TRANSCRIPT:

Kahl: You're listening to World Class from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. I'm your host, Colin Kahl. I'm excited to pick up the mantle from Mike McFaul, both as FSI director and as the host of this podcast.

It's hard to believe we're only six weeks into 2026. And yet there's already been a year's worth of foreign policy developments.

In early January, U.S. military forces swooped into Caracas to capture Venezuela's president, Nicolas Maduro, and bring him back to the United States. Then President Trump started making military and tariff threats in an effort to acquire Greenland, causing a major transatlantic crisis and prompting Canada's prime minister to declare that there had been a “rupture: in the international order.

Meanwhile, mass protests have rocked Iran, shaking the pillars of the regime and prompting the deployment of U.S. military assets to the Middle East and renewed threats from President Trump to strike the regime. Just a few days ago, Trump officials traveled to the Middle East to meet with Iranian officials in an attempt to negotiate a new nuclear deal just a day after meeting with representatives from Russia and Ukraine to try to settle that devastating conflict.

In other words, 2026 is off to a breathtaking start with widespread geopolitical consequences.

I can't think of any better guests to help us understand these developments and where things might be headed in the remaining 46 weeks of 2026 than my good friends H.R. McMaster and Jake Sullivan.

H.R. is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General who served as the President's National Security Advisor in the first Trump administration. He joined us here at FSI as the Bernard and Susan Leotaud Visiting Fellow in 2018, and he is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. You can catch him on his podcast, Today's Battleground, on all major platforms.

Jake Sullivan was national security advisor for all four years of the Biden administration. He's now the Kissinger Professor of Practice of Statecraft and World Order at the Harvard Kennedy School and a senior fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. And he also hosts a podcast alongside John Finer called The Long Game.

You'll notice that both Jake and and H.R. have their own podcasts. So if you like what you hear today, please go check them out. And if you don't, you can blame me and you should still go check them out.

H.R., Jake, it's great to have you on the pod.

McMaster: Hey, Colin, great to be here with you and Jake.

Sullivan: Really good to be with you guys.

Kahl: Both of you served as national security advisors. That job is often dominated by crises of the day. But the national security advisor also plays an important role in shaping U.S. grand strategy, including by producing a congressionally mandated document called the National Security Strategy of the United States.

So I wanted to start our discussion by zooming out from current events to look at the big picture captured in these documents. And H.R.I. was hoping to start with you.

You know, when you were national security advisor during the first Trump administration, you and your deputy, Nadia Schadlow, produced a really excellent 2017 National Security Strategy. And I think what was most notable about that 2017 document was that it was really a hard pivot away from the post-9/11 framing of national security.

It recognized that threats that we were focused on after 9/11, like terrorism and rogue states, still mattered, but that actually the biggest challenges to the United States was resurgent great power competition, with China and Russia really challenging America's interest across the board.

It's interesting, at least to me, to note that the Trump administration's in the second term has released a national security strategy back in December of 2025. And it actually has a much different tone on great power politics. It doesn't really describe Russia as a threat. It prioritizes strategic stability. It doesn't even talk about China until page 19 of like a 30-page document and largely frames the China challenge in economic terms, as opposed to a kind of an omnidirectional challenge to the United States.

You're a close observer of these things. Do you think there's been a meaningful shift in how President Trump, in his second term, is thinking about this issue?

McMaster: I think there's a meaningful shift in really the composition of the administration overall and maybe the president's mentality to a certain extent as well.

As you know, the new national security strategy prioritizes more hemispheric defense and the Western Hemisphere—North America in particular in terms of missile defense. This is why President Trump was so fixed on on Greenland as important to to defense and Arctic security Well, you know, want to say hey Canada is pretty important to that too So maybe we should stop kicking them in the ass.

But the other aspect to this is the emphasis on industrial base. A lot of the president's economic agenda is all through it.

But I’d love to hear what both of you guys think about this: I think that Venezuela was a lot about Russia and Chinese and as well as Iranian influence in the hemisphere. Arctic security, well, who's that about? That's about competition with China and Russia. Whose missiles are we worried about coming across the Arctic cap? Well, hey, Russian and Chinese. So I think that in practice, the competition is continuing.

I think this national security strategy fell into the trap that previous ones had fallen into as well, which is describing the world as we might like it to be. It was more aspirational, that maybe we don't have as big of a problem with these two revanchist powers on the Eurasian landmass.

And this is maybe in part to get the big trade deal that the president wants with China. Which, by the way, I don't think he's going to get. So I think that's kind of the big difference is to shift back to more of a document that describes the world as some people in the administration might want it to be.

Kahl: Picking up on that: Jake, you oversaw the writing of the 2022 National Security Strategy. And there are obviously a lot of differences between the first Trump administration and the Biden administration. But actually, I think there's a lot of strategic continuity on the great power competition issue between the document that H.R. oversaw and the document that you oversaw. And I think H.R. is on to something when he notes that there is an element of great power competition in what the president appears to be doing in Venezuela or with Greenland. 

But it really frames the challenges that we face from China or Russia largely in hemispheric terms and homeland defense, as opposed to a kind of omnidirectional challenge that we have to deal with in the Indo-Pacific, in Europe, in the global south.

Can you talk a little bit about how much you think there's divergence here? Do you think it reflects a shift in grand strategy towards maybe a spheres of influence model or some other model? What do you think?

Sullivan: You know, H.R. makes a very good point that implicit in the rationale for both the “Donroe Doctrine,” this hemispheric doctrine, and in the attempt to take Greenland, implicit in that is great power competition with Russia and China. And I do think the Trump administration has kind of tried to retrofit his obsession with actually getting dominion over Greenland through the lens of the threat of Russia and China.

But fundamentally, when you step back from the most recent national security strategy and ask who is the biggest enemy, what is the biggest threat facing the United States, this document seems to say it's immigrants. It's migrants. And it says it not just with respect to the U.S. and a combination, the kind of intersection of migration and drugs. It also says it with respect to our closest allies in Europe.

It says the biggest threat to Europe is not Russia invading Ukraine or looming over the rest of Europe and our NATO allies, it's migrants. It's people coming to engage in what the document calls, quote “civilizational erasure.”

I think this is a huge shift. It's the first time I've seen in the national security strategy in the modern era a thumb on the scale, maybe a whole fist on the scale, with respect to political preferences in allied countries. It specifically calls out “patriotic parties,” i.e. right-wing parties in Europe, needing to be ascendant and come to the fore. And this essentially writes down on paper what J.D. Vance spoke in his speech at Munich last year. So I think that's a huge shift.

And then I think the second really big shift is the strategy that H.R. oversaw and the strategy that we carried forward in the Biden administration really saw the competition with China as a multi-spectrum competition across all domains, military, technological, economic, diplomatic, you name it.

The Trump administration really does seem to telescope the China challenge chiefly down to, as you pointed out, an economic lens. And that we can have a good relationship with them on everything else if we can work things out on the economics.

This leaves huge questions about things like, what is U.S. policy towards Taiwan? What will US policy be towards allies in the region on paper? The Indo-Pacific section looks pretty similar to what our strategy looked like. In practice, President Trump seems to really be saying to Japan and other countries, look, I'm not going to have your back to the same extent vis-a-vis China as previous administrations have.

So I think there's a huge amount of divergence here. I think it's a totally different way of looking at the world. And that chiefly comes back to this question of what they perceive to be the biggest threat to American security. And I think a lot of it has to do with this fusion of migration as both a domestic and foreign policy issue.

McMaster: If I could just comment on that?

Kahl: Go ahead!

McMaster: I just wanted to point out the kind of the geopolitical dimension of the migration problem as well. As Jake is alluding to it, this is a big issue in Europe. And I believe that Putin deliberately weaponized migrants. And of course, we have great evidence of this in specific countries, such as in Finland. And what he did in perpetuating, for example, the serial episodes of mass homicide in the Syrian civil war to create a huge migration crisis in Europe.

And then governments like in Germany—Angela Merkel's government—I don't think they dealt with it very well. And so what that allowed is Putin to accelerate his campaign of political subversion in Europe by supporting both far left and especially far right parties and create these kind of centripetal forces in Europe that diminish European will to stand up to Russian aggression.

And of course, we saw a similar dynamic here in the Western Hemisphere, with the Venezuelans to a certain extent weaponizing migration and illegal immigration in particular.

And the cartels really benefiting from that tremendously as they went in heavy on the business of human trafficking.

So, there is a huge, legitimate national security aspect of migration. But it also traces back to some of these larger geopolitical competitions.

Kahl: I think you've both hit on some really important things. I don't think there's any debate that enormous amounts of irregular migration can be potentially politically destabilizing in any country that's the recipient. And in fact, the rise of populism in the United States and in Europe can be directly traced back to a lot of anxieties about migration flows.

I do think, though, that what's striking to me is that previous national security strategies largely framed democracies as kind of our team and were critical of autocracies. The most recent document doesn't criticize autocracies at all, but does criticize fellow democracies, especially in Europe, largely by externalizing our own cultural and political conversations over wokeness and over what defines Western civilization. And I do think that is a notable shift.

But I want to get back to the China piece, and Jake, maybe start with you.

The national security documents the UNHR oversaw defined China as the most consequential strategic competitor. It's the only country in the world that can challenge the United States across the board—militarily, diplomatically, technologically, economically. Russia can blow up the world, but they can't dominate the world. China can dominate the world.

But as you said, Trump seems to be particularly focused basically through a political economy lens of the China challenge. Last year we saw a high stakes game of chicken between the United States and China over trade. Trump threatened 100 percent tariffs, but then he walked the average back to I think around 47 percent after Beijing choked off the supply of rare earths essential for our defense industrial base.

We've also seen reversals on technology export controls, including ones that started under the Trump administration and escalated under the Biden administration, most recently with Trump greenlighting exports of advanced NVIDIA H200 AI chips.

It looks like Trump and Xi Jinping are going to meet for a summit in April in Beijing. They'll probably meet again at the end of the year at the G20 here in the United States. My sense is that Trump is really angling for a “Big Beautiful Trade Bill” with China and that he may be willing to go even softer on tech and maybe even Taiwan in order to get it.

But I would love to hear where you think things are headed on the U.S.-China front.

Sullivan: Yeah, you're right. I think he would like the big beautiful trade bill with China. I think he's going to get a small, less beautiful trade bill with China. I think there will be some accommodation reached with respect to tariff levels and purchase commitments, all aimed at his objective of reducing the trade deficit. But I don't believe that it is going to address a lot of the underlying structural issues that China presents to the United States and the rest of the world. 

Their industrial overcapacity that is flooding the world with products on a non-commercial basis and undermining the ability of workers and businesses in the West to compete. I don't think that anything he does is going to get at that problem.

I think what you're basically going to see is some incremental and relatively tactical gains. And by the way, on the Chinese side, I think they don't want to put all their chips on President Trump because they recognize he's in his second term. He only has so long to go. He is unpredictable. They can only bet on him so much even within his term. And so I would expect something more modest, more tactical, more incremental this year.

The big question for me—and I alluded to this in my previous answer—I think the Chinese are interested in getting President Trump to say something different about Taiwan than previous presidents have said. Something about peaceful reunification or opposing independence, some formula that moves the needle in their direction in terms of American policy.

And I think President Trump might be tempted to do that, honestly. And I think there would be reverberating impacts from that in terms of the confidence of our partners in Taiwan and the confidence of our allies in the region. So I think that's something for all of us to watch very closely in this meeting.

I should also note that I'm hearing from contacts in China that they actually expect the possibility of up to four meetings this year. There's the the Trump trip to Beijing. A Xi trip to the States that would be disconnected from the G20. Then China is hosting the APEC summit and the United States is hosting the G20.

So there is actually the possibility that we could have four separate leader meetings in 2026 alone. So, a lot of opportunity for everything I just said to be proven totally wrong.

Kahl: Ha! H.R., thoughts?

McMaster: Well, that's exactly what the president wants is really the phase two trade deal he didn't get in Trump I.

If you can picture Xi Jinping as the Peanuts character Lucy and President Trump as Charlie Brown, I think that's what's going to happen again. She's going to, you know, “Xi” is going to move the football.

So, I think what you're going to see ultimately is President Trump backing in to the kind of competitive approach that he adopted in Trump I. And it was an element of continuity between the Trump and Biden administrations.

I think what's different from Trump I to today is that a lot of the people who were actually pretty productive interlocutors for us, like Liu He in Trump I . . . they're gone. And Xi Jinping has really, with these purges you've seen inside of China, has all his people who were very hard-line, and by the way, who I think because of Wang Huning and some of the people around Xi Jinping, really, really believe that the West is in decline, that we are weak, that we're decadent, that we're divided. So I think Xi Jinping's going be feeling it when President Trump goes there in April.

He's going to feel like this is President Trump going to supplicate to the emperor. And the visuals will be designed to do that, which I don't think President Trump's going to like on the back end.

So, anyway, I think a lot could happen with these meetings and in between these meetings. But I think ultimately the president will be disabused of this idea that China will significantly curtail its unfair trade and economic practices and essentially the form of economic warfare it's waging against us.

Sullivan: Colin, if I can just reinforce this really important point I think H.R. just made. The Chinese leadership has this phrase, “the East is rising, the West is declining.” And by the East, they mean China, and by the West, they mean the United States. And they really believe that the U.S. is in secular decline and that a lot of that has to do with our political dysfunction and their view that democracy simply can't succeed in the 21st century.

And it's interesting that last year, In this episode you described of Trump slapping on the tariffs and China responding with the rare earth export controls, the lesson that Xi Jinping took from that is that China holds the high cards. That America has vulnerabilities. That China has a lot of leverage. So, you have both at a tactical and a broad structural and strategic level a real confidence emanating from Beijing right now.

And then you combine that with the fact that they they are uncertain about exactly where Trump is going to go and about this other point H.R. made, which is that Trump could easily shift from more conciliatory to a more competitive position between one meeting and another, between one year and another.

So I think all of that does add up to China feeling it doesn't have to give a lot. It also doesn't want to give too much that kind of puts it on the hook for an unpredictable president. And I think that's the dynamic that's going to really shape the engagements that we see over the course of this year.

Where I'm not sure I agree with H.R. is I'm not sure that Trump wants to move into a really competitive posture here. It seems to me that he's gonna accept something that isn't Phase Two. That short of that, I think he may end up declaring victory on that and saying, I've made peace with Xi and China and the U.S. are good and I'm reducing the trade deficit and so forth. 

So I'm not as convinced that he's going to move to the same kind of competitive strategy that he pursued when H.R. was in the seat.

Kahl: I mean, think one other continuity in the approaches embodied in the two national security strategies you two oversaw was the recognition that in today's day and age, foreign policy is increasingly a team sport and that we need our allies alongside us. It doesn't mean they don't need to be spending more on their own defense. It doesn't mean that there aren't complaints about them not doing enough.

But every single problem we face, we typically do it alongside our closest treaty allies in Europe and Japan. And not the least of which, trying to think through the China challenge, negotiating with China from a position of collective strength. I know that's something both of you have talked about.

It speaks to, what is the health of our alliances right now? We've already talked about Greenland. We've talked about the civilizational erasure issue, maybe starting with you, Jake, and then H.R.

How bad are things right now in U.S. alliances? Is there a meaningful difference between our alliances in Europe and our alliances in Asia on that scorecard? What do think?

Sullivan: It feels pretty bad in the transatlantic alliance, at least at the level of mood and vibe. Whether just at the level of structure, the reality of our shared interests and the reality of our interdependence, it's been shaken so badly that it's irreparable. I'm less convinced of that. I think a lot of damage has been done, but there still just is the reality that we are deeply tied to our European allies.

Asia is an interesting case because as I mentioned, both in words, the description of the strategy towards our Asian allies is similar to Biden and to Trump I. And by and large, what you see from the administration in terms of how it tries to sustain those alliances with Japan, Korea, and Australia in particular, but the Philippines as well, there's more continuity there.

But there was one episode that really stood out to me as concerning. And that was when the Prime Minister of Japan, the Iron Lady, Takaichi, made a comment when she was testifying before the Japanese Parliament about how Taiwan's an existential threat. And I think the technical term is China freaked out about it, imposed a bunch of coercive responses. And rather than President Trump saying—as I think President Biden would have done, or maybe even President Trump in the first term—calling up Japan and saying, we've got your back, President Trump called Xi Jinping and said, hey, what do you make of all this? Xi said to him, hey, you better call the Japanese and tell them to cool it. And Trump did that.

And I think in Japan right now, they read that as some lack of confidence that, in fact, the U.S. will have their back and some concern in quarters in Japan that they're going to have to make their own accommodation with China over time.

I think that is a dynamic for us to watch. That's by no means a foregone conclusion. I think we could end up seeing a quite robust allied strategy under this administration in Asia. But it was a bit of a warning sign for me and something that we should continue to pay close attention to. 

Does he sort of see the whole approach to allies as being China first, allies second, or does he see it the other way around? And I think only time will tell over the course of 2026.

Kahl: H.R., do you think that it's mostly about vibes, or do think there's something deeper and more structural going on here in terms of tensions and fragility within our alliances?

McMaster: Well,I agree with Jake that the structural factors are still in favor of strong alliance. Who's gonna lead Europe without the United States? France? I don't think so. Who's gonna sign up for another European country leading Europe? Nobody will at this moment.

But what you're seeing I think are sub-regional, tighter groups within the alliance emerging. For example between the Nordic and the Baltic states and Poland.

And a lot of that coalescing, as well as increased defense spending—up to five percent and three and half percent on a hard military capabilities—is based on some doubts about U.S. reliability and an associated erosion of trust. I don't think that's good. That's not good.

And the reason it's not good and the reason why not backing up Takaichi-san is not good is that it is the perception of weakness that is provocative to our adversaries. And so I think President Trump was right to demand more defense spending, but in the kind gratuitous insult category or in not backing up Takaichi, or maybe what is going through now, the 20 billion dollar arms sale to Taiwan—that's a really important thing to track and the delivery of those capabilities to Taiwan.

And that’s why Ukraine's important. Ukraine is important because really what Putin wants, what he thinks he can get, is he can get the United States to support terms for a ceasefire that are unacceptable to the Ukrainians and the Europeans and to use that gap to break apart the alliance. This is what Putin's dreaming about. So I don't think we should do anything to encourage him or to encourage Xi Jinping vis-a-vis Taiwan.

I'm an optimist, right? I mean, we could wind up with Europe spending a heck of lot more in defense, taking more responsibility for their defense like Japan is now, like South Korea is now, and then rebuilding that bridge of trust.

So it could be the best of both worlds. I hope, I hope. Maybe even beginning here in North America with a better relationship with the Canadians. I hope that the president will be convinced of this, that he will see that it is the perception of weakness in our alliance here at home with the vitriolic partisan discourse we see and so forth that provokes our adversaries and could transform them into enemies and lead to war.

Sullivan: H.R., before we make peace with Canada, we have to beat them for the Olympic hockey gold.

McMaster: Hey, the women, the women's hockey team did a great job, didn't they?

Sullivan: That’s true! That’s true. They shut them out.

McMaster: I mean, not that I want to rub anything in with my Canadian friends right now. I mean, I don't want to. I'm sorry I even mentioned it! Sorry I mentioned it.

Sullivan: Sure.

Kahl: You know, H.R., you did use that word trust. And, you know, I think for our listeners, at some level, America's extended security commitments to our allies are always . . . it's always been kind of irrational, right? Because it basically it commits the United States to be willing to commit national suicide to defend other countries. And there's a kind of fundamental irrationality at the heart of that. And what solves that problem is trust. in the United States.

And this is actually where I think like the vibe and the mood matters, not just because it erodes trust in the moment, but I do worry a little bit that we're getting into this place where our allies will think that they can't trust the United States for any longer than four to eight year increments based on, who's in power and what their position is.

And that's a really different mindset than the kind of confidence that there was a bipartisan commitment underlying our alliances.

McMaster: Jake, I love to hear what you think about this too. Two things, really. There is this movement toward retrenchment. It actually cuts across both political parties. The frustration among many Americans that President Trump tapped into was the fact that we were covering Europe's defense bills and Europe really accounting for about 19% of the world's GDP and 50% of the world's social spending. So American taxpayers are like, hey, why are we underwriting defense and covering their defense bills and thereby indirectly underwriting their social programs?

And then the other aspect of this are the deep frustrations associated with the unanticipated length and difficulty in the wars in Afghanistan, I would say in particular in Iraq, and the belief that we really can't achieve good outcomes abroad anyway. And therefore, we should just focus on our stuff here at home. We got a lot of stuff to work on ourselves.

And so that sentiment, I don't think is going away. And what is necessary is for American leadership to explain to the American people how problems that develop abroad can only be dealt with at an exorbitant cost once they reach our shores. And how much cheaper it is to prevent a war than have to fight one

I think making those kinds of arguments for investments in active foreign policy, diplomatic efforts, but also sustained commitments to capable U.S. forces abroad operating as part of these alliances, which have prevented great power conflict for 80 years. Why would we want to get rid of that?

But I think we can't take that argument for granted anymore. We have to make that argument as clearly as we can to the engaged American public.

Kahl: You know, H.R., you mentioned American public exhaustion with the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As we speak, Trump is marshaling what he describes as an armada, also known as a single aircraft carrier with a second aircraft carrier on the way and some air defense and strike assets moving into the Middle East to put coercive pressure on Iran to cut a deal.

My own view is there's probably a deal on the table, a narrow nuclear deal, one even that Trump could frame as better than the deal that the Obama administration got.

Do you think there will be a deal? Do you think that there will be a deal on the nuclear file? Something that covers Iran's ballistic missiles, its proxy activities? Bibi Netanyahu was just in Washington this week to try to convince Trump not to buckle and accept a bad deal.

Do you think there's going be a deal with Iran? If so, what type of deal?

McMaster: I don't think there's going to be a deal with Iran. And the reason is that the Trump administration will not accept anything short, in my view, of no enrichment, probably giving up the 60% of enrichment for that they already have. They still have it. It'll have to carry over to missiles for sure. And it will carry over to support for proxies for the terrorist organizations they've been supporting.

And I think the recognition is that the real downside of the 2015 deal was the degree to which that it allowed the IRGC to fill its coffers and to double and in some cases triple its stipends to the terrorist organizations and militias across the region, really build up that ring of fire around Israel so they could light it on October 7th.

I think a lot of people in retrospect look back to the 2015 deal and say, we got Ayatollah Khamenei up off the mat. And I think that that kind of an argument is going to prevail among Trump's advisors.

And as you know, what Trump really tries to do is always try to get a deal first, right? This is what happened before Operation Midnight Hammer. He gave him 60 days, didn't get it, struck. He sent Grinnell to Venezuela. Hey, maybe we can get a deal, but didn't get a deal, and then took action to arrest Maduro. So I think that's the way it's going to play out.

These guys just murdered. I mean, they murdered 30,000 people in 48 hours.

What I would love to see is a hell of a lot more diplomatic effort to isolate those bastards and to kick out every Iranian embassy in the world and show that we cannot tolerate that degree of mass murder and the horrors inflicted on their own people.

So yeah, I think there's gonna be a series of strikes that are probably aimed to diminish the regime's capacity to repress its own people, but also to go after the efforts to reconstitute the missile and the nuclear programs. But then also to maybe preemptively take out what the Iranian regime would use as a response, IRGC Navy, as well as drone locations and factories and that sort of thing. I think the chance of that happening are probably like 80% of a strike that goes in that direction.

Kahl: Jake, you have obviously your own personal experience with diplomacy with the Iranians. What's your view?

Sullivan: I'm more like 60%. I think there's a higher percentage chance that Trump looks at a deal that is going to feel quite a bit like the 2015 deal in many respects and say, hey, that's better than military action that doesn't necessarily have a very clear purpose to it.

What's interesting to me is why are we here even talking about the nuclear program right now in this way? It's because of a chain of events that was set off by President Trump actually going on social media and saying, if Iran kills its own people, I will hit them. And then saying to the protesters who went out in the streets incredibly bravely across every province of Iran and said, help is on the way.

And I talked to a Washington Post journalist yesterday who covers Iran, who made the point that, no, they didn't go in the streets because of Trump, but they definitely saw what he said and thought that America was going to have their back. And then the regime, as H.R. just pointed out, absolutely brutally, on an industrial scale, massacred its own citizens and put it down.

So now we're in this weird situation where the whole impetus behind military action was about supporting the protestors. And it's now kind of shifted to being coercive towards trying to get a nuclear deal, which just goes to show you all of this is a bit kind of mushy.

If we did take military action, you have to ask to what end? We did it last year. President Trump said the nuclear program was, quote, “totally obliterated.” Now we're talking about the nuclear program again six months later. So we could hit them again. Yes, we could degrade them. It's unlikely we're going to cause regime change through the air. So I'm a bit confused about what this military action is going to accomplish other than just continue to create a circumstance where every few months we have to go back with military force again and again.

Whereas if you got a deal, you put the program in a box you get verification and you're not constantly in this position where you have to be lining up to take out enriched material or centrifuges or missiles or what have you.

So I would hope that President Trump would look seriously at the diplomatic option. I think he might. Although if H.R. is 80-20, there'll be strikes, I still think it's more likely than not there'll be strikes, but I'm closer to 60-40.

Kahl: I do think you've hit on a key question, though, which is that I just don't think they've resolved internally—they certainly haven't shared with any of us—what the objective of the strikes would be. Would it be to degrade the missile and nuclear program? Would it be to hit the IRGC? Would it be to destabilize the regime?

Sullivan: Or just punish them, ultimately punish them for the massacres. Just you did that and we're going to  hit you for it. Which emotionally, I understand. I mean, who doesn't wanna hit these guys for something like that? But strategically, I think that's more questionable.

Kahl: So we don't know if regime change is the goal in Iran. We do know that we've had not a regime change, but a government and leadership change in Venezuela because of U.S. military action. Jake, maybe starting with you, any thoughts about what the end game is in Venezuela for the Trump administration?

Sullivan: I'm very interested in what H.R. has to say about this. This is unusual. I'm not sure there is a modern historical analog to replacing a leader, then getting the leader who is the number two to step in and essentially agree to let the United States more or less call the shots from offshore under the threat of further military action if she doesn't do what we ask of her. And it seems like this is not ultimately a long-term sustainable strategy.

But it has worked for a few weeks at least. And I think the reason it's worked is because we pretty much only asked them for one big thing, which is let American oil companies go in there and exploit Venezuela's oil resources. And by the way, that works for the regime in Caracas quite well, because they'll get their cut. And getting their cut will allow them to continue to entrench themselves in power.

The question for me is, at some point, is the Trump administration going to say, hey, actually, we need some kind of democratic transition here. I sort of thought they would head in that direction. Although the way they're kind of pushing putting down Machado, the main opposition leader, suggests that they may just be happy with the status quo. But it's an unusual situation. It is occupation by joystick, occupation by remote control, and so far they have gotten the regime to acquiesce. But I think that's largely because what they're asking of the regime suits the regime just fine and is quite limited. I just don't know if that is a tenable situation to play out over the longer term.

Kahl: I mean, there is this old phrase, “gunboat diplomacy." This is a little bit of gunboat governance. H.R., where is gunboat governance going in Venezuela?

McMaster: Well, it's not really it's it's not gunboat diplomacy as much as it is, think, coercive diplomacy or what the famous and fantastic, late Stanford professor Alexander George called “forceful persuasion.” 

And so I think what we're testing are the limits. You know, he has a great book also called The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, And Jake, we're asking him to do a heck of lot more than just, you know, let the oil companies back in. It's release political prisoners. It's kick the Cubans and the Russians and the Chinese out. Right?

And to put into place. This is Rubio's four points, a plan for a political transition. Now, will the Chavistas fire themselves? Probably not. So what it really has to be, as you're alluded to as well, is the U.S. and other countries in partnership with the Venezuelan opposition

Which, by the way, I was with members of the opposition last week. They're very optimistic about this. I mean, they really feel like it could work. I think what they're envisioning is kind of a Polish-type transition. Because after the cover of the Soviet Union was pulled back and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, then you had the Solidarity Movement, which had been bolstered and gained strength in partnership with the Catholic Church, who sat down at a round table with the communists. And the communists came up, you know, and they came to a decision on how to transition to a new form of government.

In Venezuela, you have the benefit of the constitution still being there, you know, to be resurrected. And you have a history of democratic governance.

So, you know, I think you're right to be skeptical, Jake, on this, but I think that there's a chance here if we stick to it, if we keep the pressure on, but I think it might take more than we've got on the table now to convince the Chavistas to essentially fire themselves.

Sullivan: First of all H.R., those are good points. I wasn't even really trying to express skepticism. It's just we haven't really tried something like this before. So it's interesting to see how it will play out. And I do think it's somewhat tenuous.

Good point on the political prisoners. And I think there's been positive news on that. Although we have seen that movie before with Venezuela where they do releases and then they round people back up.

McMaster: They've already had that prominent re-arrest, right?

Sullivan: Exactly. They're already doing that. So I'm a bit more skeptical of how much of that is theater and how much that is real.

That's why I kind of zeroed in. I assume this democratic transition has ultimately got to be a part of it. This is where pulling that off, the solidarity analogy is an interesting one, which I want to take a closer look at. Pulling that off, really challenging. And I have been struck by the degree to which they have kind of treated Maria Carina Machado as a nuisance as opposed to an ally in all this. But that may be public posturing and quietly they're doing things that we don't fully understand.

That to me is ultimately the test of how this will all play out. Does it move in that direction or do we lock in a longer term scenario where you essentially have a dictatorship sitting in Caracas essentially doing resource extraction deals with the United States?

I think there's a good possibility that that's where we are a year or two from now, but let's see. I think it's definitely worth watching closely because it is a novel model for the exercise of American power.

McMaster: And hey, we ought to say it's a righteous endeavor based on the nature of Maduro's regime and the Chavistas. I mean hell, they drove 8 million Venezuelans out of the country and destroyed that country. 

Sullivan: Absolutely.

McMaster: So let's hope.

Sullivan: But all of those guys other than the top dog, they're all still there, wetting their beaks and doing their thing.

Kahl: Well, and this is really the dilemma that we'll have to see unfold in 2026, which is: things seem relatively stable by remote control now because essentially the same folks can continue to corruptly acquire rents off of economic activity. And as Jake, as you said, know, oil deals go through, they'll get their cut.

When you're talking about a democratic transition, suddenly some of these guys are going to face the prospect of going to jail. And a lot of these guys have guns. And that's, I think, the dilemma that the administration is going to have to deal with if they do approach this.

Well, listen, there's a bunch of other things we could have talked about. 2026 is going to be a big year, I think, for Ukraine. It's going to be a big year as it relates to the disruptive implications of artificial intelligence on the economy. There are a lot of other things. So I hope to have the two of you back on to talk about those, not to mention whatever else crazy happens in the world between now and the end of the year.

But I wanted to end my first podcast hosting World Class with a bit of an homage to Ezra Klein. Ezra Klein runs a great podcast. He always asks his guests for three book recommendations at the end, which is awesome because I'm an academic. There are books all around me, but I don't have any time to read a single book these days, let alone three. So I'm going to ask you a different question, which is what is one article you would recommend our listeners read to understand the world?

McMaster: Jake, go first, you go first.

Sullivan: All right. I just recently read a piece in The New Yorker called “What is Claude?” which is about how Anthropic is really actually trying to understand the nature of this artificial intelligence capability we are developing and trying to look inside the black box with all of these emergent properties. How do we characterize it? What is happening in there? What do we understand? What don't we understand?

I think it's a pretty accessible way to get at some of the really elemental questions about artificial intelligence and what exactly we are dealing with here. So, I would highly recommend that to everyone and a thousand other articles besides, but that's one.

Kahl: Alright, H.R., how about you?

McMaster: I'd like to recommend an essay by my colleague here at Hoover, Stephen Kotkin, in the December issue of Foreign Affairs called “Weakness of the Strongmen.” And if I could do my Kotkin impersonation, it's basically about strongmen being dependent on five things, five things to stay in power.

And then he talks about the five elements of authoritarian control, but also he explores how exercising those tools of authoritarian control create weaknesses that can be exploited. Great essay.

Kahl: Awesome. Well, I encourage everybody to go check those two articles out. H.R., Jake, thanks so much for joining the podcast. And make sure to check out Jake and H.R.'s podcast too. 

Sullivan: Thank you.

McMaster: Thanks guys.

Kahl: You've been listening to World Class from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review and be sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to stay up to date on what's happening in the world and why. 

TRANSCRIPT

McFaul: You're listening to World Class from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. I'm your host, Michael McFaul, the director of FSI.

Today I'm sharing a conversation I had with Gabrielius Landsbergis. He is the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania, and he is currently here at the Freeman Spogli Institute as our Bernard and Susan Liataud Visiting Fellow.

Gabrielius has an extremely impressive resume, and we can't go through it all right now, but he's been instrumental in pursuing a values-based foreign policy in Lithuania and the European Union. He is also one of the most vocal supporters of Ukraine, Taiwan, and freedom fighters worldwide.

We had the opportunity to discuss not just the diplomatic and political ramifications for Europe of Russia's war against Ukraine, but also the emotional journey this war has had for many people in Lithuania, including Gabrielius.

This was a very unique, often poignant conversation, and I hope you'll take away as much from it as I did.

[BEGIN EVENT RECORDING]

Before we get into the questions that I have that we agreed to talk about, I first just want to get your explanation of the title of this talk. It's an interesting title. Why did you choose it?

Landsbergis: Well, first of all, it's a great honor to be here, to speak to the people who are interested in the topic of Ukraine, that's mainly at the core of it, and the war that's ongoing.

I'm really honored to be at Stanford for the year. Thank you so much for kind words. It makes me blush every time.

When I was thinking about the topic, I was thinking for the first time as a bit of an observer.

McFaul: Because you used to be a participant.

Landsbergis: Yeah, it felt like one. So, the war started in 2022 when I was a minister. I was fully in my office when I got the news. I was supposed to travel to Kyiv the same day, February 24th; I had a ticket to go to Kyiv.

McFaul: Really?

Landsbergis: Yeah. I went to the airport and the flight was canceled at 5 a.m. And I called the chief of staff of the Lithuanian Army and they said, this is it. This has started.

So the opportunity to travel to California to stay at Stanford allowed me a step back. Even though my mind is fully with the people who are fighting for their country—basically that takes all my thinking time throughout the day—but still one has an ability to reflect.

And what I reflected is that there is an amplitude of emotion when we observe the war. It started with a shock, with the first sights of burning buildings in Kyiv, Russians crossing the borders and just flowing in, like really existential threats.

Then it was changed with some sort of a relief or even a joy that Ukrainians were able to push back. Then it picked up when the counter-offensive started and when Ukrainians started pushing Russians out. I've seen people who are like watching this as if they were winning. We were winning. This was part of our victory. It felt as if any one of us could go to the front and help Ukrainians just to finish this off and restore the normality, restore something that we were afraid that we were losing.

And then it was changed again. The first signals that the West is unable to support to the extent that is needed. Russia threatening with a nuclear (possible) nuclear strike. The West taking it very seriously [and] stopping Ukrainians moving forward. And then the question, okay, so what's next?

And then when I came back here, the information that reached us was that the one that Ukrainians developed new weapons. They've developed long range missiles. They developed the ability to strike deep within Russian territory. Apparently the allies have removed the restrictions on the strikes and Ukrainians have been very successful with that.

So the first thing that I would do: I open whatever social media I'm using that day and one of the first messages there is, “New factory is burning.” It's like, oof, okay, so we still have cards. We're in this and it's not over. Even though it was said in the Oval Office that that's it, Ukraine has no cards. We do have cards. And “we” as those people who are deeply supportive of Ukraine.

And then came Alaska, now the peace plan. And again, we're over the hill and down to valley, so to say, of emotions.

So I was thinking about this trajectory because there is a lot of emotion into this. So how do we deal with that? How do we stay on the line? How do we explain to ourselves where Ukraine actually is, what actually needs to be done, and how we can continue supporting despite what the headlines are telling us today? So we don't give in to overjoy that, Okay, this is won, this is fine, like we did in late 2022.

Or we don't give in to despair like it happened a number of times when the front is breaking or one important point on the front line is being lost.

McFaul: Step back for a minute and talk about not emotions, but objectives. To the best of your knowledge and guessing—these are difficult things to establish—what are today, Russia's interests and objectives in the war? What about Europe? What is your assessment of American interests? I'm kind of curious what you think about that because I'm not quite sure what they are. And maybe they're self-evident, but I don't think they are: maybe say a little bit about what you think Ukrainian objectives are today.

And as you go through that list—and maybe add China too if you want; I think that could be interesting to hear your view on China—and as you do so, also do you think they've changed over time? Most certainly the American objectives seem to have changed with our election, but maybe not. I don't want to presume that I know that. Or have they been consistent over time since the full-scale invasion began?

Landsbergis: So first of all, think that one country that has not in no way changed their objectives is Russia. Their objective is subjugation of Ukraine or Ukrainian country. Full control, either physical or political control, any way they can exert it. That might require them conquering the whole country. That might require just creating enough instability so that the country is ungovernable and would be basically then controlled in a similar way like, for example, Georgia now is. Russians did not need tanks to take Tbilisi; they managed to do that in a different form. Even though people are still protesting there, the country is ruled basically by a Russian proxy. 

So, this is still their goal. It could be political. It could be that Putin's mandate, the way that he structured his mandate, why people do support him, why his circle of oligarchs continues to support him is because he can bring victories. And this is still required and he still has this goal. 

But there is also a practical element in this. I try to imagine if there would be a ceasefire signed between Ukrainians and Russians. Just imagine: 2,000 kilometers of frontline. 2,000 kilometers is like half of Europe from Vilnius, from Lithuania's capital, all the way to Amsterdam. That's how much frontline there is.

So to maintain a ceasefire on that extensive frontline, you basically have to have an enormous amount of trust that the other side will not counter attack. I very much doubt that Putin has that trust on Ukrainians and vice versa, right? So both sides will be forced to keep and maintain the force presence on a frontline just in order to make sure that the frontline is not moving. And Ukrainians have showed that they're capable with Belgorod.

It's almost couple of years ago when they crossed the Russian border and attacked a Russian territory, taking a bit of Russian Federation as a leverage for the possible upcoming negotiations. So, Ukrainians show that they have the capacity.

Thinking about that, Putin will have to maintain about a million peoples army, as much as he has now, on the front line to make sure that the front does not progress. Or he needs Kyiv. So, that's why I believe that in his mind, a ceasefire will not work.

And that's why he was pushing back on American efforts to offer a ceasefire. When President Trump suggested that, he said, well, I need a comprehensive peace agreement with everything that I set out to achieve. This is what I need. And the reason is it could be very practical because the ceasefire will just not work. He will never trust Ukrainians. And he doesn't want to maintain troops. If he wants to let troops do something else, attack another country, turn back home, whatever that he has on his mind, he needs Kyiv where he wants that.

So whatever comes out of any talks now, I'm pretty convinced that Russians have not moved with their goals. And they believe that they're successful with that. That's number one.

So I will jump over to Europe. Europe is developing its goals. My biggest criticism of Europe that we've set out to support Ukraine without a clear plan as to what we want to achieve. Like, what is our goal?

Do we want to stop Russians? Do we want to push them back? Do we want Ukraine to win? Do we want to restore the deterrence of the European continent with European Union on one side, but allies kind of also in this hold? What is our plan? So we paid up without knowing what we are buying.

So we bought some time. With a lot of money, we bought some time. We bought four years. But we have not developed a strategy. The reason could have been is that we've outsourced the strategic thinking over to the other side of the Atlantic.

We said, “Okay, fine, we'll pay the bill. There are people in Washington who will know how this should end. We might not like it, but we still trust that it's probably the best outcome.” And that has been happening through with the previous administration, where Jake Sullivan was the one saying the strategic defeat of Russia is in the transatlantic goal. Again, that was the only time that I heard somebody suggesting a strategy.

With the change of administration, there is no longer a strategy. And Europe is now figuring out that we have to have something. That's why you see Europeans scrambling for money. Because we don't have a plan for next year. And the only way to have a plan for next year is to have something we could finance it with.

And that's why we need frozen Russian assets. That would help us finance for next year and maybe a couple of years in the future. That is the first shape of the European strategy to Europe. I hope that it will have other steps. I'm still hoping that we have enough time.

For Ukraine, the strategy, you might say, that it has not changed fundamentally: it's to defend the sovereignty of its country. Certain elements have moved. First of all, was claiming back all the territory, 2022 autumn. Ukrainians have declared that our goal is to go all the way back to Crimea. Now this is no longer a goal. And honestly, I do understand them. They have a strategy, right? They had a strategy, but it very much depends on [if] our strategies are aligned, if we see the same way, and if we're going to help them to achieve their strategy.

Unfortunately, they were not aligned. And that means that they are unable to achieve certain goals. And Zelensky was brutally clear yesterday in his interview, suggesting that, unfortunately, the plans changed. We cannot get to NATO because there is no path for us going there. We cannot reclaim Crimea and so many other things.

I mean, it breaks my heart to listen to that. For me, it's very, very much 1938, a speech by Czechoslovakia's president saying, certain things were forced on us and we're just unable to withstand pressures from two sides. And this is where Ukraine currently is.

I could talk about China, but I mean, it will take another 20 minutes.

McFaul: Well, let’s come back to China, because they're peripheral. But you haven't seen any change in their behavior, have you?

Landsbergis: I think I do see. Many people do argue, and I participate in number of conversations where people would argue that saying, “Well, for China, they need a stable world. And they need Europe stable because it's a good client for whatever they're selling and they require stability.”

And I'm not so sure whether that's true any longer. They built up an enormous, extraordinary leverage on Russia as it is now.

When experts say that 90% of Russian military output is produced with Chinese help, either equipment or material or just produced in China, that tells me that if you remove that, Russia would be unable to fight against Ukraine, not at the extent that they are doing it currently.

So that means that China actually is invested in the war. That actually they want the war. So that raises a lot of interesting questions. So that means that instability in Europe works in their benefit.

And I mean, even in stable Europe, just the recent quarter numbers, German imports of Chinese goods has risen by 14% in just the last three months. That's biggest in the world. So even unstable Europe is a rather good client.

McFaul: So they have their cake and eat it, too.

Landsbergis: Yeah. And they are probably getting other cakes that we can only kind of try to imagine or I mean, try to understand what those are. One of them [is] building up a leverage on Russia where you can call the credit back either in Indo-Pacific or actually keeping Europe occupied. I mean “busy.”

McFaul: Talk a little bit about the U.S. and the piece that you wrote in the New York Times and what is your analysis—I'm asking not for your opinion about what should be the U.S.—we'll get to that later. Analytically, what do you think the Trump administration is trying to achieve right now?

Landsbergis: Well, that's probably one of the most difficult questions that there is. Honestly, when the administration took over, I tried to understand, tried to read the administration's mind as a European. And there are certain elements that I do understand.

It's very difficult to explain to an American why Europe is unable, like completely unable to deter Russian attack. A continent of 450 million people, if you add United Kingdom, more than half a billion people. Probably one of the richest places in the world.

And we are seeing Ukraine, a country of 40 million people, that was able to stop Russian attacks. Or at least to slow it down significantly in order to retain its sovereignty for a number of years. And then the continent of 450 million says, “Well, unfortunately, there is nothing that we can do.”

You're unable to square this. So when we hear criticism, or at least a question like, guys, are you sure that there is nothing that you can do? I cannot answer that. I only can say, yes, there are things that we can do. We should be doing them. We should have been doing them long, long ago, probably when President Obama suggested that United States will be pivoting over to Indo-Pacific.

That was the beginning of it. This is where we should have started our rethinking of a European strategy. We did not do it. It's on us. We'll fast forward it now and we'll figure things out.

I understand that Europe has to become stronger. I understand that Europe has to find ability to deter Russian attack to help its allies and make a proposal to United States why a strong partner is a better partner.

This is the part of the strategy, the part of thinking that I understood as a strategy. Now the recent documents that have been announced, they talk about very different point of view. They talk basically about weak Europe, about divided Europe, about a Europe of Hungarys that would all look just for their own interest. No united Europe, no Europe that could be able to figure out its united budget of defense.

If this is the vision of Europe, this Europe will be purchasing Russian oil and gas the same way that Hungarians are doing. This is the Europe that will not be able to help Ukraine as much as Hungary has blocked almost all the attempts of Europe to do that. This is the Europe that will not be a good partner for United States, either deterring China or stopping Russia or basically doing anything. This is the Europe that would be susceptible to Russian attacks, that will be susceptible to Chinese interventions, economic or otherwise. The weak Europe that is suggested in the latest strategy document is a very scary perspective for Europe.

It's very difficult to understand why that would be in the interest of the United States. That's probably the most difficult question to answer. Maybe it will be explained in some way. People are trying to square the circle, and I've seen Sir Elbridge Colby trying to explain that it's still the same strategy. We still want a strong Europe.

McFaul: It wasn't in the document, though.

Landsbergis: Yeah, wasn't in the document. So, for a European, it's very difficult to understand that. It doesn't change the fact that Europe has to get its act together.

And my piece in New York Times argued that basically the way that I see is that there are things that we just cannot change in the United States, and we shouldn't be attempting that. In many ways, President Trump, for us, is a force of nature. We are not participating in the election. We won't be. We don't have a vote. So we just have to accept whatever he considers is in the interest of Americans.

But that doesn't mean that there are nothing that we can do. We can make a very good proposal to American people [to] have a strong partner in Europe. Be successful. I argue that nothing brings success as much as success. And we can do that in Ukraine. We can do that with our own defense. And kind of I have a sense that if there's something that could convince [the] U.S. administration to turn around and look differently at the European Union, that would be us becoming stronger.

McFaul: Well, I agree with you, by the way. And I am an American; I do get to vote, unlike you. 

And I do think this is a debate we need to now have now that this national security strategy has put it out so baldly. I've been traveling around the country talking about my book. And in the conversations later, I sense that people like me most certainly, but maybe also Europe needs to make the case— I'm just restating what you said, but in a more America-centric way—about why Europe is so good for us. I think we've taken advantage of that and we've forgotten what the arguments were, kind of original purposes.

But come back just for a moment on the Ukraine part. What do you think this latest rounds of negotiations are they trying to achieve? What's the outcome they desire? Is it just simply they just want to end the war and let the president say he ended the war? Or is there something bigger at stake?

Landsbergis: You mean U.S. effort?

McFaul: U.S.effort, yes.

Landsbergis: I'm thinking that probably for some in the current administration, the war in Europe is a distraction. It’s a distraction for what's really happening in the Indo-Pacific and the worries that are growing there.

So it's a kind of a cut loss situation. And there's no better strategy, right? This is what President Trump has always been saying. And even in yesterday's interview in Politico, he said, “Well, if Europeans do have a strategy, they should come forward with it.” And to our embarrassment is like, yeah, we have not figured that one out. So what do you expect, right?

So it's the best strategy in town. It's a horrible strategy for Ukraine. It's a horrible strategy for Europe. It basically increases the chance of Russian attack on Europe tremendously, at least from my perspective. If he's given, if he's rewarded for his attack of 2022 and 2014, that will only increase his thinking that he can continue with that. But it's on Europe

Now we need to figure out what we're going to do with it. And then in this, well, President Trump is doing what he does, right? So if you don't have a better plan, that's my plan is the only one that I have.

So Russia’s not in good place with this. U.S. basically is just . . . I usually call that a shift, shifting from Europe, from European security area, wider security area, meaning that it's larger than just NATO. And Ukrainians are basically cornered with very little things that they can do. 

I've heard, again, it was written out that Zelenskyy spoke with the European leaders, and he said that he's extremely worried that if Europeans will not figure out the frozen assets. That's basically the last thread for Ukrainians. If that gets figured out, then Ukrainians get in a stronger position. Then they have a lifeline, know, some more runway for two, three years to figure things out. If they don't have that, then this is it.

McFaul: That debate, in my view, is so tragic. I run an international working group on Russian sanctions, and we’ve published 23 papers on how to increase sanctions over the last three and half years.

In October of 2022 was when we published a paper about these assets. We're still debating these things. That just doesn't seem strategic to me.

And this thing that you've talked about before, that we're constantly worried about escalation from Putin And you noted that the biggest moment was in the fall of 2022 when allegedly he threatened to use nuclear weapons. But then we do so many things that I just don't think are in our own national interest.

So you've hinted at this, but I want to hear you one more time on your sense of, even more emotionally, to use the title of the talk, of the sense inside Ukraine. Your colleagues there, what you're reading, does this feel like the valley? Obviously it is. We get that. But is it this last valley, and that they're just going to have to capitulate? Or is there other things that, I mean, the assets is one of them, maybe weapon systems that are coming on board, that you hear gives Ukrainians hope right now?

Landsbergis: Well, I've never heard Ukrainians complaining. I can tell a short story which defines the spirit of Ukraine. So that was in 2023, Vilnius was supposed to host [the] NATO summit and President Zelenskyy did a tour in the Baltic states to talk with the countries about what to expect from [the] NATO summit.

And prime minister of my country, my good friend, she invited me to participate in the meeting which she had with the president. During the meeting, she gave me the floor and I said, “Well, unfortunately, Mr. President, I'm doing the diplomatic rounds in Europe and NATO. And as an upcoming host of events in Vilnius, there are not too many things that I can promise. And if there is a saying about the glass being half full or half empty, my glass is almost empty, preparing for NATO summit.”

And I meant that most of the promises or belief that they had, the invitation coming over or, something substantial being announced . . . it's just not happening. There's just too many divisions within the alliance.

And Zelenskyy reacted in a very Zelenskyy way. He took his bottle of water and said, “Do you want me to pour you some?” And this is what Ukraine has always been.

I've been fourteen times in Kyiv after the war started.

McFaul: Fourteen times?

Landsbergis: Yeah.

McFaul: Wow.

Landsbergis: And every time I go over there, I said, I'm really depressed. I mean, this is looking so bad. And they're like, no, it's not that bad. We're fighting. Donbas has not fallen. Kyiv is standing. And now they're saying we're fighting corruption. Bad guys lose. We still have a hold of it.

I mean, it's incredible. It's incredible. If you want to lift your spirits, just talk to a Ukrainian. They will tell you the most horrible stories that they're undergoing, and they will still be upbeat. That kept me up and lifted me up and never allowed me to get into despair.

And today is exactly the same story. Yeah, the allies betray. Some of them walk away. Some of them change their attitudes. But nothing has been lost yet. That is their attitude. I'm pretty sure that they are. And it actually there is a political element to this.

So when people are saying, well, Zelensky can just give Donbas and let it go. Ukraine is a democracy. And that means that the president is mandated, very strongly, democratically mandated by its people. And people do not believe that they should be letting the territories that are not under Russian occupation go.

And these are the civil society, the so-called Maidan people who are still very much there, who walked over to the streets last summer during the war protesting against the reform of the anti-corruption agencies and told the government, you cannot do that. We're against this. And [the] president retracted.

These are the frontline warriors who spent decades in the front line digging in, fortifying the cities in Donbas. And I don't imagine them letting that go. And they mandate, democratically, the president. So, and when Zelenskyy says, “People will not allow me to do that,” this is not a way to politically get away from a pressure. That's a reality. His political mandate does not allow him to do that.

And this is what upsets me when the Coalition of the Willing meets, takes a picture and suggests, well, we're talking about security guarantees. Ukraine can mostly depend on Ukrainians. This is their thinking. This is not a way to do it. Ukraine needs true commitment. Ukraine needs Western commitment, no longer just words.

If we want to make sure that this peace holds, that the Russians don't attack, that we have to tell Putin that the next time you attack, you are going to meet, like President Macron suggested, French troops in Odessa, Polish troops in Kyiv, Lithuanian troops together with Poles and German air force, whoever is willing to give their equipment or people for the cause.

That is the statement that Ukrainians want and I'm pretty sure that this is the thing that is required. Are Europeans ready to do that? Well, I have not yet seen the signals that would encourage me.

McFaul: Well, that's a downer note in the valley of emotions, just like you said. But I want to end on an optimistic note.

As an American who believes that my country is stronger and more secure and prosperous and free with strong European allies, it's one thing to like debate these things abstractly when you've never been to Europe. But when you meet leaders like Gabrielius, how can you not be inspired about a future with guys like him in power in Europe? That's a world I want to be a part of. And that's why I'm so grateful that you're here with us at Stanford today.

Landsbergis: Thank you.

McFaul: Thank you!

[END EVENT RECORDING]

McFaul: You've been listening to World Class from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review and be sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, to stay up to date on what's happening in the world, and why.