Good evening. I'm John Bachelor. Tonight the show begins in conversation about Crimea 2014.

My colleague Brad Bowman of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy

comments on a conversation he had with the Assistant Secretary of Defense

Celeste Wallender asking her was it a mistake for the Obama administration? She participated in the

administration. She has very candid memories and is helpful. Was it a mistake not to push back on

Putin for the little green men in Crimea? The answer was blunt, yes. And then we're off to

converse with Katrina Vennonoval of the nation about dissent growing in the United States in the EU,

but the Ukraine war and what is the ambition? What is the end? What does victory look like? How long?

And why? The conversation about peace or ceasefire is not underway to our knowledge.

And then a conversation about China and the United States. There's said to be a summit

of some sort in at hand. Perhaps during the APEC conference in San Francisco,

later this fall, however, the doubts are raised and Joe Biden would accomplish.

At this point Xi Jinping has a frayed economy, a lack of confidence in any of the institutions

because of the credit bubble and other abuses. And also, questions raised about whether the PLA

will follow Xi Jinping. Trust him. All of that. What can the United States do for Xi Jinping?

He's led his country over the cliff. And then a conversation with Cleopascal about the

very complicated relationship the US has with the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of

Micronesia and Palau, three sovereign states in the Pacific between Hawaii and the Philippines.

Marshall's in particular, the complication has to do with the fact that the US conducted more

than 50 atomic tests there between 46 and 54, damaging badly the people and the land,

paying reparations ever since. However, it's a tangle of law and obligations.

And this now leads to part of the conversation about the contests between the US and China

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