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c-span.org,/ukraine, are web resource page where you can watch the latest videos on demand and follow tweets from journalists on the ground. go to c-span.org/ukraine. >> our first class is george. he was a former cia russia analyst chief, the author of a book, the shadow war with russia, the spiral and nuclear catastrophe. welcome to the program. host: when you see the events of the last several weeks, how would you characterize those. would you call it the right approach? guest: i think what we are trying to do is strike a balance here. on the one hand, russian invasion needs to be repelled. it needs to be countered. we cannot have a situation in which another country is

invading a neighbor. and attempting to take territory or take control of that government and impose its will, so the united states have a clear interest to making sure that the russian invasion does not succeed. that the russians do not achieve total victory. on the other hand, i think we recognize what -- quite wisely that there is a risk they could end up in a military conflict. that is a conflict between the two largest nuclear powers. the prospects for escalation into a nuclear war are not insignificant until we are trying to strike a balance between providing ukraine the wherewithal it needs to fight back against the russians, punishing the russians through economic sanctions so that we are sending a message that this type of behavior is not acceptable, while the same time

avoiding an escalation into a , direct conflict. host: what is the potential of the escalation occurring when it comes to nuclear weapons? guest: probably less than 10% just to pick a number, but that is uncomfortably high nonetheless when you consider the potential consequences of a nuclear war. one of the people that i worked for 20 years ago, vice president dick cheney said that the prospect of terrorists groups getting their hands on a nuclear weapon, even if it were only 1% was unacceptably high for the security of the united states. if we are talking about a situation with russia where we bite -- where we might wind up in a nuclear war and that number even if it is at 10% that is a very daunting number for us to be facing. i think we need to take this seriously. host: we have had guests saying

the nuclear option would not be an option because of the fallout issues. do you see that as a plausible reasoning? guest: i am not quite sure i understand? host: nuclear fallout in the country and how it could affect russia overall which would limit vladimir putin's use of nuclear weapons, is that valid? guest: that he would not initiate because it would have implications for russia? i think that to some degree is correct. and that is what you might call the rational actor model of understanding this. that rationality will prevail and that russia would be injured by the sort of thing therefore it will not engage in that behavior. unfortunately in international relations rationality does not always prevail. there are situations where people make mistakes, they do things that do not make rational

sense, largely for emotional or political reasons. the real danger of escalation would come from a situation where the russians felt they were cornered, that they faced a choice between their continued existence, and resorting to nuclear weapons use in some way. this is a great lesson that john f. kennedy noted after the cuban missile crisis in 1962, that the leaders of nuclear superpowers should not put each other or themselves in a position where they face a choice between humiliation and launching nuclear war. so, although rationality would argue that putin would not do this, there are situations where either the united states or russia could feel as if it faced that kind of choice, and that is not the kind of decision that you want to be sending up the chain of command. host: situation such as what? guest: either we use nuclear

weapons or we face extreme danger for our countries for some sort of utter humiliation. host: our guest is with us until 8:45. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. independents, 202-748-8002 and you can text us at 202-748-8003. as far as russia allowing for new offensives in the east, donbass being an area of target, how does that change over what we have seen when it comes to the conflict between ukraine and russia? guest: i think the first phase did not go well. they faced serious military resistance, more than they anticipated. they had taken a pause, and they have tried to learn lessons from phase one, they are regrouping and concentrating their forces on the line of contact in the

east, hoping to box in ukrainian forces and the bulk of the armies along that contact in the east. we will see whether the russians prove more successful in phase two than phase one. i expect this to be a lot more destructive, a lot bloodier. the russians have already stepped up their missile and rocket attacks and it is having quite destructive effects. i think this is going to get more intense with a lot more bombs, artillery, rockets, and a lot more civilian casualties as a result. host: we have seen the ukrainian president ask for a variety of weapons from nato and the united states, no-fly zones and the like. is that enough in your mind? guest: i think a no-fly zone

would be a great mistake on our part. there is no way you can impose a no-fly zone over ukraine without directly engaging the russian military. and you know, the notion that some people have that a no-fly zone is a gentlemen's agreement that there will be parts of ukrainian airspace where no one will fly is not how this works. we will have to engage russian aircraft and strike again run -- strike against russian surface-to-air missile units in ukraine, belarus and russian territory in order to secure the no-fly zones which means war with russia which is a grave step and president biden is wisely ruling that out. are we providing enough military supplies to the ukrainians? well, you are getting into that question of balance, and i think the biden administration quite wisely is providing ukrainians

with enough wherewithal to defend themselves without crossing an invisible line and it is not clear where the line is drawn into so much support that it draws russian retaliation. the russians have already warned publicly and privately that they consider those weapon supplies legitimate military prior -- military targets. they have also struck this kind of supply in the past, back in 2014. there was a large explosion at an ammunition and weapons depot in the czech republic which the czech republic years later attributed to russian intelligence operatives who were actually blowing the supply up. those were supplies that were going to ukraine back in 2014 when this war first erupted. the russian has done -- the russians have done it before and they've warned that they will do it again and we need to take

that seriously. that is the balance we are trying to strike. host: you wrote a recent piece for responsible statecraft. you talked about what the u.s. could do to protect the citizens of ukraine. how would you characterize that? guest: the citizens of ukraine are bearing the brunt of the violence. the longer the war goes on the more that they will suffer, the more humanitarian atrocities you are going to see, that is what happens in war. the more disruption of physical infrastructure, the more you are going to get refugee flows leaving ukraine, the more difficult it will be to rebuild all of this. now when you think about what can be done to prevent all of that, by far the most effective thing to do would be to try and

ring the war to an early end. and, it will not come to an early end if our intention is to defeat russia altogether. if we are thinking that we can drive russian forces out of the donbas and have them returned with their tails between their legs to russia, we have crimea, for example. we are in for years of conflict, and that ukrainians themselves will suffer the most. and if we think that the russians are going to achieve some sort of outright victory over ukraine, again i think that we have already seen so far that that is beyond their military capabilities. so, and outright ukrainian victory or an outright russian victory are very unlikely. so, your alternatives are escalation, which would be extremely dangerous, or some kind of settlement and the

settlement will have to be something that is acceptable to all parties in all of this including very -- the ukrainians. that is the kind of thing that we will be thinking about. how will we use coercive powers on the russians to incentivize an agreement in this war. host: we will talk about that in a bit now i want to play john kirby talking about the status of what is to -- of what is going on with the capabilities of russia. i want to play a little bit of what he had to say. [video clip] >> they have suffered losses, casualties and lost platforms and systems where there are aircraft, tanks, and armored personnel carriers. you've seen destroyed russian platforms on the road but they have quite a bit of capability left. they are concentrating that smaller geographic area, in the donbas and the south.

they are trying, as i answered earlier, to overcome logistics and sustain their interior line of communication problems. they will not have as far to go in the donbas to reinforce, resupply, refuel their forces because they have a long border with that part of ukraine. and they are certainly adding combat capability in that part of ukraine. it is a smaller, again piece of ground than what they have been trying to operate in over the last three to four weeks, three major line of access and they still a lot of combat power to use. it is also, as i said earlier, terrain they have been comfortable with. they have been fighting over the donbas area for eight years. their commanders and troops, there is a familiarity with

cities, towns, and terrain that they did not necessarily have they are trying to, kyiv from the north and then up from crimea into the south. we would expect that they are going to try again through their own familiarity with the terrain and the mistakes they made, they will try to overcome that. host: your response. guest: the thrust of what he is saying is correct. the russians are concentrating their forces right now on the east. that concentration will help, certainly. they have shorter logistical lines. that will also help their military fortunes as well. once the operation in mariupol is over, presumably successfully for the russians they will be able to bring forces from the

south up to the north, that will also help. all of that said, there is a variable in all of this that we do not know. and that is essentially the effectiveness of the soldiers themselves, the fighters on the ground. there will to fight, the decisions that they make in the course of battle. so far, russian forces have not performed particularly well in those areas. the ukrainians to -- appear to have clear superiority in their will to fight in their effectiveness as individual fighters. we will see whether that changes in this next phase, it is a big question. host: the first caller is carl from massachusetts on the independent line. you are on with george beebe, go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. i asked this question some months ago of sebastian orca --

sebastian gorka, he kind of implied i was a conspiracy nuts. i have a two part question. do you believe that putin would've gone into crimea if the united states had not deposed the ruler and installed their own. the second part is the people in eastern ukraine have a plebiscite to have more autonomy from russia, and ukraine? that is my question, sir. guest: i think those are good questions. and what you are getting at is the link between this russian invasion and the broader question of nato's enlargement since the end of the cold war in the early 1990's up until the present day.

and the russians clearly have indicated that they oppose that enlargement, in general. particularly to ukraine. which has all sorts of geographic, economic, cultural, and political significance for russia. they have been warning about this problem not just since the end of the soviet union, but in the latter days of the cold war. mikhail gorbachev as the kremlin leader under the soviet union was concerned about the possibility that the breakup of the soviet union could lead to the separation of ukraine and russia, and he regarded that as fraught with all sorts of political and insecurity -- and security problems and he also warned against this. and putin has vented his anger

over this many times over the last 15 to 20 years. so, would this have happened with crimea, what it have been annexed by the russians had the elected ukrainian president not been removed from power? i think probably not. i would not call that situation one where the united states deposed yana covid -- oppose -- deposed him, i think it was more complex than that. i think we would not be in a situation we were in today had the united states and europe approached the ukraine problem in a different way. we unfortunately have approached this like it is a tug-of-war geopolitically. between the west and russia over

ukraine's fate, arguing that ukraine should be part of the west. and not part of the east. given the realities of the situation. the internal composition of ukraine which is an amalgamation of more european oriented parts of the western regions and more russian oriented eastern parts, there is no way that we could pull ukraine into the western orbit exclusively without provoking quite a violent reaction from russia and inside ukraine itself. the reverse has also been true. there is no way that russia could pull ukraine into its exclusive orbit without provoking a violent reaction in the western portions of ukraine

and strong opposition from europe and the united states as well. to me, the obvious way to have approached this would have been to make ukraine neither a part of the west nor the east, this is a concept that henry kissinger raised almost a decade ago. ukraine is a bridge that brought together post--- both east and west that allowed russophones and non-russian speaking parts of ukraine to coexist peacefully. unfortunately we approach this as a tug-of-war, and what has happened is that ukraine itself has been plunged into war and ukrainian citizens have been quite adversely affected from all of this. i do not think we can put the genie back in the bottle, we have to deal with the situation as it is. i think that will mean trying to

find some sort of compromise settlement, as painful as that will be politically. host: gary, ohio. republican. good morning. caller: good morning, hello. my question is this war's well-publicized all over the world, with social media, how are we going to treat russia after it is all over, are we still going to have sanctions? how are the russian people going to feel about all of this? thank you for taking my call. guest: that is a very good question and a very hard one to answer. part of this will depend on what happens on the battlefield and how that fighting ends, if it does. if we are able to find a mutually acceptable compromise that we all do not like, but we can all live with, then the

question of how we deal with russia will be an important one. i do not think we can try the compromise unless it is accompanied in some way by some easing of the economic sanctions that the united states and europe have opposed -- imposed. the russians will not agree to a compromise on the battlefield with ukraine while still believing that the united states and europe intends to strangle the russian economy into submission, and so isolate the russians that they cannot be normal players in some way in international relations. however, if we attempt to approach this by saying the russians are going to be in the penalty box essentially until they have regime change inside russia, until putin leaves power in some way or another and we get a more amenable, we hope,

russian government in power, i think we will be in for many years of very dangerous confrontation between the west and russia and the world situation in which the russians and the chinese are increasingly allied with one another in ways that will be very detrimental to american interests and very difficult for us to deal with. we have to think pretty hard about how this ends and what kind of after war situation the world will be most advantageous. host: reporting on the effect of the sanctions given that there are estimates that the russian economy has been affected 10 to 15%. what are the long-lasting impact of sanctions and it is enough to stop or alter what the russians

are doing? guest: the second part is easier to answer than the first. the russians i think have already shown that these the paint -- the sanctions are not affecting their decisions on the battlefield in ukraine. the reason why is a fairly simple one. the russians do not believe that this operation in ukraine is an elective. that it is optional. that it is nice today. they regard this as a must do, a matter of russia's survival. you can dispute the validity of that perception but i do not think that there is any question that is how they are seeing this. they feel like they have no choice but to fight. the alternative is the breakup of russia, the end of russia as an integral country and the end

of russia as any kind of significant player in the world. that is not a situation they are willing to contemplate. they are going to fight, i think , regardless of how much economic deprivation they face. they have a history of enduring a great deal of economic deprivation. i do not think we are to hold out much hope that economic sanctions by themselves can cause the russians to say this is just too painful for us. we are going to leave. exactly what kind of impact this is going to have on the russian economy is fairly hard to predict right now. i think the russians will have to be much more aggressive in their economy. the soviet economy was not integrated into the world at all. it was largely insulated from

much of the world economy. it is since that time it has integrated twice -- quite considerably. it will not reverse altogether. i think it will be much less integration with europe and the west. they are going to be oriented in their economy -- >> up next, frank kendall on his budget and efforts to deter future threats. live coverage on c-span. [indiscernible] >> good afternoon and welcome to the national press club. i am the 115th president of the club and a reporter for defens