So to be frank, I'm pretty pessimistic about the available diplomatic off-ramps.

I'm also quite pessimistic that there's anything the US can do necessarily to deter Russia.

If you think August 20th that there's anything the U.S. can do necessarily to deter Russia.

If you think August 2014 was probably an encouragement of 4-6 battalion tactical groups,

and maybe the winter offensive in 2015 was 8 to 12, that's not a lot.

In this particular scenario, we are talking something like 50 to 100.

The tactical group is just to clarify the picture.

Hey, welcome back to the Modern War Institute podcast.

I'm John Amble, editorial director at MWI, and for this episode, I had the chance to talk to Michael Kaufman.

He is the director of the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analysis and

is also a senior adjunct fellow at the Center for New American Security and formerly

a non-resident fellow at MWI.

Now most listeners will have seen a lot of headlines in the news lately about what is

described as a pretty dramatic

buildup in Russian troop numbers near Russia's border with Ukraine.

But there is a ton of nuance and context that need to be accounted for when we seek to make

sense of it, to predict what comes next, and to identify what strategic options are available

really to respond. We talked through all of that in the

conversation you're about to hear. Before we get to it, though, as always, just a couple

quick notes. First, if you're enjoying the MWI podcast, I'd like to ask you if you could spare

a moment to give it a rating or leave a review wherever you download it from. It really does help

new listeners to find us.

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