Welcome, everyone, to a special edition of the Mona Charge Show.

I am delighted because of the news events to welcome Tom Nichols, formerly of the Naval War College,

currently an Atlantic contributor, to discuss the war and the challenges we face.

Tom, I must have devoured dozens of articles over the weekend,

and yours really stood out for the clarity of its thinking. So thank you for it.

Thank you, Mona.

One of the things that struck me was that you were saying, and I think it should be said, first off, that

it could go well, right? I mean, there is a chance that all the pieces will fall into place

and that a vicious, horrible regime will be eliminated and that in its place we will get more democratic

leaning or at least more something better something better and so that is one possible outcome

but as you pointed out in the piece, that, nobody seems to have weighed the chances of the less

like, the less desirable outcomes.

So why don't you go through that for us, if you would?

What are the things that are, that you're worried about that can go wrong?

The matrix here or the the axis is, you know, best case, least probable to kind of worst case,

most probable. And I think the best case is improbable but possible the way, and I actually

stole this from somebody else on the

internet. I said the president, being a recreational gambler myself, the president is trying

to draw to an inside straight, you know, which, look, it can happen. It happened. Poker players,

you know, you're sitting there and all you need is that

nine of hearts and, and, you know, by God, there it is and you get lucky. But that's, as people would,

you know, as the saint goes, it can happen, but that's not the way to bet. So for all these things to go right, I think the first thing that it would be really necessary

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