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Long-range weapons could help Ukraine. But at what cost?

Ukraine wants to use western long-range weapons to strike targets inside of Russia.
Vladimir Putin says if President Biden approves such use of western weapons, it will mean massive war.
Today, On Point: Could a decision to help Ukraine win its war spark a larger geopolitical catastrophe?
Guests
Amb. William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow at RAND. Special assistant to the president for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia during the Clinton administration. Former ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the U.S.-Soviet Commission.
George Beebe, director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute. Former director of the CIA’s Russia analysis and staff advisor on Russia matters to then-Vice President Dick Cheney. Author of The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe.
Transcript
Part I
MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Just yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sat before the United Nations Security Council in New York.
ZELENSKYY: Our Ukrainian right to self defense must prevail. Our cooperation with nations of the world who value life as we do. Our territorial integrity, our sovereignty, the independence of our country.
And we are defending what every nation would surely want to protect for itself and what the UN Charter grants to all. And it is Russia that always has to lie to justify its war, not us.
CHAKRABARTI: Russia is also a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. As such, as Zelenskyy spoke, he looked up occasionally, looked across the round table, and saw Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian Federation ambassador.
And he did this as Zelenskyy urged the Security Council to use even greater pressure on Russia. And he assailed Russia for using Iranian and North Korean weapons in its war against Ukraine.
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ZELENSKYY: Russia has no legitimate reason, none at all, for making Iran and North Korea de facto accomplices in his criminal war in Europe with their weapons, killing us, killing Ukrainians and helping Putin steal our land from our people.
We know some in the world want to talk to Putin. We know it. To meet, to talk, to speak. But what could they possibly hear from him?
CHAKRABARTI: As if in anticipation of that accusation, Nebenzya insisted on speaking before Zelenskyy began his address. The Russian UN ambassador mocked the Security Council.
(TRANSLATION)
The only reason behind their convening this meeting is to provide Vladimir Zelenskyy with yet another concert stage at the United Nations, and this time in the chamber of the Security Council.
And for his chorus, a whole group of members of the EU and NATO have gathered together. And they are marching in lockstep each time they are called upon to travel to the Security Council to malign the Russian Federation.
CHAKRABARTI: This is the backdrop of a critical moment that the U.S. and NATO find themselves in right now. For months, Zelenskyy has pleaded with the U.S. to lift specific restrictions on Ukraine's use of weapons provided by Western allies. The Ukrainian president is seeking public permission to use those weapons to strike deep into Russian territory. So far, the U.S. has denied that request. One reason is that Ukraine recently proved that it's capable of striking across the Russian border without Western help.
In August, the armed forces of Ukraine unexpectedly launched a successful incursion into Russia's Kursk Oblast. But President Zelenskyy has continued to make it clear that access to Western weapons is critical for Ukraine.
(TRANSLATION)
ZELENSKYY: We continue to insist that their determination, lifting the restrictions on long range strikes for Ukraine now, will help us end the war as soon as possible in a fair way for Ukraine and the world as a whole.
CHAKRABARTI: In June of 2022, the U.S. supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems, or HIMARS, to Ukraine. Those rockets can travel up to 48 miles. The problem, Zelenskyy says, is that there are no major Russian military assets in that range. Instead, he is requesting that the U.S. allow Ukraine to deploy the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, with a range of 185 miles.
In that range, Ukraine could target up to 225 Russian military assets.
(TRANSCRIPTION)
ZELENSKYY: If our partners lifted all the current restrictions on the use of weapons on Russian territory, we would not need to physically enter particularly the Kursk region to protect our Ukrainian citizens in the border communities and eliminate Russia's potential for aggression.
CHAKRABARTI: There has been intense debate within the Biden administration about this request, but President Biden recently signaled that change could soon be on the way. Two weeks ago, when asked whether he was ready to grant the request, Biden told reporters, quote, 'We are working that out right now.' But three days later, he met with the UK's Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
At that meeting, Biden remained indecisive on whether he would greenlight Ukraine's use of long-range weapons provided by the U.S. and Western allies as a whole. But the potential shift has drawn sharp language from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said recently that any use of Western weapons deep into Russian territory would be tantamount to NATO declaring war on Russia.
(TRANSCRIPTION)
VLADIMIR PUTIN: If this decision is made, it will mean nothing other than direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, European countries, in the war in Ukraine. It is their direct participation, and this, of course, significantly changes the very essence of the conflict. This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, European countries, are fighting with Russia.
CHAKRABARTI: Now, with the general debate of the United Nations General Assembly on the way, the question burns more intensely than ever. And in his final speech at the UN General Assembly yesterday, President Biden said this.
JOE BIDEN: Putin's war has failed at his core aim. He set out to destroy Ukraine, but Ukraine is still free.
He set out to weaken NATO. But NATO is bigger, stronger, more united than ever before. With two new members, Finland and Sweden. But we cannot let up. The world now has another choice to make. Will we sustain our support to help Ukraine win this war and preserve its freedom, or walk away and let aggression be renewed and a nation be destroyed? I know my answer. We cannot grow weary. We cannot look away and we will not let up on our support for Ukraine.
CHAKRABARTI: Tomorrow, President Zelenskyy will present his, quote, victory plan directly to President Biden. And it is a plan that includes Zelenskyy's continued plea to use the West's long range weapons inside Russian territory.
So today we're going to explore whether permission should be granted, whether it is essential for Ukraine to be able to use these weapons to win its war, or whether a decision to allow that could actually risk a geopolitical catastrophe. So we're joined today by William Courtney. He's currently an adjunct senior fellow at the Rand Corporation.
He's former special assistant to President Bill Clinton on Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. He also served as ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the U.S.-Soviet Union Commission. Ambassador Courtney, welcome to On Point.
WILLIAM COURTNEY: Thank you. Also with us today is George Beebe. He's Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute, also former Director of the CIA's Russia Analysis and Staff Advisor on Russia Matters to then Vice President Dick Cheney.
He's author of The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral Into Nuclear Catastrophe. George Beebe, welcome to you.
GEORGE BEEBE: Thank you very much.
CHAKRABARTI: Let me ask, start by asking both of you, do you sense that this is a potentially pivotal moment when it comes to the Biden administration's willingness to let Ukraine use these weapons deeper into Russian territory?
And Ambassador Courtney, I'll start with you.
COURTNEY: Thank you. It's an important moment. I wouldn't say pivotal. Let's consider that Ukraine's largest strike deep into Russia took place recently, large ammunition depth. Beyond the range of ATACMs, Ukraine used its own drones, its aerial drones, but it had to use a hundred or more to be sure to penetrate air defenses.
ATACMs are fast flying, fuel will be needed to reach targets within range. So this is important, but a number of other issues are also important for Ukraine, including manpower, for example, and training of its soldiers.
CHAKRABARTI: So if this is important for Ukraine, but only one of many issues, is it just that the media seems to be focusing a lot on this question? Or why do you think that President Zelenskyy continues to advocate it and try to push President Biden to make this decision.
COURTNEY: President Zelenskyy has in fact pressed it over and over. But the innovation, the incredible adaptation of Ukraine's industry to produce drones, an increasingly sophisticated array of drones. It's really been a remarkable triumph. General Petraeus, former CIA director, called it really a remarkable achievement.
So Ukraine does have some alternatives, but the ATACMS could be particularly important if Russia launches a major incursion into Ukraine. Because the ATACMS can be used to destroy or damage rear area logistics command and control, and reserve forces coming up behind the frontline forces. So that's particularly important.
President Biden has given Ukraine permission to use ATACMs just across the border, when the Ukrainians are being attacked by Russia. But to attack the rear area of support, ATACMs need to have permission to do a deep strike.
CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so George Beebe same question to you. Do you see this as a pivotal moment or not?
BEEBE: I don't think it's pivotal in that it's not going to change the odds that Ukraine can actually win this war. And by win this war, I mean they're not going to be able to drive the Russian military off of all occupied Ukrainian territory, and that's going to be true regardless of whether we green light the use of deep missile strikes into Russian territory or not.
However, it is potentially important in that this could kick off an escalatory spiral between the United States and Russia, between. And so there's a danger here that we could fall into exactly the thing that Putin warned about. That Russia could regard the use of Western missiles for deep strikes into Russia as tantamount to direct NATO involvement in a war against Russia.
And I think he would feel compelled to take action in response to that. So this is an important decision, not because it'll change the course of the war between Russia and Ukraine, but because it could lead to direct conflict between Russia and the West.
Part II
CHAKRABARTI: Today we are talking about the debate going on within the Biden administration about whether to give U.S. permission for Ukraine to use U.S. weapons to strike deep into Russian territory. And it's not just U.S. specifically manufactured weapons we're talking about as well, because there are some U.S. components in, say, British military weapons that have been given to Ukraine, specifically the Storm Shadow weapons system. That's one of the reasons why Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited the U.S. President not that long ago. And two weeks ago, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy traveled to Kyiv in Ukraine, and he raised concerns that other adversaries are already aiding Russia with weaponry used in Ukraine, specifically North Korea and Iran.
This week, we have been reminded of how other authoritarian regimes are aiding Putin, with Iran going even further in support for Moscow by providing ballistic missiles, a significant and dangerous threat escalation.
CHAKRABARTI: That's the UK's foreign secretary, David Lammy, a couple of weeks ago. Ambassador Courtney, let me ask you, it seems and correct me if I'm wrong, that you and George Beebe are in agreement in at least that the use of Western weapons inside Russian territory perhaps wouldn't change the overall calculus of Ukraine's likelihood of recapturing all of its territory from Russia. Do you agree or not with that?
BEEBE: It could be an important component, but there are other components, as we discussed earlier. So one should keep those in mind. There is no single kind of weapon or class of weapon that is a game changer, but cumulatively they can make a real difference.
So the ATACMs, for example, could make a difference. There are reports that the United States may provide an air to ground missile called the JASSM which also could be helpful for Ukraine in striking targets beyond the front line of the battlefield. So there are other things as well.
Let's take into consideration, for example, Ukraine on its own has been able to destroy one third. Or damage one third of Russia's Black Sea fleet. Through its innovative naval drones, this is something no one really expected. Ukraine has been able, through use of deception, to take this area in the Kursk region of Russia, as well as to recover most of the Kharkiv region in Ukraine.
So deception is likely to play a key role in the future. So we just can't really say one particular weapon is going to make all the difference, but every one of them can be important.
CHAKRABARTI: Okay, George Beebe, I'm going to come back to you in a second, but so if that's the case, Ambassador Courtney, could you help explain why up until this point the Biden administration then has been very reluctant to give this express permission to use U.S. weapons deeper into Russian territory?
COURTNEY: The Biden administration, from the beginning, appears to have been concerned about the potential for Russian escalation, even nuclear escalation. At the very beginning of the war, the U.S. did not approve a Polish offer to transfer F-16s to Ukraine. And then every time, there's been an issue about escalating, for example, providing tanks, artillery, things like that, the Biden administration has gone cautious approach.
And of course, it has with regard to F-16s, more recently, which our allies are now providing with U.S. permission. So the administration has been cautious. Some say it's been overly cautious, others say it's been prudent, but what we have seen now after two and a half years of battle is that Putin has cried wolf so often that in the West now people take that a little bit less seriously. And no one in the West, no real observer, close observer would think that providing ATACMs could lead to nuclear escalation.
Because the Ukrainians are already striking targets in Russia well beyond the range of ATACMs.
CHAKRABARTI: So do you think that the Biden administration has been overly cautious?
COURTNEY: I think the Biden administration was prudent at the beginning. But at this point, certainly with regard to ATACMs and potentially JASSMs, because the Ukrainians are already striking farther than those weapons can go, I don't think there's a need for caution at this point.
CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so George Beebe, this is the heart of the matter, right? Because the question of whether or not to authorize further use of U.S. weapons would be completely moot had, as you pointed out accurately, and we played that tape, Russian President Putin not said explicitly that he would see this as essentially an act of war by NATO on Russia and therefore a radical expansion of the Russian war in Ukraine.
You just heard Ambassador Courtney say Putin has cried wolf for the past couple of years. Why believe him now? And your response to that?
BEEBE: I think you need to understand that Putin does not want to get into a direct war with the United States or NATO. That would almost certainly escalate into nuclear use.
There would be no winners of that kind of conflict. And I think Putin understands that very well. On the other hand, what the United States has done over the course of the last two and a half years is probe to see where Putin's red lines really are. And we've gradually escalated the lethality and the sophistication of the weapon systems that we're willing to provide to the Ukrainians.
And Putin has not retaliated directly against the West with any of these decisions. At first, Biden said, we're not going to provide tanks, that would lead to World War III. Now we are. Same thing with fighter aircraft, same things with a high Mars system that you talked about earlier. The Russians have retaliated in all of those instances, not against the West, not against the United States directly, but inside Ukraine itself. And I think that has emboldened people in the West to say Putin's not really going to back up these red lines. We were too cautious in retrospect. But inside Russia, what's going on is there are critics of Putin, particularly on his nationalist right, who have said, now, wait a minute.
You're not being tough enough with the West. You have not backed up these red lines. You've not made good on these threats. And as a result, the West is getting more and more emboldened. And unless we draw a hard line soon through some sort of direct response against the West, they're simply going to keep escalating.
Their involvement in this to the point where we will have no choice but to be in a direct conflict with the United States and NATO, and we can't afford that. So we need to draw a hard line now. So Putin, I think, is in a situation where he has got to weigh his caution about getting into a direct conflict with the West against his concern that unless he draws a hard line soon, we could actually deepen our direct involvement in the war, to the extent that Russia would have very few good options.
So we have to be cautious, I think, in this situation, not to assume that his restraint in the past will translate into restraint moving forward.
CHAKRABARTI: Yes, because I note that prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there was a lot of discussion that Putin wouldn't have the courage to do exactly that. And then in February, a couple of years ago, he did.
So also, this question of escalation, we, naturally and rightly immediately become concerned about nuclear escalation. Because to both of your points, and Ambassador Courtney, you said this explicitly, that in the recent past, Putin said that the use of tactical nuclear weapons was not off the table.
But I wonder, perhaps should we be concerned about an escalation that's short of nuclear. Because that would be bad enough. So game this out with me, both of you, and feel free to tell me that this is a ridiculous strategic exercise, but I do wonder. We have Finland as a very new NATO member, right?
And there's a 1,500-mile border between Finland and Russia. In the, as you were saying, George Beebe, the far right pushing Putin, maybe he would just choose to strike Finland in some even minor capacity, but if so, could that potentially trigger an Article 5 agreement from NATO allies?
George Beebe, what do you think about that?
BEEBE: I doubt that Putin's response as a first resort would be a direct attack on a NATO member. Because that would of course challenge the alliance to back up its Article 5 provisions and would almost certainly lead to a direct war between Russia and NATO at some point.
And I don't think he wants to go there. Russia would certainly have its hands full in a scenario like that. What I think is more likely would be something like increasing sabotage attacks inside Europe, against weapons depots, for example in the West. That would have some plausible deniability to them, but everyone would realize that the Russians were covertly behind that sort of thing.
It would be a message that would be hard for us to mistake, but it would also not throw down the gauntlet, so to speak. And force the United States or NATO to take a direct retaliatory step against Russia. We could also see things like providing weapons to adversaries of the United States in the West.
For example, the Houthis out of Yemen, Hezbollah out of Lebanon, that could pose real threats to American servicemen that are in the region, but again would not be a direct Russian strike on the United States or the West. And then finally, I think the Russians could attack our Achilles heel.
Which is our satellite network. All of these precision guided weapons that we're providing to the Ukrainians require the support from space. For their targeting and guidance. And Putin has explicitly explained that link. So it's clear that the Russians understand the importance of that network.
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They have the ability to strike American satellites. That would be an extremely provocative act. I think it would almost require a Western response. That, in turn, would likely lead to an escalatory spiral that might get out of control. So I don't think Putin wants to go there. I think he'll take some other steps first, but I think we shouldn't rule out some sort of strike in space that could really complicate this situation.
CHAKRABARTI: Ambassador Courtney, your thoughts about the potential for this escalatory spiral, excuse me, that George Beebe has described there.
COURTNEY: I agree with George that likelihood that Russia would attack Finland, for example, is quite low. Let's look at what Russia's potential is for escalation, and some would argue that may not have much potential.
For example, Russia has had to turn to North Korea for artillery shells. To Iran for drones, even though Russia has a large aviation sector. Meghna, the Russians have had to take tanks out of cold storage that were already old by the time you were born. With all these old weapons and weapons from others, Russia seems to be struggling.
And then Putin is reluctant to endorse another large-scale conscription, which the hard right has urged on him. I'm concerned that it will be quite unpopular, and the last one was unpopular and also led to a flight of a lot of talented younger people from Russia. So it's not clear Russia has much capacity for escalation in the conventional sphere.
CHAKRABARTI: ... Okay, point well taken from both of you about perhaps not a conventional escalation. But George Beebe did bring up this rather interesting concern about Putin having talked about doing some sort of a satellite based or space-based attack that would, could disable some U.S. systems.
Ambassador Courtney, that does seem like something that would signal a significant escalation.
COURTNEY: It would signal some escalation, but the U.S. also has capacity to disable Russian satellites and other means of communicating with its forces. Plus, more recently, a lot of small satellites have been put up.
Elon Musk's Starlink is the best example, which the Ukrainians are using too, for their command and control for their forces, but those are hundreds of thousands of satellites. So the ability to knock out just a few satellites and disable, possibility for an adversary to conduct warfare, that possibility is long gone.
CHAKRABARTI: George Beebe, your response to that?
BEEBE: I agree in part. Certainly, the Russians can't just strike a single satellite and cripple our ability to use the GPS system for guidance for these weapons. But I would point out that there is an asymmetry in American and Russian dependence on space. The Russians certainly have a network of satellites, but they also have a terrestrial based backup system that can provide the equivalent of GPS guidance without reliance on space. The American side does not. We are completely dependent on that satellite network for GPS. And that GPS network is not just essential to, for the targeting of weapon systems.
It is central to every aspect of our lives. We can't navigate in our cars anymore without use of GPS navigation, we can't conduct transactions at stores without use of these satellites that synchronize the flow of cash from institution to institution. So if the Russians really wanted to go after that system in a massive way, we are quite vulnerable to that kind of attack. Now, do they want to do that? No, I think they realize what that could lead to, were they to do it, but I don't think we should be confident that we can simply deter this sort of thing by holding Russia's own satellite network at risk. Because there is a real asymmetry in our dependence on these systems.
CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So in that case, so it sounds like you're saying that there is a very high potential that if President Biden allows the use of U.S. weapons systems deeper into Russian territory, that it could definitely put U.S. assets at risk of some kind, George Beebe.
BEEBE: Yes. I think there is a significant risk of that.
CHAKRABARTI: Is that a risk worth taking?
BEEBE: I don't think it is. If you do a cost benefit analysis on this, you have to weigh that risk against what the potential reward is. And I don't think it's going to change the picture on the battlefield, as I mentioned earlier, the war is really a war of attrition.
It's not a war of maneuver, which the Ukrainians would like it to be. They would like this to be a war of outflanking the Russians, identifying vulnerabilities, breaking through weak points in the Russian lines, taking advantage of America's superior, real time intelligence capabilities, our precision guided weapon systems.
The Russians don't want to fight that kind of war. They want to grind this out and take advantage of their superior scale, their superior manpower. And that's what this war has become.
Part III
CHAKRABARTI: Now, I want to ask both of you a little bit about some of the signals coming out of NATO and various NATO member nations to help us get greater context about this question over weapons.
CHAKRABARTI: Here is NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Yesterday, he was on CBS News, and he said that he supports countries lifting restrictions on Ukraine's use of weapons.
And he said that the support comes because he sees the decision as much more than about the immediate war that Ukraine is fighting.
STOLTENBERG: The problem, the challenge, is that in a war, there are no risk free options. But I strongly believe that the biggest risk will be if President Putin wins. Because that will send a message to him that when he used military force, he gets what he wants.
And that's also not only a challenge for Europe, but also something we will see in Asia. Because the war in Ukraine is followed closely in Beijing. So as the Japanese prime minister actually told me yesterday in a meeting, what happens in Ukraine today can happen in Asia tomorrow. So this is about standing up for international law and prevent authoritarian regimes from believing that they can get what they want by using military force.
CHAKRABARTI: So that's NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on CBS News yesterday. But also this week, some interesting language coming from Czech Republic, the Czech Republic and its president, Peter Pavel, who is also the former senior NATO a former senior NATO general. He's been a very strong backer of Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia.
But just this week, he said that Ukraine will, quote, have to be realistic about its prospects of recovering territory occupied by Russia. This question of what does it mean if Russia wins? Pavel says the most probable outcome of the war will be that part of Ukrainian territory will be under Russian occupation temporarily, but that temporary thing could last years.
So let me ask both of you, and Ambassador Courtney, I'll start with you. How do you parse these different messages from NATO?
COURTNEY: NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg has been a very staunch supporter of U.S. and NATO support for Ukraine from the very beginning. His going public about encouraging countries to lift restrictions, he wouldn't do that unless a pretty large number of NATO countries were in favor of that.
And he's certainly right that the biggest risk would be if Putin wins. Because, this is a case of unprovoked aggression. It's a little bit like the North Korea attack against South Korea and 1950s. It's not like Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq. And if the Russians were able to win and seize Ukrainian territory or part of it for a long time, that would be a huge setback for NATO.
So there's a lot at stake. General Pavel is correct about if there's a negotiation in the near term, probably there would be some part of Ukraine that would be left behind a ceasefire line or something like that. But for now, Ukraine is wanting to continue fighting, continue to defend its country.
So we're not in a position to really predict how things are going to go. So let me give you an example. Four decades ago, the Soviet Union had a somewhat similar situation. It was fighting a stalemated war in a neighbor, Afghanistan. The United States escalated by providing Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
Instead of escalating, the Soviets had to pull back a bit. But then how did the war get resolved? Midway through the war, the soviets had liberalizing regime change with Mikhail Gorbachev coming to power, and he wanted to pull back the military. A few years later, they withdrew from Afghanistan.
So we don't know what will happen in the future. ... But Russia has pushed to the limits its capabilities in both the economic and other areas. So there's a possibility there. But making predictions in this war has been very difficult.
And so I think we should be cautious.
CHAKRABARTI: Understood. George Beebe, though, help me get some greater clarity on something. Because I guess the question is, what does win mean, right? We have Stoltenberg there say, essentially, I hear in that a maximalist argument for NATO assistance to Ukraine, short of allowing Ukraine to become a NATO member nation, in part as a China deterrent.
That's basically what he said. But then as I pointed out, Mr. Pavel of the Czech Republic, they're saying in Russia is very likely, his quote goes on, he says, to talk about a defeat of Ukraine or a defeat of Russia, will simply not happen. The end will be somewhere in between.
So the reason why I underscore this is getting back to this question of, what is the tactical point of allowing Russia or Ukraine to use Western weapons deeper into Russian territory? I ask that question again, if it seems like there will be some loss of Ukrainian territory, at least some people are saying that now.
George Beebe, what do you think?
BEEBE: I think you've asked exactly the right question. What does it mean to win? And I think it is clear two and a half years into this war, that neither side can win this war unconditionally. And by that, Ukraine cannot drive all Russian forces off of occupied Ukrainian territory.
They attempted to do that last year with the counteroffensive that they prepared diligently for. And it was an utter failure. They recovered almost no territory from that counteroffensive. And the Russians played defense, I think, extremely effectively. And there's absolutely no reason to believe that the Ukrainians will be any more capable of success in a new counteroffensive next year.
They're going to be that much weaker in terms of manpower. Their best, most experienced troops have been decimated. So Ukraine's not going to win this war unconditionally and the Russians aren't either. The Russians attempted to take the Ukrainian capital early in this invasion. They failed miserably.
They're having a hard time driving the Ukrainians back very far just in the Donbas region, which is quite favorable to the Russians in many ways from a battlefield point of view. And for the Russians to occupy all of Ukraine, were they able even to conquer it, would require a military invasion force many times the size of the entire Russian military.
They're just not capable of conquering, occupying, and governing that territory. So this war, if it's going to end, has to end in some sort of compromise. And the question is, what kind of leverage can we bring to bear to strike as effective a deal as we can? And I think our goal in this ought to be preserving an independent Ukraine, one that can reconstruct itself, enter the European Union, and become a viable state, and that doesn't mean that Ukraine has to give up claims to Russian occupied territory.
The United States never recognized the incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. But that didn't mean we were at war with the Soviet Union to undo the injustice of Baltic incorporation. We were able to conduct pragmatic, diplomatic affairs with the Soviet Union, despite that lack of recognition.
So I think Ukraine has to have a realistic goal. And with American support, I think it is possible to achieve that kind of quote-unquote victory.
CHAKRABARTI: So let me just point out that defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently argued similarly to what both of you have said in this hour. That one weapon system, excuse me, is not going to determine success in this war.
And he's said, quote, there are a number of things that go into the overall equation as to whether or not you want to provide one capability or another. There is no silver bullet when it comes to things like this. He said this just this past Friday. With that in mind though, George Beebe, I have a quick follow up for you.
You said another question that has to be considered is, what kind of leverage should be brought to bear in order to force some kind of talks? Bringing, forcing Russia to the table. That question makes me wonder if indeed saying, hey, the U.S. is going to authorize use of these longer-range systems, is that not for a form of leverage that should be considered?
BEEBE: I think in general, the possibility that the United States could escalate its involvement in this war is something that the Russians want to avoid, and it is a form of leverage. If we, in fact, escalate, however, it might not result in negotiations. It might result in counter escalation on the Russian's part.
So we have to be careful about that. I think it's a mistake to look at negotiating leverage in this war exclusively as a function of the military balance between Russia and Ukraine. There are more aspects to this. Putin wants to prevent Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO. He also wants to minimize the military threat that NATO poses to Russia.
He can't contend with what is now a 32 member NATO alliance exclusively through Russia's own conventional military capabilities. Russia's badly outmatched, conventionally, vis-a-vis NATO. What he has to do is increasingly rely on Russia's nuclear force to counter NATO. He doesn't really want to do that, so I think what he really wants here is not just to seize land in Ukraine, but also to address the bigger threat that he sees from NATO, and the United States and Europe.
That gives us leverage. We can use that need for military security, in the broader sense that Russia has, as leverage in a negotiation that can help preserve Ukraine's independence and future prosperity.
CHAKRABARTI: George Beebe and Ambassador Courtney, we only have a few minutes left. And I want to turn the conversation to how this current issue about weaponry in Ukraine may redound domestically. Because it's impossible to think of a foreign policy or military decision being made in an election year without the thought of what impact could it have on the election?
And I'm going to venture to just guess that the Biden administration is thinking about that, even though it's not President Biden who's running for reelection, but of course, Vice President Kamala Harris. And I raise it because, and Ambassador Courtney, I'm going to turn to you quickly here. Donald Trump, for his overt support of Russia, has also decried the forever wars, as he called them.
And that actually has a great deal of purchase amongst the American people. It does seem to me to be plausible that if the Biden administration gave the green light to this weapons use, that Donald Trump might just come back and say, this is the next step of the Biden administration, and therefore, also Vice President Kamala Harris, getting the United States involved into more war, more forever wars, or putting U.S. assets and U.S. troops in potential danger. Does that accusation not potentially cast a shadow over how the Biden administration is thinking about this right now? Ambassador?
COURTNEY: Former President Trump's position on that may not enjoy majority support of the United States.
When the last supplemental, the large supplemental last spring was passed, it was passed by a three to one margin in the House and a four to one margin in the Senate. People across the country are putting Ukrainian flags out in front of their houses. What we're doing seems to be pretty well supported across the country.
CHAKRABARTI: George Beebe, what do you think?
BEEBE: I think the situation is a little more complicated than that. I think Americans sympathize with Ukraine's plight by and large. I think they look at this invasion and say this is unjust and wrong and Ukraine deserves support in its own self-defense. But they also don't want to get into a direct war with Russia.
I think they're cognizant of the risks of escalation. I think they'd like to see this war ended. In a way that preserves Ukraine's independence and gives it a path toward future prosperity. So it's not simply a matter of do they support Ukraine or not? I think there are a lot of considerations that Americans take into account and there needs to be, I think, a pragmatic balance between supporting Ukraine's self-defense and also pairing that with wise diplomacy that can preserve a future Ukrainian state, bring stability back to Europe.
And preserve the possibility of broader order in the world, on which Americans own security and our own prosperity depend.
This program aired on September 25, 2024.