Leshchenko said that the perception by some in the West that the war is “unwinnable” is inaccurate when viewed through a historical lens. “We are in 1941. We don't know what the result will be in the end. But we have to fight because if you don’t fight, the result will be horrible.”

Ustinova added, "Poland, or another country, will be next, and it may be a NATO country. And then the Americans would need to put boots on the ground and fight a European war again and lose thousands of your people.”

Russia has created a false narrative about Ukrainian corruption, she said. “What Ukraine was ten years ago and what Ukraine is now are two different countries. We have created very efficient new anti-corruption institutions, like our National Anti-Corruption Bureau, that are supported and highly admired by our international partners, including the United States. We have more than 600 cases in court against former state officials or existent state officials.”

‘Our fight for freedom’

Matviichuk said delays in U.S. military aid are a major concern in Ukraine. “In this difficult situation, we have no other choice. Our people in Ukraine will continue our fight for freedom and democracy because if we stop fighting, there will be no more Ukrainians.”

Leshchenko said he had recently been in the Donetsk region, where he visited two Ukrainian brigades. He urged the continuation of American military assistance as the lack of support was affecting their troops.

“The general mood is quite uncertain,” he said. “The soldiers are really disappointed with the lack of ammunition for vehicles and artillery, which they need to attack Russian positions. Unfortunately, they cannot do so now — this lack of ammunition is crucial.” But he added, “We will keep fighting.”

Ustinova said the world has grown too comfortable in believing that Ukraine would prevail without ongoing support. 

“A year ago, when I was speaking on this same panel, I was very enthusiastic because we were planning the counteroffensive. We had been successful in getting some territories back, and I think the world was really clapping and standing behind Ukrainians for winning the war within the last year. It is very sad for me to say now from Kyiv that everything has changed,” she said.

Russia was the only country that ramped up its ammunition and weapons production over the past couple of years, she added. “Last year, they tripled the production of their ballistic and ultrasonic missiles.” 

Noting that Russia has kidnapped more than 20,000 Ukrainian children, Ustinova said, “This is not just a Ukrainian conflict. This is a much bigger deal we are looking at right now. We have Iran. We have North Korea. We have Russia standing on one side, and we have the Western world and democracy standing on the other side. I’m so sorry to say, but the first group is so far more efficient than the second one.”

She explained, “It’s much easier for autocracies and those regimes to be united and take the decisions to ramp up their production lines than for the Western democracies who have to debate and negotiate.”

Technology race, Ukrainian efficiencies

Honcharuk said the war has crystalized Ukraine’s focus on military efficiency. Last year, his teams completed about 2,000 combat missions and destroyed over 700 units of enemy military equipment. This year, they are planning for 20,000 combat missions.

“I believe Ukraine is already a trendsetter,” he said. “The technology race is very fast when you have a war. Day by day, you are trying to compete with the enemy, and Ukraine is forced to maintain this very high pace to survive. There is only one country that currently has the same high pace, and it may be even higher — that is Russia.”

He said that Russia already understands that Ukraine will not give up “I believe now Russia is trying to find other weak spots on democratic camp … It’s very sad if they are right. The whole free world is in a very dangerous situation because Russia learned their lessons very fast, and they are much more dangerous than they were a year or two ago.”

Yet Honcharuk described the Ukrainian army as the best army in the world to fight against Russia. “We understand both systems, NATO systems and post-Soviet systems, at the same time, and we can destroy and damage Russian forces with very few resources.”

Ustinova noted the grim irony of Russia chairing the United Nations Security Council. “The United Nations was invented to prevent the wars in the world. Russia is the number one terrorist in the world, and they are the chair of the Security Council of the United Nations?! Everybody pretends this to be okay?!”

‘A hard war’

Stoner said that the Russian invasion has wrought significant damage on Ukraine as a country. “The World Bank estimated last year that it would cost over $411 billion for Ukrainian reconstruction, and I’m sure that number has increased rather dramatically in the last six or so months.”

In closing, McFaul told the panelists, “A lot of your friends are here in the audience. We miss you. We want you to come back. We want to celebrate victory. But we’re also worried about you. This is a hard war, and you are all very involved in everything in your own ways. I cannot believe you’re being so generous with your time with us as late as it is there.”

Stoner added, “This is not just a Ukrainian fight, it is. It is a fight for everyone, and thank you all for everything that you’re doing.”

You can view a recording of the panel and discussion below and read more about the event in the Stanford Daily.

Follow the link for a full transcript of "Global Threats: What's at Stake and What We Can Do About It."

Reform the Electoral College |  Didi Kuo

One of the major problems people feel right now in American politics is that their voices aren’t heard. We live in what my colleague Francis Fukuyama calls a "vetocracy," meaning there are a lot of veto points in our system.

In a lot of other democratic institutional configurations, you have rule by the majority. But in the United States, we have an institutional configuration that allows a very small group — for example, 15 people in the House of Representatives — to hold up government in various ways. We see this in dramatic examples on the national level, but it also trickles down to the local level where you see it in issues like permitting hold-ups.

Reforming the Electoral College would be a very direct way of changing that vetocracy. The United States is one of the only advanced democracies that has this indirect system of elections. If all the votes counted equally and all the presidential candidates had to treat all of us the same and respond to us equally in all 50 states, it would do a lot to show the power of the popular vote and realign us more closely to the principle of majoritarianism that we should seek in our institutions.

Allow Taiwan to License Weapons Production |  Larry Diamond

My recommendation is deterrence, deterrence, deterrence. It is not inevitable that the People's Republic of China is going to launch an all-out military assault on Taiwan. But if the United States does not do more to make that a costly decision, the likelihood it will happen are exponentially higher.

Deterrence works. The United States deterred the Soviet Union from moving against West Berlin and much of Europe for decades. But it only works if you have a superior force.

To that end, the United States needs to pre-position more military force in the region. There's now a $12 billion backlog of weapons that Taiwan has ordered and paid for but hasn't received yet. That’s because the American defense production system is completely broken. This is the same reason why we can’t get weapons to Ukraine at the pace we need there.

This issue could be fixed, at least in part, if we licensed the production of some of these weapon systems directly to Taiwan. Their ability to build plants and produce these systems is much more agile than our own, and so licensing the rights to production would dramatically increase the deterrence factor against China, in addition to deepening our cooperation with allies throughout the region.

Pursue Climate Mitigation AND Adaptation |  Marshall Burke

There are three things we can do in response to climate change: we can mitigate, we can adapt, or we can suffer. We’re off to a good start, but we have decades of long slog ahead of us to get that right. And it's not just us; even if we do a good job, we depend on other countries to also do a good job. The Biden administration has already been engaged on some of that front, but there’s more work to do there.

And even with our best efforts, we are not going to be able to move as fast as we want or mitigate our greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as we need to avoid climate change. So, we're going to have to live with some climate change, which means adaptation. And if we can't adapt, then we're going to suffer. 

The key point is that we are very poorly adapted to today's climate, much less the climate we're going to have 30 or 50 years from now. The West Coast and California are prime examples of this. There have been monumental wildfire seasons there the last few years, and there are significant negative health impacts from smoke exposure. I see it in my own home, even as someone who studies this and should know better and do more to reduce those risks.

The point is, we're really poorly adapted to the current climate, and things are going to get a lot worse. We need to focus on mitigation; it’s still really important and we need to get it done. But at the same time, we need to figure out how to adapt and live with the changing climate that we're going to experience.

Weapons for Ukraine, Sanctions on Russia |  Michael McFaul

When I was in Kyiv this September, I had a chance to meet with President Zelenskyy, and he pointed out an absolutely crazy reality. Companies in the United States and Europe are still making tens of thousands of dollars in profits from selling various technologies that ultimately end up in Russia. It’s getting in through places like Hong Kong and Kazakhstan and Belarus and Georgia, and it allows Russia to keep waging its horrific war.

At the same time, the United States is spending millions of dollars to arm Ukraine with systems to shoot down the Russian rockets that were built using the components they got from the West. That’s completely illogical, bad policy. I know it’s hard to control technology, but we have to find a better way than what we’re doing right now. If you're an American taxpayer, that is your money being wasted.

That means more and better weapons for Ukraine, faster. And that means more and better sanctions on Russia, faster. That is the way to speed the end of this war.

Be Confident in America |  Amichai Magen

Just a few short years ago, we were all talking about the decline of the United States. I think that is far from inevitable. People speak about the 20th century as the “American Century.” The 21st century can also be the American Century. It's in our hands.

Be bullish on America. Be confident in America. Rediscover the spirit of America for adaptation and innovation and entrepreneurship. We need to wake up from the break we’ve taken from history in the post-Cold War era and rally once again in our spirit, our research, and our intellect.

We need to find new solution structures to the great challenges of our era: environmental challenges, AI, biotechnological challenges, nuclear challenges. And we can do it. China is on the verge of demographic decline and economic decline. Russia is a very dangerous international actor, but it is not a global superpower. We must reinvent the institutions and the alliances that we need for the 21st century in order to make sure that we continue a journey towards greater peace and prosperity for all of mankind.

The entire discussion, including the audience Q&A, is available to watch on FSI's YouTube channel. To stay up to date on our content, be sure to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications.