Global Affairs Expert Webinar: Ukraine, Russia, and the Future of European Security

Charles A. Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, leads the conversation on Ukraine, Russia, and the future of European security.

These webinars provide an opportunity for college and university educators and students to discuss global issues with CFR fellows, Foreign Affairs authors, and other leading experts. To register for future invitations, please complete this form or email [email protected] with your name, title, and academic affiliation. 

Speaker
Charles A. Kupchan
Senior Fellow
Council on Foreign Relations

Presider
Irina A. Faskianos
Vice President, National Program and Outreach
Council on Foreign Relations

Transcript

FASKIANOS: Thank you. Welcome to today’s session of the Fall 2025 Global Affairs Expert Webinar series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR.

Today’s discussion is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on education.CFR.org if you would like to share these materials with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

We are delighted to have Charles Kupchan with us to discuss Ukraine, Russia, and the future of European security. Dr. Kupchan is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of international affairs at Georgetown University in the Walsh School of Foreign Service and department of government. Previously, he served on the National Security Council during the Obama and Clinton administrations focusing on European affairs. He has held visiting scholar roles at Harvard and Columbia University, and at leading institutes in London, Paris, and Tokyo. And Dr. Kupchan is the author of Isolationism: A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself From the World, along with several other books on U.S. foreign policy and international and strategic affairs, and has authored many articles in Foreign Affairs.

So, Charlie, thank you very much for being with us. I thought we could begin with an overview of the current state of the Russia-Ukraine war and its influence on the broader landscape of European security today.

KUPCHAN: Thank you, Irina. Thanks for organizing this. Welcome to all the faculty members and students that are joining in this afternoon.

And I’m going to touch quickly on three issues, and then I’d open it up for conversation. One is, what’s the state of play on the ground in Ukraine? Two, where are we on diplomacy—what’s worked since Trump has attempted to end the war diplomatically and what’s not working? And then I’ll end with a few thoughts on what to keep an eye on in the weeks and months ahead.

In terms of the state of play on the ground, not much has changed over the course of the last year. Russia continues to try to chip away at the frontline in eastern Ukraine. This week the Russian forces seemed to be concluding an operation to take control of Pokrovsk, which is an important town in the Donbas that’s a railway junction. Other towns and small villages have fallen over the course of the past year. So the Russians continue to advance—a town here, a town there; a kilometer here, a kilometer there—at very high cost. We’re hearing that total Russian losses, both death and wounded, are over a million. Nonetheless, Putin seems to be ready to continue this high-cost, low-reward strategy of continuing to push toward the borders of Donbas. At the same time, the air war continues. Russia continues to launch hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles, on all parts of Ukraine, hitting primarily infrastructure but also civilian targets and random targets as far as we can tell. And so there’s no sign that Putin is really ready to back away from his maximalist war aims.

A debate continues about whether this is a war for territory or this is a war over ideology, and I think it’s some of both. I think Putin is determined to annex at least Luhansk and Donetsk, get to the oblast boundaries. Russia has also annexed two other oblasts, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Whether he insists on that as a—as a potential endgame we don’t know. But I also think that Putin thinks he can break Ukraine. I don’t think he’s attempting to conquer the country militarily, but I do think that he thinks he can break the country politically, topple the regime, and install some kind of pro-Russian government that would effectively pull Ukraine back into a Russian sphere of influence. Exactly how that would work in a country that has become deeply anti-Russian and in which any government under the thumb of Moscow would probably not survive, it’s difficult to say, but at this point the Russians still talk about getting at the root causes of the conflict, demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine, putting a cap on Ukraine’s military forces, putting a cap on Ukraine’s decisions about its alignments down the road. These suggest that the Russians have not yet come to the conclusion that this war is over or near over and that they should take what they—what they can get.

I do think that Putin believes that time is on his side and that Ukraine grows more exhausted, more short on manpower, more short on money. Patience appears to Putin to be running out in those countries that are supporting Ukraine. Here in the United States, we already have a government that is ambivalent about providing more military and economic support to Ukraine. I’ll come back to that in a minute. We also see in Europe—Slovakia, Hungary—other countries that have turned against support for the war. And so I think Putin in some respects thinks he can just buy time, talk to Trump occasionally, and wait out the collapse of Ukraine and the collapse of Western support for Ukraine.

Where are we on diplomacy? I think Trump is doing the right thing by talking to Putin. Biden had a policy toward Ukraine, but he didn’t have a strategy. Trump has a strategy for Ukraine, but he doesn’t have a policy. What I mean by that is that I think Trump understands that this is not a war that Ukraine is going to win; that if Ukraine is ever going to take back those territories under Russian control, it will probably be in the post-Putin era at the negotiating table. And as a consequence, he is using diplomacy as a way to try to end a war that needs to end. But where I think that the Trump administration has gone off in a—in an ill-advised direction is in not putting sufficient pressure on Russia to decide that the war needs to come to an end and that a ceasefire in place is as good as it’s going to get for the Russians. I do think that the proposal that’s on the table is a good one, it’s the correct one, and that is a ceasefire in which, for now, Ukraine writes off those parts of the country that are occupied by Russia.

But the key in my mind is not so much what happens to the 20 percent of Ukraine occupied by Russia which may be gone for now; it’s what happens to the other side of that ceasefire line. And it seems to me that any deal that is going to be acceptable to the Ukrainians and to Ukraine’s supporters has to entail that the 80 percent of Ukraine that’s the others side of the ceasefire line is free, is independent, is sovereign, is able to make its own decisions about its future, and most importantly is able to acquire the military capability needed to defend itself. And that’s because I think that we just don’t know when Russia may try this again, if it indeed agrees to a ceasefire, and as a consequence Putin has to be convinced that even if he can keep hold of 20 percent of the country, he’s basically got to give up and let go of the rest of Ukraine. He’s not there yet.

I think a key issue that may determine whether he gets there is Trump’s readiness to stand up to Russia more resolutely. He finally decided to increase sanctions against two Russian oil companies. I think a key question that we don’t yet know the answer to is: Will Trump decide to ask Congress for more money? Will he decide to begin to send Ukraine the weapons—the defensive weapons, primarily—that it needs to defend itself and to stop Putin? Because I do think that Putin will stop only when he is stopped, and that means giving Ukraine what it needs to put up an impenetrable defense.

Let me begin to wrap up with a few thoughts on what to keep an eye on. Number one, as I said, I do think that American policy is in flux. Trump does seem to be frustrated with Putin. Trump seems to realize that Putin has been playing him and buying time, not negotiating in good faith. The Europeans have stepped up to the plate in terms of buying American weapons and increasing their own defense spending. But I do think that a critical question for Americans in particular to keep an eye on is: Does Trump get back in the game when it comes to supporting Ukraine militarily? Because I do think that in terms of sending a signal to Putin that he’s just—that he’s not going to be able to wait out Ukraine or wait out the West, that determination, that resolute decision from Trump must be forthcoming. And I do think that the minerals deal that was struck with Ukraine makes that decision more likely, because Putin—because Trump can say, yes, I’m asking for another X billion dollars to send weapons to Ukraine, but this is an investment in the minerals deal and we are going to be repaid. And to some extent that would give him the political cover that he might need.

A second issue is the security guarantee issue. I think NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table, probably never going to happen, at least not in a world in which Russia is governed by Vladimir Putin. I also think that the talk of an Article 5-like security guarantee is somewhat meaningless, and that nobody is really going to guarantee Ukraine’s security in the way that the Ukrainians would like. And I say that in part because we’ve had a good test case for three years. Russia has been pummeling Ukraine; not a single NATO country has stood up and put boots on the ground. So it seems to me a bit naïve to presume that NATO collectively or individual members are sometime soon going to decide that they are prepared to give Ukraine the kind of ironclad security guarantee similar to Article 5 that would obligate them to go to war if Russia continues to attack Ukraine.

And that’s why I think the bottom line here is providing Ukraine what it needs to defend itself. That is the security guarantee that it’s likely to get, and then maybe down the road, when and if Ukraine joins the European Union, it would be provided a security guarantee through Article 42.7 of the EU Treaty.

My final comment kind of comes back to this question of can Putin wait us out. And I do think that Putin has reason to believe that the West may go wobbly, and that’s because the U.S. has gone wobbly. And it’s because if you look at public opinion data in Germany, in France, in Britain, the three leading countries supporting Ukraine alongside the Baltics and others—the top vote-getters right now in public opinion polls are Reform UK, National Rally, and Alternative for Germany. They are basically MAGA parties that are more pro-Russian and less supportive of Ukraine. And so in some respects, as Putin looks at the West, he has reason to believe that if he just waits out the next round of elections he may end up with governments that are not only less interested in supporting Ukraine, but illiberal, populist, and in some ways threatening to the West’s fundamental political values and norms.

I think the key here is to prove Putin wrong. It is to send a message to Putin that he simply can’t wait out the West. And that’s why I think it is so important for Trump to step up to the plate here and send a message that even with a government—a MAGA government here in the United States, the American people and the American government are prepared to make sure that Ukraine does not lose this war.

Irina, I’m going to stop there and look forward to the Q&A.

FASKIANOS: Thanks, Charlie. That was a great overview.

We’re going to go to all of you now for your questions.

(Gives queuing instructions.)

I’m going to take the first written question from Bill Wohlforth, if you could unmute and identify yourself, please.

Q: Yes. It’s Bill Wohlforth from Dartmouth College.

Charlie, the thrust of your talk really hinges on Trump’s decision to or not aid Ukraine further so that Putin revises his theory of victory. Do you have any sense of the play—state of play within the administration? Where are his advice—to the degree that he takes advice and counsel on foreign policy, where are they? What’s the balance of arguments and forces within his administration on this issue?

KUPCHAN: Hi, Bill. Good to hear from you.

I think this is an issue over which there is a great deal of spilt blood. There isn’t a common position among the people around Trump on this issue. I think a very small number of people are able to influence Trump on these core questions of foreign policy. You probably count them on one hand: Marco Rubio, JD Vance, Stephen Miller, Steven Witkoff. I think the National Security Council as well as the broader foreign policy apparatus, the State Department, and I’d probably put the Pentagon here, doesn’t have a lot of influence on these issues.

And I do think that there is a very strong view inside the administration—and this is in stark contrast to the Biden administration—that Ukraine doesn’t matter, that there is a view of grand strategy in the administration that’s very nineteenth-century. It’s very hemispheric. It’s great-power spheres of influence. It’s let’s focus on the Panama Canal, on annexing Canada, on buying Greenland. This is very nineteenth-century. And as a consequence, there are those—I think JD Vance would fall into this category—who, basically, we don’t have a dog in this fight, right? Why should we expend a lot more money to support Ukraine when we don’t have a dog in this fight?

I don’t think that I would put Trump in that category in the sense that he’s very transactional and not very ideological. And as a consequence, I think what he’s going to be thinking is two things: I want a deal with Putin because that gets me closer to a Nobel Prize, and I don’t want to be the president who lost Ukraine because that tarnishes my legacy. And I do think that he’s coming around the conclusion that Putin’s not going to make a deal unless Ukraine is a porcupine that can stop him, and I also think that he is concerned and he should be concerned that if he doesn’t support Ukraine they may lose the war. And that’s why I think he may be inclined to ignore JD Vance and those others around him who are saying this is not our problem and step up to the plate. I’m not confident that that’s going to be happening, but I feel like he’s edging in that direction.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to take the next question from Harris Mylonas, who has written his question. But if you want to ask it yourself, that would be great.

Q: Sure. Hi, Charlie.

KUPCHAN: Hey, Harris.

Q: Good to hear from you.

I was wondering if you could speak a little bit more about the role of China, both because there was a lot of talk of to what extent, you know, China kind of allowed for this to go on so long—in Europe, at least, many people have seen China as more involved than we have been discussing it in the U.S.—and whether you think China can play a role independently of all the other things you said. Yeah.

KUPCHAN: You know, China is a big—a big part of this conversation. The Chinese, I think, are at once uncomfortable with the position that they’re in—having recently been in Beijing, there’s a great deal of, I would say, dissent—quiet dissent about Xi Jinping’s decision to support Russia and to support Russia’s war against Ukraine. And it is—it is entirely inconsistent with Beijing’s view about national sovereignty and the protection of borders. But I think that Russia—that Ukraine—that China benefits from the geopolitical challenge that Russia presents to the West and is accordingly going along for the ride.

I do think that at the right time, China has an important role to play in convincing Putin to call it quits, and that’s because China has more influence over the Kremlin than any other power. I mean, one could almost go so far as to say that Russia is becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of China given how dependent the Russians have become on China economically, diplomatically, dual-use technology that ends up going into the country and ending up in the Russian military.

I do think that if Trump—and I would sort of add this to the—to the landscape, the diplomatic landscape—if Trump can cut a deal with the Chinese on trade, if he can find some way of lowering the temperature when it comes to U.S.-China rivalry—and I think the trade issue is the leading issue—I do think that there is a play here in which Trump can get Xi to put some pressure on Ukraine—on Russia to wind down the war. We’re not there yet. The meeting that took place between Xi Jinping and Trump recently was kind of a nothingburger. It was a truce, but there was no real breakthrough on the—on the relationship. So I would sort of put that kind of out there hanging in the background, but at the right time, I do think that the Chinese card will be an important one to play.

FASKIANOS: Thank you. In advance of this, we sent out your article, Charlie, “The Carrot-Stick Approach to Ending the War in Ukraine.”

We have a written question from Daniela Giacopelli, who’s at Lewis University: From a realist perspective, what is to stop Russia from accepting a carrot-and-stick deal only to disregard it years down the line and repeat the process based upon national interest to reclaim land?

KUPCHAN: You know, it’s a great question, and it’s the question that I think Zelenskyy and many Ukrainians ask on a daily basis. And that’s because, you know, Russia has a track record here, and it’s not a good one. Ukraine lives in a bad neighborhood. The Russians take chunks out of their neighbors’ territory on a distressingly regular basis. And as a consequence, even if Trump could convince Putin to end the war and agree to a ceasefire in place, there’s nothing that would guarantee that Putin won’t try this again in two years, three years, four years. And that’s why, number one, Ukraine has to be permitted in any kind of acceptable deal in arming itself to the teeth, because I think the only real guarantee that the Russians won’t try this again after a certain pause and after they have time to rebuild is the—to be convinced that they’re just not going to make it—they’re not going to make it any further than they have this last attempt. 

And so, as I said, I’m a skeptic that we’re going to see real security guarantees. I’m a skeptic that the Europeans, even if there is a ceasefire, are going to suddenly show up somewhere in western Ukraine in a way that would constitute a security guarantee. And that’s why, if I were Ukraine, if I were Zelenskyy, I would be focusing on building up my military industrial base, and in making sure that there is a supply chain of economic and military assistance that runs for years and that will provide Ukraine what it needs to stop a future Russian attempt to subjugate the country.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to go next to Suha Abrahim, who’s at the University of Kentucky.

Q: Hello. Just making sure you can hear me.

KUPCHAN: Yeah, I can.

FASKIANOS: We can.

Q: OK. Awesome.

So I was wondering, do you see this as a nonending war until Putin gets what he wants, or do you see some end to the war? And what could that look like?

KUPCHAN: I mean, I think that we have to take the Russians at face value, and that they do believe that Russia belongs in this broader near abroad, and that Ukraine belongs to Russia. And I think that even though many Russians probably don’t believe this, that Putin believes—or at least he did believe—that behind every Ukrainian was a wannabe Russian, and if only they could get rid of this neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv then the Ukrainian people would rise up and they would come home to mama. And I think that that kind of understanding of Russian civilization, Russian history, the connections that make the Orthodox Slavic world one headed with Russia at the head, that’s very much a part of what’s going on here, coupled with deep-seated grievance over the post-Cold War order and over Russia’s effective exclusion from the post-Cold War security structure which has been based upon the expansion of NATO.

One would hope that Putin would come to the realization that his move has backfired, and that Sweden and Finland have joined NATO; that you now have a lot more NATO forces on the eastern flank that you did before February 2022; that you now have unified Ukraine, which used to be a disunified country, right, without a strong national identity. You’ve unified this country with a very strong anti-Russian identity. And so I do think that at some point reality has to trickle in to Putin and those around him. And that’s why I think it’s so important for the United States along with its allies to drive home that reality that this isn’t going to work, and that if you can end this war and keep hold of 21 percent of Ukraine that’s as good as it’s going to get because you are not going to be able to take hold of the rest.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to take the next question, written question, from Ophoke Leonard Onyebuchi, who is at Cavendish University in Uganda: In light of the ongoing tensions between Ukraine and Russia, what collaborative steps can European nations take to strengthen regional security while ensuring a sustainable and peaceful resolution to the conflict?

KUPCHAN: Well, I think that there is a lot of business that needs to be done with Russia that cannot be done while this war is burning. Whether it is nuclear arms control, conventional arms control, dealing with Russia’s hybrid warfare and the drones that are showing up in Polish airspace or the Russian aircraft that are flying near Estonia, there’s a lot of dangerous stuff that’s happening. And I don’t believe that there is any prospect of a significant repair in Europe’s relationship with Russia as long as this war’s going on. I think we’re looking at a redivided Europe until Putin is no longer in power and you have a Russian government that is interested in trying to repair ties with the West. I’m guessing that’s going to be a long time coming.

I do think that—and I mentioned this at the end of my opening remarks—that in some ways the greatest challenge that Europe faces right now, even while it supports Ukraine, is internal. And I do believe that right now the greatest threat that we, the West, face is not Putin, is not Xi Jinping; it’s us, right? It is the hollowing out of the political center that is in many respects compromising liberal democratic norms and institutions on both sides of the Atlantic. And my guess is it’s going to get worse before it gets better, and it’s not unrelated to the war in Ukraine. And that’s because the war in Ukraine has brought in lots and lots of refugees, and it’s had a big impact on energy prices in Europe. And part of that electoral discontent that we see hollowing out the political center in France, in Germany, in Poland, in Italy, in the UK is the impact of that war, as well as many other things. But I do think that we have to kind of have a conversation that focuses not just on supporting Ukraine, but on dealing with this internal threat to the West, this internal threat to liberal democracy, which in some ways is more pressing and in some ways more dangerous than the external threat posed by Russia.

FASKIANOS: I’m going to go next to Nicole Stokes, who’s at Penn State University.

Q: Hello. Thank you. Just making sure everybody could hear me.

FASKIANOS: We can. Yeah.

Q: My name is Nicole Stokes. Great. Thank you. I am a professor of sociology at Penn State Abington, and I am teaching undergraduates this semester in “State, Public Policy, and Society.” And in this course, we spend a good amount of time talking about geopolitical events and specifically the impact on economic and national security policy, both at the domestic level as well as with regard to foreign relations policy. And I give you that long windup to ask this question of: Do you see a potential of Ukraine to leverage its supply of minerals, those key minerals that are needed for technology use, and leverage that control of the access to these natural resources in exchange for the long-term security you talked about in your comments, either vis-à-vis NATO, EU membership? And is this also leverage not only with just Europe, but also potentially with China to do—for China to perform in the way in which you describe, which is to exert its influence over the Kremlin? So thank you for your comments.

KUPCHAN: Sure. Great question.

You know, I think that on the minerals deal, on the kinds of deals that other countries are cutting with the United States, you know, that this is a conversation that appeals to Trump. As I said, I think Trump is in many respects more of a nineteenth-century president than a twenty-first-century president and he’s very focused. He’s a real estate developer and he thinks in terms of location and property and minerals, and so I think that it was smart for the Ukrainians to cut this deal with the United States because there is a big focus right now on rare earths and minerals, some of which Ukraine has. 

Part of the problem that Ukraine faces is this is a very long-term process. A lot of the mines that we’re looking at are not even functioning today. Some of them are in areas that are occupied by Russia. So it’s not as if the Ukrainians can make these highly lucrative attractive offers to Putin—excuse me, to Trump. 

But that having been said, I do think that it is an important vehicle that would encourage Trump to make the tough decision to send more help to Ukraine and to ask Congress for more money because he can say to his base, this is not on your dime. This is not on the American taxpayer. This is going to be paid for with interest by Ukraine through the minerals deal, and I think that would be an important piece of the domestic narrative if and when he actually comes to that decision. 

One final comment because I think it’s kind of relevant to where we—the question a few minutes ago about China. I do think that we are in a world in which this issue of access to rare earths and minerals is front and center and I think what we just saw play out at the meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump is that the Chinese played this card, right?

Trump had been playing the trade card, the tariff card, denying China access to Blackwell and Nvidia’s high-end chip, essentially looking at this as that, well, the United States holds the cards, and now Xi Jinping retaliated big time by withholding rare earths and magnets and critical materials in many, many different kind of high-tech supply chains. 

And this leveled the playing field and I think it’s something that has to be factored in when we look at U.S. diplomacy and in particular the dialogue between Beijing and Washington that will be unfolding in the coming months. 

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to go next to—let’s see—Daniel Velasquez. 

Q: Hello. Good afternoon. Can you guys hear me? 

KUPCHAN: Yeah.

FASKIANOS: Yes.

Q: Hello. I’m a student at the University of North Florida.

And I had a question regarding, like, if this is a Putin-centric problem, being Ukraine, or will his replacement in the future also be concerned with the occupation of Ukraine? 

KUPCHAN: You know, nobody knows the answer to that question. There are those around Putin who are considerably to his right, that is to say more nationalistic, more convinced that Ukraine belongs to Russia, more convinced that the Ukrainian churches break with the Orthodox Church. The Moscow Patriarchate is unacceptable. 

And so it’s conceivable that a post-Putin era could lead to a government that is more aggressive, that is more willing to use military force, that is ready to pursue the nuclear option. We just don’t know. 

But I do think that what we now have in Russia is a country that is on a war footing economically, politically, psychologically. The idea that somehow, we can strangle the Russian economy and that if we just tighten the sanctions here or just tighten the sanctions there Putin is going to cry wolf and end it. This, in my mind, is naive. 

Yeah, I have no problem tightening sanctions. I have no problem with putting this company under sanctions or trying to prevent other countries from buying Russian energy. But I don’t believe that playing that side of this equation is going to do the trick and that’s because I do think that there is a head of steam here on the war and that as a consequence the most central and critical issue is the readiness to give Ukraine what it needs to stop Putin and to convince him that he should say, “Mission accomplished. I’ve got 20 percent of Ukraine. I have expanded the Russian—the greater Russian world. We’re done.”

FASKIANOS: I’m going to take the next question from Matt Pauly, who’s at Michigan State University: I’m concerned that we continue to focus on a Kremlin-defined narrative regarding the nonvalue of Ukraine, formerly the largest country in Europe, to American security interests. We confront a new age of warfare in which drones flood the skies and expand the scope of the battlefield. Ukrainians are now the experts in drone development and deployment. Can the Pentagon profit technologically from a close military alliance with Ukraine? 

KUPCHAN: I mean, I think there’s no question that a lot of countries are learning from this war and that the degree to which we’ve gone from something that looked a lot like World War I—trench warfare, armored battles—to something that is new, right? 

A twenty-first century battle fought, largely, by unmanned drones is a big deal and I’m sure that the United States as well as other countries are collecting a lot of intelligence and collecting a lot of data on how this shift in technology, how this shift in the battlefield, is going to impact conflict down the road. 

And I’m guessing there’s a lot of information that’s being collected about Russia, about Russian military strategy, about Russia’s military-industrial complex, about its civil-military relations. 

So yeah, there is a lot of learning that’s going on here and I think one does have to give Ukraine credit for what it’s pulled off and that is Ukraine is still standing, and I think Joe Biden deserves a lot of credit for the fact that Ukraine is still standing because it wouldn’t have been able to do so without the U.S. seeing this coming, doing its homework, and putting together the coalition that allowed Ukraine to turn back a vastly superior aggressor. 

And so the fact that you have a country of less than 40 million people holding its own against a country that has a land mass that spans eleven time zones is very impressive, and as a consequence I think that kind of stamina and that kind of ability—that David-Goliath story, if you will—should, hopefully, inspire countries—the United States and its allies—to stick this out, to see this through, and to ensure that Ukraine is, in the end of the day, able to shut the war down and convince Putin to stop. 

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to go next to Nathan Colvin, who’s written a question but also has a raised hand. So why don’t you ask it yourself and give us your affiliation, please?

Q: Hi. Nathan Colvin. I’m with the College of William and Mary and Old Dominion University. 

You mentioned that the war is either territorial or ideological. I kind of feel like that it could be that those aren’t ends but they’re more of ways towards an end and that’s to keep Putin in power, because it seems like the objectives are otherwise flexible and, really, the continuation of the war is what’s keeping Putin in power because there’s a reckoning that’ll happen after the war, and I think that drives a lot of the questions on irrationality of, like, why do you take so many casualties? Why do you take so much loss in blood and treasure? It’s because it keeps him in power. 

So I’m just curious if you think there’s, like, maybe a third way that’s not ideological or territorial but more of a great man theory of self-interest that’s driving this conflict to continue happening. 

KUPCHAN: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a great point, Nathan, and I would say it’s a mix of all three. 

I think that—I think it’s a mistake to presume that this is really a war over territory, and I’ve heard people in Washington including inside the Trump administration asserting that this is a war for territory and it partly is in the sense that the Russians have annexed a certain chunk of Ukraine and that Putin wants to fulfill that political commitment. 

But it is also much broader than that. It is also about history, about civilization, and I think that Putin has done an impressive job of convincing not just the people around him but the Russian population that this is a war for the survival of Russia, that this is a war of Russia against the West. 

And I would agree with you that in some ways what’s happened here is that Putin has staked his leadership, his ability to stay in power, on convincing the Russian people that that’s in fact what this war is. It’s a war for the survival of the Russian people and the Russian state, and that makes it harder for him to shut it down. 

It makes it harder for him to declare victory and scale back his more expansionist and maximalist war aims. But—and this is, I think, an important but—we should not underestimate the ability of leaders like Putin to manage the domestic narrative. 

You know, he basically has control over Russian media. He basically has control of the conversation in the Russian street about this, and as a consequence, if he wanted to shut it down I think he could shut it down. You know, to the degree we had a kind of test case of Putin’s power it was the sort of mutiny that we saw a couple of years ago. 

Nobody really got behind it. Nobody said, hey, let’s—this is our chance to topple Putin. And that said to me that not only is he very much in power but that he has succeeded in creating a patronage system that is stable.

And so that means he’s going to be around for a long time unless something happens to him and, number two, that even though I would agree with you that this is a war that in part is about perpetuating his strength, if he wanted to, I think he could change that narrative in a way that wouldn’t do a lot of domestic damage to his support. 

FASKIANOS: I’m going to take a written question from Felicia Grey, who’s at the University of Detroit Mercy: Years ago, I read your book How Enemies Become Friends and found it to be very insightful. I’m wondering if you think any of those principles such as strategic accommodation, reciprocal restraint, and societal integration being applicable to the Russia-Ukrainian conflict or if you think this is a totally different type of conflict. 

KUPCHAN: Well, thank you for reading the book and you, clearly, read it because you got the concepts right. 

You know, right now any discussion about rapprochement and reconciliation between Russia and Ukraine is—that’s something for the distant future, and that’s because we’re still in the middle of a hot war. 

The amount of suffering, of death, of destruction, of displacement is huge and it’s going to take a very, very long time to get to a situation in which you have a kind of repair of the relationship and, in fact, I think it will of necessity require a post-Putin Russia because I think Ukrainians should and will see Putin’s Russia as having done grievous damage to the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian nation and it’s going to take a long time before there is a kind of broader societal repair. 

I do, however, think that that framework that you mentioned of mutual accommodation, of strategic restraint, of trying to ratchet down escalation is probably most pertinent today in today’s world between the United States and China. 

Where I do think that the U.S. and China have been locked in a dangerous escalatory spiral in a way that won’t just bring back another Cold War but that could fracture our—a very interdependent global system and make—put out of reach the kind of teamwork that we need, whether it’s to end the war in Ukraine, whether it’s climate change, whether it’s nuclear proliferation, and I do think that there is a need to at least explore the possibility of deescalating the U.S.-China rivalry along the lines that I spell out in that book. 

And, you know, I think Trump is doing the right thing. I think it was smart for Trump to invite Xi Jinping to his inauguration. I hope that he goes to China in April. I hope that they are able to cut a trade deal, because if they are able to do so and if they are able to lower the tension in the bilateral relationship the world is going to be much better off. 

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’ll take the next question from Grace Boiguene.

Q: Hi. My name is Grace. I attend Boston College. I’m currently a student. I’m taking a class in the causes of war and we’re talking about Russia and Ukraine currently. 

I wanted to ask you more about the broader implications if Russia were to win the war in Ukraine, what your opinion is on whether or not that would lead to a stronger NATO and what strategic adjustments you think that the neighboring European countries should make. Like, you already said, Finland, Sweden, like, you believe they had already secured an almost NATO-like feeling.

And I want to know what you think they should do if this aggression continues, especially not knowing with Putin’s mindset if they will just stop at Ukraine, if it will continue to go further, and whether his intentions are to continue to get more territory. 

KUPCHAN: I mean, if Russia were to win—and if that means either a military victory or toppling the government and installing a puppet regime and turning Ukraine into something that looks like Belarus—there would be an enormous uptick in anxiety in Europe. 

But I also think it’s important to understand that Europeans today sense an existential threat from the war in Ukraine in a way that we do not. If you live here in the United States, Ukraine is far away. We read about it. We hear about it. 

If you live in Poland or Romania or Germany you are not very far from where bombs are falling and that has created a real sense of tangible fear that should not be underestimated and it has led to a readiness to increase defense spending in Europe including in Germany in a way that nobody really thought imaginable a few years ago. 

And so, whether or not the rest of Ukraine falls to Russia, I think we are back in a situation in which Europe is remilitarizing and Europe is redivided, and that is not going to go away anytime soon. 

I would caution, though, against a narrative that I sometimes hear that strikes me as a little bit of hyperventilation and that is if—that unless we defeat Russia, unless we drive Russia from all of Ukraine, then Putin’s just going to keep coming. Then Putin is going to say, oh, I got 20 percent of Ukraine so now I’m going to go after Estonia and then I’m going to go after Poland. 

That kind of linkage, I think, should be cautioned against, and although I think that Putin is going to probe here and poke there, I don’t expect him to launch an attack against a NATO country, in part because that would mean World War III, and in part because Russia is having a hard enough time defeating Ukraine. 

Does Russia really want to fight Ukraine plus thirty-two NATO members? I don’t think so. So I do believe that it is in the strong interest of the U.S. and its allies to make sure that Ukraine doesn’t lose but I also think we need to be realistic. 

Ukraine is not going to win, and as a consequence, the best course of action is the one that Trump is pursuing and that is trying to end the war with a ceasefire in place. He just needs to up the pressure on the Kremlin if we’re going to get that outcome. 

FASKIANOS: I’m going to take the next question from Devin Dayal at Fordham University: How is the use of drones in this conflict, as you mentioned, alongside recent drone incursions into NATO’s airspace significant for European security? Is there a way that European countries should respond to Russian drone incursions in the future while also considering risks of escalation? 

KUPCHAN: Yeah. I mean, there is a conversation that’s ongoing now inside NATO and inside countries in NATO, and it’s not just frontline countries because Denmark, for example, other countries that are not bordering the frontier, have experienced drones and had to close airports and other kinds of hybrid. You know, we’ve heard about bombs being put in I think it was a DHL system. 

So the Russians are definitely up to no good. They’re probing here, they’re probing there, and I do think you’re going to get to a situation in which some kind of system will be put in place to take down drones that penetrate NATO airspace, and we already saw in response to the penetration of NATO airspace earlier that some fighter aircraft were deployed—some air defense systems were deployed. Steps are being taken to deal with this issue. 

But I think this is the new normal and we’re going to see a lot of this kind of stuff. When it comes to escalation, you know, I think that the issue there is much more one of manned aircraft, right, because if you did have a situation in which, let’s say, a Russian fighter jet—a manned fighter jet penetrated NATO airspace and it was shot down by NATO air defense or national air defense, then we’re looking at a situation that is a lot more dangerous. 

But I—you know, I do think that this is an issue that requires cool heads and cool minds. So far, despite the intensity of the war in Ukraine, NATO members and Russia have both gone out of their way to avoid escalation. Let’s hope that continues. 

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to take the next question from Buba Misawa, who has a raised hand. If you could unmute yourself. 

Q: Can you hear me? 

KUPCHAN: Yes. 

FASKIANOS: Yes.

Q: OK. Professor, that was a great conversation you had and my question maybe have been superseded by all the other questions. But there are three things that I wanted to ask of you. They’re interrelated. 

Do you think that the failure to contain Putin—and I don’t think we wanted to discuss issues of containment or deterrence at this time of post-war—post-Cold War conflict—but do you think the failure to deter Putin is as a result of three interrelated things: one, the changing norms of—around international intervention and, second, the issues of strategic failure of Europe and the United States, and, third, the reemergence of realpolitik? 

I know you answered those questions in various forms but I just wanted to see how you will articulate those. 

KUPCHAN: Yeah. You know, I don’t think that the West bears no responsibility for what’s unfolded. 

I worked in the White House in the early 1990s in the Clinton administration and was a strong opponent of the enlargement of NATO, and I think it was a mistake in the 1990s to proceed with a security architecture for Europe that left Ukraine—that left Russia out and to move NATO’s borders ever closer to Russia, and I think it was a particular mistake in 2008 to commit to the integration of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. 

I understand why Russia was uncomfortable with Ukrainian membership in NATO. I get that, right, and that’s simply because major powers are uncomfortable when other major powers stray into their neighborhood, and as a consequence, I think it was a mistake to proceed with a policy that aimed at the integration of Ukraine into NATO. 

That having been said, I think this is an issue that should have been settled at the negotiating table, that the expansion of NATO by no means justifies a Russian war against Ukraine that has caused untold death and suffering, and that the main explanation for Russia’s intervention and invasion of Ukraine is in many respects Russia’s own failures.

It is the inability of Putin to turn Russia into a twenty-first century country. Russia remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels. It never invested in its knowledge economy. How many Russian companies come to mind as leading world companies? Few, if any, just mainly the energy companies like Gazprom. 

And so, in some respects, I think what you see here is a sign of Russia’s own failure and the degree to which Putin has surrounded himself in this aura of Russian nationalism and Russian greatness and doesn’t have much else to show for his presidency. And so even though I was an opponent of NATO enlargement, I think it was a mistake for NATO to aim at the inclusion of Ukraine and understand why Russians would object to that. 

I think the roots of this conflict are very much in a certain Russian paranoia and, as I said, in Putin’s own failure to create a government and a narrative that would have legitimated his government on something other than aggression and nationalism. 

FASKIANOS: Well, with that we are at the end of our time. Thank you, Dr. Kupchan, for this hour, and to all of you. There were so many raised hands and questions. I apologize that we were not able to get to them all. But, obviously, we will continue having discussions on this topic. And you can access a lot of Charlie’s writings on CFR.org, so I commend that to you. 

The last Global Affairs Expert Webinar of the semester will be on Wednesday, November 19, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time with Jonathan Hillman, Heidi Crebo-Rediker, who both are fellows at CFR. They will talk about American economic security and defense, and Carla Anne Robbins, a senior fellow at CFR, will moderate. 

So in the meantime, I encourage you to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. Visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues, and education.CFR.org for free expert-informed teaching and learning resources. 

Again, thank you, Charlie Kupchan, and thanks to all of you. 

KUPCHAN: Thanks, Irina. 

(END)