Russia-Ukraine: Diplomacy Is Still on the Table | Quick Take | GZERO Media скачать в хорошем качестве

Russia-Ukraine: Diplomacy Is Still on the Table | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Diplomacy is still happening, but both sides are still far apart. Subscribe to GZERO on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2TxCVnY Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here, kicking off a pretty intense week. Yes, we are talking about Russia once again, with the world on the precipice of major power confrontation in a way that is both more imminent and more dangerous in frankly, anything we've seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union back in 1991. I don't say that lightly. Fortunately, diplomacy is still happening and as long as diplomacy is still happening, that means President Putin has not made a decision to invade. But having said that, the sides are still pretty far apart. I think essentially what President Biden has been able to accomplish over the last four, six weeks, number one, he has convinced the European allies that the Russians are indeed very serious about a military invasion and that as a consequence, the NATO alliance has to be as solid and as unified as humanly possible and I think that is indeed much more true today than it was a month ago. Diplomacy, as a consequence of that alignment, has a greater likelihood of working. But it also means that if diplomacy fails the level of escalation we are likely to see, both from the US and NATO and then in return in retaliation from the Russians is also much more dangerous. The opportunity here in the near term seems to me both whether or not Putin is likely to blink. It is possible, but seem unlikely. The level of costs that are on Putin for some of the sanctions avoidance techniques that he's already engaged in are something that's very unlikely, it seems, that he would be doing, if this were just about a bluff. Certainly the US intelligence fundamentally believes that if there isn't a diplomatic breakthrough, he's going to go ahead with this. Having said that, the costs are very significant for the Russians and I don't just mean the economic costs. I mean the diplomatic costs, the military costs of a stronger NATO with more forward deployments, of being forced into a position of supplication, economically and technologically, as a junior partner to the Chinese. These are decisions that Putin would not take lightly and as a consequence, I think it is still plausible that even without a diplomatic breakthrough, that Putin will decide the juice is not worth the squeeze. But I wouldn't bet on that. If you made me, I'd say without a diplomatic breakthrough, he will escalate and that escalation could very easily get a hell of a lot worse in a short period of time. Then the other question is what would be the avenue of a diplomatic breakthrough? And here it's very clear. It's the Ukrainian president needs to unilaterally back away from NATO. There was a little bit of news that was made over the weekend with the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, responding to a hypothetical question about whether NATO would be on the table, if it would avoid war. It didn't sound to me like that was anything close to a position that was thoughtful saying, "Yes, we'd give it up." Certainly every communication, both private and public from the Ukrainian President Zelensky has been, "No they're completely committed to Ukraine, as is indeed presently enshrined in their constitution." But if there were really a choice between Ukraine facing war and Ukraine deciding to suspend their NATO application, I would like to believe that the Ukrainian president would choose the latter. I don't think he can be forced into that by the Americans and NATO allies. I don't think that they can rescind the invitation easily themselves without enormous political consequence. I think it would be very damaging for Biden. He would look very weak. I think it would be hard to get the NATO allies aligned, so you'd have the risk of breaking the alliance. It would also send a very debilitating message about American willingness to fold under pressure to the Russians in other theaters, as well as the Chinese. Sign up for GZERO’s free newsletter on global politics, Signal: http://bit.ly/gzerosignal Subscribe to the GZERO podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Like GZERO on Facebook:   / gzeromedia   Follow GZERO on Twitter:   / gzeromedia   Follow GZERO on LinkedIn:   / 18385722   GZERO Media is a multimedia publisher providing news, insights and commentary on the events shaping our world. Our properties include GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, our newsletter Signal, Puppet Regime, the GZERO World Podcast, In 60 Seconds and GZEROMedia.com #QuickTake #Ukraine #Putin