Fred Kagan on Ukraine: Where Things Stand

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2023

⏱️ 71 minutes

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Summary

Where do things stand in Ukraine? What are the battlefield results of the Ukrainian counteroffensive so far, and what military and political outcomes might follow? Why should the US and allies continue to support Ukraine? To discuss these questions we are joined again by Fred Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. Kagan presents a granular account of recent fighting around Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. Noting that Ukraine’s counteroffensive has moved slowly, he explains that the war has not reached a stalemate: “The Russians have not shown the ability to stop the Ukrainians from making advances.” Nonetheless, the situation remains highly uncertain, and Kagan argues there is an urgent need for the US and allies to continue supporting Ukraine. Kristol and Kagan also discuss the debate about the war in the United States, the effects of Russian propaganda, and consider what we’ve learned about Ukrainian and Western resolve from the war.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Hi, I'm Bill Crystal.
0:15.0	Welcome back to Conversations and welcome back to my friend Fred Kagan,
0:20.0	with whom we've had three conversations since the war in Ukraine, the attack against Ukraine,
0:25.6	began, and this will update us on the situation, on the state of that war and what might happen
0:31.0	and other related topics.
0:33.2	Fred is a senior fellow, director of the Critical Threats
0:36.6	projects at the American Enterprise Institute,
0:39.4	and supervisors overseas the Russia team
0:41.9	at the Institute for the Study of War, which has done such
0:44.2	excellent daily updates on the battlefield situation which everyone should
0:48.6	subscribe to for free and so Fred's an expert on many aspects of military history and foreign policy
0:57.3	and I guess studied Russian and you actually once were before you got into the Middle East and so some of the other things that you studied, you
1:03.2	were an actual Russia expert in grad school, is that right?
1:07.2	In fact, I have a degree in Russian and Soviet East, Russian and Soviet military history, which I regarded as a catastrophic failure of American geo strategy that that has become a relevant expertise again.
1:20.0	You don't think they, yeah, it's, it might be good for, yeah, right, it's one of the it's might be good for yeah, right?
1:23.4	It's one of the things might be good for me in some sense. Yeah, not good for the country or the world.
1:27.8	I agree. We would yes. We would be happy to regard those as artifact, you know
1:31.5	close the subject. Yeah, you know artifacts of the free 1989 world or something.
1:37.0	Yeah.
1:38.0	Okay, Fred.
1:39.0	So our last conversations were very helpful, I think, just understanding where we've been in the war and where
1:44.1	we are at the time and where we might be going and so where are we at September 28th
	...

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