Month: February 2022

Colonel Vindman on Ukraine’s Military Situation and the Prospects For Diplomacy

We begin with the possibility of peace talks between Ukraine’s President Zelensky and the Russians on the Belarus border which could indicate that the war is not going well for Putin although he has only deployed half of his military forces into Ukraine. Joining us for an assessment of the military situation and the prospects for diplomacy is Colonel Alexander Vindman who was most recently the director for European Affairs on the White House’s National Security Council. Prior to retiring from the U.S. Army, he served as a foreign area officer with assignments in U.S. Embassies in Kyiv, Ukraine and Moscow, Russia and for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a Political-Military Affairs Officer. He is the author of the new book Here, Right Matters: An American Story and we will discuss his article at The Atlantic, “America Could Have Done So Much More to Protect Ukraine: The paths to deterrence were not taken” and what can be done to help Ukraine in its fight for democracy against criminality and dictatorship.

Russia Goes to Full Nuclear Alert as Putin’s Invasion Suffers Setbacks

Then we look into how the fact that Russia has gone to full nuclear alert makes it clear as Biden has reiterated, that the U.S. does not want to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, but at the same time the U.S. does not want Russia to go unpunished. Joining us is Keith Darden, a Professor in the School of International Service at American University where his research focuses on nationalism, state-building, and the politics of Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. His forthcoming book is Resisting Occupation in Eurasia.  

Could the Czar in the Kremlin’s Brutal Miscalculation be the Beginning of the End For Putin?

Then finally we speak with Charles Kupchan, who was director for European Affairs on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. He is now a professor of International Affairs in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and spent the last 3 years of the Obama administration as Special Assistant to President Obama for National Security. A Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations he is the author of Power in Transition: The Peaceful Change of International Order, and How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace, and his latest, Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself from the World. He joins us to discuss what he is hearing from colleagues in Russia and how the Czar in the Kremlin’s brutal miscalculation could be the beginning of the end for Putin.