and believe it or not it really isn't under close uh civilian and
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parliamentary control there are ties there but uh you know there there are all kinds of questions
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that would have to be dealt with so you know that i think the idea that it was taking uh ukraine
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quite a while to get into nato was just part of this process now there's a whole different calculus
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that's going to have to go into uh decisions in the future i think if putin really wanted to make
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it clear uh that uh the accession of ukraine into nato would be something that would have be have to be
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put off into the distant future he could have won that concession i think that's me speculating uh but
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if it was going to obviate the need for uh you know an invasion into ukraine i think it would have
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been given to him it's too late now uh and i think in fact recent polls uh since uh january have
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indicated that um the ukrainians and the ukraine population which is about you know the same size
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as canada 41 million a few more than us uh really is leaning strongly towards uh even more strongly
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towards joining uh eu and nato but but those discussions uh at some point in the future when the
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the worst of this has taken place uh will be undertaken again with greater concern as to what
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it means uh for world uh world peace well what does putin want out of ukraine and i think that's a
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question that a lot of people have grappled with i know uh you got to know some of your counterparts
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in russia uh and different uh individuals uh in the russian government and in the russian military
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i think a lot of people thought okay he's just interested in these eastern regions because there
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are different sort of historical ties to russia then we see stuff going on in the capital a lot
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of question marks around that what do you believe is the goal out of all of this yeah that is the
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question what does putin want yeah you've mentioned uh the fact that uh i was getting to be a fairly good
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friends uh with my russian counterpart uh general valerie jerasimov back in 2012 2013 2014 when we had
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fun things to discuss like uh search and rescue in the arctic region and uh and you know really good
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things that appeal to everybody's better angels and then of course in 2014 he was on the uh on the
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sanctions list and uh in fact he remains the chief of defense even though in canada we see chiefs of
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defense in and out three or four years uh valerie jerasimov a couple years older than me is still in
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uh in control however even though he's probably uh planning most of the strategy being used um
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and employed by putin or under putin's orders right now you know for instance uh he's uh uh been seen to be
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the developer of the jerasimov doctrine which really is uh you know this hybrid warfare where
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you use not only military but disinformation technology cyber warfare little green men all
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sort of total war and he is now applying that but to say that he would have any effect on putin in his
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decisions uh regarding whether or not to invade uh ukraine really i think uh overestimates
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uh the effect that anyone in the duma or uh anywhere else in the military can have on putin at this
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point you know we saw a really remarkable thing happen on monday when when uh the security council
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was called together by putin and one by one he asked them whether or not it was a a good smart idea
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to recognize the independence of these self-proclaimed uh nations of uh of the eastern ukraine
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and when when the spy chief uh got up uh and and indicated well you know probably not uh spy chief
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sergey nirashkin uh said uh you know i think maybe it's it's a good idea to give the west more time to
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to respond to uh some of our dictates uh he was dressed down in the most remarkable sense this is his
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spy chief you just don't do that i mean good leaders uh anywhere in any democracy and most
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dictatorships in the world will seek the wisest counsel of their top advisors and here uh before
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the entire world he was dressing down his spy chief so to get back to your question what does he want
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i think we let's speculate for a little while you know um does he really want to suffer the sort of
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sanctions that he's going to suffer in the next year or two as a result of a full invasion of ukraine
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does you know that the estimate is that he's going to lose you know upwards of 10 000 troops
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does he want ukraine inside the russian uh sphere of influence that badly or is this a distraction
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as a result of a terrible economy that's falling in pieces does it uh shore up his uh uh his strength
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amongst uh the oligarchs and others that kind of keep him in power what does he want and and you
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know i i think what he wants in the short term is very quickly he wants to use uh a military strategy of
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you know what the u.s would call shock and awe to create despair in ukraine and as quickly as possible
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two or three days at best uh established uh air superiority and pound away to create this despair
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and put in a puppet government and then back away you know sort of give some sops to the west and
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say okay we're going to give half the territory back uh and then we can discuss you know over
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coming months the release of these sanctions but strategically what will do what will that do for
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him in the long run there will be no nations uh in you know the rest of the world who will see
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uh putin uh while he's in leadership as a sound strategic partner not even china or or members
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of the brick nations you know brazil russia china india south africa none of them will see him as a good
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international partner so where is he going in the long run with this that's an open question
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let's just pause for one moment we'll be back with more full comment after these messages
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terms and conditions apply visit bemo.com vi porter to learn more general tom lawson you mentioned shock
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and awe going on just lots of stuff bombarding ukraine russia uh hitting them in multiple ways obviously uh we
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see those videos of uh various uh various planes flying over the communities uh there's bombing we
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see kids cowering in the subway systems to hide from those bombings and a lot of canadians a lot of
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people uh their hearts going out to them saying what can we do there's been various civil efforts already
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with uh indications of charities you can give to to make sure uh people who are fleeing can can have
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access to food the prime minister's talked about the sanctions a lot of people still wanting to see
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more being done what would your message be to those folks who are looking at these scenes and they see
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uh things that you know really upset them and they go we'd like to see a different response we want to
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help these people well i think in the short term you know we've had a month to two months uh as a western
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alliance nato uh to provide weaponry that ukraine has been asking for uh and often being told no
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uh we we saw that turning to yes in in the most recent you know four or five weeks so um you know
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now they kind of have to respond to the russian invasion using that uh you know the efforts that
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we've already talked about over recent years where their military has been brought to a higher level
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it now will be up to them uh to employ tactics uh to blunt the worst of the effects of this uh russian
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invasion but i i think the issue in the longer run is uh what can be done uh by the west uh to support
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the best outcomes that we could hope for ukraine i think there were into a very frustrating longer
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term set of diplomatic actions that include these sanctions very tough very firm sanctions you know
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my assumption is as we talked about that putin would not continue any inertia beyond uh ukraine and
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into nato nations because that brings up a whole other discussion uh but that still doesn't answer
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your question what can we do what can can members of the western nations who uh have such fellow feeling
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right now for those in ukraine do i i think it really becomes this diplomatic effort to accept uh some of the
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stock market losses that are sure to occur as a result of this to support our governments in their very
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firm responses even when oil prices go up uh you see within germany the uh uh you know the support for
00:26:10.660
their chancellor as he shut down uh the uh the furtherance of the gas line project uh is remarkable
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uh so you know although that's a frustrating thing to hear uh and many would like to hear how we would
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be able to support them uh you know militarily i i really don't see that as the way ahead i think assuming
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uh putin uh putin uh putin's invasion uh is uh blunted at some point and and comes to a standstill
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either when he's replaced the current uh government with a puppet government or before that uh it will
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be uh the effects of diplomatic diplomacy and economic sanctions uh that will lead us and ukraine to better
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places all right i gotta ask because i said it in the introduction a lot of chatter about it on social
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media and of course bad actors around the world keenly uh looking at this space and perhaps looking
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to fill any vacuums going on right now do we see the beginnings of something like a world war three going
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on right now so i i don't think so um you know i i think we can't even compare uh ukraine's uh military to
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russians you know it's a uh it is probably about uh one-tenth uh the russian uh military uh on one
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eighth of the budget uh and uh you know there's a full expectation um that what's going to happen
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you know right now uh as russia employs this shock and awe and hopes for a quick turnover um you know
00:27:44.900
ukraine uh may surprise us uh they've got uh fighter aircraft you know they've got mig-29 fulcrums uh
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sukhoi 27 flanker sort of the the generation of the f-15s not so much the f-18s or uh you know more
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recent f-35s uh that the west has now but but they've got uh some aircraft that could inflict
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some damage they've got mobile surface-to-air missile systems and and they've got a fairly
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significant number of people in uniform with weaponry and with bullets but i think very
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quickly russia is going to achieve air superiority and then ukraine's uh really only hope is to use a
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sort of porcupine type defense and you know what i mean by that is a porcupine really doesn't inflict
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massive damage on whatever it is it's being hunted by they hide under the bottom rung of the fence and
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and try and fend off the worst bites um by making themselves hard to swallow and and that that can
00:28:44.020
carry on for months i mean if the ukrainian population and military are willing to allow
00:28:49.380
that you know take losses and willing to allow that then this can really be a very difficult thing
00:28:54.980
for putin to maintain a popular uh invasion but to your greater question can this uh can mistakes be
00:29:03.620
made and this could spill into a world war three this is first and foremost on the mind of nato leaders
00:29:11.620
uh and and that's why they continue to say yeah i mean there you've got a huge price to pay uh president
00:29:19.300
putin uh and and and you will start paying it today but recognize it doesn't come anywhere close
00:29:26.820
to the price you will pay if you set foot on a nato nation covered by article five so i you know i i
00:29:34.180
think that choreography remains in place uh in a way that will hold can mistakes be made can a missile fly
00:29:43.140
into nato territory uh and then require a response by nato that then leads to uh a putin who doesn't want
00:29:52.180
to back down from nato possibly does china watch very closely at uh the weak a response that some
00:30:01.220
would say uh he has met in his uh invasion of ukraine and therefore make a decision or the mistaken
00:30:09.380
decision i would believe to uh invade taiwan even though the united states has made it very clear that
00:30:15.460
no no that is a red line for us right not sure you know these are things that really start to
00:30:21.940
come into the international discussion that even two months ago uh seemed to be completely beyond
00:30:28.420
the pale yeah and i guess that's the frustration for some people watching from afar going okay the
00:30:34.020
u.s says you invade taiwan all right there'll be a military response there'll be something like that
00:30:38.900
not the case for ukraine and i know we've covered all the the nato issues and and and sort of the
00:30:44.820
long-standing issues with ukraine but i i still think there's a lot of people uh observing this feeling
00:30:50.420
like there's something not fair about that scenario yeah uh well let me tell you if if i was of ukrainian
00:30:59.220
background or was on the ground in ukraine right now i would have been far more heartened by a
00:31:05.140
response that had if not nato troops uh nato nations making unilateral decisions to come across
00:31:12.020
and bring their troops onto my soil completely understand it as canadians uh you know well we are
00:31:18.660
covered by alliance but even if we weren't we would look to our friends for a a a good strong response
00:31:25.700
that having been said there are massive strategic calculations to be made and i for one uh support
00:31:33.940
the ones uh being supported or being put forth by nato by you know united states as the leader of uh nato uh
00:31:42.100
and and i think really nato efforts uh should we should focus as they are right now on continuing to
00:31:49.380
bolster nato presence in the eastern flank of nato uh as we see these uh you know several hundred more
00:31:56.100
canadian soldiers moving forward uh into the baltics uh probably a canadian ship heading up there in the
00:32:02.180
next little while uh perhaps more f-18s don't know um f-18s are have regularly been into romania
00:32:08.660
uh and lithuania i believe uh in in recent months and years uh maybe we see that happen again but
00:32:16.180
all of that is with the idea of strengthening uh the resolve that putin will see if he's you know in
00:32:23.460
any way looking even further west than the western border of ukraine i want to talk for a minute about
00:32:29.380
canadian capacity in terms of our military and should a stronger response uh have been required or
00:32:36.100
should be required in the future to what degree do we have the capacity right now to fulfill that
00:32:41.940
i know you know this better than pretty much anybody the long processes of the f-35s naval
00:32:47.700
procurement uh even getting those new rifles for for the rangers up north that uh took quite some time
00:32:53.140
it seems like it seems like these processes and i take the point that you don't just snap your finger
00:32:58.020
and oh look there's a naval resupply vessel or look there's a bunch of fighter jets but still we go
00:33:03.060
does it need to take this long what's going on with these processes here and is this moment
00:33:09.060
something of a wake-up call or or something of an opportunity for us to uh us to give this stuff
00:33:14.980
a greater nudge you know i think so you know as a as a chief of defense far be it for me to
00:33:22.340
not completely agree with you immediately and say you know we should quickly double the size of
00:33:26.820
canada you know i i certainly would like to say that um when you leave uh the canadian borders and
00:33:34.020
spend some time around the world you know in nato and and see some of the difficulties that nato nations
00:33:43.540
uh are are dealing with in terms of budgets and equipment and and training um you know you come back to
00:33:52.740
canada feeling not satisfied i won't say that uh but but far more accepting of the status we have in
00:34:02.580
canada where as a nation we are almost entirely unthreatened by anyone i mean certainly uh across
00:34:10.020
the north pole we've got russia and they do send strategic aviation towards us and we're part of you
00:34:16.260
know uh norad uh in the united states could be a target uh for intercontinental ballistic missiles and
00:34:22.900
we're part of nato uh so canada remains a a tremendously dependable nation uh as as part of those um al
00:34:32.100
alliances so yeah i we're small i mean we have 65 000 regulars uh in a nation um you know look as we said
00:34:44.500
we have about the same population just a few million less in ukraine and yet uh we have about
00:34:51.060
a fifth of the size of their military now having said that uh we have uh three times their budget
00:34:59.460
so we spend three times their budget on a military one-fifth aside and and for that what we get is a
00:35:05.780
tremendously well-trained not large but tremendously well-trained army navy and air force and special
00:35:13.140
operations troops why am i saying that because you've asked the question does canada have the
00:35:19.540
ability now to send good army units good ships good air force uh resources over to bolster
00:35:29.060
whatever nido wants to do and the answer is yes not a lot but yes whatever we send over there will be
00:35:34.980
put in charge they'll be put in the lead you know whenever we've sent fighters uh you know when into
00:35:42.020
the yugoslav conflict or the libyan conflict our fighters even though they're f-18s they've been
00:35:46.980
around for 30 years they've been carefully updated and yeah they need to be replaced and i thank you for
00:35:52.420
plugging the f-35 because that is the right decision uh but uh but but they are good enough
00:35:57.940
right now to continue to lead uh do we have ready forces set to go we do i mean i guess i find myself
00:36:06.100
lamenting well why can't we have an aircraft carrier but then perhaps it's because i'm comparing us to the
00:36:10.660
u.s the uk france and i guess china but you're saying when you compare us to most other nato
00:36:16.580
countries we do actually have the ability to punch above our weight and our our our supply is actually
00:36:23.300
not that bad yeah uh that's right now i don't want to go too far because i really do think we've
00:36:30.180
you know we've been kind of stuck around a 20 billion dollar budget less than one percent of gdp for
00:36:35.540
for many years uh and and nato has the goal of getting to a two percent of gdp uh now it's a
00:36:43.380
little bit of discussion of gross domestic product and how much you spend on your military but it's a
00:36:47.780
little bit what you do with your military too so you know i i would love to see that up maybe not to
00:36:52.900
two percent in the short term but make it thirty a billion dollars increase the rig forces to a hundred
00:36:59.220
thousand at no point will nato or any of our allies ask us to own things like aircraft carriers
00:37:06.740
they will be very interested in the fact that canada being as large as we are it's very interested in
00:37:12.820
yeah not only fighters but but a really good uh robust capability to transport things back and
00:37:19.940
forth across the nation you know we've heard about these wonderful c-17 aircraft we've got five of them
00:37:24.740
in canada you know over in nato there are all kinds of nations that share one or two of these things
00:37:29.540
we've got five of our own you know we've got 17 uh brand new hercules aircraft c-130s my son's flying
00:37:37.780
one of those out of trenton right now uh we've got uh uh we've got uh you know 15 frigates that are
00:37:45.060
have been upgraded recently or continue to get upgraded and we've got uh tanks artillery and uh very well
00:37:51.860
trained uh army so yeah i i mean i i think uh there's an opportunity for canadians always to
00:37:59.060
suck back and take a look at where our military is and then is it where uh we want it to be and
00:38:05.460
almost every time you do that you uh and most canadians will say we are not where we want to be
00:38:11.540
is this an opportunity to uh to replan and bolster where we want to get to the answer is yes how does
00:38:18.820
the threat landscape change now moving forward we've got what's going on in ukraine of course
00:38:24.340
as we've established questions about well where does it end has it already ended at these borders
00:38:29.700
does it progress in a different direction xi jinping obviously looking with great curiosity and then
00:38:34.420
other little flare-ups whether they be uh rogue state actors or uh different terror cells uh things
00:38:41.220
going on with india and pakistan how do you feel the threat assessment is is is evolving is changing
00:38:47.060
right now little fires everywhere so until this invasion uh occurred uh last night uh and over
00:38:55.140
coming weeks we're you know we're really coming to the end of a remarkable period of peace um now uh we
00:39:03.220
have to be careful of that i absolutely don't want to uh undervalue the uh you know the conflict in
00:39:11.540
afghanistan and in libya in iraq you know these were very important uh conflicts uh with uh important
00:39:20.260
principles uh defended by canadians westerners uh with our our blood and treasure um and yet uh they
00:39:28.580
were uh they were manageable in a uh in a larger discussion of world peace we never saw superpowers come
00:39:36.980
into uh into uh into conflict against each other they were very careful uh to ensure uh that peace
00:39:43.700
reigned um even though smaller wars were taking place so i you know i i think we need to make sure
00:39:51.220
to make sure that we keep our eye on the ball and the ball in this case is the world you know intelligence
00:39:58.740
right now is focused on the ukraine region you saw really a tremendous job uh by president biden and the
00:40:05.700
americans to share intelligence at a rate that really constricted putin from what he wanted to
00:40:11.940
do you know putin and his advisors will well study the art of war where you know when you're uh weak
00:40:18.740
make yourself look strong when you're strong make yourself look weak that's what he was trying to do
00:40:23.700
and when you're a dictator you're allowed to do that disinformation you know uh who in the press is
00:40:28.820
going to make you pay for disinformation it's very tough thing to do when you're in charge of a
00:40:33.780
democracy because of course people like you hold all of the decision makers to account uh but here
00:40:40.340
was biden here was the west here was all of the western intelligence holding him to account when
00:40:45.860
he said he was moving troops back to russia he was not he was extending the front for what we saw happen
00:40:51.860
last uh last night there was no fooling and and and no shortage of awareness but i can promise you that
00:40:58.900
the rest of five eyes nato intelligence are very carefully watching the movement of uh you know
00:41:07.060
chinese troops right now the movement of north korean missiles uh the movement of the taliban you have to
00:41:15.620
be watching everywhere to make sure you continue to through diplomacy through economic sanctions and
00:41:22.820
through military responses that you continue to tap down those things so we can extend this remarkable
00:41:29.300
period of relative peace that we've seen since the end of the second world war so i i think really
00:41:35.700
although there is a very important and heartbreaking conflict going on right now that threatens this
00:41:42.580
world peace um it does not make uh you know the threat of war elsewhere in the world in in the cashmere uh
00:41:51.620
you know in taiwan uh out of north korea in iran in the middle east uh it does not make uh conflict
00:42:00.020
less likely there so we need to uh well we need to focus uh our uh attentions right now on on the region
00:42:07.860
around ukraine and make sure that uh any invasion stops at the western side of ukraine and and sanctions
00:42:14.980
are in place we also need to continue as westerners uh western democracy and and nato uh and friendly
00:42:22.580
alliances keep a watch everywhere else in the world general tom lawson this has been a fascinating
00:42:28.100
conversation thank you so much for joining us today pleasure to be with you anthony thank you all the best
00:42:34.020
full comment is a post media podcast i'm anthony fury this episode was produced by andre prue with
00:42:39.700
theme music by bryce hall kevin liban is the executive producer you can subscribe to full
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