Ukraine is the “Fight for the Future of the 21st Century”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And while the West has rushed to arm Ukraine, there are still holes in the country’s defense capabilities. Retired U.S. army lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman was the European Affairs director for the National Security Council in the Trump administration, he was also a key witness in the former president’s impeachment trial. And he is joining Michel Martin to discuss the conflict in his native homeland and how to bolster Ukraine’s defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, thank you so much for joining us once again.

LT. COL. ALEXANDER VINDMAN (RET.), FORMER DIRECTOR FOR EUROPEAN AFFAIRS U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Thanks for having me on, Michel.

MARTIN: In your latest piece in foreign affairs, you make a case that while Ukraine has certainly fought valiantly against the Russians, they are going to run out of fuel, ammunition, weapons, aircraft, et cetera. You propose that the U.S. and its allies should implement a land lease program modeled on one that provided arms and assistance U.S. allies in Europe during World War II. The administration has been very focused on sanctions, which —

VINDMAN: Yes.

MARTIN: — which you could not handle long-term accountability piece of that. But it’s hard to see what the immediate benefit is to Ukraine fighting in the trenches as they are seeing people slaughtered. So, what I’m ask you, based in your expertise, both militarily and sort of politically, what are some steps that could be taken?

VINDMAN: So, first of all on the sanctions, which is we already made some headway there. There is more head room for additional sanctions. Some of these — we have to realize that some of these are kind of — they are important, but they are field extensions. There might be a pocketbook cost to the American public but we have to — remember, that we’re trying to avoid a war and we’re trying to warn off Russian escalation, and there are things we could do to soften that blow. We could subsidize some of the oil and gas prices for our public and for the European public to get us there. So, that’s one of the critical things we could do. This lend lease idea is based off of something we did in World War II, to support the precursor to Russia, the Soviet Union, who is fighting an existential war against the Nazis. Now, we need to do the same thing for Ukraine. And that’s actually one of the striking things. There is a messages component to it. We’re supporting Ukraine against the fascist Russia that’s looking to destroy this large, sovereign independent state, democratic state that’s striving to join the international democratic union. And the things we needed to do was we need to establish depots. And these are basically forward positions of logistics to on demand serve Ukraine’s interests. It is too late for us to wait for Ukrainian to request for supplies and then, ship it in and then figure out how to distribute it. We need it right there. We need — so, as soon as the Ukrainians want it, they collect it. They move it into the country. That’s basic things like water, fuel, food, medical supplies for enormous civilian casualties right on the spot. It’s also military supplies, ammunitions, bullets, again, fuel for military vehicles and some more javelins, these anti-tank systems. It’s more stingers. But it is also more capable systems that really get to the heart of Russia’s advantages. And the most important thing is air power. Russia has a massive advantage in terms of air power and long-range fires. These are the ballistic missiles that have been raining fire down on Ukrainian cities from many, many kilometers away, hundreds of kilometers away, in fact. And what we could do is we could arm the Ukrainians with these legacy planes from Eastern Europe. That’s — we’re overthinking that one. We’re now bogged down on how do you get them across the border. You put Ukrainian pilots in and you have them fly across the border. That is not going to trigger a third World War that we’re giving them planes and letting the Ukrainians fly across the border.

MARTIN: What is the key difference here between what the United States is that they were actually supplying the hardware, even if we’re not operating it ourselves?

VINDMAN: So, that’s — there is a couple things. First of all, we’re providing — right now, we’ve provided thousands of tactical systems that have tactical effects. We need operational systems that have operational effects. These are things that are going to really undermine Russia’s ability to fight this war and to execute a campaign that’s going to really punish cities, destroy cities, kill thousands of people. That’s what we’re on the cusp of right now. The Russians are building up forces to conduct these massive assaults. That’s why we’ve seen what amounts to a bit of a slowdown in the last 24 to 36 hours. They’re collecting strength to launch these massive attacks. So, getting these capabilities in place now could have a meaningful effect on the battlefield. It could strike Russian planes on the airfields in the next Crimea, in Belarus. On the Russian side of the border, adjacent to the Russian side of the border. Helicopters, ballistic missiles, those are the things we need to help the Ukrainians target. And we need to remember, right now, we still have — we’re in this mental block that somehow, we could return to business as usual. Somehow, we could — you know, there is a scenario where we end this conflict and it stays limited. But that’s not the trajectory we’re headed towards. We’re headed towards a trajectory of a protracted war that gets increasingly nasty and draws us further in. The decisions that we think are tough today are going to be easier in the future. We’re going to have much, much more difficult decisions to make in the future. We just need to look ahead a little bit and not think about just short-term risk, but medium and long-term risks and how this develops in a very, very violent way that drags us in. And if we make that switch, then it is easy to provide these capabilities, these systems to the Ukrainians, and they could man them.

MARTIN: What is your sense why the administration and other allies are hesitant? As you’ve said, the big debate has been over the United States and the allies and NATO enforcing a no-fly zone of Ukraine. There seems to be no political will on either side of the aisle for that in the United States at least and certainly, not in NATO. But you’re saying that’s not necessary. The Ukrainians could do this. So, why do you think — what is your read of the situation here?

VINDMAN: Sure. You know, I’m not even sure where to begin because there are so many different features here. But one of them is this defeatist attitude, that somehow based on these assumptions, looking at tables on a chart and how much force Russia had to bring to bear and what the Ukrainians had that this would end quickly. And in that — this kind of mentality, you’re looking to minimize risks because the outcome is inevitable. So, why put resources in and why risk, you know, a larger confrontation with Russia if it’s inevitable? We’re still not off that, frankly. There is still a defeatist attitude because people that — in a lot of cases, there just really aren’t that specialists that focus on Russia that look beyond the tables, that understand, you know, what — the asymmetries and morale that the fact that the Russians — that Ukrainians will not roll over, that the Russians don’t have sufficient combat power. There is also a great deal of wishful thinking in a — in the White House below the level of the president that these stays limited, that the — that there is a way to let this play out between the largest country in the world and the largest country in Europe and nobody else gets involved. That is an absurd assumption because, already, there is enormous pressure growing on Eastern Europe. They’re bearing the brunt of this with regards to refugee flows. They are the ones that are most forward leaning. Certainly, the Baltics, the Pols, the Romanians recognize that this doesn’t end with Ukraine and they want to do more. They’re — we’re the ones that are holding them back. We’re the ones that actually arrested, from what I hear, the transfer of these aircraft in the moments that it was conceived because we thought it was too risky. And now, we’re pushing it, but we lost the momentum, frankly. We lost the momentum. There was an opportunity to do this. And it’s because we’re risk averse. We still think there is a chance this goes back to business as usual, you know, where, in fact, in a Cold War, we’re headed towards a hard war. And these folks, these people that have gotten to know don’t get it. They simply don’t get it. They’re focused on things that matter under almost every other circumstance like upcoming elections and fuel prices. And what that means, instead of understanding that we’re in a fight for the future of the 21st century and that this — we’re either going to face an enormously emboldened and more powerful adversary, you know it might be isolated economically in the form of Russia and authoritarian world or the authoritarianism, they have — or authoritarian world that we have been concerned about that’s, you know, surging forward is on its heels. I’ve got to say, this is the most forward leaning I have been in, frankly, in terms of criticism, but we are at a tipping point. So, it is important to make these points. The — it’s a very insular administration. These are folks that have been close to President Biden, Vice President Biden for years, and they want to insulate him against — you know, against the shocks of mismanagement like Afghanistan where these people actually were the ones responsible for, you know, accelerating plans that didn’t really make sense or executing a withdrawal that should have been more thoroughly planned. And they’re still there. And at sometimes, you need to be able to tell the chief, the boss that he’s not wearing any clothes, that his assumptions are invalid, that, in fact, there are — the risks of escalation are minimal and he doesn’t have people that will do that right now. He has people that are going to — that are going go — cater to his wishes and are not going to push back at a minimum. There needs to be a little bit more reflection about the missteps we’ve had over this year with regards to the execution of Afghanistan. Not the policy decision to leave, but the way it was executed and shepherded by the National Security Council. And then, again, now, with this major war unfolding, they’re underperforming and I’d like to see more. This is not a sharp criticism against President Biden because President Biden, frankly, in fact, is a product of 20 years of Ukraine and Russia policy where we have been looking at this relationship through a soda straw. We’ve bistar our activities towards Russia thinking we can do more than we can instead of places like Ukraine where we have willing partnerships.

MARTIN: And I also want to ask though what impact do you think the sort of a four years of the former president’s posture toward Russia, what impact that’s having now? He’s no longer in office, but some of the people who are espousing that view still are. And I’m wondering what influence that perspective has on the president’s ability to sort of coalesce around more aggressive strategy.

VINDMAN: This is a critical point. Frankly, the logic now that most of the American public just didn’t have the context to understand is the importance of arming and supporting Ukraine and the president’s corruption and abuse of power in the first impeachment and how that’s directly connected to today. There is now — you know, it’s not a leap anymore. It’s the fact that the president undermined that relationship. That’s clear. But there is a deeper point here. I was saying that we were headed towards this confrontation with Russia sooner or later based on Russia’s provocative actions, they were eventually going to cross the red line. So, if we were creeping from Bush — George W. Bush through President Obama, through — we were creeping towards that confrontation, we lurched forward during the Trump administration. Because in that administration, we had a couple of foundational shifts. One of them was the catering to Russia, the efforts to really kind of elevate Putin as a world leader, as a credible actor, as kind of one of the guys, as a — as somebody that should be welcomed into the community of nations. That’s what President Trump did. Trump created some opportunities. He basically indicated that there is a softening of the Republican position. The Republicans have been traditional hawkish around values issues and around authoritarianism and things of that nature. So, there was a softening there. There was a fracture between us and our allies, our NATO allies, another opportunity. And the enormous discord that Trump sewed inside the United States was extremely meaningful. We’re a super power and we looked weak because of Trump. And not just when he was in office, but even after we left. We have to remember that the insurrection started January 6th. The build-up for this war started just days later. The timing is telling that Vladimir Putin saw deep opportunities based on President Trump’s insurrection, the fact that we were hyper polarized and the fact that Trump has captured the Republican Party and the belief that somehow the Republicans were no longer going to be opponents to Putin’s aggression and belligerence. And that didn’t just end when Trump left office. He continued that through to literally hours before this war started. So, he was elevating and, you know, and appealing and appeasing Trump in the hours before this war. What message does that send to Putin? It sends a very simple message, that the Republicans will not be part of the response to Russia. They will not be part of the cost imposition for Russia, just as President Biden is trying to signal that there would be a cost. So, the rhetoric from the president is sanctions will be fierce, heavy. And on the other side, you have Trump saying, we’re your friends. Don’t worry about us. Tucker Carlson is saying this. Mike Pompeo is saying this. You know, Ron Johnson. These folks are actually undermining the deterrence efforts of the U.S. government to try to avoid the war. So, that’s why I say that they have blood on their hands because we could have potentially avoided this but they undermined our efforts to avoid this. And now, we have this major war that threatens U.S. national security whether we see it or not. It is right on the horizon, and they dug a hole. They’re going to have to lay in that hole, the Republican Party. They’re trying to distance themselves, but it is too little too late.

MARTIN: Before we let you go, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, I can’t help but think about what this moment is like for you as a person who tried to warn the country about the dangers that were looming, about the dangers of the region, the lack of support for the Ukrainian president and his efforts in the democratic movement within Ukraine and, of course, Trump’s appeasement. You tried to warn the country about this. Certainly, this is not a moment that you take any pleasure in being right, but what is this like for you?

VINDMAN: It’s tough, frankly. You know, I definitely saw the peril on the horizon and tried to do the best I can to warn the administration internally, the American public, you know, certainly put myself and my family at risk, and we just kept stumbling forward. And that happened, you know, while I was in government, and that continued to happen even while I was out as I’m still — I still consider myself a public servant. In the months preceding this, I was — you know, I put my credibility and my legitimacy on the line, being so assertive about the fact that this is all but certain to happen. And we need to do something to avoid it, and we failed. We didn’t do that. We didn’t do enough. I mean, now, I’m yelling and screaming about the fact that we are on the cusp of a hot war. We need to do more to avoid this. The longer this goes, the riskier it gets. The decisions that we have to make weeks and months from now are going to be much, much more dangerous. We need to make some courageous risk-informed decisions now to avoid that. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in an untenable position. We need to do that now. We need to provide the Ukrainians the support they need. It is going to get worse. I cannot be more adamant about it. My — I — my desire to see this administration succeed in light of the risks of reversals in the upcoming elections, I’m setting those aside, because right now, we have much more — we have an imperative. We have a war that we could be dragged into. We need to do everything we can to help the Ukrainians to win this or to freeze this, to move this to a diplomatic solution quickly. Otherwise, we have every risk of ending up in this war, and that’s where really all our — we are all in peril. It is not the say boar rattling now. It’s the creeping, the incremental ratcheting up of tensions that brings us in, that’s what brings us to risk. And I’m done being restrained about — not that I — I tend to be plain spoken, but I’m done with that. This is the time to act. You know, I will deal with the consequences of, you know, burning the bridges with the — on the other side of the aisle, I guess credibility or affinity from. But that’s where we are and that’s what we need to do.

MARTIN: Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, thank you so much for speaking with us today. I do hope we’ll talk again.

VINDMAN: Thank you.