Sorry I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al Qaeda, Zawahiri is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America and by God we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again.
You've been had.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came, he saw us, he died.
We ain't killing they army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN like Say Our Name been saying, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right, you guys on the line.
I've got Doug Bondo from the Cato Institute and here he is writing at the American Conservative Magazine, time to extricate from Ukraine.
Welcome back to the show.
Happy to be on.
Hey, I like your title.
Let's go through some of your reasoning.
Yeah, absolutely.
So yeah, Ukraine's in the news, but the current impeachment and all those politics aside, let's talk about Ukraine's role in American policy, I guess, in Europe, the European Union, NATO, our relationship with Russia, all these things.
What do people need to know?
Well, the U.S. is actually pushing harder than the many European countries to maintain a very tough policy towards Russia over Ukraine.
And I think there's good reason to be sympathetic to Ukraine, but it's not an ally.
It's not a country of vital national interest to America.
And it doesn't make sense to essentially create a military, almost alliance relationship that puts us in confrontation with a nuclear armed power, especially a country, Russia, which we should want to have better relations with, you know, for lots of reasons.
Yeah, but isn't everything in the world Russia's fault?
I saw that on TV.
Well, you know, you'd certainly think that listening to some folks.
I mean, you know, no one ever wants to look at American behavior and kind of how we contribute to things.
You know, Putin's not a nice guy, but that's hardly unusual.
The world has a lot of those sorts of people out there.
I want to live in peace with them.
Okay.
But now in terms of the conflict between America and Russia and say over Ukraine, that's still all Russia's fault there.
You know, whether you want to have a war with them about it or not, they stole Crimea when they invaded it in 2014, right?
Yeah.
Well, the problem with that, of course, is that most Crimeans probably wanted to go to Russia.
You know, Russia played fast and loose with international law when they grabbed it.
But historically, Crimea was always Russian.
It was given to Ukraine back in 1954 really as a matter of internal Soviet politics when it didn't matter much at all.
And the problem here is that, you know, the U.S. and Europe have sanctions on Russia over Crimea.
No one that I have ever met in the policy field actually believes Russia will give Crimea back, which means the sanctions achieve nothing.
And I think that one needs to essentially recognize reality and accept the fact it won't go back.
And then the question is, how do you have a relationship despite that, as opposed to permanently have a sanctions regime and permanently have hostile relations that doesn't serve anybody's interest?
Yeah.
Well, and it's worth mentioning, too, as you do in the piece here, that they only did that in reaction to an American-backed coup against an elected government.
Yeah, there was a long, you know, kind of set of circumstances where the Russians were, you know, very upset.
NATO expansion, proposals to bring Ukraine into NATO, which, you know, from a Russian standpoint looks very threatening.
And then the essentially a street putsch overthrowing Yanukovych, who was not a nice guy, not somebody any of us would probably want to sit down to dinner with.
Nevertheless, he was actually elected in a reasonably fair election.
And I'd like to tell people, imagine if the Russians showed up, staged a coup in Mexico City, invited Mexico to join the Warsaw Pact, you know, and worked with Central America to try to divert trade away from America.
I mean, you can certainly imagine the reaction in Washington.
It wouldn't be friendly, and they wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about democracy and all those other concepts.
Yeah.
It's probably also worth mentioning, too, that nobody died in this so-called invasion.
It really was a coup de main where their soldiers just really went outside and said, this belongs to us again now.
And then that was it.
Well, it worked in part because the majority of the population almost certainly wanted to go along with it.
You know, they've been rough with dissenters.
I mean, unfortunately, Russia today, you know, it's fairly authoritarian.
But again, you know, the US is friendly with lots of authoritarian regimes.
I mean, Washington spends its time sucking up to the Saudi Royals and to, I mean, Al-Sisi in Egypt and a whole bunch of other guys.
So frankly, the idea that this is an authoritarian regime doesn't matter very much with US policy.
All right.
Now, one place where people were killed, though, was in the fighting in the east, which I know you know, and we all know that it was the coup d'etat junta that started that attack.
You know, the people had occupied some buildings peacefully in the east said, if you guys can occupy some buildings in defiance of our elected government, then we can certainly occupy some buildings in defiance of a coup government.
And then they declared a war on terrorism and attacked them.
Well, look, I mean, this is one of those situations where when you get separatists, you get internal conflict, it's never going to turn out well.
But the point is, the US doesn't have to take a position on it.
I mean, you look around the world, there are lots of places where there are separatists, you know, the question of who should rule whatever territory is something where, frankly, it's not really America's decision.
And I'm quite prepared to say the Russians shouldn't be supporting the separatists in Ukraine.
But that doesn't mean we should go to war with Russia over that.
And again, I think we need to look for some kind of a solution.
And to me, the start starting point of any solution is to say, hey, we take NATO membership off the table.
If we do that, how about you do something in that?
That would be working something out with, you know, the Donbass with the east.
And they've had plans there that could work.
I think they need a little extra push and kind of taking NATO away would help that.
Well, and it's important to note, right, that unlike in Crimea, when the Donbass tried to join Russia, Putin told them they were not invited back in 2014, 2015.
And so they're going to have to work out something with Kiev, according to the Russians.
No, I think that that's exactly right.
That Putin has explicitly not tried to absorb the Donbass directly.
You know, the same with actually South Ossetia and Abkhazia, you know, which are areas that had been ruled by Georgia.
You know, so this is no Russian empire.
I mean, it's not as if he's out there conquering lots of other territory.
You know, I mean, what he's gotten involved in is quite limited, viewed from his standpoint, Russia's standpoint, is very important national interest in terms of protecting the border, ensuring security for the Russian state.
I don't particularly agree with their assessments, but, you know, it's hard for...
I mean, that's the assessment they make, and we have to deal with it.
I mean, you take what the people believe, you don't sit there and say, well, you shouldn't believe it.
And if we have a better respect for that, I think we can have better relations.
Hey, how much influence do the really far-right radicals have in Ukraine there?
Well, they certainly play an important role.
I don't think they're particularly important with Zelensky, the current guy, who is a very interesting character and has made a major pitch for trying to resolve, you know, the conflict.
So I think that he's very different.
Poroshenko, the previous president, I think, played footsie with some of the really nasty elements there, who played a role who, in many cases, kind of drove the government in a much more radical position.
For example, trying to isolate the Donbass and economic contact with Ukraine, shutting off electricity.
A number of these things were kind of pushed by the radicals before the Ukraine, you know, the government of Ukraine decided to do the same thing.
So they had a malign influence.
Well, there were quite a few times when the right sector would hold big rallies where they told Poroshenko, hey, we overthrew the last government, we could overthrow you too, and this kind of thing.
And it didn't seem, as far as I know, it's pretty far away from here, but as far as I could tell, these things just kind of ended on their own, without, say, for example, the local police coming and shutting the thing down or anything like that.
And it seemed to be taken as a pretty credible threat that they better not push these guys too far, they might end up just like Yanukovych did.
Well, I think that's part of it.
I think it's also that Poroshenko wasn't necessarily that upset with some of the things they were pushing.
It was kind of convenient from his standpoint to have them pushing that, because that then gave him an excuse to go a little bit further in the nationalist direction.
You know, he clearly was much more in the kind of confrontational perspective.
Zelensky, the new president, you know, ran against that.
And, you know, thankfully, most Ukrainians voted for that.
So we will see how policy develops in Kiev.
Hey guys, Scott here.
I've got some books you should read.
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No Dev, No Ops, No IT by Hussein Badakhshani, How to Run Your Computer Business Like a Good Libertarian.
Oh yeah, and don't forget Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan by me.
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And now when you talk about Zelensky and his effort to work things out, so they already have the Minsk two deal and they're trying to build on that.
Can you be a little bit more specific about what's happening there?
Well, basically the idea is you have a, you know, Ukraine promises, and then it legislates, you know, much greater autonomy for the Donbass and that they hold elections that have been recognized, you know, by Ukraine.
And that, you know, at least in theory, Russia then basically stopped supporting military action there that the armed separatists, you know, stop the military action and go to political, you know, action.
I mean, it makes an awful lot of sense.
It requires both sides to act.
You know, they've tried that in the past and basically both sides kind of failed in fulfilling the agreement.
And it's important to recognize that the U.S. and Europe constantly complained about Russia, but Ukraine also failed to do it.
I mean, there was strong opposition, especially from nationalists that are providing autonomy for Ukrainians in the East.
That's part of the Minsk deal.
I think Zelensky is much more serious about this.
And I think that, you know, there's still challenges.
They've been fighting a war that's killed thousands of people.
It's not easy to resolve these things.
That's where I think the U.S. and Europe could be helpful by themselves offering to reduce the confrontation.
We can take NATO off the table.
You know, we can take sanctions away if you guys, you know, do certain things in terms on the military side.
We need to give it a push because I do think that there's a better opportunity today to try to resolve this than there has been the last several years.
Now, how important is this policy?
You know, everybody talks about the conflict of interest with Hunter Biden's position at the gas company and all this.
But the larger context of that was, according to Biden, to Joe Biden, the former vice president himself, was to really encourage domestic gas production as a major government policy in Ukraine in order to, you know, provide a break from their dependence on Russia for gas.
And that seemed to be a major priority of the Obama government.
Is that still a priority of the Trump government?
Well, the Trump administration, I don't think has really pushed that nearly so much.
I mean, obviously, the involvement of Hunter Biden had very little to do with kind of the policy idea.
This is a great idea and an awful lot to do with trading on his dad's position.
I mean, it's hard to get around that.
I mean, whatever you think about the policy.
I mean, the policy makes some sense, but it's not clear why the U.S. should be involved in that.
I mean, the point is, if the Ukrainians want to come up with different options and they want to work with the Europeans on that, it certainly, they should be able to do that.
But of course, you look at Germans today, the Germans are working with the Russians on a natural gas pipeline.
You know, the Europeans are quite happy to keep the natural gas flowing from Russia.
So we shouldn't be surprised if this doesn't work terribly well as a strategy.
Well, you know, I don't think a former special assistant to Ronald Reagan, like yourself, would ever advocate America rolling over for any enemy.
But it sure seems like we could go a long way in terms of offering, you know, carrots or just normal behavior to the Russians, as you've mentioned.
Take NATO expansion into Ukraine off the table, lift some sanctions, maybe allow, as Putin argued back in 2013, why can't Ukraine have a trade deal with the EU and with Russia?
Why do we have to fight about this?
And isn't it the case that the fact that both sides are armed still with thousands of H-bombs, a relevant point in all of this, that we really have to work out whatever problems are with Russia.
We can't have another Cold War with them.
That could lead to a hot war, Doug.
No, I mean, the Cold War, a renewed Cold War of any sort, is certainly not in our interest.
And any potential confrontation is very dangerous, in part because the Russians are weaker in conventional terms, which makes it more likely that they would turn to the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
They have a lot of tactical nuclear weapons.
And, you know, you think about a U.S. policy.
I mean, the threats from the U.S. have been very real.
You know, in 2008, the Bush administration did consider, and now rejected it, but it did consider proposals to bomb the tunnels through which Russia was sending military forces into the conflict in Georgia.
I mean, that would have been madness.
I mean, the idea that Russia would not have done something, you know, I mean, that's crazy.
Of course, they would have had to respond.
And in 2016, you had Republicans, including Chris Christie, saying they would shoot down Russian airplanes in Syria.
They'd have a no-fly zone and tell Mr. Putin, you know, he better not test them.
Well, again, that's mad.
I mean, why would you want to get into a confrontation with Russia?
Can you, you know, the Russians would not just sit by if you shot down their airplanes.
And to protect al-Nusra on the ground in Syria?
Really?
Yes.
I mean, in the debates, it was an extraordinary exchange where, I mean, John Kasich, Carly Fiorano were a couple of them.
But, you know, Chris Christie had an extensive exchange saying, I would tell Mr. Putin, this applies to you and don't test me.
And he was specifically asked by the moderator, well, if they like sent planes up, would that mean shooting them down?
He said, yes.
I mean, this is mad.
I mean, and the Russians certainly see that.
I mean, it's not as if the Russians aren't aware of some of this commentary and proposals.
And that has to, you know, that increases their paranoia.
I mean, as Henry Kissinger once said, even paranoid have enemies.
If people over there are talking about shooting down your airplanes, well, you know, you probably want to be prepared in case they do.
Yeah.
Let me ask you, if I could just somehow use the force and make things my way or something, and I just somehow removed Ukraine from American influence from now on, what would it really cost this society?
Well, look, I think, I mean, the problem is, with Russia is kind of a common problem, which is how does the US deal with countries that have some differences in values and differences in interests with America?
The more we are in confrontation with them, the more trouble are going to cause us.
You know, I mean, I think that, of course, we don't want them mucking around in our elections, but there's a certain level of sanctimony that's really over the top.
You know, realizing that the US routinely, you know, interferes in other people's elections, including the Russian elections.
I mean, in 1986, Time Magazine put Boris Yeltsin on the cover for a story about how the US is trying to influence the election and getting reelected.
You know, so there's, you know, I don't say we should blame America for everything, but we should be quite aware that America's behavior creates blowback, and that Americans want to view themselves as innocents in the world.
You know, other people don't view it quite that way.
So I think looking at Russia, we've got to take into account what is it, what concerns it, and it's not what we think they should care about, it's what they care about.
And to me, that's where we have a real opportunity here.
They don't want war.
Putin has no interest in conflict with the US.
Indeed, there's no evidence that he was intrinsically anti-American.
He was KGB, he was worldly, he was cynical.
He was not a communist ideologue.
And in the early years, I mean, in terms of a willingness to help after 9-11, they helped for a time logistically in Afghanistan.
But there's a number of things you see there that suggests he's not particularly anti-American.
You know, that what's pushed him is NATO expansion, you know, breaking up Serbia.
I mean, a number of these things, color revolutions, etc. that have all he has seen as threatening to Russia, we've got to deal with that.
And breaking all our nuclear treaties with them, too.
Yeah, I mean, you put all of these things together, and you can understand why they react the way they do.
In fact, you know, he was the first leader, they say, the first leader in the world, you know, political leader to call Bush on September 11, and say, hey, listen, we're at your disposal.
Whatever you need.
He has, you know, the Russians have been because of Chechnya and more, the Russians have been very, very concerned about Islamic terrorism.
So there's no surprise there.
I mean, he, that's one issue where, in fact, we could cooperate with them.
You know, if we weren't pushing them towards the Chinese and into kind of an opposing alliance.
Yeah.
And in fact, we switch sides in the war in Afghanistan, we're on the side of the Russians now.
So we ought to be able to work with them on that.
Same thing as Iraq war too, right?
We're fighting the whole war for Iran's guys.
Seems like we can negotiate with them about it at the same time, you know, instead of being enemies while we're doing them such a big favor.
But anyway.
All right.
Well, listen, it's great to talk to you.
I'm so glad to see you writing about this issue.
As I was talking about with a friend on the phone when I first took a look at this thing this morning.
You're our best guy because, of course, you got all your libertarian principles straight, but you know so much about every single thing in the world.
So you can't write an article about Ukraine that isn't absolutely jam-packed with all of the most important facts and context for people to understand.
And that's why we love you so much, Doug.
Well, I appreciate that.
You're very kind.
Thank you.
Keep up the good work.
All right, you guys, that is Doug Bondo.
That's how you say it, Bondo.
He is the best foreign policy guy over there at Cato and in our entire libertarian movement.
And I'm not trying to sell Ted Carpenter short because he's great too.
All right, y'all, thanks.
Find me at libertarianinstitute.org, at scotthorton.org, antiwar.com, and reddit.com slash scotthortonshow.
Oh yeah, and read my book, Fool's Errand, Timed and the War in Afghanistan at foolserrand.us.
