Prospects for Negotiations to End the Russia-Ukraine War
(Dr. Stephen Bryen, February 6, 2025)
Transcript available below
Transcript
Robert R. Reilly:
Hello and welcome to the Westminster Institute. I am Robert Reilly, its director. Today we are going to discuss whether we have come any closer to the prospects of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to bring to a close this close to three-year armed conflict. Joining me to discuss this topic is a regular Westminster guest Dr. Stephen Bryen, who is one of the foremost defense experts in the United States having worked in that field for a considerable number of years as one of the senior civilian officials in the Department of Defense. He has held senior positions on Capitol Hill and as president of a large multinational defense and technology company.
Dr Bryen, as I mentioned, has 50 years of experience in government and industry. He served as a senior staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as the Executive Director of a grassroots political organization, as the head of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Trade Security Policy, as a founder and first director of the Defense Technology Security Administration, [and] as President of Finmeccanica North. Welcome to the program, Steve.
Stephen Bryen:
It is good to be with you. Fifty years is a long time.
Robert R. Reilly:
It is intimidating, I know. I have had the experience myself.
Some people have suggested that Russia is more open to negotiations now. Others have said that it does not appear to be so because the Russian military in Ukraine is preparing plans for operations in Ukraine that would take nine months from now to execute. Steve, what is your take on this?
Stephen Bryen:
Well, I think they are two different things. The Russians probably are interested in in negotiations with the United States. They are not very interested in negotiating with Ukraine right now because they do not consider Zelenskyy a legitimate leader of Ukraine. But they are certainly interested in talking to the United States because they want to talk about more than Ukraine, they want to talk about NATO, about NATO’s presence in Ukraine, and overall, you know, security. So the answer is they are interested.
Robert R. Reilly:
I mean, the point you raised there about NATO’s presence in Ukraine is the big one, right?
Stephen Bryen:
I think that is the key.
Robert R. Reilly:
That is the key, that is what is at the heart of the beginning of this war. It is what Putin referred to very recently as the principal cause, so it would – yeah, I am sure that will be the number one on the agenda.
Stephen Bryen:
Absolutely, it is very important.
Robert R. Reilly:
And also, President Donald Trump acknowledged, let us say, this grievance on the part of Russia from the attempt to push NATO’s borders further east. As he said, having this other country right on your doorstep would be of natural concern to them.
Stephen Bryen:
Well, the Russians have a long litany of complaints about the expansion of NATO, it is not just Ukraine, and they also argue that they were given many promises that they would not [expand], that NATO would not expand, and then it did, so there is a grievance list here and a legitimate security concern on the Russian side, I think.
They do not want NATO bases right up against their territory. Now. they have it in some places. They have it in Estonia, Lithuania, that sort of thing, but they do not want it, and that is the heart of the issue.
Robert R. Reilly:
Steve, a personal reminiscence: when I came back from Russia in ’91, I had lunch with Freddy Clay, who had been undersecretary of defense for policy.
Stephen Bryen:
[He was] a very good friend of mine.Robert R. Reilly:
And Fred said, Bob, what do you think of the idea of expanding NATO eastward? And I forget how far eastward he suggested, [but] my immediate response was, well, if we want Russia as a permanent enemy, I think that is the best thing we could possibly do, when they are vulnerable bring a military alliance up to their borders. I mean, he obviously understood the sarcasm in my statement and was totally of that opinion.
Stephen Bryen:
Yeah, remember that at the end of the Cold War there was a lot of hope that a new relationship could be developed with Russia in the future, but unfortunately the U.S. and its allies went in a different direction, and that is why we are here talking about Ukraine.
Robert R. Reilly:
Yeah, I think Fred was far more in favor of [an] association of central European states that would form their own security pact.
Stephen Bryen:
That would have been a real option and would have made life a lot easier.
Robert R. Reilly:
Anyway, that is part of history, but I do not think it is a it is a part of history that you have to know if you are going to understand what is happening in Ukraine and Russia.
Stephen Bryen:
Yeah, and understanding the Russian attitude
Robert R. Reilly:
Yes.
Stephen Bryen:
The Russians were promised [things]. Clinton promised things to them, Bush promised things, Clinton promised things, on and on. And every time those promises were made, they were not kept, so the Russians are very skeptical of the West, generally speaking, NATO of course, and the United States.
Robert R. Reilly:
…Yet they want to talk to us.
Stephen Bryen:
Yeah, because I think the big picture – you know, there are two ways to look at this, you know. Russia has formed a sort of alliance with China. They have some other rather dubious friends like North Korea, but China is really a huge country, a very important place. India [is] on the other flank. They also have a [relationship there], I would not call it an alliance but very good relations with India, and they kind of pushed off Europe and pushed off the United States. But they really [cannot do that] in the long run because there is all the potential of trade, there are all kinds of things when it comes to energy. I mean, there are a lot of relationships that really have been kind of stalled or put under sanctions, or whatever you want to call it, that make more sense to have than not to have for Russia and for their own development.
So I think that Putin thinks in longer terms, and I think he is right in that sense, that Russia should have a relationship with Europe and with the United States. Right now, it does not really have any, none at all.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, the damage is so profound as a result of this war and the way in which the Europeans and the United States have been talking about Russia [that] it would take a lot to open up the prospect of what you suggest, and it is unclear to me how they are thinking about the future relationship. I mean, Russia is the largest country in the world geographically and you cannot pretend it is not there.
Stephen Bryen:
It is a rich country, basically, you know it has huge resources, natural resources, and it has very good science and not very good technology. They have problems there because they are cut off from the West, but they certainly have very good engineering and scientific knowhow. I think that that all that is something that must be concerning to Putin.
Russia never got out of the Cold War in the sense that it never was able to develop some of its critical electronic and semiconductor industries, miniaturization. I mean, [there are] a lot of things they missed out on, and nowadays artificial intelligence, software development, you can go on and on. These are things the Russians need.
Robert R. Reilly:
They certainly seem to be producing some of the best modern weaponry and have not stinted on both the development and manufacture of that weaponry.
Stephen Bryen:
Well, you know, when the Cold War ended, some of us had looked at each other and said what are the Russians going to do now? And we said, well, the only thing they really have is the defense industry. Everything else was really not much of a competitive commercial base to draw on.
Robert R. Reilly:
Just oil and agriculture.
Stephen Bryen:
It is really important because from the end of World War II in the United States, and accelerating in the 1960s and 70s very, very rapidly, and especially in the 80s, the U.S. defense capability was drawing on the computer, and the microelectronics, and all these things which gave our military a force multiplier. [It was] very clearly a force multiplier.
I remember when the Russian pilot flew to Japan in a MiG-25, which was then this fantastic supersonic jet that everybody was worried about. And of course, it was taken apart by some of my friends. And when they took it apart, they found vacuum tubes, not microelectronics. You know, we would never do anything like that, but they had no choice.