In this episode, I sit down with Peter Bergen and discuss the current situation in Ukraine and Russia, and how it could lead to a new Cold War. I talk about the possibility of a new cold war, and why I don't think it will happen.
00:00:00.000I did get a certain sense that a neo-Cold War would be stabilizing in its way.
00:00:08.540You know, most of the, you know, 40 some odd years after the Second World War was fairly stable and or was mostly stable, in fact.
00:00:23.920And so it's a kind of like there's this ambiguity and there's a kind of cold, cold war going on that's a bit of a culture war of, you know, Russia takes in Edward Snowden and Russia, you know, prosecutes Pussy Riot.
00:00:50.160And we promote Pussy Riot on television and there's this kind of tit for tat in that way.
00:01:01.080And, you know, there's a lot of ambiguity there.
00:01:05.820I mean, you could still travel to Russia.
00:01:10.440Putin can still be the kind of plus one in G8 summits and so on.
00:01:16.460And I think a Cold War just kind of makes everything clear and thus stabilizes Russia internally.
00:01:27.740And I think there's some actual benefits to that.
00:01:30.500But, you know, for that to occur, you can't have a military that's caving in.
00:01:37.360You know, you can't, I don't know what to say.
00:01:43.080Like, you know, you can't just, I don't know, turn into North Korea or something.
00:01:50.020I don't think it's nearly that bad, of course.
00:01:52.820But you see my point in the sense that there has to be some kind of plausibility and then an ability to have stability.
00:02:02.140Like there could have been the seizing of the regions that are currently, you know, undergoing referenda.
00:02:10.740And a kind of new line in the sand with Ukraine as a buffer state.
00:02:17.500I mean, I can see that as kind of stabilizing in its way.
00:02:20.900But, again, if you're losing and you're, you know, success breeds success and failure breeds failure.
00:02:30.260I mean, it's, I don't, I think I kind of thought that that's where we would be months ago.
00:02:50.000And the one scenario, come to think of it, that could kind of transition the whole situation to a cold war of sorts is if the collective West basically tells the, tells Ukraine that they have to,
00:03:11.380they have to basically give those, so to speak, new territories to Russia and otherwise, no, no more help.
00:03:22.100Otherwise, they'd be left on their own.
00:03:25.700And if they do give those territories to Russia and acquiesce to that, then the rest, what's left of Ukraine will be effectively, you know,
00:03:35.100there'll be, there'll be a Marshall Plan and there'll be speed tracked into the EU, perhaps, you know, all kinds of benefits will accrue to them.
00:03:47.980But I don't know to what extent that is something Zelensky can sell to, to his people.
00:03:56.780If he were to accept something like that, he might destabilize Ukraine itself.
00:04:01.880There might be, it might descend into chaos because right now they're winning.
00:04:06.060They're, they're not, they don't see any reason for that.
00:04:09.220And obviously they understand the nuclear threat, but right now for them to say, okay, you know, we, we, we accept our defeat.
00:04:19.020We accept that we have to cede a quarter of our territory to, to this invading force.
00:04:25.500I'm, I'm not sure how that can be done, but that's one scenario that could lead to that cold war, the stabilizing cold war.
00:04:34.160And that's what I was talking about early on.
00:04:37.400I don't, I don't want to inflate myself too much, but I was Kissinger before Kissinger.
00:04:44.420But I remember at the very beginning of this in March, there was this talk of a no fly zone.
00:04:52.740And there was a poll, like one of these snap polls that probably shouldn't be taken too seriously at all.
00:04:59.740But it was like 60% of the American public wants a no fly zone over Ukraine.
00:05:05.680And I think that expressed a sentiment of just outrage, emotional outrage, you know, just like, why are you doing this?
00:05:14.240These poor people, they're getting slaughtered, stop, you know, kind of thing.
00:05:18.400And, and it was this notion of America as an exceptional power.
00:05:22.040And we can just put a halt to a conflict if we want to.
00:05:27.300And then there was the response to that, which was, well, a no fly zone means that you're going to have to shoot down a Russian plane.
00:05:37.480And that would be a war with, between Russia and the United States or Russia and NATO.
00:05:42.080And that's just, you know, a huge escalation.
00:05:46.420And even like AOC did a Instagram live or whatever, she was explaining this in the way that only she can.
00:05:58.580So it was, it was clear that like the establishment was kind of saying, no, no, no, no, you know, we're, we're not going to do that.
00:06:05.020Um, and, uh, I remember there was a Tucker Carlson segment where he, um, he was, uh, someone interviewed, I think it was actually Max Blumenthal, who is a, uh, absolute Russian asset at this point, which is kind of surprising knowing his history.
00:06:21.920But anyway, um, he was interviewing this, uh, Hispanic Congresswoman from Florida and, um, you know, she's not terribly sharp.
00:06:33.840She's one of these kind of well-dressed women who looks like a newscaster or something.
00:06:38.240Maybe she was in her previous career, but anyway, she was like, you know, oh yeah, we want to know fly zone.
00:06:43.940And they're like, you know, that means war with Russia.
00:06:46.120And she was like, well, I don't want that, you know, and they were kind of making fun of this woman.
00:06:50.080But I basically said, um, you know, look, let's just accept the lost territory as lost and, you know, let's not perpetuate bloodshed and let's actually declare a no-fly zone over territory that is still Ukraine.
00:07:12.760And we can just base it, you know, because obviously, you know, Russia, at least hopefully doesn't want to get into a shooting war with the United States.
00:07:23.880They don't, they know that there are consequences for them and not just for the United States if a Russian plane is shot down.
00:07:30.540So I was kind of suggesting this, um, that you just kind of tell Zelensky, you know, this territory is lost, it's over, but we're, you know, you're going, the great benefit is that, you know, the Western half of your country is going to be part of perhaps the NATO alliance and your European union, et cetera.
00:07:52.060So it's just ultimately better. You kind of have to take a, take a loss, take your lumps and then move forward, but, you know, which is reasonable.
00:08:00.680We've all been in that situation in life many times. Um, and I do think that, you know, I would stand by those comments.
00:08:07.020I think that's a good strategy, but it's now over. And, you know, again, as, as Boris just said, there's the, that feel of victory and that, that drive to go all the way.
00:08:21.880And you can't, I, I don't, I agree that even if Zelensky kind of saw that option as reasonable, which of course it is, uh, he would say, no, you know, we're going all the way with this, um, every bit of territory from the, what was it? 92 or 93 referendum.
00:08:52.060And one, one other thing that will weigh heavily on his decision, um, is this far into this war, um, it seems like the consensus number for the people killed for the casualties in this war, probably around 50,000 on each side.
00:09:17.480So the question that he won't be able to answer. So if you're giving up what they had seized initially, essentially, or in the first couple of months, you know, why did, why did we lose 50,000 of our people and many more, um, uh, injured and crippled and, and many more yet, uh, civilians like Mariupol alone.
00:09:42.160Um, as they're saying about 80,000 civilians have been killed there. So, Oh my God.
00:09:50.300Um, so yeah, right. But it is, it is a kind of sunk cost fallacy though, which, you know, if you're a businessman, you should think in those terms, you know, like, yes, we invested all of this money into this project, but if we keep doing it,
00:10:07.020we're just going to lose more money, we're just going to stop it. And it hurts to like throw away $10 million or something, but you just have to do it. Um, I, uh, I, I remember on social media, there's, uh, Warner brothers spent a hundred million dollars on a Batgirl film.
00:10:26.220And they just canceled, which is kind of funny because they're just like, we're just going to continue to lose money. So stop. So that you can do that in business. Um, but war is just different.
00:10:40.020You know, it's just, it, it doesn't like, it's not just, you lost $10 million and maybe you can make that back in a few years. It's about pride and emotion. I mean, it's like, you're on a football team, you're driving down the field.
00:10:56.220And then your coach is like, well, you know, we're up by seven and there's only two minutes left. So let's just kneel the ball or something. I mean, the, the players want to do it. It's like, let's, you know, that, that just feeling of power and momentum and drive.
00:11:11.020It is, um, and, and, and, and not to mention, you know, the, the loss of life and thus feelings of revenge or making loss meaningful. I mean, it's the most powerful force in the universe.
00:11:24.540Exactly. The loss of life is, is key here. I mean, I'm sure that argument could have been made reasonably if we were just talking about territory and, and maybe destroyed, uh, infrastructure and financial cost, financial loss of it.
00:11:43.080But the lost lives, I mean, you can't, you can't really, as a politician and businessmen make different decisions than politicians, you know, as a politician, you, you can't just say, well, sorry, some cost move on.
00:11:57.080Right. That's, that would be suicidal.