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Round table
Four Times Opinion Writers Analyze Russia's Invasion: 'The Globe Has Changed Overnight'
Lulu Garcia-Navarro , Farah Stockman, Ross Douthat and
Ms. Garcia-Navarro is a Times Opinion podcast host. Ms. Stockman is a member of the editorial board. Mr. Douthat is a Times columnist. Mr. Bruni is a contributing Opinion writer.
Russian troops invaded Ukraine on Thursday, attacking over a dozen major cities and towns, including the capital, Kyiv. The attacks began the start major land war in Europe in decades. "This aggression cannot go unanswered," President Biden said as he announced harsh sanctions against Russia, including blocking major Russian banks and "corrupt billionaires" from access to the U.S. financial system as well as deploying troops to NATO's eastern flank. Times Opinion writers Farah Stockman, Frank Bruni and Ross Douthat talk over what'due south to come with Times Opinion podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
Four Times Opinion Writers Analyze Russian federation's Attack on Ukraine: 'The World Has Changed Overnight'
A roundtable discussion about the latest developments in Ukraine.
The following chat has been edited for clarity.
Lulu Garcia-Navarro: Russian forces are pouring into Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin is warning that any state attempting to interfere will create "consequences you accept never seen." That's a reminder of Russia's nuclear arsenal. The Ukrainian military has mobilized to defend the country. There have been scenes of chaos in major Ukrainian cities, as civilians take flooded shelters or tried to abscond on clogged roads. And Kingdom of belgium's prime number government minister is calling this Europe's darkest 60 minutes since World State of war II.
As European leaders vow to punish Russian federation for launching this disharmonize on their continent, what happens now? This is enormously consequential. It is not an understatement to say the world has changed overnight, I remember.
Farah Stockman: I actually worry that Americans aren't ready for the consequences of this. What nosotros're going to be faced with is the increasing bifurcation of the world between East and Due west. And it's fourth dimension now for the United states and Europe to really think about how — well, to really deed, right? We accept to make this mean something. Nosotros have to meaningfully stand up at this time. And I fear that a lot of Americans are embroiled in fights with each other. And nosotros have a lot of work to do.
Garcia-Navarro: Ross, Farah thinks that this is a fight between the E and the Due west. Do you come across it the same way?
Ross Douthat: I mean, I certainly concord it's an incredibly consequential and kind of amazing moment. It'south been articulate for a while that the invasion was a live possibility, that Putin and the Russian authorities were taking it seriously as a scenario. Only it is a really, really radical move that carries dramatic downstream consequences for, obviously, the United States and the Western globe, but also dramatic consequences for Russian federation.
Information technology is a tremendous chance that Putin has taken. And I retrieve there are short-term and long-term questions here.
Short-term, in that location'southward the question of: We're not going to go to war ourselves for Ukraine. That's been clear for a while. And I think we've honestly had a somewhat failed strategy vis-à-vis Ukraine, and this has brought that to a head. Simply we have to have a response, and in that location's questions about what is the immediate response, how far can yous go with sanctions, what volition European countries exist willing to exercise and what kind of pain volition everyone be willing to bear at the gas pump in particular.
But then longer term, this will reorient defense postures and free energy policies essentially for NATO and for the European Wedlock, again, in ways that will not exist good for Russia. There will exist some kind of sustained push for energy independence in Europe, I think on a scale we haven't seen earlier. There will exist a realignment of NATO forces in the Eastward. It'southward possible that Finland and Sweden will join NATO. All of this — I think those long-term responses are ultimately going to exist more than important than the decisions we make almost sanctions today. But obviously, those decisions are the ones that are firsthand and necessary correct now.
Garcia-Navarro: OK, lots to consider there. But fundamentally, what we're looking at is a sort of reorganization of the mail service-Globe State of war II consensus. Is that the fashion you see it, Frank?
Frank Bruni: Yep, admittedly. And I'thousand struck, listening to both Farah and Ross, at this sense of atheism that all of us seem to feel. And I experience information technology. I see it all around me. Farah said Americans aren't fix for this. I call back she'southward absolutely right. Ross called this "amazing." I think that'south absolutely right. This feels like a page from the 20th century. And here we are in the 21st century. And I'm struck by this sense I pick up in anybody around me that the world, we were somehow past this, that war in Europe was something that we wouldn't see.
And and so I don't recollect we're ready for this. I think people don't know how to process this. I don't even think they've gotten to the point of fear and terror nevertheless considering they're withal in that land of shock. And I wanted to also follow up on something Ross said. He talked about the incredible hazard Putin is taking here. I think when people mention that, they're usually thinking of the run a risk he's taking internationally. But he has taken an enormous, enormous adventure internally, likewise. The Russian people are going to feel this gravely in their economy. They're going to feel this in terms of lost lives. And he is betting — and it is fascinating and terrifying — he's betting that this flexing of might and the stoking of national pride is somehow going to transcend and compensate for all of that. I don't know that we know that to be the case.
Garcia-Navarro: Farah, what does the very audacity of this act say nigh Putin'due south plans?
Stockman: Well, look, Putin'southward been taking bites out of Ukraine since 2014. And earlier Ukraine, there was Georgia. So we might be in disbelief, but there are people living in that location who take seen what'south happening. So I call up he has aught to cease him. He is not accountable to a democratically elected congress. He doesn't take an opposition. His biggest opposition is in prison. And so what's stopping him from doing this?
A lot of people consider this to be a personal obsession of his. He has a personal obsession with Ukraine. It has a lot of historical meaning to him. Merely I as well see this as a bigger deal. Information technology's bigger than Ukraine because he's been watching for the last, I don't know, 20 years — he's been watching the United States practice things like this, in his heed. He hated what we did in Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya. He was furious. He hated the Republic of iraq war invasion. He has been seeing the states throw our might around and telephone call it international law.
And I retrieve he's just saying, well, I can play that game, too. And this is actually almost telling the U.s. that it's no longer the sole superpower and showing that nosotros are weak. He went to Beijing before this and basically got some kind of agreement from President Xi that somehow Red china was going to back them up with economical deals so that they could live maybe without Europe for a while. I worry virtually where this is all going.
Garcia-Navarro: Putin wants this, of course, because he sees what happened after the Soviet Union fell every bit a huge mistake. And so that is one of the reasons why he'southward fixated on Ukraine.
Douthat: The irony of Farah's point is that, of course, most of the interventions that she's describing that the United States fabricated from its own position of greater strength 10 or xv years ago take concluded very badly, with Afghanistan, obviously, being the virtually contempo example. The Republic of iraq state of war was non exactly a sterling story of American success. The Libya intervention left that country in a country of civil war that has remained off and on to the present day.
Then for a long time, Putin wasn't just aroused at America virtually those unilateral interventions, those symbols of American might. He likewise had this sort of reasonable critique of how they went desperately, how they didn't piece of work, how America was reckless and destructive and smashing things up and leaving things in pieces. And at some indicate, seemingly in his ain vision of what'south possible for Russia, he has abandoned that role of his critique of the U.S., or he has the thought that Ukraine is close plenty to Russia culturally and weak enough in its own land capacity that he tin can succeed in conquest there in a way that all of America's efforts at nation edifice then on have ended desperately.
But there is a existent shift there from proverb America is reckless and destructive and its wars have failed to saying nosotros tin succeed. We can exercise what George W. Bush was unable to do in Iraq. We can conquer Ukraine in a heartbeat and reintegrate them into our own imperium. That'southward what'southward so distinctive — and distinctive, too, relative to what he had done previously. It's true that he had been taking bits and pieces and creating frozen conflicts around Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, elsewhere.
Garcia-Navarro: And Syria.
Douthat: And Syria. But all of those were limited efforts, often in areas that had sympatric populations, that yous could pull back from if annihilation went incorrect. And the scale is simply different. The chance is just different here.
Garcia-Navarro: Frank, we don't know yet if this will be an occupation, just it seems clear to me that the intention is to overthrow Zelensky and, in some mode "repossess" Ukraine.
Bruni: It does, indeed. And at every step of the way for the last couple of days and weeks, things accept gone beyond what people feared. Nosotros're seeing and reading reports now of explosions and aggressions throughout the country of Ukraine, not just in the areas that are closest to Russian federation.
And I wanted to follow up on something Ross said because I remember it's interesting. There'due south a difference between Putin and Russian federation doing what he'due south doing right now and some of our foreign misadventures that I think is striking, and it has a lot to do with how we ended upwards in this place. He has much greater command over the information that Russians receive, over the story that they're told. When our foreign adventures go misadventures, when nosotros end upwards in spots that we were assured nosotros wouldn't and everything goes wrong, we Americans get that data. Nosotros are the beneficiaries of a free printing. I remember for the Russians, any they're thinking about all of this is colored mightily by a very selective and distorted version of the truth. And I think that will hold truthful going forward, and that'south a existent trouble in terms of coming to any kind of solution here.
Garcia-Navarro: Farah, when you wait at this in terms of what Ukraine has symbolized in the region, for sure Russians, Ukraine has represented hope. Ukraine bolstered its democracy in 2014 when it overthrew its pro-Russian despot. And for those living in autocratic countries in the region, the Ukrainian revolution signaled that there could potentially be a different path. And that promise has now been shattered. Basically, the message here is self-decision volition not be tolerated.
Stockman: I think that'due south true. I've been very worried about this because y'all can't just pick upward Ukraine and move it somewhere else. It shares a edge with Russia. Russian federation was always going to have the ability to influence what was going on in Ukraine either past buying off its politicians or having its pro-Russian propaganda TV channels. And basically what triggered this buildup of troops was that the pro-Russian Telly channels were turned off.
So I recall Putin decided, hey, he can't keep Ukraine past influencing its politics, then he's going to go with a war machine invasion. He's going to get Ukraine no matter what. That'due south what he thinks, and he might be correct. That'south the existent worry. I wonder about how we can protect Zelensky. What are we going to practice if they abort the entire Ukrainian government and throw them in jail forever? Putin's expert at this. He has done this to Russia. He knows how to exercise this.
I've always worried that we might be giving them a little fleck of fake promise that they tin can just practice a total break with Russia and not have to call up most what Putin's able to do with his behemothic ground forces. I approximate maybe I'yard a bit of a realist, but I recollect that the Ukrainian people have such — they deserve to choose their own path. And they deserve the democracy that they're fighting for. But they're e'er going to have to deal with that very powerful neighbor. And I worry that we cannot protect Zelensky. I don't know what the programme is right now.
When it comes to how we can punish Putin for doing this, we're going to take to also go through some serious pain. Fifty percent of Federal republic of germany's natural gas comes from Russian federation, right? London has been rolling in Russian coin for years now. And so if Europe wants to finish Putin, we're going to have to go cold turkey in means that are really hard. And they're going to be difficult on Europeans, too. This is going to be a suck-it-upwards situation, where people are going to have to say, we are going to have to quit Putin. We're going to take to quit the Russian gas and oil that we're addicted to. And I simply hope that we're ready for that.
Garcia-Navarro: Ross, was this a massive miscalculation past Europe and Ukraine that they could even flirt with the thought of forming an alliance? Zelensky had explicitly said Ukraine wanted to join NATO. And Farah believes that perhaps this was all really a grave miscalculation that led to this.
Douthat: I think that information technology was a grave miscalculation. I call back, in some ways, an understandable one, precisely considering the steps Putin has taken are so extraordinary and then fraught with risk for himself and his regime that you could ever tell yourself that he would continue to sort of pick away at Ukraine's borders but it wouldn't come to this.
But even down to the last few weeks, there's been this very strange dynamic where the Us — which does, for all our intelligence failures, seem to have pretty good intel on what the Russians are upwardly to — kept issuing warnings of, it'south really happening. The Russians are really planning to invade. And the Ukrainian regime will say, oh, cease sowing panic, and we don't think an invasion is imminent so on. I do think that for very idealistic reasons, some Ukrainian nationalists talked themselves into the idea that Putin would never move like this or the idea that in the extreme upshot, the West would come to their aid more than was ever quite reasonable and plausible.
At that place is also the question of to what extent — what is really driving Putin's decision-making here, right? Is information technology NATO? Is it his sort of mystical idea of the Ukrainian-Russian connection and the idea that y'all can't detach Ukraine from Russia? Is it sort of immediate things — the crackdowns on pro-Russian parties and Russian language educational activity and stuff in Ukraine? Presumably, it'south all of those at some level. Only you tin't say definitively that if there hadn't been this 1 provocative step, it wouldn't have come to this.
But what'south clear is that the United States' and the West's policy toward Ukraine in general was conditioned on this sense that nosotros could invest in that location on a calibration that wouldn't deter Putin. We knew it wouldn't deter Putin, only it would all work out, nonetheless. And now that we invested heavily in a government that we can't defend and is in danger of being destroyed, that is the sort of reality of power politics right now.
Garcia-Navarro: Frank, Putin has seized this opportunity in my view because he sees the West every bit weak and divided, and there'south certainly an argument to exist fabricated that that is indeed the instance. And that has huge implications for the United states and for our political system here. Many people are asking, why hasn't President Biden done more than? He obviously can't send troops into Ukraine, every bit two nuclear powers facing off would escalate things fifty-fifty further. Simply how do you come across his handling of this crunch so far?
Bruni: Well, I think he has limited options, as you've just said. And there are weird means in which we feel backed into a corner, fifty-fifty though nosotros are and accept long thought of ourselves every bit beingness this superpower. We're not going to be sending troops. We've made that very articulate. Putin knows that, and he seems to be treating that as a kind of dark-green light. It'due south unclear what at this point will deter him. I don't think the sanctions are whatever surprise to him. I think they do need to be as astringent every bit possible, as severe every bit they tin can exist in terms of the event they're going to end upward having on Western European nations and whether they're willing to tolerate the consequences there.
But role of what makes this so hard to process and so impossible to predict is there are sure responses that we've taken off the tabular array, and we've taken them off the table for very good reasons. Merely at present that they're off the table, what happens? Where is our leverage? Where is our pressure? And how does this end? And if Putin gets abroad with this, and it looks similar he very well may, given his personality, given his megalomania, what comes after that? I think these are existent questions, and they're scary ones.
Garcia-Navarro: At that place was but a poll out showing that Putin was more than pop among Republicans than any senior Democratic leader, including the American president. We heard that former President Donald Trump seemingly praised Putin's actions, calling them an human activity of genius. Ross, Republicans seem to be all over the place in regard to Russia. And on the one hand, there are decisions that President Biden will have to make. Only we also take to look at what the American political landscape is.
Douthat: I don't think that poll quite captured what was going on. What it captures is that you have polarization in this state where Republicans don't think well of any Democratic leader at all. Just the number of Republicans who actually said they were favorably disposed to Putin was small-scale, too, correct? Then you're sort of conflating ii different kinds of attitudes. If you polled liberals about Donald Trump at the height of the pandemic, they would take given him 5 percent blessing ratings, as well. So I'm a lilliputian skeptical of that.
I think what you see from Republicans is there'due south a mixture of things in play. There'southward a faction in the Republican Party that is sort of shaped by the Republic of iraq experience, shaped by the failures of U.S. foreign policy that has go distinctly noninterventionist in a fashion that shades into a kind of excuse-making for Putin, a kind of attitude of, why should we care? Basically what y'all get from Tucker Carlson's broadcasts, right?
Merely that's not at all the dominant mental attitude in the Republican Political party. The dominant mental attitude in the Republican Party is this more of a partisan-inflected view that says, this is really bad, and the trouble is Joe Biden was weak and wasn't tough plenty. And Putin didn't set on while Trump was president because he knew that Trump wouldn't let him get away with it.
And then there's Trump himself, who clearly admires authoritarian leaders. That'south not in question, correct? Then when Putin does something similar this, you get the firsthand Trump sound seize with teeth of, he's being very smart and very tough. But then Trump also wants to say, this never would have happened had I been president, correct? So information technology's a complicated mixture, but fundamentally, at that place isn't a strong pro-Russian contingent in the Republican Political party, outside of, you know, something Steve Bannon says on his —
Garcia-Navarro: People though with pretty big megaphones.
Douthat: Right, at that place are some people with big megaphones. But if you look at polls, there was a poll of how involved should the U.S. exist in Ukraine. And what was striking, most people said non deeply involved, somewhat involved. The partisan breakup was actually totally similar. Republicans, Democrats and independents looked quite similar. Then I remember there'south really a fairly potent American consensus that this is bad. At that place'south too a adequately strong American consensus that nosotros don't want to transport in basis troops. And about of our politicians, Republicans and Democrats, are going to operate within that consensus, at to the lowest degree until the adjacent presidential cycle gets going, and so things could get a little crazier.
Garcia-Navarro: And so where does that leave President Biden, Farah, in your view?
Stockman: He's in a really tough space. This is the second big strange policy crisis. And a lot of people will say, well, the fashion the U.Due south. got out of Afghanistan is partly responsible for this. Look, we need to testify that NATO is going to be stronger and more than united and more agile along its actual borders than ever earlier and prove Putin that any he'southward doing correct now is going to produce the exact reverse results of what he wants to reach. I think that's the all-time outcome we can become correct at present.
Just longer term, I think this idea that we can merely buy gas from anyone, no affair whether they share our values, that we can just rely on other countries to produce our medicines. And as long as information technology's the cheapest, it doesn't matter. I think Biden has got eyes wide open about how vulnerable that makes us and makes our allies and that he'due south, from solar day i, been working on how to make the Usa more self-sufficient and more able to protect allies.
Considering this is a long state of war. Information technology'southward not going to begin and end with Ukraine. So I just think this is a big moment, and it should be a wake-upwardly call for us to really think nigh how we want to interact with the world and how we demand to be with our allies in order to set up for a future that well-nigh Americans aren't even aware is coming.
Garcia-Navarro: Frank, I'm going to stop with what I started with. I'yard going to inquire you, what now?
Bruni: [CHUCKLES] Male child, Lulu, do I wish I had the answer. For now, nosotros wait. We listen very carefully to what Farah just said about the magnitude of this moment and the fact that in a world where we similar our gratification quick and we tend to lose runway of and lose interest in things very, very quickly, nosotros better hunker down and realize that we're going to exist living with what happened today and what happens in the coming days for a long time. We're going to exist living with it in any number of ways. And if we tell ourselves annihilation different, nosotros are being dangerously naïve.
Douthat: We've been talking a lot about the long term, and this is a huge change for the long term. But we are recording this podcast on the outset twenty-four hour period of hostilities. And a great deal of that long term will be adamant in the very brusque term past what kind of resistance Ukrainians put upwardly to this invasion. Grand strategy questions aside, nosotros should all be hoping that they put up some pretty fierce resistance.
Lulu Garcia-Navarro is a Times Opinion podcast host. Farah Stockman is a fellow member of the editorial lath. Ross Douthat is a Times columnist. Frank Bruni is a contributing Opinion writer.
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Times Opinion sound produced by Lulu Garcia-Navarro and Alison Bruzek. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kristina Samulewski. Original music by Carole Sabouraud and Isaac Jones and mixing by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Kristin Lin, Kaari Pitkin and Patrick Healy.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/opinion/ukraine-putin-russia-times-opinion-writers.html
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