Transcription
They are chanting [music] death to America. Uh, they want to destroy theou. They're very angry that they went down theou route. Um, they're not up for concessions. They're not begging for a deal. They're begging to get payback.
>> Hello, I'm Tom Switzer. Always great to have your company. Well, the past week has shattered whatever little faith remained in that memorandum of [music] understanding. The United States and Iran have once again exchanged strikes with the US [music] military saying that it hit 90 military targets, though tyran claimed many of those sites were civilian. The Iranian military, [music] meanwhile, says it's retaliated by striking at US bases across the Persian Gulf. So, what's now likely to happen? And has the renewed fighting vindicated [music] our guests thesis on the escalation trap? Of course, I'm talking about Robert Pap, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of the Substack, [music] The Escalation Trap. He's also studied the air war for years. Bob is also author of the forthcoming book, Our Own Worst Enemies: America and the Age of Violent Populism. Hi there, Bob.
>> Hi, Tom. Good to talk to you.
>> Likewise. Um, we'll also address the Russia Ukraine standoff uh later in the program. But first, your thoughts about this week's events.
>> Uh, what we are seeing is tragic but predictable. Tom, uh, what we're seeing is the model of the escalation trap playing itself out. Uh, I've studied the bombing of Iran for 20 years. Uh, I published on my escalation trap Substack several days before the first bombs fell on February 28 the stages of the escalation trap we would go through and in stage one uh that is where you have tactical success and bombs hit targets, bombs killed leaders, bomb destroyed missile sites. But what happened is we the Americans, Israelis became strategically weaker because in stage two this did not stop Iran from gaining power seizing control of Hormuz very predictable in advance that then set up the trap the escalation trap because and that's stage three and the trap is that at this point after stage two where Iran has gained power uh President Trump has a choice. There's a fork in the road. Either he acquiesces and allows Iran to become the rising regional hegeimon and literally over a period of a year a year or two Iran would become the fourth center of world power. Either he acquiesces to that um or he has to take Hormuz back and that means escalate. that means escalate uh with uh more bombs, but likely it's also going to mean ground operations, at least limited ground operations. Um, and the problem with limited ground operations is they can easily expand. Uh, and what you are seeing is for months, President Trump has tried to squeak out of the escalation trap. He's tried a ceasefire. He tried negotiations. Uh, he's tried a blockade. Uh he's tried many many different ways to squeak out of the escalation trap and it's just not happening. He can't get out of the trap. He's literally caught in the trap, this fork in the road. There's no third way out. There's no off ramp. And that's largely because uh Iran, which is now the rising power, is not giving him a face saving way out. So a lot of other world leaders they give u uh you know airplanes to President Trump. They give him presence. They try to stroke his ego.
>> Yes.
>> Iran just not in not in a position to do that. And they would um uh and what's happened with um all these events, the punishment the society is has endured, the leaders who have been killed, all that's done is stiffen Iran. It's nationalism really. And what that does is it just means that Iran is not gonna play the game of giving.
>> But just to teach you here though, Bob, don't the Iranians still have a powerful incentive in shutting this down? They are facing sky-high inflation. They're in desperate need of sanctions relief and all the other concessions um set out in the memorandum of understanding. So, don't the Iranians have a real interest in shutting this down, too?
Well, there's no doubt that Iran is facing enormous costs, but punishment, those costs don't on their own cause concessions the way most people think. My work, bombing to win, for 30 years, I've studied how uh under air attack, economic sanctions, economic blockade, costs are imposed on governments, on societies, and they don't break the society. they don't break the government. Uh, there's case after case of this, Tom. Um, and so what you have in what what happens instead is instead of it causing flight, it causes fights. And that's what you're seeing by the millions this week who poured onto the streets of Tehran, Quam, other cities in in uh in in Iran. These are over we we don't even really have a good number. We know it's over 10 million. We don't know if it's 20 million. The fire of nationalism. That's what you're saying. Nationalism.
>> And they're and they're chanting many of them.
>> They are chanting death to America. Uh, they want to destroy theou. They're very angry that they went down theou route. Um, they're not up for concessions. They're not begging for a deal. They're begging to get payback. And that's what happened when Britain bombed London in uh World War II. In the early part of World War II, Winston Churchill fired all of the top people in bomber command and replace them with Bomber Harris and a new set of generals who would then target the center of German cities. And their goal was to kill, this is in the in the actual documents, 900,000 German civilians and to do it with firebombing. They had to practice the firebombing. This was not collateral damage. This was payback for what the Germans did to London and Coventry and some other cities. And you see this over and over in history. So although many people think, oh my goodness gracious, how could society stand up to this this punishment? The truth is they they do, especially when they think they're winning. It's the winning or the losing that causes states to uh buckle, to change, to adopt uh the costs themselves, especially when they have a vital interest at stake. And see, for Iran, this is an existential issue. This is whether or not their leaders are going to be killed in the future, Tom. So this would be like if if Iran uh actually succeeds in killing President Trump and the first lady and members of the FA first family and the cabinet and Pete Higs, all the top uh p leaders in the Pentagon and the CIA and members of Congress, is America just going to say, "Oh my gosh, I guess we're just going to have to give up on this one."
>> I don't think so. this.
>> Yeah, John Mishan was on this program last week, Bob, and he made the point that the Iranian leadership will eat grass uh if they have to before they buckle to the Americans.
>> Yeah, that's exact. Yes, that's right. The nationalism fire [clears throat] but President Trump still has a powerful incentive in shutting this down. He understands the importance of reaching a political settlement because he recognizes that a wider war um uh could just trigger a global depression or global recession. And he has said and we talked about this with John Nishima and Doug Bandal from the Kato Institute last week. Trump doesn't want to be the second coming of Herbert Hoover. Now Herbert Hoover of course as you know is a president of the United States who triggered the glob his policies triggered the global depression. How would you respond to that argument Bob?
Uh, we're going off the cliff anyway, Tom. So the problem here is that President Trump said uh and we all remember this and this was when he signed theou that he's signing theou because we only had four weeks left. President Trump said before we go off the cliff of the oil inventories. We're still drawing down those inventory. We're still going over the cliff. Now we may have
>> remind you the price of oil hasn't skyrocketed like many people feared. I mean it's gone.
That's that's another story of what's happening on the oil. I'm talking about the reality of what's happening to the world, not what's happening in the market, which is not always the reality. But coming back to what what what has happened. So what's happened with theou is for the for the first um uh like week or so a bunch of oil spurred it out. So, we gained a few extra days maybe here, but only a few extra days because there's almost no ships going in to get more oil to take it back out. And certainly, it's been shut down now as a result of this week. And you're just seeing that the straits are not opening up. And this is not all coming to me. And that's what President Trump is saying. So, President Trump is seeing the world, it's still he's still going to get blame for what's going to come in August. Now, maybe it won't come on, you know, uh, July 21st like it was going to come the way he thought it would. Maybe it'll be August 7th, Tom. That's what we're talking about the difference here. So, what you are seeing is number one, um, President Trump is seeing that theou didn't work out the way he and then JD Vance said Trump told him to do theou to refill the oil inventories. They're not getting refilled. They're getting drawn down just like they were before. And on top of that, the problem that President Trump has is a second big issue, which is MAGA. I don't mean the Democrats. I don't mean the independents. I mean MAGA. Half of MAGA by the opinion polls here. Half of MAGA wants more aggressive action by Trump. 25% of MAGA doesn't. And 25% they're not so sure. Well, for Trump here, he's heading into the midterms. if he doesn't satisfy MAGA and right now the lion share of MAGA wants aggression and escalation they're not going to turn out because I think the the conventional wisdom in the media is that
>> the midterm elections um is a real incentive for Trump to shut this down because he doesn't want higher oil prices for Joe Sixpack forget the magabase just ordinary
>> I just think they're misunderstanding how this is they they're really excellent. The the people making those calls are excellent at picking um at at, you know, commenting on Senate races and presidential races.
>> We're in a war, Tom.
>> And the fact of the matter is that what President Trump um is facing is a giant L tattooed on his chest, a loss. Um, and uh what you are seeing is from the moment he signed theou there was about a day where he owned the loss on his chest about a day where instead of Superman it was a giant L tattooed on his chest from that moment on Tom he has been trying to undermine all the key parts of theou he's had Rubio his own secretary of state go out and undermine article one. This isn't like um a misunderstanding. Um, the whole point of article one was to uh get Israel to militarily contain Israel in Lebanon. And what does this framework agreement do that Rubio, that is President Trump's Secretary of State, literally started to negotiate just a few days after theou? It it basically guarantees Israel's going to stay in Lebanon as far as the eye can see. and and and Prime Minister Netanyahu talked about what about article 5 right from the almost from the get-go. So um uh article 5 is got there's no real misunderstanding about this language Tom. What's article 5 has language that make it pretty clear that it's going to be Iran or maybe Iran with Oman who are going to control the straight of Hormuz the ships set fees after 60 days. And what happened is President Trump and the um when the military tried to cut a southern corridor uh the southern avenue uh through the straight of four moves that would basically bypass article 5. Well, that of course breaks the spirit of article 5 and that's why Iran initiated the action. You see, most people, Tom, think that what happened here is since President Trump started the bombing, as long as President Trump will stop the bombing, Iran will just stop. That's not the case. And that's not what I've been predicting or describing. Iran is the one who initiated the action, military action, as President Trump was breaking theou. It was Iran initiating the action and Iran shutting down moves. Which is why theou has turned out to not be the way out of the Trump must recognize that the air strikes from February 28 to the ceasefire on April 7, they did not work. The naval blockade did not work. And no one's making a serious argument that the Americans should put boots on the ground. He must know that there is no way of forcing the Iranians to relinquish control of Austral and then ultimately he'll have to go back to the negotiating table.
Bob, I
>> I think President Trump is stuck in the escalation trap. Tom,
>> I'm not saying that if we escalate, we're going to get out of this uh here. And in fact, I would encourage us not to escalate. So, I'm not down. I'm I'm doing assessment. Yeah, I'm not there. There's there's two sides to Bob, Professor P. One is what is Bob's recommendation. The other is what's actually going to happen. And I'm focusing here on what's going to happen, not projecting my desires onto what's actually going to happen. And and I'm saying that's I do that separately and consciously. And I've been doing that for 35 years. When I taught for the Air Force, I had to do that. when I've advised different West Wings from 2001 to 2024, including the first Trump administration, this was on Afghanistan. Uh, I have to separate these two things. And so it's not that I don't advocate for something over here that I think should happen, but I've got to understand what where the dynamics are. And what is occurring here
>> is an escalation trap where if if it was if this was all true that that all these costs would just be enough to get these states, then what would have happened is we would have ended the war and all the conflict April 13th or April 8th when we actually had the first ceasefire. That didn't happen. And the reason it's not happening top is because um there are the war has changed the balance of power.
>> Um, before the war it was America who was uh ascendant. It was um Israel that was the rising power. Iran was a declining power. Now what you're seeing is the reverse of that balance of power. It is America's been knocked down several pegs. Israel's um not rising anymore. or it's kind of buckling with some containment issues. And what you see is Iran is the new rising power. And over the course of the next year or two, if it keeps war moves and there's no limits on its nuclear program, there's nothing in theou to limit its nuclear program, it will likely be a regional hegeimon in a year or two, an actual dominant state. And that's what they're arguing about. They're not really fighting about the phrases in articles one or five or 11 of theou. What's going on is you can't end this war until the three major combatants. That's the United States, Israel, and Iran agree on the new balance of power. And they don't agree. And that is theou did not make them agree. Um, and so what you're seeing is theou was a sideshow. it really didn't stop much and the se and the talks have been a sideshow. They're not really mattering. They don't correlate with what's actually going on physically um on uh in the on in the Gulf or in the different parts of the battle areas. So, what you're really seeing though is the escalation trap model come and it just keeps coming. And even though there's the the moments of peace and you might say, "Oh, let's talk about why the trap didn't work." I didn't do that. I kept saying no, this was unlikely to hold all the way through, Tom. And I post every week on the escalation trap. And now I've actually got two substacks. I have the Professor Pape one because people want to know what matters to the rest of the world.
>> Just clarify here because we want to be very clear for all our viewers so that we're on the same page here. Um, regardless of whether the US escalates, and you obviously say it will, the reality here, Bob, is that Iran has the leverage. What's happening here is that before the war, Iran did not control the straight of Hormuz. And now it controls a straight of Hormuz. And Iran is not just surviving. It's moving from survival to ambition. That's your line.
>> That's my line.
>> But at what point though? At what point does Washington just accept it can't reverse Iran's coercive leverage over the straightforward news?
>> Yeah, I think it's going to be Jan. I think it'll be into the new year, Tom.
>> Really? How long?
>> Yeah, January, February. I I've I've said this times. I mean, this is not I'm not breaking new. I know you like to break news, Tom, but still explaining this in my collection. Yeah,
>> I've been explaining this for quite some time. You see, because what's going to happen here, first of all, I want to say one thing about what what is I think Trump is really trying to get in the next few weeks or the next few months, which is a symbolic victory. I think that's what he's looking for. some sort of a symbolic victory that he can say and wave is um uh maybe not a full end to the war, but something symbolic even if it only lasts a short period of time. Now, but when how will the war really um uh when could it actually start to uh come to an end? Well, it's when the domestic pressures on Trump and MAGA get uh uh get replaced by the postTrump era. So, what's going to happen, Tom, and this would happen with the war or not, is once we get into January 2027, what's everybody going to be talking about? They'll talk a little bit about it in the midterms and a little bit about in December, but what they're going to talk about for uh and ramp it up is who's going to be the president in 2028. And there's just I I think no chance Trump's going to be the president. There's this thing called the Constitution that is in the way. So, I believe that that will be a point where you're going to see that these issues I'm describing in the escalation trap start to really weaken in a serious way because President Trump's presidency will he will be a lame duck. It will not be uh it will just be real. And under those conditions, then also Iran will have to start thinking about the future beyond uh Trump. Uh, this will be true for the Europeans, the Gulf States. This will be true for basically everybody. And that will create, it won't necessarily mean an instant end to things, Tom. It won't quite I don't think it'll work that way, but it'll be the first real opportunity to get out of the escalation trap for real. Everything else has been hoping to win. Everything else has been, "Oh, sure. This is all costly." Well, if costs of war were enough to end wars, you never would have had World War I. You never would have had World War II. You wouldn't have had the American Civil War. You wouldn't have had Bosnia. You wouldn't have 20 years of forever war. Why couldn't Why couldn't those presidents end those forever wars? Because they were going to take a giant hit in their domestic political position. Joe Biden never recovered from taking that hit. Um, and so what you're seeing here is there are sometimes a president will take that hit. Uh, and so I can't say it never happens, but it rarely happens. And, and that's what I'm doing with my assessment. I am pointing out not that everything I'm saying is uh, 100% likely to occur. I say it's 70%, maybe 80%. It's not 100%. And why? because sometimes people do things that are off the off the track of the models and that is what I would say here and I don't see Trump he's tried to get off the track he tried to own the L on his chest and it didn't really help him and and the world's economy the oil is not really getting better
>> um and we're about to have um hit these these real lows in the oil inventories and Iran is just not giving him a face saving way out. They're not giving him an airplane. They're giving him they're threatening him. Yeah. They're not They're not They're not trying to buy.
>> To the extent that you're right, this story clearly does not have a happy ending. And talking about stories that don't have happy endings, let's turn to Ukraine, Bob. They're taking the fight to Russia over the last few weeks. And so far, President Putin's response has been to keep attacking, including with deadly ballistic missile and drone strikes in Kev. How do you see the standoff with Russia going?
>> Yeah, I just did a big post this morning, Tom, and I'm I'm sorry if I keep report because I want people to know I'm putting this in print. Okay, so I'm not
>> Yes. Uh escalation trap. I call it Putin's escalation trap. So, it's the first time I've done it, and it's because people on the Substack, which has exploded. They've all been writing to me asking me about these different conflicts. Okay. Um, and so it's Putin's escalation trap. It's on the Professor Pap uh Substack. It deals with other parts of the world, not not the Persian Gulf. And so, um, and tomorrow I'm going to have a live briefing on this uh uh on my Professor Pap Substack where people can ask questions. But the bottom but the bottom line is Putin is stuck in an escalation trap as well. And he's been stuck in an escalation trap uh for four years, for four solid years. And I lay out with maps. I show the change in the battlefield. And what happened here, Tom, is Putin had his own stage one. Um, and his stage one was when he um and this was on fe the night of February 23 242 when he tried a um a multi-prong attack that would include taking Kee in about 6 days and you'll recall that a lot of Western intelligence agencies were saying it's going to work and in fact they were offering Zalinski a ride and that's when he famously said I want ammo not a ride and what happened here is that um there was some initial tactical success but very quickly the Ukrainians lashed back and they have a lot of Ukraine had a lot of capability. This was not a weakling uh you know sort of teenytiny country. Um, they had 300 nearly 300,000 uh uh uh troops and we had been stiffening them for almost um eight years since Russia took Crimea. So there's a lot of wherewithal within Ukraine that I think was just being dismissed too quickly. And so uh what happened is within just a few months Putin had to fall way back way back. And by August 20122 um he controlled about 18% of Ukraine's territory. That's that area around the dumbbells. Literally 18%.
>> And how much does he control today?
that is July, early July, July 1, 2026. So in four years, okay? Um, how much has he gained from that 18%. 1%. He's at n Russia's at 19% Tom. So this is not a case where um and and and Putin has lost uh in terms of casualties. Uh, we don't know how many, but it appears to be by everybody's estimates, even the low ones, about um uh nearly a million casualties, that includes killed and wounded. And there appear to be by everybody's estimates, including the the low ones, somewhere around 350,000 dead Russians for that 1%. Okay? Now, you have to remember Putin only went in on um February 2022 with 190 160,000 uh troops. This is double the number of troops dead for 1%. For 1%. What's happened more recently in the last um year or so, especially year and a half, is Ukraine has gotten the power of drones. And it's not a handful of drones, it's mass cheap drones. And it was actually Ukraine who really developed what I call the second precision revolution in this uh growth of mass drones. And it was not really with the help of the Biden administration or the EU. There were donors, Tom, in the city of Chicago, and I can name them who are rich billionaires who have connections to Ukraine who were telling me in 2023 they're going to start up drone factories in Western Ukraine and they funded it themselves. So, literally funded it. This was this was like literally um donorfunded in the in the beginning here uh because a lot of people didn't have much faith in these uh in these cheap drones. Well, what you were seeing is with that drone um uh revolution and it's a mass drone revolution which now um there's millions of drones that are being produced uh uh most of it inside of Ukraine itself. Um, what that has done is it has stymied the Russian breakthrough it's called. So in order to win this territory Russia needs to not just have three times the amount of force and it's not just aggregate power. They have to literally break through the front lines. And the problem is the drones are stopping.
>> Notwithstanding all your but not withstanding all your points about the impressive drone strikes. I get that. What about the fact that Russia has huge advantages over Ukraine? I'm thinking of the balance of manpower and its more impressive industrial base. This is what your colleague at the University of Chicago, a regular guest on Switzerland, this is John Narma just last week. There's no question that the Russians are launching a very careful set of offensives all across the front lines. And the reason is that they understand that if they use meat grinder tactics, if they use frontal assaults, huge numbers of Russians will die. And that's not the optimum way to conduct this war of attrition. So they use small units and they capture territory at a rather slow pace. uh and it's in good part because of the tactics they use and they use those particular tactics because of all the drones that are up in the sky. There's no question that drones which were not uh a very important weapon in the initial years of the war have turned out to be very important and that has slowed down the Russian offensives. There's no question about that. But the Russians are conquering territory. They are moving forward. The idea that the Russians are losing territory to the Ukrainians and the Ukrainians are on the offensive is simply not true. It's the Russians who are on the offensive, albeit a slow offensive. Furthermore, if you look the balance of manpower on the front lines, I would estimate that the Russians have two plus uh a two plus to one advantage in manpower. Uh, and furthermore, if you look at the state of the Ukrainian army, they have a huge problem with soldiers being awall, not being present for duty. The estimates are that there are about 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers who are AWOL. Furthermore, they have a huge draft dodging problem. The Russians don't have a draft dodging problem because they have a volunteer military. Furthermore, if you look at the number of troops that the Russian, excuse me, that the Ukrainians have to populate the front lines, uh they don't have enough troops to cover the front line. Uh, and therefore, there are places where the Russians can penetrate because there are no Ukrainian forces there to stop them. What saves the day to some extent for the Ukrainians are the drones for sure, but there are limits to what the drones can do. Furthermore, if you look at the weaponry that's available to the Ukrainian army, the United States is not supplying weaponry like it once was. There's a check-led alliance of European states that was committed to providing weaponry uh to the Ukrainians and a good number of European states have pulled out of that alliance. They're not interested in providing or they're not capable of providing the weaponry anymore. The Russians have this truly impressive industrial base. They're pumping out weaponry like nobody's business. Nobody could test that. So when you look at the balance of manpower on the front lines and you look at the state of the soldiers who were fighting, uh the Russians look like they're in much better shape. Now, that was John Mshimer uh from the University of Chicago making the case last week that if you look at what's happening on the battlefield, the idea that the Ukrainians are on the march and the Russians are on the back foot is simply not true. Bob, your response?
>> Well, so first of all, I respect John tremendously and I have for a long time. So, it's important for your audience to know that I'm either John's first or second PhD student ever. Um, and it depends on whether you count. Um, um, so, um, in December two, 1988, I got my PhD. Uh, Mike Dash also got his PhD. He's also John's, uh,
>> he's now at the University of Texas&M. Is that right?
>> Um, well, he's at Notre Dame. Um,
>> yeah, he's at Notre Dame. He's a big mucky muck meeting up to Dean. He may end up being Provo. I mean, he's he's very very uh important person. But anyway, so um and the reason I say I'm either one or two is it depends on how you count because Dash comes before Pape. So when they called us up, Mike literally went through before I did. So maybe I'm technically John second.
>> But your response to John Mama's thesis on Ukraine. Go on.
>> So So and I agree with a lot of what John has say about the origins of this war and how the origins of the war um occurred. But what I think in terms of I I have been studying this war very very carefully. I give long lectures on this in my strategy class on lots of maps. And let me just go back and say a couple of things. Number one, uh, in four years, um, Russia has only gained 1% of territory. And that's when you add all four years up. If you just look in the last month or so, I believe and this is the maps from the Institute for the Study of War. I believe um the actual balance is Russia is down 400 square kilometers since June 1. Um, but that's that's just in the very near term. So number one here they've gained I would just say 1%. What is you what is the actual goal of Putin? We know that because he gave a big speech on June 14th, 2024 uh to his foreign ministry where he laid out his goals and he wants the uh not just the first four Oblasts that is the Donbas etc. He wants the next four. In other words, that would be 40% of Ukraine territory. So he is 21% of Ukraine territory away from his goals. And this is um a dis and and John is quite right about the manpower advantage. There are about 140 145 million Russians. There's about 35 million Ukrainians. A little hard to get these numbers absolutely right. So there's about a 3 to one advantage in terms of raw manpower here uh that uh that Putin has. Uh, but that said, that's been going on for four solid years, Tom. And in the meantime, what's what's changed here and that's helping Ukraine is not some trivial knitnat pin prick attacks with drones, but but 5 million drones came on the battlefield according I think it's four to five last year. That's a lot of drones. This is a this is a a massive amount. And those drones are have been able to styy these uh these breakthroughs that Russia has been trying. Now, Russia may still keep trying, but just in the last month, let me add a third point here, is Crimea. So, you'll recall in 2014, Russia took Crimea was a fat compli uh land grab. Um, well, what's been happening in the last month is that the drones that Ukraine is using is not just using them against the front lines, they're using them against the Russian supply routes um behind the lines going all the way back deep even to the Eurals. And what they're hitting is P. They're hitting refineries. They're hitting oil. The Ukrainians are not hitting mass civilian attacks the way the Russians are. They are focusing on denying the front lines the wherewithal, the oil, the gas. Uh, and what you see literally in the last week is the Russians have tried to take tankers by water, 35 tankers by water of oil and supply that into um Crimea because Crimea's lost its electricity, it's lost its oil. Um, and what what you're getting is Russia those drones are hitting those tankers and and what you're seeing is a m is an exodus large exodus of of Russians out of Ukraine. Now, this doesn't mean that um Ukraine has taken Crimea. I want to be very very clear.
>> Just going to be clarify here. The Crimea is the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Correct.
>> Exactly. Exactly. So, I'm not I'm not saying that that uh Ukraine is is taking Ukraine or taking Crimea or they're only a week away from taking Crimea. No, no, no. I'm not I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that this battlefield has been um a stallmate has been stalled for four years. That's the bottom line here. And it is not um there's no evident obvious reason to think that's about to change in the next few weeks. Now, let me make another point. If this was about to change, if Putin was on the verge of the giant breakthrough that's about to happen, why is he blasting uh Ke? Why is he threatening Poland? Why is he why is he expanding the war? I think that Putin is stuck in an escalation trend and I think that what's happening is he hasn't he hasn't lost but Ukraine has been winning and I think that it's been winning in the sense that it has been gaining strength and that is what Putin is seized in front of him and what I think is this NATO summit has made this worse because what the NATO summit did is tell Ukraine that wait till 2027 seven, you won't get a lot of goodies now. There's no Patriot interceptors to give you now or not.
>> And by the way, they they really felt the impact of those Russian missiles in Kev. They didn't have the interceptors, right?
>> Well, that's right. But notice it's not causing uh the the Keev to buckle. That punishment's not doing that. And so what you were what you were going to what Putin has in front of him, Tom, is a real window problem right now. He's in an escalation trap. if he uh if he surrenders here uh he he's probably going to have a lot of domestic legitimacy problems. But the the pro the big the next thing that summit what that's done is it's telling Putin that your problems in Ukraine are going to get worse come 2027. There's going to be money coming in. There's going to be interceptors coming on Ukraine. But he would but but the argument though would be that Ukraine also has a lot of weaknesses and limitations too. Back to John Mishima's point even the Ukrainians admit they have a problem with desertion. They have a huge problem with draft dodging. I mean are you overlooking Ukraine's weaknesses here?
>> I I credit all of that Tom. I'm not overlooking it. I'm looking beyond the aggregate balance of power. I'm looking at the tactical balance of power. So there's basically two you can we talk about the balance of power top the numbers here in terms of manpower that's the aggregate balance of power and there is no doubt that again Russia has had the advantage and the aggregate balance of power forever with Ukraine it's it's not just the last four years but what's happened is the tactical balance of power has been strengthening to Ukraine's advantage age. And so far there's just no uh visible sign that this is about that Ukraine is about to crack on the battlefield. Uh, we've been waiting for the Ukrainian army to crack for four years, Tom. And it hasn't cracked. And the problem here is that in that four-year period, something else has happened. Ukraine has gotten more technology and that technology has been extremely important on the tactical forward edge and now Ukraine is extending it into the supply line pipeline uh to the rear areas. And I've been noticing they're not bombing, they're not killing civilians, the Ukrainians are not the way the Russians are killing civilians. They've really been very focused on trying to cut resources, especially the refineries uh here that generate um the a lot of the logistical P the actual uh stuff that they need at the front and they haven't cut it off alltogether. That's not true. But they've but they're weakening that. And I think that's really what Putin is reacting to. He's reacting to the fact that his supply lines are getting hit in ways he hasn't had them hit before. and he doesn't have a lot of options except to lash out in the way that he has and I expect more lashing out in the fall. I I don't think
>> lashing out.
>> Okay, Bob, let's conclude by putting this to you. This is I mean the strategic reality though is that Russia I think you mentioned a number of 18% roughly 20% of that Dombas that the Russians currently control. It's hard to see them losing that territory or even losing Crimea. And the political reality, as Putin's made very clear, Ukraine, they will, the Russians will never tolerate a western bullwark on its borders, as John Mishima puts it. They won't tolerate Ukraine being part of NATO. So, at what point does Washington and Brussels recognize they need to shut this war down because if they keep aiding and abetting Ukraine, more Ukrainians will get killed, money will be wasted, and they can't want win back that territory that Russia currently has.
Oh, well this this war for four years has looked a lot like Korea, Tom, where the front lines were barely moving. And how Korea ended was not in a formal peace agreement, but what was called an armistice, which basically froze the conflict on the line of contact. And I think that uh America would definitely be down for that. I think the Europeans would probably be down for that. Uh, they'll probably be up for um, you know uh these pledges that you won't have NATO dot dot dot. But the real issue here is um the balance of power in wars, Tom, just like we talking about the Iran war. The balance of power is shifting and it shifts. It's fluid. And it's not true that it's been in um um Russia's advantage and it's not moving. No, it's moving. It is fluid. Even by what John says, he's crediting the power of the drones. He doesn't think it's as fluid as I do, but nonetheless, these are experts disagreeing on the margins. And what I think is that the actual way this could end is if Putin and um Zalinsky could agree to an armistice on the line of contact for say 10 years, some period of time and then also no um uh, you know, no membership in NATO. So you change the constitution of Ukraine uh and dot dot dot. And I think that this would be uh something that uh the rest of the world I think would actually find it would be a new iron curtain essentially in the middle of Eastern Europe.
>> The problem here is the two sides Putin and Zalinski,
>> they don't agree on what the balance of power is. And as I said in the Iran war case, until the major combatants literally agree on the balance of power, the costs alone are not enough. They've got to agree on that balance of power. And um, it's it's possible that we could maybe see an effort to uh, you know, sort of u have a deal so to speak that would be an armistice on the line of contact.
>> But I just think that what I'm what I'm seeing here is that uh both Russia and Ukraine are just unhappy with that line of contact. Ukraine wants all those forces out, all that 19%. Russia wants the next 20%. And I think that's really what their their the reason this war just won't come to an end.
>> To be continued. Bob, the subsack is called the escalation trap. You can find that easily via Subsac. Bob, it's always great to see you and thanks so much for responding to the Misha critique because here on Switzerland, we like to hear the two different school all the different schools of thought and test their thesis. So the best disagreements have always been between realists. Okay. So I'm not coming at you as a liberal. I'm not saying my god
>> you're a card carrying realist.
>> Always always the most interesting discussions and and what I have found in 40 years here since I was a graduate student. I guess that's why I became a realist is because that's where the interesting stuff is and they actually agree on so many things that then you get the microscope out on exactly where's that little disagreement. Let's just blow that up or something. Um, but the truth is the realists do agree on quite a bit and um, uh, and I think that it's really why it makes it for a great discussion. So, thank you so much, Tom, for doing it.
>> Always a pleasure, Bob, thanks [music] so much.
>> Absolutely.