Waiting for a Theory of Victory in Ukraine

War on the Rocks

News, Politics

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2024

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike Kofman and Ryan have a high-level conversation on strategy in this war, or the lack thereof. From Ukraine's mobilization reluctance to the Biden administration's curious approach to sequencing authorities and capabilities, they review what might ultimately cost Ukraine the war. And make no mistake, that is where the war is trending. Ryan also runs an idea by Mike on how the issue of security guarantees might work in the event of a peace settlement, in a way that doesn't involve NATO directly.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on Strategy, Defense, and Foreign Affairs.
0:13.5	My name's Ryan Evans and the founder of War in the Rocks.
0:15.5	And in this episode, I've sat down here with my friend and yours, Michael Kaufman, of the Carnegie
0:20.1	Endowment for International Peace.
0:21.8	Mike, thanks for joining the show again.
0:23.7	Thanks for having me back.
0:24.7	So we're going to have a pretty high-level conversation about the war and strategy.
0:30.4	For those of you who subscribe to the podcast, you'll see that we put out a free episode of the Russian contingency
0:35.7	where Mike and Rob Lee do a really
0:37.7	good overview of where the battlefield stood as of last week, as well as some really interesting
0:43.2	technical issues on everything from mines to drones. But we're going to stay a very high level, Mike.
0:48.4	And I'd like to get some of your initial thoughts on where U.S. policy on Ukraine stands as the sun sets on the Biden administration and the Trump administration stands waiting to come back.
1:00.1	Well, I think where current policy stands is following the result of the election, it's clear the Biden administration is now trying to figure out what they can do with the time and the funding that they have left.
1:10.4	They have not had a clear strategy that I think I could discern in recent months.
1:16.7	They did not respond positively to the victory plan that Zyzyzyzyzyzyk came with a couple
1:21.2	months ago.
1:22.2	The trajectory of the war has been quite negative for a long time now.
1:25.8	I think that it's clear to a lot of folks
1:28.0	that Ukraine's been losing the war and that something needs to change and that without major
1:32.5	corrections to the current trajectory, this will not end well in 2025. Now, what are they actually
1:37.9	trying to do? It's clearly trying to spend down funding as much as they can, both the PDA,
1:43.4	presidential drawdown authority, available
	...

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