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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Speaker, the president of the United States. President Joe Biden delivered his very first state of the union last night. It was the first pandemic state of the union, believe it or not. Last year, COVID-19 kept us apart. This year, we're finally together again. He had to talk about inflation. I think I have a better idea to fight inflation. Lower your costs, not your wages. But he spent a whole lot of time talking about Ukraine and Russia. Six days ago, Russia's Vladimir Putin sought to shake the very foundations of the free world, thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways. But he badly miscalculated. Biden shouted out his sanctions, said he was crippling Russian banks, investigating Russian oligarchs, supplying military aid to Ukraine. He said everything but the United States will join Ukraine to help defeat Russia. In fact, he said the opposite. But let me be clear. Our forces are not engaged and will not engage in the conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine. Our forces are not going to Europe to fight Ukraine, but to defend our NATO allies in the event that Putin decides to keep moving west.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Biden just got the country out of one forever war, and he clearly isn't trying to get the country into another one. But a lot of people are struggling with that, that that nagging feeling that the world is leaving Ukraine all alone to fight tyranny. We've heard this question over and over from listeners and friends and family. Why isn't anyone going to fight alongside Ukraine? Well, the two-word answer is nuclear weapons. We asked Zach Beecham at Vox to help us understand the answer.
--:-- Zach Beecham: That's right. The risk of direct conflict between the United States and Russia risks probably an accidental escalation into World War III and nuclear war. Nobody wants that. But when you get into a shooting war, things can spiral out of control very quickly, and the risks are way too high for anyone to seriously contemplate them. And that just isn't a deterrent for the United States. That's a deterrent for any NATO nation, right? Because the whole deal with NATO is if one country goes, we all go.
--:-- Zach Beecham: Correct. And this was the guarantee that if Stalin or Khrushchev had attacked in the darkest days of the Cold War, the United States would come again across the Atlantic to protect Europe. That has happened one time after September 11th. It has never happened in the context of a major land power war between major powers because the whole point of NATO is to deter a conflict like this. NATO exists not because the U.S. is envisioning a war with Russia or some kind of aggressive invasion or wants one to happen. It's because it wants to stitch together a bunch of Western powers and did during the Cold War to present a united front to prevent Russia from thinking – or then the Soviet Union – from thinking it could take part of Europe.
--:-- Zach Beecham: NATO has expanded after the end of the Cold War because a lot of countries in Eastern Europe were concerned about Russia invading them even after the Soviet Union because Russia has a long history of imperialism that predated Soviet times. Today we proudly welcome Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We welcome them into the ranks of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And it turns out Ukraine is now showing why those fears were quite valid. Regarding the future alliance, our aspirations and missions, you know them perfectly well We have some desire in our country and in addition to this we have a war in the East Yes we would like to join NATO and it will protect our integrity Regardless, the entire situation is an extremely combustible one, and any kind of direct conflict between NATO and Russian troops is too dangerous to contemplate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The one thing I really do want to say about this is the United States and its allies are doing an astonishing amount right now. The degree and the severity of economic sanctions that have been imposed on Russia and the amount of military aid going to Ukraine is not a nothing. It's not a U.S. and a Western world staying out of the conflict. These sanctions are devastating Russia's economy. So more details on the economic moves taken over the weekend against Russia. The U.S., Canada and European allies are cutting off key Russian banks from the SWIFT global banking system. The move is seen as the harshest financial sanction imposed so far on Russia. Some assets within Russia's central bank are being frozen, a move made in coordination with allies.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Lines coming fast and thick, really quickly moving situation. But I do want to get your initial thought on this. Bank of Russia, again, their key rate is moving to 20%, had been at 9.5%. They're saying that this is necessary to make deposits attractive. With the ruble sinking against the dollar, foreign reserves frozen, and a ban on foreign dealings with Russian businesses, France's finance minister this morning saying the West intends to collapse Russia's economy. I don't have that much money. This woman tells me the ATM didn't work for her, but she was able to line up and get cash from the teller. It seems that their entire financial system is on the brink of collapse right now. And it's not just the United States imposing these sanctions. A lot of people are getting on board, including, you know, notoriously neutral Switzerland. Right. Like this is a united Europe in a way that we've never seen.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For the first time ever, the European Union will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and other equipment to a country that is under attack. This is a watershed moment. Germany has backed down on an initial refusal to send weapons to support Ukraine as it battles the Russian invasion. Berlin has now agreed to a major armaments delivery, including anti-tank weapons, surface-to-air missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. The policy shift brings Germany into line with other Western allies supplying weapons to Ukraine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We will invest more than 2% of our GDP in defence every year from now on. Like, I want to be clear, this is Germany re-arming. Right, a tectonic shift in global politics that at any other time would have been completely unthinkable. And yet it's happening. It's happening under a left-wing German government. This war is a catastrophe for Ukraine, but it will also turn out to be a catastrophe for Russia. And one poll showed that 79% of Germans approve rebuilding the military, And that is directly a result of Putin's actions.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That being said, all of these sort of crippling sanctions and historic sanctions coupled with military aid to Ukraine isn't deterring Russia. They're not cowering. They're doubling down and trying to enter the capital. How does this escalate for all those countries coming to Ukraine's aid right now? So there are a few things that could be done in terms of escalation. There are generally more ways to step up sanctions. You can start targeting the Russian oil and gas sector, though that's a mutually assured destruction scenario because then oil and gas get a lot more expensive in Europe and in the U.S.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The International Energy Agency says all 31 member countries have agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves. On the military front, you can have a scenario where not only is the West providing military assistance to the Ukrainian military, but helping create the conditions under which after Russia successfully occupies Ukraine, if it in fact does that, that there's a Ukrainian insurgency that's well supplied. So if the West wants to essentially bankroll the creation of a Ukrainian insurgency, it could and very well might.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's an active debate about this in the Biden administration right now. That's in the event that Russia wins, right, which it still seems very likely given how much they outgun the Ukrainians, but it's not inevitable. And if Ukraine continues its strong military performance so far and the Russians collapse in a way that seemed unthinkable just a few days ago, then Western intervention will have played a significant role in that and future escalation won't be needed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now, Russia could escalate in all sorts of ways, and that's the really scary scenario. It's not outside the realm of possibility. Russian use of what are called tactical nuclear weapons, which are a little bit smaller than the big city destroyers they're used to thinking of. They're designed for battlefield use to annihilate large numbers of enemy troops in one fell swoop. Would Putin really use them? He practiced a week ago, overseeing exercises of Russia's strategic deterrence forces. typically unsubtle hints to America and NATO not to stand in his way over Ukraine. That could happen in Ukraine if they feel like they're losing in conventional terms.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is that why Volodymyr Zelensky is asking that the U.S. and NATO declare parts of Ukraine a no-fly zone? As far as a no zone is concerned it would help a lot This is not about dragging NATO countries into war The truth is everyone has long since been dragged into a war and definitely not by Ukraine but by Russia No. So that's to tip the balance of the conventional war. You know that Office episode where Michael Scott stands in the middle of the office and he declares, I declare bankruptcy! Right, like, people think a no-fly zone is like that. you declare no-fly zone. And it does not work that way. What it is, is that you put your own aircraft in that area and you say you cannot fly here and if you do fly in here, we will shoot you down. You police the fly zone.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If the West were to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, it could very decisively tip the balance in Ukraine's favor. And that would be the point of the intervention to defeat the Russian invasion. It could, hypothetically. I'm not saying it would, But a Russian loss of the skies and an inability to establish air superiority over the long run would be very, very dangerous for the Russians. But that's why they wouldn't just accede to it, which means it would involve shooting down Russian planes. And that means World War III. It means full-on conflict between the NATO alliance and Russia. And that the risks of that escalating to nuclear conflict, they're not 100%, but they're way, way, way, way, way higher than zero.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: more with Zach when we're back support for today's show comes from Adio What is Adio? Adio is an AI-native customer relationship management system built specifically for the next era of companies. They say it's extremely powerful, adapts to your unique data structures and scales with any business model. According to Adio, Adio takes less than a minute to set up, and within seconds you will have your email and calendars synced. You'll see all your relationships in a fully-fledged platform, they say, all enriched with that actionable data. And they say you can build AI-powered automations and use its research agent to tackle some of your most complex processes to seize so that you can focus on what matters, building your company.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can join industry leaders such as Flatfile, Replicate, Modal, and so much more. You can go to adio.com slash todayexplained to get 15% off your first year. That's A-T-T-I-O dot com slash todayexplained. Zach, it seems pretty clear that Volodymyr Zelensky could die in this conflict with Russia. He seems pretty clear that that's a potential outcome here. Actually, maybe even a likely one, which is depressing to think about, but it very well could be. Is there any chance that Vladimir Putin dies in this conflict? Yeah, there is, but probably not in the ways that you're thinking of, right? It's not like any external power is going to assassinate him. It's not like Ukraine is going to, like, poison him? Yeah, they don't have the capacities to do that. They don't have the international reach to do that. And it's not necessarily clear that would be a good idea on their part.
--:-- Zach Beecham: One possibility is that Putin is in ill health. We don't actually know very much about his health status. It's been interesting that he's – in photographs that we've seen of him, He's been so far away from other Russian leaders that appears to be a fear of COVID. Like he has an almost paranoid fear of COVID. Does that speak to the fact that he has some kind of, you know, complicating health concern that maybe would make a COVID infection more dangerous for a man who's 69 years old? I don't know. Like I genuinely don't know. This is pure speculation, and nobody knows outside of Putin himself probably what the actual reality is.
--:-- Zach Beecham: The things we can talk about more concretely in terms of what happens when a dictator's war goes badly, if the Ukraine war continues to go badly, and again, that's a big F. One of two things happens. There's a popular revolt or there's some kind of elite revolt and a military coup. I would look to two things. First, the anti-war protests in Russia. They're notable for a country that has been hiding the existence of the war on all of its propaganda channels, calling it a special military operation and trying to downplay the significance of the conflict. And second, for a government that's super repressive, really intensely good at suppressing dissent and marginalizing opposition leaders, that there's such a level of popular discontent suggests that if this war remains bogged down, if Russia can't make swift progress, you can imagine a real grassroots challenge to the Putin regime growing.
--:-- Zach Beecham: The second scenario, I think, has to do with political and military leaders in the Kremlin. It is not inconceivable that a lot of people high up in the Russian government didn't actually believe that Putin was going to invade. I thought that to go into Ukraine is not in Russia interest keeping in mind the collateral damage which is likely to happen after such an operation But apparently, you know, my cost-benefit analysis did not coincide with that in the Kremlin. So I had to wake up to a new reality. We know that some of the troops on the ground thought they were just doing exercises. and that they're dragged into this war without a compelling strategic rationale that has crushed the Russian economy and is leading to lots of Russian soldiers dying and the wasting of massive amounts of material for only limited strategic gain, that you can get a few of them together to say, OK, Putin's lost it. This is a disaster for Russia. It's time for him to go.
--:-- Zach Beecham: What we're seeing is a situation that bears the hallmarks of one in which revolutions and coups happen. In a scenario where Vladimir Putin is chased out of office by his own people or deposed by his own military, what comes next? That's a gigantic question, Mark. Really, nobody knows, right? we're dealing with things that would have seemed impossible just a few months ago. The notion that we can even be speaking about an anti-Putin uprising or coup, which is still, to be clear, like a remote possibility. Yeah. That just seemed unthinkable to me.
--:-- Zach Beecham: So I can't tell you who would come next, because if there's a military coup, the generals in charge are the ones who would be appointing themselves leaders. We can't know that in advance. Likewise, if there's a popular revolution, it depends a lot on the cast of characters who were in charge of those revolutions. And that kind of revolution could bring in – I mean who knows? Maybe Alexei Navalny who's currently in prison who is something of a nationalist but also more pro-Western than Putin could join the government. Like it's such a remote scenario that it's difficult to forecast with any degree of reliability.
--:-- Zach Beecham: It's worth noting here that Vladimir Putin did step down once or at least pretended to step away from power to respect term limits in his country. And Medvedev took over, but Putin was clearly the puppet master. Do you think that as long as Vladimir Putin is alive and in Russia, he will exercise control over its government? Yes, I believe that's likely. I think the most likely outcome of this conflict – I want to underscore this because we've been talking about sort of remote possibilities a lot, nuclear war, a coup, revolution. The most likely outcome is that Vladimir Putin stays in office and topples the Ukrainian government successfully.
--:-- Zach Beecham: Now, how a Russian occupation of Ukraine goes, if they can successfully stand up a puppet government there, which appears to be their goal, remains to be seen. But the most likely scenario is that Putin continues his very tight grasp on power and Russia's military overwhelms Ukraine's. And while there may be anti-war sentiment, it doesn't transform the trajectory of the conflict or change the Russian government. But, you know, there is an outside possibility this leads to something more radical. And frankly, most people wouldn't have predicted a full-on war in Ukraine a year ago. So we need to allow for the possibilities of things that seem impossible, even while recognizing they're probably unlikely.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I appreciate you going through these scenarios with us. But as you just said, the likeliest outcome here is despite historic sanctions and historic involvement from countries like Sweden and Switzerland and historic ramping up of military spending in countries like Germany to aid Ukraine. The likeliest outcome here is Russia installing a puppet government in Ukraine and winning, essentially. Well, not necessarily winning, right? Because then we get into another possibility, which is a Ukrainian insurgency. But a Ukrainian insurgency, as we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, could be devastating to the Russians. It could trap them in there for years trying to ensure that their puppet regime has a hold on power. We're talking about a quagmire here, like a Russian quagmire.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, I mean, like, I don't think it is the only possible outcome by any stretch of the imagination. But I don't believe that Russia will win in the sense of getting an outcome that it wants. I believe that it will likely vanquish Ukraine on the field of battle in a conventional struggle. I think it'll be ugly. It'll be brutal. It'll take a lot longer than the Russians wanted it to. And tens of thousands of people will die. But the Russians will likely be able to take control over Ukraine's territory. Whether they can hold it is a separate question. Zach Beecham, he's a senior correspondent at Vox writing about the world and democracy. Read him at Vox.com. Our show today was produced by Heidi Mawagdi, edited by me and Matthew Collette, engineered by Afim Shapiro, and fact-checked by Laura Bullard. I'm Sean Rameswaram for them. This is Today Explained. Thank you.
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