What Next: The Long View on Russia’s Invasion

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🗓️ 27 February 2022

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Russia went all in last week, sending troops across the border with Ukraine and raining shells on the country. Experts are saying Putin’s brash invasion of his neighbor is shifting the world order in significant ways. In the face of this aggression, how should NATO respond? Can history serve as a guide? Guest: Fred Kaplan, Slate’s War Stories correspondent. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, it's Sunday, February 27th.
0:05.4	I am usually not in your feed over the weekend, but with the announcement today that Ukraine
0:10.8	has agreed to diplomatic talks with Russia and with Vladimir Putin putting his nuclear
0:15.5	arsenal on high alert, we wanted to get this conversation out a bit earlier than usual.
0:22.3	We recorded it last week.
0:24.6	Many observers have been caught off guard by Ukraine's ability to fend off Russian forces
0:30.0	so far.
0:31.5	But Slate's Fred Kaplan, he's not among them.
0:34.7	In this conversation, we talked about how the history of Russian aggression and democratic
0:39.4	pushback have led us to this moment.
0:42.6	Alright, here's the show.
0:49.0	When I asked Fred Kaplan, who writes Slate's war stories column, whether he'd anticipated
0:54.2	the kind of open warfare we're seeing in Ukraine, he had an admission to make.
1:00.7	I have to confess I was surprised.
1:05.9	Fred actually came on this show back in December and made a prediction that an invasion
1:12.8	wasn't really what Putin wanted in Ukraine.
1:18.1	He was wrong about that.
1:19.8	For Fred, it's still sort of stunning.
1:22.3	It'll be interesting if the archives ever reveal when Putin made up his mind to go for it.
1:28.6	You know, he'd assemble this massive force.
1:31.5	He could have found some way out to gain a few decrees and go home.
1:39.3	But now that this invasion has happened, Fred's been thinking about the history here.
	...

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