200 years, and I don't see any reason to change that.
I understand what happened last session, but I think people are very, very hesitant to use that again, as it should be.
But it's been in place for 200 years, and if someone has a proposal to change it, put it on the table.
I'm happy to take a look at what they propose.
And finally, Congressman, your top priorities for the first 100 days of the new Congress.
Oh, it's to get America back on track.
I helped write H.R. 2.
Let's pass H.R. 2 once again, the Secure the Border Bill.
Let's get that done and have a Senate that'll pass it this time.
Let's get back to energy independence.
We cannot be prosperous as a country without having low energy prices.
That's going to be one of my primary focuses, sitting on the Natural Resources Committee.
We do that, and we're going to get America back on track real fast.
All right.
Representative Tom Tiffany, Republican of Wisconsin member of the Judiciary Committee and Freedom Caucus member.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Good to join you today, Mimi.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
We're joined now by George Beebe.
He's Director of Grant Strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, formerly CIA Russia Analysis Chief, and also formerly Special Advisor to Vice President Cheney on Russia.
George Beebe, welcome to the program.
Thank you very much.
So President Biden is meeting with President-elect Trump at the White House.
President Biden is expected to urge Mr. Trump to continue supporting Ukraine.
Why or why not?
Should he follow that advice?
Well, I think it's quite clear at this point that if the United States were to withdraw its support for Ukraine, that Ukraine would simply collapse.
And we would not be in a situation where we could have a negotiated compromise end to the war in Ukraine.
It would simply be a matter of Ukrainian capitulation.
Russia would then dictate the terms of a settlement.
That wouldn't be good for Ukraine, clearly, but it wouldn't be good for European security or for American interests at all.
So in approaching this challenge to forge an acceptable compromise, one that's durable, one that protects American, Ukrainian, European interests, and is acceptable to Russia, we have to have leverage in that kind of negotiation.
And that means we have to continue supporting Ukraine while we're negotiating on all of this.
This is not just a matter of stopping support and reaching a deal.
We're going to have to continue support and begin to negotiate.
How likely is that, given the Republican Senate, the Republican, most likely the Republican House, Vice President JD Vance has been very upfront about saying, I don't care either way what happens to Ukraine.
What do you think is going to happen?
Well, I think Trump is in a position by virtue of the mandate that he received in the election to put forward an agenda that will get Republican support.
And I think our representatives in Congress are smart enough to know that you don't go into a negotiation unarmed.
You're going to have to have leverage on all of this.
And simply withdrawing support from Ukraine is not going to produce the kind of deal that I think is in everybody's interest.
What kind of deal is possible?
Well, I think we're going to have to recognize that this deal is about more than bilateral issues between Russia and Ukraine.
This is not just about where the border between those two states is going to be drawn.
It's also about the broader European security architecture, the balance of power that exists between the West on the one hand and Russia on the other hand.
That is one of the fundamental reasons why the Russians invaded Ukraine to address what they believed was an acute security concern, where they saw Ukraine becoming increasingly a de facto ally of the United States.
And that was something that they believe was very much threatening to Russia's national security interest.
In many ways, this is not dissimilar to the situation the United States faced in 1962 when Cuba decided it wanted to be a military ally of the Soviet Union and bring onto Cuban territory weapons that were profoundly threatening to the United States.
With the Cuban missile crisis.
That's right.
And in that particular case, we had a confrontation.
Now, the situation in Ukraine has other complexities layered on top of that.
But that is one of the fundamental issues from Russia's point of view.
So we're going to have to address that if we're going to reach a settlement in Ukraine that addresses everyone's concerns on this.
So that means...
So how do you do that, though?
I mean, do you guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO?
Do you withdraw NATO forces farther away from Russia?
What are the options here?
Well, ultimately, we're going to have to reach a deal that protects Ukrainian security without bringing Ukraine formally into the NATO alliance.
I think that's not a realistic prospect.
It's one that Russia will fight to prevent from happening.
But we can't simply offer that to the Russians without getting something in return.
The Russians are going to have to make concessions on their part.
Like what?
Well, I think ultimately we're going to have to reach some deals on arms control and confidence in security building measures.
Things that will be put in place to monitor a compromise settlement in Ukraine so that everyone can be comfortable that Russia will not reinvade.
We're not going to have a repeat of what happened in 2022.
And we're not going to have a repeat of what happened in Afghanistan when the United States withdrew there and Ukraine simply collapses.
So that will require putting in place provisions to separate forces, to do so in a way that's monitorable, and also do so in a way that Russia is satisfied that the West is not going to put, for example, missile forces on Ukrainian territory that would be threatening to Russia's security interests.
And if you'd like to join our conversation with George Beebe of Quincy Institute, you can do so.
Our lines are Democrats 202748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202748-8002.
You can also reach us by text at 202-748-8003 and on social media.
Some news outlets have reported that President-elect Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and advised Putin not to escalate the war in Ukraine.
From your knowledge of Putin and Russia, how do you think he's reacting to that?
And how do you think he reacted to the election of Mr. Trump?
Well, I don't know if that phone call, in fact, took place.
The Russians, of course, are denying that any conversation took place.
I don't know what the truth is in this case.
But when it comes to escalation, I don't think that's something that Putin wants to do.
I think his approach to this war has been to fight a war of attrition, one that slowly grinds down Ukraine's ability to put well-trained, effective soldiers on the battlefield.
But initially, his strategy was to take Kyiv, and I don't think he realized that the Ukrainians would put up such a defense.
Well, I think that's right.
I think his initial strategy was essentially to foment a coup d'état that would seize the Ukrainian capital, replace the Zelensky regime, and put in place a more amenable government from Russia's point of view.
And that clearly failed.
He then regrouped and adopted a different approach to this war.
So I don't think he wants actually to escalate.
Escalation is not to Russia's advantage.
They would like the current dynamic to continue because they feel that the correlation of forces on the battlefield plays to Russia's advantage in all of this.
Now, would Putin escalate if necessary?
He has said that he would under certain circumstances, such as if the United States were to provide Ukraine with long-range military strike capabilities, that it would enable Ukraine to threaten Russian military infrastructure deep inside of Russian territory.
He wants to deter that and has said that if that were the case, Russia would in fact react.
He's not specified how it would react, but I think he's clearly signaling that there are lines that he is prepared to defend in all of this.
The United States is going to have to think through carefully how we approach this.
What do you make of Elon Musk's involvement in this?
There's reporting that he joined the call with President Zelensky and President-elect Trump.
And of course, he has been involved because of Starlink, which is his product that allows internet access through space.
What do you think is going to happen in a Trump administration?
Regarding Elon Musk.
Well, he clearly is going to have a role at this point.
It's been announced that he and Vivek Ramaswamy will be heading this new non-governmental organization that will provide outside advice on government efficiency, waste, fraud, and abuse, that sort of thing.
So when it comes to Ukraine, he's going to have a voice.
Now, is he going to have a voice on Ukraine?
I think clearly he's somebody whose advice Trump has sought on this issue.
And he's been someone that has clearly come out in favor of a compromise negotiated settlement in Ukraine.
So I expect that he is going to continue to have an influence.
Now, is he going to have a formal role in trying to forge a negotiated settlement in Ukraine?
I don't know the answer to that.
I'm not sure anybody has determined yet what Trump's Ukraine negotiating team is going to look like.
I think that's still to be determined.
We're going to take calls, but before we do, I want to ask you about the 11,000 North Korean troops that are in fighting now in preparing for our counteroffensive, according to the New York Times in Western Russia.
What's your assessment of a potential involvement of North Korean troops?
Well, I think this is something that reflects a couple of points that the Russians are concerned about.
One is Russia for a long time has regarded the war in Ukraine not so much as a bilateral conflict as a broader conflict with the United States and NATO, one that they're outnumbered in, and they're quite concerned that this war could escalate into a broader conflict with NATO.
In that regard, they believe they need allies.
And I think North Korea is an issue that we ought to think about in that broader context more than in the narrow sense of what Russia needs to prevail in Ukraine bilaterally.
So I would regard the presence of North Korean troops as a card that Putin is playing in this broader geostrategic competition, one where he's signaling to the West, Russia is not isolated.
We have allies.
We have supporters beyond the West.
And we can bring that to bear in ways that matter in all of this.
What's North Korea getting out of this?
Are they just outright being paid by the Russians to send troops?
Well, I don't know the answer to that, but I think the North Koreans themselves benefit in some ways.
They get military experience that can be beneficial to them in addressing their primary military concerns with South Korea.
So that's an advantage strictly in terms of gaining experience.
Also, I think the North Koreans have some geostrategic interests at stake here.
They are also looking at China, and that's a complex relationship for North Korea.
There are elements of cooperation and partnership and support.
There are also elements of concern there.
And tightening their relationship with Russia, I think, gives the North Koreans a little bit more room for maneuver in dealing with China as well.
All right, let's talk to callers, and we'll start with Pat in Keyport, New Jersey, Republican.
Hello.
Putin has been on record as saying he viewed the dissolution of the USSR like a great, the worst thing that could ever happen.
He violated the Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed Ukraine security guarantees, guaranteed their sovereignty, and that was 10 years ago.
Of what value is any agreement that we reach now going to be?
How long would it be honored?
Thank you.
Well, I think that's an excellent question.
I think a lot of people have that concern in mind.
And I think it's useful in thinking about this to think back on history.
How did we deal with the Soviet Union?
And we put in place provisions over the years during the Cold War that allowed us to manage that confrontation with the Soviet Union in ways that reduced the risks that it would spill over into direct conflict between the United States and Soviet Union, those two nuclear superpowers.
We didn't trust the Soviet Union to adhere to those agreements because of the goodness of their heart.
We put in place verification and monitoring measures that made sure that they would comply with things.
And we also structured the agreements that we reached in ways that advanced Soviet interests as well as American interests, so that it was in the Soviet Union's self-interest to adhere to those agreements.
And I think those principles can apply today.
We don't have to trust Putin to agree to uphold things simply because it's the right thing to do.
We have to structure agreements that serve Russian interests as well as American and other interests.
And we also have to put in place the monitoring and verification means to ensure that there is compliance.
And we can do this.
We've done it before.
Let's talk to Roger in Port Angeles, Washington, Independent Line.
Hi, Roger.
Hi, good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
I have a question.
Trump made a promised-made, promise-kept statement on his closing arguments.
And now I'm hearing that we're going to push this negotiations out to next year, 2025, after the inauguration.
But my idea is: why doesn't Trump, through strength through peace through strength, tell North Korea to take their troops home now?
That at least would show some of us that are stuck in the middle on this unity thing that maybe we can start coming together as a country if we have some kind of leverage.
You spoke about peace through leverage.
That is leverage, in my opinion, that he could just say, pack your stuff up, go home.
All right, I'll interested to hear what you got to say.
Well, I think this peace through strength idea is an important one to discuss.
When you're dealing with great powers, nuclear powers, you have to negotiate things, recognizing, first of all, that you're not going to get everything that you want.
We're not going to defeat Russia on the battlefield.
We're not going to force Russia into some sort of regime change.
We are going to have to compromise, and you want to use the leverage that you have, that strength that you have, wisely as a foundation for negotiating agreements that are as advantageous as they can be for American interests.
But there also has to be a diplomatic component to this strength.
You have to use military strength wisely as a foundation for smart diplomacy.
So in dealing with Russia and dealing with North Korea, we're not going to be in a position simply to dictate to them, do this or else, because the question will immediately arise: okay, what's the or else?
What are you going to do?
And oftentimes, if the choice is, well, if you don't do the or else, we're going to escalate into nuclear weapons use.
Well, that's not a very good position for the United States to be in.
So before we issue ultimatums to other countries, I think we have to think this through.
What happens if they reject the ultimatum?
What do we do?
Are we humiliated and embarrassed because we can't enforce what we've insisted that they do?
So we have to be careful about simply telling other countries, do this or else.
Robert is in Webster, New York.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
Mr. Beebe, concerning Russia, it appears that our military planners overestimated Russians' conventional power.
They thought they'd take over Ukraine in three or four days.
I'm wondering, with Putin in the past having used tactical nuclear weapons as a threat against Ukraine and us, is it a paper tiger?
Are the nuclear weapons in Russia, have they deteriorated as the conventional forces or conventional force has deteriorated in this conflict from this use or not putting funds and energy into their nuclear deterrent?
From your perspective, are we too afraid of Russia or are they still quite a force nuclear, in your opinion, sir?
All right, Robert.
Well, I think that there is that impression right now in the United States and in parts of Europe that Russia has not backed up the red lines that it has rhetorically drawn,
that the United States has been too cautious, too timid, too reluctant to challenge the Russians, and that we ought to be bolder in crossing Russian red lines and forcing the Russians into situations where they're likely to back down.
I think that is a mistake.
I think, yes, you're correct that a lot of military analysts expected the Russians to prevail much more quickly in Ukraine than obviously they have done in retrospect.
But I think that to draw the conclusion that Russia's nuclear arsenal is not effective and that Russia is a paper tiger and that we can afford simply to cross Russian red lines with impunity would be a mistake.
I think they clearly have a very capable nuclear force.
They don't want to use it.
I think they recognize that nuclear use would result in a catastrophe for Russia as well as for the United States and the world.
So they don't want to go there.
On the other hand, we have to bear in mind John Kennedy's advice after the Cuban Missile Crisis, where he said the chief lesson was don't put a nuclear superpower in a position where it has to choose between humiliation and using nuclear weapons.
And my concern would be that if we cross Russian red lines with impunity, we would be doing exactly that, putting Putin in a position where we would have to choose between nuclear use and humiliation.
And that's a very dangerous position for us to put Russia in and ourselves in, quite honestly.
George Beaby, Dan in Palm Bay, Florida is asking you, how is the Quincy Institute funded and is George Soros a major contributor?
Well, the answer to that is on our website.
You can go to quinceinst.org.
We publish full information about Quincy's funding.
We take contributions from American individuals and institutions.
And I think the Soros Foundation was one of the initial contributors to Quincy.
We had a variety of other contributors as well.
So one thing we don't do is accept any funding from foreign organizations or individuals or from organizations tied to the U.S. defense sector, the military industry.
And we try to be as transparent as possible in who we are getting funding from.
What do you think about the sanctions currently in place against Russia?
Do you think President-elect Trump, once taking office, should lift any of those?
Well, I don't think we should lift anything immediately.
I think those sanctions are leverage that we can use in a negotiation, cards that we can play, both positively and negatively.
And what we need to be able to do is to be able to lift sanctions in return for Russian concessions, in return for Russian compliance with agreements that are reached.
But we also have to hold out the possibility of toughening those sanctions in the event that the Russians are not willing to make reasonable compromises over Ukraine.
But we certainly shouldn't preemptively lift anything because that would be playing a card that we have and getting nothing in return.
This is Jim in Sherman, Texas, Republican.
Hi, Jim.
Good morning, Mr. Deebee.
I worked in the intelligence community in the early 80s.
I'll have my own thoughts on the subject, but I'd like to get your thoughts.
What missteps do you feel, if there were missteps, occurring during the Obama administration, Trump administration, Biden administration, regarding Ukraine and Russia?
And how do you, what do you think the ultimately, how will this be settled?
Will there be some sort of line where Crimea and some of these other areas of Ukraine are lost to Russia?
Is that really the peaceful outcome that we should expect?
Maybe not what we ultimately want or what Ukraine wants, but what's the reality of this?
Thank you.
Well, I think fundamentally we've not had a viable, well-considered strategy for dealing with Russia.
We assumed many years ago that Russia was in essentially a long-term strategic decline and that as a result, Russia would be too weak to prevent the continued eastward expansion of NATO.
And that as we approached Russian borders, as we moved the alliance into parts of the world that were extremely important to Russia, very strategically sensitive, that Russia would be too weak to prevent it from happening.
And I think that was a mistake.
Clearly, not only did Russia object to the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, Russia increasingly was in a position where it could exercise a veto over those potential memberships on the battlefield.
They did that in Georgia in 2008, and they have been doing so in Ukraine since 2014.
And that has, I think, produced the situation that we're now in today on the battlefield.
So what I think we need to do is put together a viable strategy where we understand clearly what American interests are, what's most important to us, and then assemble the tools that we need to make sure we can achieve the goals that are important to the United States here.
And we've not really done that.
I think there's been too much wishful thinking, too much declaratory policy that's not connected to real capabilities on our part.
So there's been a mismatch between what we've tried to do and what we're actually capable of doing.
So we've got to reconcile that.
We need achievable goals in Ukraine and vis-a-vis Russia.
And then we need to use the leverage that we have to achieve them.
That's what has to happen right now.
It hasn't really happened under the past several presidencies here in the United States.
And in Randolph, Massachusetts, Line for Democrats, you're on with George Beebe.
Hi, George.
Thanks for talking to me.
Look, George, I was just wondering, is Hungary part of NATO?
Hungary is, in fact, part of NATO, yes.
And isn't his close relationship to Putin of some kind of importance to us?
Or is he definitely a puppet of the Putin administration?
This is Viktor Orban.
Right.
Well, I think portraying Viktor Orban as a puppet of Putin or close to Putin and Russia is an oversimplification of that relationship.
Hungary has decidedly mixed feelings about Russia.
Obviously, there is a long and very painful history between Russia and Hungary.
And one of the most notable examples of that painful history was the 1956 situation in which the Soviet Union actually invaded Hungary.
Hungarians have not forgotten that at all.
And there's not a lot of warmth of feeling among the Hungarian people or within the Hungarian government toward Russia.
On the other hand, I think they're pragmatists.
They recognize that they need a relationship with Russia that is not a state of war, that there are interdependencies between Hungary and Russia.
There's a broader relationship between Russia and Europe that has real effects on Hungarian national interests.
And Hungary also has a sizable Hungarian minority in Ukraine itself that is affected by this war.
So these are all factors that I think Viktor Oroban is taking into account in putting together an approach to Russia that is far more complex than either adversary or friend.
It's closer to somewhere in the middle.
We have a question on X from Ajika.
What happens to the oil in Ukraine?
And I'd also like to add to that as far as Russia being a major exporter of energy, what happens?
How can that be used as leverage?
Well, there's not a lot of oil in Ukraine itself.
There is a fair amount of natural gas.
But Hungary has been a critically important transit state.
There is a pipeline that crosses Ukrainian territory that connects Russian gas production to consumers in Europe, including in Hungary, by the way, which is one of the variables that Viktor Oroban has to take into account in thinking through this situation.
And that pipeline pumping natural gas is continuing to function.
The Ukrainians have not shut it down and the Russians have not shut it down, which is quite interesting because it serves both Ukrainian and Russian interests for that gas flow to continue.
The Russians get access to markets in Europe, Hungary among others, and the Ukrainians continue to earn transit fee money from all of this.
So what's going to happen on all of that is an interesting variable.
It's one of the reasons I think the West has some leverage over Russia in a negotiation.
Do you think that the Trump administration will want that Russian energy flowing at full capacity, even if it means a lot of funding going to Russia, because that could impact oil prices, gas prices here in the United States, bring them down?
That's right.
I think we've got a variety of different interests in all of this, some of which are in tension with one another.
Obviously, the United States wants to be an important energy supplier to Europe itself.
That's something that we can make money off of.
And the degree to which Russia is a competitor for those markets in Europe, that's something that we have to take into account.
Now, on the other hand, we have some other interests beyond just that narrow energy competition, geostrategic interests.
Ultimately, we're going to want a situation in which Europe is not in a state of dysfunction, that there is order in Europe, not a situation where there is ongoing conflict in Ukraine that brings the European economy into a state of crisis.
So I think we're going to have to balance our desire for an increased share of the European energy market with also a desire to stabilize Europe and to have Russia buy into a broader vision of European security that it can accept as well.
So this is going to have to be a balance on our part.
One more call.
Sam in Washington, D.C., Independent Line.
Yes, good morning, Mr. Beebe.
Mr. Beebe, I found you to be really knowledgeable and very honest speaking.
I was very impressed when you brought President Kennedy.
And also, I'm really kind of disappointed by lack of the information by some of the colours being so arrogant and contemptuous and demonize Russia.
By no means, I'm an apologist for Russia.
But in the art of war, he said, if you don't know your enemy and you don't know yourself, you're definitely going to lose.
And prime example is when we are dealing with Ansar La, a bunch of rappers, they don't have no military, no Air Force, nothing, except the will.
Now you are dealing with nuclear power, which this country considers as a gas station with the nuclear power.
I think it's a grave mistake for our politicians because they are very inept, they don't do their homework, and they just spew this misinformation and disinformation.
I think there's a great deal of opportunity.
All right, Sam, let's get a response.
Last words, George.
Well, I think understanding your adversary is a critical part of all of this.
If you don't have some ability to put yourself in their shoes, see things from their perspective, you're going to get surprised.
They'll do things that don't make sense to you.
But also, you don't understand your own leverage in the relationship, what you can bring to bear that can maximize the chances that you have for advancing your own interests and doing so in a way that doesn't spiral into a direct conflict.
And that's particularly true in dealing with a nuclear superpower.
So that is, in fact, something that we need to be able to do as we attempt to resolve the war in Ukraine on acceptable terms.
All right.
That's George Beebe, Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.