Ukraine Update: “We Could Be In for a Protracted Conflict”

Audio By Carbonatix

Published: March 16, 2022 | Date of Source Audio: March 15, 2022

Transcribed and modified for publication from the original audio program

Larry Elder gets briefed by national security and foreign policy expert, James Carafano

Larry Elder: My guest’s latest book, “Brutal War,” is up on larryelder.com. “Brutal War,” a study of combat in the Southwest Pacific. He is a 25-year Army vet who served in Europe, Korea, and stateside. He is with The Heritage Foundation. Please welcome back national security and foreign policy expert, James Carafano. James, thank you very much for taking the time. I appreciate it.

Carafano: It's just a real honor to be on the show.

Elder: James, so much to cover. Is Putin losing this war, James?

Carafano: Hey, I've got some really interesting updates for you. I actually just talked to someone who has family in Ukraine. And I don't want to go into too many details because their family has actually been targeted by the Russians. But they are working on the ground. They actually evacuated from Kiev and Ukraine. And then just a few days ago, they went back. And not only did they go back, when they got on the train – the train going back to Ukraine, which had been ferrying out refugees – was full of people. It was full of people going back to Kiev, going back into the capital. Which, you know, I think really reflects that the Ukrainian – not only the determination of fight, but the fact that the Ukrainians think that they can do this. And look, there's some tough battles going on and they're going to lose some ground. But they think they can fight for their country.

And if you actually look at the Russian tactics, basically what the Russians have proven is they can kill a lot of innocent people and they can flatten a lot of ground. But none of that actually helps you get to a military objective. So, they've yet to demonstrate the real capacity to break through serious defenses and to seize key military objectives. And it's very clear that they, in some parts of the campaign, they're actually running out of manpower to do that.

“We are all working without a plan because nobody thought we'd be here.”

So, I don't think anybody – I don't even think the Ukrainians thought that we would be where we are right now. This is a level of fighting that – and this is the interesting thing about this conflict. It just reminds me so much of the outbreak of the war in 1914. Nobody that has anything to do with this conflict thought we would be here. Everybody – the Ukrainians, the Russians, the Chinese, us, NATO – we are all working without a plan because nobody thought we'd be here. So, literally every leader in the world today, every general on the battlefield, every NGO helping out, we are literally making this up as we go along.

Elder: Uncharted territory. I remember in 1914, studying that war extensively and you're quite right. Virtually all sides thought the whole thing would be over in a matter of weeks.

Carafano: Yeah. And look, Zelensky is going to talk tomorrow to Congress, which just the fact that he is getting up and talking is, I think, such a problem for Putin. I don't actually think that a lot's going to come out of that. I think the West is doing about what it's going to do. They've deployed more forces. It shows that they're willing to defend NATO territory.

But I think it's very clear. They are not going to, you know, become active belligerents in this conflict. They’re doing a lot to help with the refugees, but the thing that nobody's talking about – there are parts of Ukraine, which are actually not in Western Ukraine, not being invaded. There are billions of internally displaced persons in Ukraine and nobody is helping them. The international aid agencies are not going into Ukraine to help the people that are there. And that's a big challenge and problem. I doubt they're going to do that. They're providing military aid and assistance, and this is really what I think is keeping the Ukrainians in the fight.

But every day I talk to people that say – look, I had a guy, I had a sheriff today who said, “I have four units of body armor. How do I get them to Ukraine?” I'm not joking. And then I had somebody say, “I've got a couple million dollars. How many suits of body armor and helmets can I buy and how quickly can we get them to Ukraine?” And people say, “I got planes, just tell me where to fly and we'll take this stuff there.”

So that lifeline, which I don't think the Russians can cut off, that's going to allow the Ukrainians to keep fighting. I don't think the West is going to do a ton more than that. So I think we could be in for a protracted conflict.

Elder: James, with this destruction, with this resistance, with this likelihood of an insurgency in the event that, somehow, the Ukraine is quote-unquote “defeated,” what's the prize? What's the point? If I'm Vladimir Putin, I'm not inheriting a country that's intact, where the people are greeting me as liberators and where I'm celebrated in my own country. I now have about 6,000 people in Russia who've now been arrested. I'm sure you heard about this brave news editor who showed up during a newscast, holding up a sign, saying, it's all lies. What am I winning now? What's the prize?

Carafano: Well, certainly, it's going to be different than the initial objectives. I mean, the goal was literally a bloodless campaign that would be over in days. And then you would have all the infrastructure, all the people, all the resources of Ukraine, and you could extract resources rather than pouring them in. The West wouldn't really have time to do anything. The Chinese would completely have your back. That's obviously not the situation we're going to have here. The best case – and I hate to use the word “best” – the best-case scenario for Putin is he finally grinds the country and conquers it. Then, essentially, you've got 40-plus million starving people with no infrastructure that you have to feed and clothe. And instead of pulling resources out, you put them in. It would take, by some estimates, the entire Russian military to occupy the country, which could prove quite restive, like Afghanistan. ...

Elder: I think, so far, only one NATO country, James, has called for a no-fly zone. And that's Estonia. What is your opinion about that?

Carafano: Well, first of all, I think one of my real frustrations with President Biden and with many of the leaders is they spend all their time talking about what they're not going to do. And you know what I think, you know, there are two ways to do this – kind of public channels and private channels. It's okay, through kind of private back channels, to send messages to your adversary about where things are. This is what Kennedy did during the Cold War. I think publicly, when you say these pronouncements about all the things we're not going to do, it actually, I think, signals weakness.

So the problem with the no-fly zone is one, it actually wouldn't really change the military dynamic on the ground. The Russians aren't actually flying into Ukrainian airspace to do air attacks. They're flying from Russian airspace and then just shooting into Ukraine. So that wouldn't really help. …

“I'm all for giving the Ukrainians any weapons that we possibly can.”

I thought the idea of giving the Ukrainians aircraft made infinitely more sense because they still have airfields and they still have the logistics and pilots and they could use them. I thought we were really kind of stupid by saying, well, we don't want give them aircraft because the Russians will see that as escalatory. So, here's a guy who's invaded 44 million people and he's slaughtering them at will and we're worried about, you know, annoying him. So, I'm all for giving the Ukrainians any weapons that we possibly can. And really, that's what's keeping them in the fight, as well as food and medical aid.

Elder: James, 20 seconds. Unmanned drones have flown over NATO airspace. I think we've even downed a couple of them. Isn't that quote, “escalatory”?

Carafano: Well, you know, I don't know. I mean “escalation” – you don't know if they drifted off base or whatever, what their attempt and everything else was. So when do you declare something to the point of you're going to retaliate for that?

I would say this – and again, I think we should talk more about what we're doing than not doing. But if the Russians did something in NATO territory, my speculation is NATO's response would be proportional, right? So if a bomb drifted over, they might take out the source of the thing that fired the bomb. But I don't think this is going to escalate. There's a lot of steps on the escalatory ladder. I don't think either side is really prepared for that.