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--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm John Bickley, and I'm joined today by Georgia Howe. It's Sunday, June 8th, and we're discussing the latest developments in the Ukraine war.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for having me, John.
--:-- John Bickley: So, let's dive right in. President Trump has vowed to end the deadliest war in Europe since World War II, but talks between Ukraine and Russia have so far failed to offer much hope of a peace deal. We're joined today by defense and security expert Ben Jensen to discuss how the events of the last few days have changed the equation, and what steps Trump can take to end the grueling three-year war.
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--:-- Ben Jensen: Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: So, let's start with the news of the week, Ukraine's drone strikes. Many are calling this Russia's Pearl Harbor. That, of course, highlights how effective this strike was, reportedly wiping out as much as a third of Russia's strategic bomber fleet, which is really remarkable if true.
--:-- Ben Jensen: That's right. The significance is that Russia has been firing on average 100 to 200 cruise missiles a month at Ukrainian cities. Shockingly, it's not normally military targets. So even just at the tactical and operational level, Ukraine, in a single special operations raid, was able to take out 30 percent roughly of Russia's strategic air assets that deliver those munitions.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's incredible. And beyond the rhetoric of Pearl Harbor, what does this mean for the future of the war?
--:-- Ben Jensen: When you put that in actual terms, that means anywhere from 33 to 50 cruise missiles that don't hit Ukrainian critical infrastructure or citizens at any one given time. The cost of that amazing battlefield success, as you highlight, are these escalation tensions.
--:-- John Bickley: I want to ask you about the risk of nuclear escalation. Do you think Russia is going to use nuclear weapons?
--:-- Ben Jensen: I don't think Russia is going to use nuclear weapons. They prefer to do saber rattling. We know in the past that actually Xi Jinping, we've heard reports, has restrained Putin early in the war. So I do think Russia will continue to attack Ukrainian cities, but it will continue to be with drones and ballistic missiles.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's reassuring, but what about the long-term impact on Russia's military capabilities? How much does this really hurt them?
--:-- Ben Jensen: You know, you're really tapping into something important. Most predictions about this conflict haven't panned out the way anyone thought it would. The Russian economy seems to be more resilient than we thought. Russia seems to keep finding excess equipment to burn through. But I'll tell you two things that matter on this point.
--:-- John Bickley: What are those two things?
--:-- Ben Jensen: One, one of the reasons the Russian economy continues to generate the material resources that they put in the hands of young Russian men they sent to frankly die like being slaughtered. You've seen these meat assaults. It's horrific. It's not the way you fight a thinking man's war. It's wave assaults.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's a really stark description.
--:-- Ben Jensen: So what they've done essentially is benefit from China and Iran. So one of the things we don't talk enough about, and this is why sanctions really do matter, and frankly, the Biden administration was way too slow out the gate on these. You need to actually hit Russia hard enough where other authoritarian states can't keep Russia in the fight by supplying them resources.
--:-- John Bickley: And what about Iran's role in the conflict?
--:-- Ben Jensen: And Iran, separate from those strategic bombers, supplies the components for Shahids, the designs. And we've seen a 10 times increase in the number of domestically manufactured long attack drones that Russia is bombarding Ukrainian cities with. So if you have 100 to 200 cruise missiles a month you just the other day had 472 attack drones in one 24 period. That's why Russia stays in the fight. It's authoritarian friends, and the fact that they destroyed the Russian middle class because of the BS of planned economics and turned their country into basically North Korea in Europe.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's a really bleak assessment.
--:-- Ben Jensen: So they're able to sustain and sustain this fight. And the sad part is knocking out their strategic bombers won't disrupt that shaheed equation or the ballistic missiles. So Ukraine has used surprise to generate psychological shock in the best tradition of maneuver warfare and special operations theory, but sadly I think once the dust settles here it does nothing to stop Russia's fundamental war plan grind down Ukraine on the front and then hold their citizens hostage through daily, I mean literally daily strikes with drones of ballistic missiles on Ukrainian cities that keep millions of people in basements across that country.
--:-- John Bickley: That's a really sobering assessment. Let's talk about the peace talks. We've seen some major conditions released this week from Putin. Can you unpack that for us?
--:-- Ben Jensen: So I think one thing we always have to be mindful of is negotiations are always a two-level game, right? So there's the public-facing side of any negotiations, and then there's the private side. And this is where I think people are maybe a little too quick to judge our president, President Trump, and some of his negotiation tactics. I think you can actually get a lot further with private phone calls between leaders than you can with big public displays where people are shaking hands.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's a really interesting perspective.
--:-- Ben Jensen: So I honestly think it's too soon to say really what's happening in the negotiation front. If we believe just the surface image, the negotiations aren't going anywhere. There's low-level delegations. They're dealing with easy low-level issues, which are really important for the people who they affect. Prisoner swaps, if you're the poor Ukrainian that's in a Russian prison, you want to get out, right? So it's a big deal at that lower level, but it's not really looking like it's making any progress at a higher level.
--:-- John Bickley: And what about Trump's role in all of this? What, if anything, can Trump do to at least speed up this process?
--:-- Ben Jensen: I think there are two things that actually I think would really do this. But I think what has to happen beyond kind of the strategic communication aspect of gaining leverage in the negotiation is you have to hit the Russians where it hurts. They've already done that by lifting a lot of the long-range strike conditions and probably helping our European partners come to the same conclusion. So now, a lot of those European munitions, not just U.S. munitions, can be used to hit behind the front lines.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And what about secondary sanctions?
--:-- Ben Jensen: You need to hit Russia where it hurts. Russia is an exploitive, authoritarian state that steals from its own people. So you need to make it hard for those elites to steal from their own people. And that means stealing resources like oil and other natural resources and selling of the world. So you need secondary sanctions that actually stop Russia's ability. And frankly, that means you need to even further push energy independence and drill baby drill at home because everything the U.S. does to make money in hydrocarbons actually lowers the ability of Russia to make money in hydrocarbons.
--:-- John Bickley: That's a really interesting perspective on the role of energy independence.
--:-- Ben Jensen: And this fits with that old story of the Cold War, that one of the reasons America won wasn't just like the leaning, you know, leaning into it the way President Reagan did, both military buildup and diplomatically, it was the fact that oil prices collapsed in the 80s and made it impossible for the communists to use oil to prop up a broken ideology.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's a really fascinating historical perspective.
--:-- Ben Jensen: And finally, let's talk about China's role in all of this. We've heard that the Ukraine drone strike might give China some ideas about some ways that they could approach some situations in their region.
--:-- John Bickley: Do you think China is more or less likely now to take military action against Taiwan or other neighboring countries?
--:-- Ben Jensen: This is where there's a really healthy strategic debate. One camp is that China is going in all in by 2027 right There's the Davidson window. So anything that makes the U.S. weaker or demonstrates the U.S. is less likely to defend Taiwan or U.S. partners, key partners like Japan, are willing to defend Taiwan increases the probability that they execute that invasion. I lay that argument out because I don't subscribe to it. I think this actually does the opposite. I think if you look at the leadership circle around Xi Jinping, they're largely technocratic communists who grew up following rules and finding ways, frankly, also a lot of corruption, right? So they know how to give a bribe, they know how to take a bribe, and they know how to plan a ghost city.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's a really interesting perspective on the Chinese leadership.
--:-- Ben Jensen: And when you think about technocrats like that, they don't necessarily aren't known for risk appetite. And so if you try to do a thought experiment and imagine them sitting around Xi Jinping, number one, are they even going to tell them the truth. Maybe, maybe not. Number two, the dialogue probably goes something like this. Hey, we took Hong Kong without firing a single shot. Yeah, we beat up some protesters. We silenced democracy, but that's 101 for a communist. But we had a very high gain, low cost strategic enterprise, classic unconventional warfare, classic what we used to call in the Cold War political warfare.
--:-- John Bickley: And what about the comparison to Ukraine?
--:-- Ben Jensen: And then you compare that to Ukraine. Hey, we've watched the military that we used to think was more effective than ours, grind itself down, lose 30 percent of part of their triad, their strategic bombers, lose all of their modern military equipment and basically throw itself into the economic status of North Korea to gain marginal territorial. And frankly, the territory Russia's gained is going to require hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild because it's strown with explosive ordinance.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's a really stark comparison.
--:-- Ben Jensen: So if you compare those two, I still think rational decision making matters. If I'm in that room, I'm telling Xi Jinping, hey, let's go for a Hong Kong and avoid Ukraine like the plague. It makes sense.
--:-- John Bickley: And finally, let's talk about President Trump's efforts to deescalate various conflicts around the world. Do you think he's going to be successful from what you've seen from the administration so far?
--:-- Ben Jensen: I think the president is headed to the poker table with not a great hand. So I think he truly actually, I mean, I'm going to believe him in his words. I think he actually really does want to solve these conflicts. And I don't think it's for the reasons you get in some media outlets where it's vanity. He wants a Nobel Peace Prize. I actually going to believe the man in his words that he actually genuinely doesn't like the idea.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's a really interesting perspective on President Trump's motivations.
--:-- Ben Jensen: And you hear this in the language. His language isn't crafted for spin in some cases. It's more crafted about he feels deeply when people are dying for no good reason. And so I think he genuinely wants to end these conflicts. I think there are structural conditions that are set up that make that very difficult. I'm not doubting he could do it, but I think it's going to take a lot of things. So whether you think about Gaza and you've seen the difficulty ending that conflict, you've seen him really try to reach out to the Iranians, I don't trust them. And frankly, Russia is trying to wait for the opportune moment to continue its summer offensive. So I think he wants to, but I think the deck is stacked against him. And if I was sitting next to him and Secretary Rubio and others, I would say we need a plan B. And we're going to continue negotiating. But how do we start to mobilize resources that don't drain the U.S. economy and be prepared for a much darker strategic horizon in the next 18 months.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, as you've laid out a very, very complicated set of challenges for these peace goals and things don't appear to be getting any easier anytime soon. Ben, thank you so much for talking with us.
--:-- Ben Jensen: Yeah, thanks for having me.
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--:-- John Bickley: That was Ben Jensen, director of CSIS Futures Lab, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.
