NATO Summit Roundup

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On today's show, we'll take your temperature on this sweltering day on your evolving relationships with the tech giants. Are you one of the 100 million people, we are given that number, 100 million people who signed up for Threads since it debuted last week? If so, what's it like for you? Did you leave Twitter or just add on? Also, a call in for this fake holiday known as Amazon Prime Day on how you're cutting back on online shopping as the pandemic emergency has eased.

Let's start with world affairs. Let's pick up where the BBC left off. President Biden is at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania today as you've heard as one headline on Vox sarcastically put it. After all that, Turkey will support Sweden's NATO bid, but why do we care what Turkey thinks? Why are they in NATO? The North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Is Turkey even in the North Atlantic? It also wants to be in the EU. You can make a case that Turkey is geographically in Europe, at least with part of it on the Balkan Peninsula there in Southeast Europe. Why does Turkey want in when the talk in England and some other places is about getting out? What does it mean in 2023 to be European?

For that matter, who does it matter to whether the famously neutral Sweden is in NATO? Are they going to be sending cluster bombs to Volodymyr Zelenskyy? In any case, remember when Donald Trump, as president, said NATO is obsolete? Apparently, it's not. How much is this meeting about Sweden and Turkey at all? Isn't it really about Russia and Ukraine? US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, made it sound like that when he spoke in Vilnius yesterday.

Jake Sullivan: Soon we will be able to say that since this war began, since Russia invaded Ukraine, we'll have welcomed two new members of NATO with strong militaries, expanding both the size and the strength of the alliance. It is a particularly strong signal that two historically non-aligned countries have chosen at this moment in history to join the NATO alliance.

Brian Lehrer: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan with the president at the NATO summit. Let's try to understand what's going on over there and implications for over here with two guests, Jen Kirby, senior foreign and national security reporter with Vox, where she covers global stability, and Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, the global research and consulting firm, founder of GZERO Media and host of GZERO World on PBS and Author of books including The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – and Our Response – Will Change the World, published last year, and Us Vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism, which came out in 2018. Ian Bremmer, welcome back. Jen Kirby, welcome to WNYC.

Ian Bremmer: Thanks [crosstalk].

Jen Kirby: Thanks so much for having us.

Brian Lehrer: Jen, that was a headline on one of your articles that I cited there. After all that Turkey, will support Sweden's bid for NATO. After all what?

Jen Kirby: [chuckles] After a lot of rigmarole and a lot of back and forth and diplomacy and trying to convince Turkey to come over the line to support Sweden's bid. This has been a year-long back and forth where Turkey signaled it would support Sweden and Finland, then pulled away, then supported Finland, then continued to give Sweden a hard time. In the lead-up to the summit-- well, after his election in May, there was a hope that he would no longer need a big domestic rah-rah to push him over the edge and that he would come around by the time the summit rolled around.

Then he started making even more extreme demands, including all of a sudden reviving Turkey's EU bid. It looked a little precarious there, but in the end, Turkey agreed to support Sweden's bid and Hungary also dropped its objection. It looks like it's not a done deal yet, but they should be part of the alliance hopefully soon.

Brian Lehrer: You report that Sweden made a series of concessions to Turkey to help bring about this result. What does Turkey want from Sweden?

Jen Kirby: Its objections initially were around an arms embargo, which had been largely dealt with, but really, Turkey has accused Sweden of being soft on terrorism. For Turkey, that's usually an expansive definition. It includes those affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is deemed a terrorist group, but also, Turkey sees those as dissidents and critical of his government. He also tends to put them in that category. It was a little bit tricky to understand exactly what he means, but Turkey accused Sweden of being soft on terrorism.

There had been in the past year, including right up around the NATO summit, these demonstrations which included Quran burning which Turkey accused Sweden of being soft on anti-Islamic sentiment, so these are really causing tensions. Sweden in the end basically increased some of the penalties under its anti-terrorism laws, so strengthen them and agreed to extradite at least one person. For Sweden, it was a matter of balancing, trying to understand what Turkey wanted and meet them there but also not really compromising on rule of law, democratic principles, freedom of speech, and things like that.

Brian Lehrer: Ian, can you remind us of a little bit of Sweden's history of neutrality and non-alignment and how big a change this is historically for them?

Ian Bremmer: Well, there's no question that if Russia had not invaded Ukraine, neither the Swedes nor the Finns would have supported being a part of NATO. The percentages were radically opposed. My good friend, the former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt said that he was a supporter, frankly, but he never thought it was feasible. This invasion, which of course brings war to the European continent, which for the last 30 years they thought was something they didn't have to worry about again has changed the beliefs and behaviors of all sorts of countries.

The Germans now are sending tanks, Leopard tanks, to Ukraine. Frankly, that's in some ways an even greater shift in national political sentiment than what we've seen in Sweden and Finland. We've gone from NATO eroding and becoming an increasingly marginal and less relevant organization that might not even last another 5 or 10 years to the most important revitalized alliance in the world, with every member more committed to it than they were before. Arguably, NATO is at its strongest now than it's ever been since its founding. That is, again, every bit, all as a consequence of Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: Take us a little further into why that matters like what human beings benefit from Sweden being in or out of NATO. Why should our US listeners, who probably right now are more interested in this morning's encouraging inflation report, care about this news from over there?

Ian Bremmer: I'm not sure they do care all that much about it. First of all, Finland is much more important as a new member than Sweden because they have a border of several hundred miles to Russia directly. It's much more of a threat, frankly, to Finland, that Russian encroachment, than the idea that the Russians are going to pose a threat to Sweden. Having said all of that, what we're seeing is that the United States has the world's most powerful military.

US spends more than the next 10 countries combined in defense spending. Most of those 10 countries are aligned with the United States, and their militaries are interoperable with the US military. The Americans have the most powerful military-industrial complex, the defense companies, which also have production in all 50 states, and they employ people in all 50 states. That's part of why they do so well with both Democrats and Republicans in House and Senate. Defense spending tends to go up over time, no matter what other programs tend to see.

For all of those reasons, it is interesting and relevant to America's power projection that NATO, which was looking weaker, is now looking stronger, that more countries around the world want to align with NATO, that the Swedes and the Finns are saying, "Yes, we need to be closer to the United States." Looking to Asia, the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Australians are now attending NATO summits regularly.

They're also saying, "We want closer relations with US-led military architecture." Like with AUKUS, the agreement on the submarines and nuclear programs, for example, like with the Quad, where India is increasingly aligning its military towards the United States, its technology towards the United States. Really, Russia's invasion of Ukraine did represent a tipping point for the power projection of America's military around the world.

That doesn't mean that the United States suddenly is a superpower in every aspect economically or politically, diplomatically, but when we talk about military and national security, there's no question that what all of this means, and Sweden is very much a piece of it is all these countries around the world, wealthy democracies are saying, "We need more America, not less."

Brain Lehrer: Listeners, especially if you have ties to any of the countries in Europe we're talking about, you be the global affairs analyst. In addition to our guests, who's here from Sweden or listening in Sweden right now? Are you happy about joining NATO? Why is this important? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or Finland, as Ian was saying, maybe it's even more important that Finland is joining NATO more important than Sweden.

Anyone in Turkey or with ties to Turkey listening right now? Why is that country in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization and why does it want to be in the EU? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. Or anyone with ties to Russia or Ukraine or anywhere else relevant, even the United States. 212-433-WNYC. Call or text 212-433-9692 for Jen Kirby from Vox and Ian Bremmer from the Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. Jen, why is Turkey even in NATO? It does not border on the North Atlantic, last I looked at a map of the world, and NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Jen Kirby: I think sometimes these days, there are a lot of questions about why Turkey is in NATO because it has not been a great alliance member as we've seen in the past few years. Especially recently, Turkey has also increased its ties with Russia. It has not sanctioned Russia like a lot of the other Western countries in the alliance. It has continued to buy cheap Russian oil as the war with Ukraine has continued. There are definitely a lot of questions.

Going back to the Cold War, Turkey was seen as an instrumental country that did border the East and West and had a lot of influence and power, and was a growing power. The alliance saw it as a vital foothold. In many ways, Turkey has charted its own path. It has never really had a foot fully in the West, just as it's never had a foot fully in the East. The benefits of that have also become sometimes liabilities when you're in a military path like NATO which relies on consensus and unity a lot of times.

Brian Lehrer: Ian, why does Turkey want to be in the EU when other countries are debating getting out? Your company is called the Eurasia Group. I guess we certainly can say that Turkey is in Eurasia, right?

Ian Bremmer: Oh, Turkey is central to Eurasia. Absolutely. When we started 25 years ago, that was the part of the world we were focused on. We just never changed the name, but what do you do?

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles]

Ian Bremmer: Turkey understands that the EU is a driver of wealth. Access to the European market is valuable economically. Erdoğan had a really hard time just a few weeks ago winning his re-election because the Turkish economy is not doing well because a lot of Turks have been unhappy with the way that Erdoğan has been mismanaging the economy. A lot of the most left and they've gone to the EU, and that's human capital that's been fleeing.

They also understand that the European Union offering candidate membership to the Turks never was meant to lead to full membership. Any one individual member in the EU can veto the accession of a new member. Greece would certainly do that. Other countries would as well. Yes, you can argue that Turkey is in Europe. There would be very good reasons politically and economically to integrate them from a global perspective. It's more democracy. It's a more liberalized society in Turkey, but it's also a very large country, population-wise, and it's a Muslim country. From the perspective of many, many Europeans, they're completely uncomfortable with that.

The same way that people look at American support for Ukraine and say, "Well, you're giving all this money because they're not brown. You're doing it because they are European. You wouldn't do that for the Palestinians. You wouldn't do that for Sudan, but you will do it for Ukraine." [unintelligible 00:14:58] There are a lot of people in Europe, they point fingers at the Europeans that'll say the same thing about Turkey.

When the Turks came out a day ago and briefly said, "Yes, we'll let Sweden in NATO if you allow us into the EU," the Turks understood that that was never going to happen. That was a signal that, "We are very close to a deal. We're prepared to get something done. Let's talk brass tacks if you want to actually sign it in Vilnius." That's where Erdoğan got. He had leverage. He's been using that leverage all the way through this process.

Brian Lehrer: I think we have a caller who's going to reflect some of the tensions that you were just laying out. Danny in Whippany, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Danny, thanks for calling in.

Danny: Thank you for taking my call. I'm listening to you guys from long time. I think that it's a bad idea that Turkey should be included into EU. During the ISIS war in Syria, most of the jihadists were bussed through Turkey. Once their tickets into EU, there will be Islamization of whole of Europe. There'll be more France burning in all the countries. Erdoğan is trying to be the head of Caliphate, which he is trying to do it for a long time. I think all of Europe should not let Turkey come into EU. Otherwise, they'll be finished.

Brian Lehrer: Danny, thank you very much. I don't know that more Muslims coming into France equals France's burning. Ian, what does that caller reflect to you?

Ian Bremmer: First of all, if you ask the French population how many Muslims they think are in France, they regularly say 30%, 35%. The answer is actually 10%. This perception that, "Muslims equate to burning and will ruin our country," unfortunately, is widely shared among many in Europe.

Let me explain. First of all, there's no likelihood that Turkey is actually going to get full membership in the EU anytime soon. Your caller's concerns are misplaced in that regard. What I will say, and this reflects Turkey and Russia, is one of the worst things you can do to a country is pretend that they might actually be allowed into an organization that you've never had any intention of integrating them in. That's the worst thing you can do. That's precisely what the West did with Russia and NATO. After the Soviet Union collapsed, there was a NATO-Russia Joint Council, but no one was ever going to integrate the Russians into NATO.

You had Boris Yeltsin thinking, "Oh, maybe I can be a part of these Western institutions," and then Putin saying, "These guys are just trying to take advantage. They're integrating all these countries that we think should be close to Russia into their own institutions. We're out left in the cold." Turks feel the same way, "Oh, they're dangling membership into the EU. They'll allow us to be candidate members. They're going to push us towards these reforms, but they're never going to let us in." Erdoğan is rightfully angry at the fact that that was dangled without a plan to integrate them.

You could also say that Zelenskyy, who the Ukrainians have been told for more than a decade, "Oh, yes. Ukraine will be in NATO in the future," and they've been fighting this war courageously for the last 18 months. Yesterday, you heard it in Vilnius, "Yes, Ukraine will be in NATO in the future." Well, 15 years now we've been saying Ukraine will be in NATO in the future. Do we have a date? No. Do we have a plan? No.

I don't think that Ukraine should be in NATO anytime soon, frankly. That's a longer discussion, but if you're the Ukrainian president, I understand why you are indignant. You are incensed in the middle of this war that you're fighting, with the Russians invading you, a much larger country, a much larger army, that NATO is saying, "Yes, at some point, that'll happen."

Brian Lehrer: I want to get Jen's take on the same question, but Ian, I'm not going to let your t's just sit out there. Why do you think Ukraine should not be allowed into NATO?

Ian Bremmer: Well, two reasons. The near term, it's because there is an act of war that's going on against Russia, and NATO membership does mean that if a member country calls on you, to defend them, there is collective security. The Americans are not prepared, and rightly so in my view, to send US troops to fight and die on Ukrainian territory, not only because of the sacrifice that represents but also because of the danger that represents in terms of escalation with Russia itself. We're already fighting that war effectively in a proxy way for the Ukrainians, with the Ukrainians.

The second reason is that there still is an enormous amount of corruption in Ukraine. There still is an enormous amount of political and economic instability. You think that Turkey has corruption, and it does. You think that Turkey has problems with democracy, and it does. Ukraine is much further than that. We all were talking about that before the invasion of February 24th. They're not nearly as corrupt as Russia is, to be clear, but no one's talking about Russia joining NATO. I just think that those are things that need to be addressed over a longer period of time with cooler heads.

Right now, the G7 agreement that was provided, a multilateral commitment to the Ukrainians over the long term to provide training, intelligence, cybersecurity, and military support, I think is an important halfway house and the appropriate step for a diverse NATO that doesn't feel of one mind about Ukraine's eventual membership. The polls are very much in favor right now.

The Americans, the Germans are not, the French are in between. This was about as good as you could get to show a very consolidated and strong NATO, which by the way, is by far the most important US national interest here. Much more important than Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: Jen, what have you been thinking since the caller and through Ian's responses? What's your dominant thought right now listening to a few threads there?

Jen Kirby: I definitely agree that Turkey's prospects for EU membership are not happening anytime soon. I think Erdoğan knows that as well, which is why his demand was so stark. I do think, to Ian's larger point, the membership also equates to a degree of credibility. I think that is in many ways the bigger question around NATO. Having Ukraine become a member of NATO now when it is actively engaged in war with Russia or providing a timeline to Ukraine on specific membership when we do not know how long this war will go on, is a really impossible situation.

I do think Zelenskyy understands that even as, of course, he has a public-- and an agenda that he also needs to present. I think that the bigger issue here, and I think this is something to think about depending on how the war goes, is it isn't just that Ukraine being a NATO would risk that NATO goes to war with Russia or ends up into a big power conflict with nuclear implications, but it's that we don't go to war if Ukraine is attacked.

The alliance says ultimately Article 5 is not automatic, it is also built on consensus. If the alliance is split on whether to defend Ukraine, then that means the alliance itself loses its credibility. What is NATO then? It can't risk having its bluff called to some degree. That is really the central factor with Ukraine is that the alliance needs to be able to hue to this principle, and Ukraine really puts that at risk.

Ian Bremmer: Exactly right.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to continue in a minute on these world affairs with Ian Bremmer and Jen Kirby on this day that President Biden is in Vilnius, Lithuania for the NATO summit and all the politics around that. We'll take more of your calls. Heads-up, guests, I'm going to throw in a Prigozhin question somewhere along the way. Depending on what media you read this morning, he either never left Russia after all to go into exile in Belarus as reported and has ongoing relations with Putin, to he's actually likely dead in another report. We're going to take your temperature on what's going on with Prigozhin and the implications of that. Listeners, as I said, more of your calls and texts, 212-433 WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we talk about world affairs with President Biden at the NATO summit in Lithuania with Jen Kirby, senior foreign and national security reporter with Vox, where she covers global stability among other things. Not a lot of that going on right now, and Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, the global research and consulting firm, founder of GZERO Media, and author of books including The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – and Our Response – Will Change the World, which came out last year. Let's take another caller. Jim in Garden City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jim.

Jim: Hi. Good morning. Brian, you'd asked earlier a question as to why Turkey is in NATO. Starkly, this came about because after World War II, the late '40s, Stalin, then leader of the Soviet Union, started making territorial demands on Turkey particularly as to Eastern Turkey and also with respect to the control of the Turkish Straits forced Turkey to look for a defensive organization that it could be part of. Then your second question was why is Turkey in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization when it's not? By that logic, why is Italy in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?

Brian Lehrer: Fair question. You told our screener that you are Turkish or of Turkish descent.

Jim: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: What's your view of what's going on over there today, either in this immediate situation we've been discussing or in a larger sense?

Jim: In the immediate sense, as far as Turkey's initial objection with Sweden, it was related to the Kurdistan Workers' Party presence in Sweden, and its rather overt presence in Sweden. Kurdistan Workers' Party does have some ties to the Swedish left and they were allowed to actually operate fairly openly. It happens in other European countries too, but Sweden seemed to be rather exceptional, and this was certainly going to rankle the Turks.

Everybody likes to point to Erdoğan, Turkey's more than just Erdoğan. This is something that does bother Turks, I think, across the board, not just Erdoğan. I think it was reasonable for the Turks to try to get something for the Swedes do if you're going to accept the fact that the PKK is considered a terrorist organization by EU countries as well as the United States.

That's also, by the way, poisoned relations between the Turks and the United States because of what's happened with Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces is really a cover for the Syrian branch of the PKK, which is something that the US knows and it has been discussed before.

Brian Lehrer: All right. That's a lot. Jim, really interesting. Some things that haven't been said before in this segment, I really appreciate it. Jen, I don't know if you want to dispute any of that factually, but we've had two callers now reference Turkey's relationship to the war in Syria. The earlier caller talked about Turkey supporting ISIS there. This caller talking about the Syrian government or some of the forces there being allied with the Kurdish separatists who threaten Turkey as they see it.

Jen Kirby: There's absolutely been a rift between the United States and Turkey over the US's support for the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria who helped the US expel ISIS from Iraq and Syria because of their ties to the PKK, which as the caller said, is a terrorist organization in Turkey and is also considered one by the US, and I believe, Sweden. Turkey's concerns are not completely illegitimate.

I do think the problem with Erdoğan is it is a bit of a slippery slope because we have also seen, within Turkey, him accusing people who object to his government, civil servants, those he has accused of being part of a 2016 coup as also being terrorists. It can sometimes be hard to know exactly who Erdoğan is talking about. And because he has eroded institutions like the rule of law and democracy in Turkey, he may have a little bit of impatience for the West.

For example, Turkey had demanded the extradition of some people, but Sweden-- There was one report that said Sweden wasn't even sure exactly who they were, but extradition is a process. It requires rule of law. You have to go through judicial proceedings. You can't just hand people over. I think there was a larger tension not necessarily that Turkey didn't have legitimate concerns or that weren't shared by the Turkish people, but we should also be clear that Kurds and Turkey also face discrimination broadly as a people. I think it is a very, very tricky and complicated situation. At the end of the day, at least, NATO will have, hopefully, a 32nd member. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Ian, you want to add anything to that briefly?

Ian Bremmer: Sure. I'd just say that Erdoğan came out a few days ago and said that he strongly supported Zelenskyy and Ukraine joining NATO. He also handed over a number of former prisoners-- commanders in Azovstal to the Ukrainians. That annoyed the Russians greatly. I do think that following his willingness to accept first Finland, now Sweden as NATO members, he is basically telling the Americans, "Look, I know that I can't count as much on the Russians going forward long term. I'd like a better relationship with you all."

This certainly is going to lead to the Americans selling F-16s as well as modernization packs for other parts of the Turkish Air Force. I suspect we'll see a lot of other additional collaboration and coordination with the Turks on the military and security front. Final thing I'd mention is the Turks have been essential for the single biggest piece of successful diplomacy we've seen since the Russians invaded Ukraine. That is the Black Sea Grain deal, which has allowed food and fertilizer to be exported.

That's diplomacy by Erdoğan between Zelensky and Putin. Putin's demands in extending that, which is meant to come up in the next few days, now look like it's about to fall apart. If Erdoğan is seeing that he can no longer play that effective role between the Russians and the Ukrainians, and he needs to make more of a bet, it does seem like that bet that he's making is with the US and with NATO.

Brian Lehrer: José in Montclair, you're on WNYC. Hi, José.

José: Hi, Brian. One of the things that I think we're losing a little bit of sight when we're looking at countries like Sweden and Finland being so interested in NATO is the annexation of Crimea by Russia. I think that was a game-changer. I think that there were also changes in the way Sweden even began to care about military activities or reinstate conscription in the army. I think that's an important thing to remember and to remember where Crimea is, right next door to Turkey, right next door to Romania, Bulgaria. It sits right there in Eastern Europe.

Second thing I want to say is, I'm a Spaniard, and I will tell you, having Turkey in the EU makes a lot of sense to me. We were an Arab Muslim nation for 1,000 years, so were chunks of Italy, Greece, and other nations in Europe. To forget that is to forget our history. I also think one of the things that we're losing sight of is the level of intelligence we have in that community with things like security, technology, aircraft, I don't think it would be a bad thing.

I don't love Erdoğan. I'm going to be honest with you and say that out loud. I don't know if it's my place to even have an opinion about him, but Turkey has played a crucial and critical historical role in the formation of Europe. To forget that is to forget who we were as-- Look, me personally as a Spaniard to forget the Alhambra, to forget the Mosque of Córdoba, algebra, the greatest Islamic mystics coming out of Spain and Italy, let's not forget that they've been there for a long time. Anyway, that's just my comment.

Brian Lehrer: Great perspective, José. Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Since this summit is taking place in Lithuania, happy to say we have a caller with Lithuanian background, it looks like. Vincas in Bergen County, you're on WNYC. Hello, Vincas.

Vincas: Hey, Brian. Thanks. Love the show. I've been listening for years. I just wanted to share, I'm actually a Lithuanian American filmmaker. I made a film about the armed resistance. That was released in 2014, right around the time of the Crimea annexation. It's a documentary film and just wanted to share that the summit is in Lithuania, I've been excited. It's like an exciting vindication that we've been saying for ages that Putin was a threat and there has always been this feeling of being gaslit because the rest of the West didn't believe us.

Not to make light of what's happening in Ukraine, but it's like a feeling of, "Look, finally, everyone sees what we're talking about," and also wanted to share that while I was making this film, we did interview heads of state and various officials. There was this overall that we felt, like a skepticism from them that Article 5 would be held up if Lithuania or the Baltics were invaded because of this lasting feeling of abandonment after the second Soviet occupation.

My father fled the second Soviet occupation, and there was always this feeling that Voice of America would send out these recordings, "Oh, the Americans are going to come and free us on Christmas." "They're going to come in Easter," then year after year until eventually, it fizzled out and we had a 50-year occupation. There's always been this skepticism. I think that right now is an exciting time because it changes that perception that now it's like, "Oh, the strengthening of NATO feels really good as Lithuanian-American, as Baltic-American."

Brian Lehrer: Fascinating. Thank you, Vincas. Thank you very much. I have to say, I feel so privileged to be able to host a show like this in New York where we have people from everywhere. We ask for people with ties to Lithuania, Vincas calls in with those really interesting thoughts. Ask for people with ties to Turkey, Jim from before calls in with his very interesting thoughts, José with roots in Spain.

Our community is talking to each other, one of the things that makes me feel privileged to just be facilitating all of you on this show and in this segment with Jen Kirby from Vox and Ian Bremmer from the Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. Ian, to the last caller's point, President Biden has a famous presidential primary challenger named Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

He was on the New Yorker Radio Hour last week and said in the context of his anti-militarism and opposition to the military establishment, as he sees it, that the US could have avoided the war in Ukraine if we had simply exceeded to Putin's demand that we promised not to expand NATO to his doorstep in Ukraine, but the US would not promise that.

I've asked that question of many foreign policy analysts since the war began last year, and almost no one else seems to believe that promising to keep Ukraine out of NATO would've prevented the invasion because Putin had bigger reasons for going in. What does the best evidence say about this as far as you can tell?

Ian Bremmer: The first point is let's keep in mind that NATO is a defensive alliance, and countries are not forced to join. Ukraine and other countries request to join. Refusing a promise to Russia, saying we're not going to accept them, essentially undermines Ukraine's sovereignty, which of course, Russia has no interest in Ukraine sovereignty. From an international law perspective, the UN, the global order that presently exists, the rest of us really do believe in that. Even the Chinese are trying to get towards peace and a ceasefire, continue to talk about Ukraine's territorial integrity, which implies that they can make decisions about the disposition of what they actually do on their territory.

I would say that the Americans are partially responsible for Putin's decision. Putin, of course, takes accountability for the invasion, but there are two things that the Americans did really, really wrong. The first is after the Soviet Union collapsed that the United States and the Europeans did not in any way try to really integrate Russia into US-led institutions and architecture. As NATO was expanded, as EU was expanded, Russia was left behind. There was no Marshall plan for Russia. That was number one.

Number two is in 2014 when the Russians annexed illegally Crimea and invaded South-East Ukraine, the Donbas, with their little green men, which they denied historically, but we knew they were doing, that the West did not respond in any effective way. There weren't serious sanctions, there weren't consequences for Russia. The Russians hosted the World Cup and the Europeans, Macron, other heads of state, happy to go and socialize with Putin while he's occupying a part illegally of a neighboring state.

There were lots of reasons that Putin believed that he would be able to get away with taking a bigger piece of Ukraine or even removing Zelensky from power, especially after the failure of Afghanistan. The ignominy of the Americans withdrawing after 20 years. Especially after meeting with Biden one-on-one when Biden was president, Biden brought up the red line of Russian cyber attacks on US critical infrastructure, but no red lines on Ukraine. If you were Putin, last February, there were lots of reasons that you believed you could get away with that invasion, and I do think the Americans take some accountability for that.

Interesting. Before we run out of time, I did threaten to throw a Prigozhin addendum into this conversation. Meanwhile, back at the Kremlin, reporting a few days ago, Jen indicated that Prigozhin, after his mutiny never did go to Belarus as publicly announced and has still been in Russia, and has even been meeting with Putin. Now we have a retired US general, Robert Abrams, on ABC News today saying something that is so the opposite of that, that reports of those meetings were faked and that Prigozhin is likely dead. What can you tell us?

Jen Kirby: Where in the world is Prigozhin? That is my question. Even ever since the Wagner uprising a few weeks ago, I just think there have been more questions and answers. I will say this, I would not want to be Prigozhin right now, that's for sure. Obviously, he hasn't been seen, I don't believe still, since the 24th. There are a lot of questions about his status. We know that Putin is not necessarily a forgiving person, so I wouldn't be surprised if Prigozhin, if he's still alive whether he's in Russia or Belarus, doesn't have long in this world.

I do think the reports about him being able to travel potentially freely are really, really interesting and I think raises a lot of questions about just how the uprising came about, where the support was in Russia for Prigozhin if there was any, and additionally, the relationship between Putin and Prigozhin. I think we will have more clarity as this comes out, but I think there are just still more questions than answers when it comes to both the leader of the Wagner Group and Prigozhin himself.

Brian Lehrer: Ian, last word, should we conclude that, yes, this mutiny happened? For all the reports that, "Oh, this weekend, it's Putin on the world stage," in 25 different ways, really maybe not, he survived it. He's very much in charge. It's the people who participated, who should fear for their lives and don't overestimate what happened there.

Ian Bremmer: Look, I agree with Jen, of course, that nobody wants to be Prigozhin. I'd be surprised if he's still around at the end of this year as a free man and even as alive. I think the big takeaway here is that NATO members and especially the United States who had been considering what Putin's red lines might be-- and you don't want to give the Ukrainians too many really advanced weaponry systems that could hit Russia because what might Putin do? Well, Putin was just challenged as never before in his 20-plus years of rule by Prigozhin on the way to Moscow.

When push came to shove, what did Putin do? He didn't act with incredible escalation. He was cold and calculated and rational and worked to cut a deal, at least for the near term, and ensure the survival of his regime. I think that that message, that lesson has been taken by NATO members. It's why you see the Biden administration deciding to allow these cluster munitions to go to Ukraine. It's why the French are giving more advanced missile systems. You'll see more of that going forward. That's an important message and ultimately a dangerous one for Putin, of course.

Brian Lehrer: Ian Bremmer, Jen Kirby, thank you both so much for this conversation. Really appreciate it.

Ian Bremmer: Good to be with you. Thanks, man.

Jen Kirby: Thank you.

 

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