Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855xgceYwv4

Davis: 0:01
In the very vexing opportunity and effort to try and find an end to the Russian-Ukraine war, there are problems really all around. Russian ones, American ones, European ones, and definitely your Ukrainian ones. But we’re trying to find out here where is the contours of any possible peace? Where are the fault lines of potential opportunities to get rid of the peace and to cause problems that could keep the war going on? And really, just where is all this headed?

We have with us today, I guess we’ve had him with us once before, many of you know him well, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, historian and international affairs analyst, coming to us live from Brussels in in Europe. Doctor, welcome back to the show.

Doctorow: 0:44
Well, good to speak to you again.

Davis:
Well, listen, I wanted to– we were talking about some of the shifting red lines and where some in the West have claimed that various things are Russian red lines, even if the Russians didn’t say them like early on with a lot of the claims were that Russia set– the Western claims were that Russia set red lines with tanks and with artillery, and then with HIMARS and then with a ATACMS, etc., the F-16s. And every time the red line was brought up to, the West passed it and nothing ever happened. There’s some debate over whether Russia actually had red lines on those issues, but now the latest one that’s up for debate right now is this issue of the Tomahawk cruise missile. And some are suggesting that the Russians are actually putting a red line on this one where they haven’t on the previous one.

Here is Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov from earlier today talking first of all that a lot of momentum that appeared to be on the table for the talks between Russia and the United States in Anchorage, Alaska has now been lost. But then he directly interacts the Tomahawk issue.

Ryabkov: 1:51 [Russian, English subtitles]
Unfortunately it must be stated that the powerful momentum from Anchorage in favor of agreements has largely been exhausted. This is the result of destructive activity, primarily by Europeans. As for the Tomahawks themselves, as you understand, without software, without launchers, the rockets on their own are, let’s say, inert objects. Hypothetical use of such systems is possible only with direct involvement of American personnel. I hope that those pushing Washington towards such a decision fully understand the depth and gravity of the consequences of the decisions.

Davis: 2:34
Other news coming out of Reuters today said that some of the Russian members of parliament, of the Duma, said basically if you use these things we are going to destroy the launchers and the launch sites which would almost certainly mean destroy American troops. Do you think that this represents a real red line for Russia, or is this just more rhetoric?

Doctorow:
Look, this issue came up more than a year ago, and Mr. Putin then issued a red line. He was asked by Pavel Zarubin, who is a journalist with Russian state television, what this meant, when it’s discussed that the United States could be sending long-range missiles to Ukraine.

This was about June, July of last year. And Putin said, this was on the spot, outdoors, he answered the question saying that the Tomahawk can only, or didn’t name the Tomahawk, but long-range missiles of this variety could only be operated by the Americans, that all the programming would be American. And the only thing that would be Ukraine would be the finger on the button.

3:47
And in that case, if this happened, that Russia would respond militarily to that attack by any such missile from the source, where it came from, where it originally came from, not where it was launched from. So it’s a bit more, it was a bit more severe back then than even what you mentioned now, because you were describing a Russian attack on the launcher, presumably the launcher being somewhere in Ukraine, when Putin was speaking a year ago about attacking essentially the United States.

4:18
Now, what happened on Thursday when he spoke at the Valdai Discussion Club meeting in the city of Sochi in the south of Russia, he was asked about the Tomahawks and his response then was, his first response was this: the delivery of Tomahawks to Ukraine would spoil the relations between the United States and Russia. That seemed to be having a light-at-the-end-of the-tunnel characteristic now.

When he was leaving the stage, and after this four-hour session, he was quite relaxed, And he was stopped by Pavel Zerubin, that’s very same journalist whom I mentioned had asked him this question in June or July of last year. He said that the delivery of these Tomahawks to Ukraine would destroy American-Russian relations. Well, destroying relations more or less means you’re at war.

5:29
Then a moment later, he drew that back and he said, I meant to say: it would damage them. Well, Mr. Putin, which is it, damage or destroy? When you’re speaking about an essential matter of Russian national security, this is not a small detail. And it makes you wonder whether he is really in control of the responses that Russia should give to red lines being violated.

Davis:
Well, and let’s just stick on the topic of red lines for a minute. Are there any red lines? Are there actually any red lines that Russia has, whether they were self-imposed or attributed to Russia, there hasn’t been any so far because the war has stayed, thank God, contained within the borders of Ukraine and hasn’t escalated beyond that. But there … there’s a very difficult dynamic that any country would have to face, especially in Russia’s position, that they may not want any outside power to do anything, but if they take some action in there that could spawn drawing that other country in full on, not just with support, but like their armed forces, et cetera, that would be very high level. But to not do it, to not actually ever strike anything in there, is to encourage other sides to take even more action against them. How difficult is it for Russia to actually have a red line that they might enforce?

Doctorow: 6:57
Depends on whom they’re supposed to enforce these red lines against. And you can understand that they are very hesitant to set and then to defend red lines against the United States. The other nuclear power, their peer, which if it enters into a direct conflict, could lead to a nuclear war. That does not mean that Russia has no red lines that it would act upon.

And let’s go back to the Tomahawk issue. I see it as misleading and a distraction from the real issue before us. Let us remember that going back from even before his election, Friedrich Merz, the current chancellor of Germany, had been in favor of delivering, activating Taurus missiles. Unlike the Tomahawk, that is not a 30- or 40- year-old missile. It’s a rather current missile, which has a great deal of capability and which has never been encountered by the Russians. The Russians say that they have well-developed missiles, defense missiles against precisely the Tomahawk, knowing all of its characteristics.

They don’t have defenses against the German Taurus. And the German Taurus could be quite damaging, not the same range, it’s not going to be Moscow or Petersburg, but could do a lot of damage in, I think it’s a 500 kilometer range, which isn’t bad. Now, the situation was that first, Scholz and then Merz have been restrained. They didn’t want to be the first one going against Russia with long-range missiles. The logic was, they were waiting for the United States to go through the door first.

8:55
And what Mr. Trump is doing is walking through the door first. Whether he actually delivers a single Tomahawk or not is almost irrelevant. This opens the door for Merz to use Tomahawks. Now the red lines, the Russians surely will attack Germany. They will bomb the factory that makes the Taurus if they are deployed and directed against Russian targets. That is a red line you can be sure that they will exercise, because Germany is not the United States.

Davis:
Wow that’s a pretty bold statement there and pretty alarming as well, because they may not be the United States, but they are an Article 5- wielding member of NATO. What would be the thought process for the Russian side to take that kind of an action? Because that would … potentially draw in a lot of fighting against them, not just against the Ukraine side.

Doctorow: 9:52
Potentially but unlikely. Their calculation is the Germans would never get Article 5 support from other NATO members. If they are violating essentially violating international law which is what directing a Taurus against Russia would be, they become co-belligerents. And they, Germans, not NATO but Germans, would be subject to retribution from the Russians — which would be all the more logical if it were not directed against Berlin but were destroying the factory producing those missiles. That is the Russian calculation.

Davis: 10:26
Wow, that would be a pretty big issue, which hopefully explains why the Germans haven’t given the Taurus missiles, and hopefully that continues on.

Doctorow:
I’m not sure I agree with you. I think they have given the missiles. I think they went in before Scholz left the chancellorship. They just haven’t been opened to inspection. They haven’t been advertised. When they said under Scholz that in a few weeks we will send them, that is, by the way the whole war has evolved over the last three years, that means they were sent already.

Davis: 10:58
So, but they haven’t been deployed at least as far as we know.

Doctorow:
Exactly right.

Davis:
And one would hope that that permission isn’t given. And correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not a unilateral decision that Kiev could make. They could only do it with the participation of the German military, is that correct?

Doctorow:
That was the issue in Germany when several, I think it was Air Force generals, complained that deploying the Taurus in Ukraine was only possible with the technical assistance of German personnel.

Davis:
So then that is correct. As long as it hasn’t– in order for it to be deployed, it would have to have authorization, one would imagine, from the very top in Berlin, right?

Doctorow:
Correct.

Davis: 11:50
Well, let’s … hope that doesn’t happen then, because that … would be bad for a lot of cases others. We don’t want to risk any escalation of this. Going back to Trump for a second, when … he was talking about, or the possibility of using the … long range missiles, which … we were under here with the Tomahawk, the question is what is he going to do and what does he want to accomplish? Now, he had come into office obviously saying that he was going to end the war in 24 hours. He knew Putin; he knew Volodymyr Zelensky. It would be easy. He would know how to do it.

12:24
Well since then he’s kind of backed off of that a lot, saying well okay, it was harder than I thought. But he thought going into Anchorage, Alaska that he might be able to make something happen. But as Sergey Rybkov mentioned here, nothing did happen. And there’s not really any difference today than there was before that meeting back in August that took place. And yesterday in the Oval Office, President Trump was asked about that situation now, when he was visiting with Canadian Prime Minister Carney.

Trump: 12:50
Things are happening with respect to Russia-Ukraine. That’s one that last week marked 7,812 people were killed. Soldiers, mostly soldiers. But 7,000, more than 7,000, almost 8,000 soldiers were killed.

It’s a crazy, it’s a crazy thing. I thought that would have been one of the easy ones. I get along very well with Putin and I thought that would have been– I’m very disappointed in him, because I thought this would have been an easy one to settle, but it’s turned out to be maybe tougher than the Middle East. We’ll see what happens with the Middle East.

Davis: 13:25
Yeah, who would have thought that ending one role would be harder than the Middle East, but who would have thought either one of them were actually simple. But this seems to be an issue to come back to. I know that you’ve written some things, but you seem to be having challenges or differences of opinion, maybe a better way to put it, that Putin seems to be putting too much deference in trying to reach out to Trump. What do you mean by that?

Doctorow: 13:47
Well, his performance last Thursday at the plenary session of this Valdai Discussion Club was very puzzling and disturbing. He, they spent time talking about, Charlie Kirk. They spent time talking about the … American son of a CIA director and a head of a firm, a subcontractor to the US military, who died in Donbass, having volunteered to serve the Russians, because he believed in their Russian traditional values.

That was a lot of time spent flattering the United States, meaning flattering Trump. They also made remarks about what a good conversationalist, interlocutor Donald Trump is. He also talked about the Trump peace plan, the 20-point peace plan for Gaza, saying that he supported it. And he also mentioned in a complimentary way, Tony Blair’s appointment to be on this peace board that Donald Trump would head in the interim period after Hamas left and before the Palestinians were deemed suitable for self-governance.

15:08
This was a lot of flattery for Donald Trump. And it was surprising, and I think it was overdone, because it compromised Russia’s sovereignty. The whole message of Putin the last several years has been sovereignty. And here he was doing his best to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump, not quite calling him Papa, like the Secretary General of NATO did, but it didn’t look good. The countries are at odds, very seriously at odds, and this was not appropriate.

Davis: 15:47
How is that being viewed in the Russian media, in the Russian landscape?

Doctorow:
Well, that particular side of it has not been discussed on Russian state television, for example. But it has blown hot and cold about Donald Trump. The most serious commentary about Trump is, he’s a good guy, but he can’t deliver, because the political balance in Washington is against accommodation with us. And this was what Putin was overlooking. He seemed to be placing too much trust in the personal relationship with Trump that was so much in evidence in Alaska.

And it doesn’t look good for for Russia’s defending its interests. But let’s come back to what Trump is trying to say. And here I have a take on Trump’s message which is different from most of my peers, and I’m ready to defend it. Trump’s been buying time. He has been buying time almost since he took the Oval Office. Buying time for what?

Buying time for Putin to finish up the war, to get it over with. And Putin doesn’t get that message. Trump goes this way and that way. He is pivoting to Zelensky. Then he’s turning back towards Putin and it’s all buying time with Congress not to impose these tough secondary sanctions.

A lot of the difficulty that he would have in dealing in a straight way with Congress and the political establishment of the states, he is avoiding by attacking this way and attacking that way. And Putin doesn’t get it. When Trump said last week, repeated, that he was disappointed in Putin because he thought he would get it over with in the first week of the war. Let’s go back to the start of this special military operation. Most people like yourself were assuming that Russia would go in, in the American fashion of shock and awe, and would finish off Ukraine in a week.

18:08
Everyone knew that the Russian military operation was being done in a backwards way. When you have an attack, you want to take the country, you go in with three times their forces. Instead, Putin would end with one third of their forces. Now that explains why the special military operation got off to such a poor start. And Trump was revisiting that issue today.

Trump is not saying it, but he knows and we know that Putin can end this war tomorrow if he wants to. He has Oreshniks, they know where the government offices are on Bankovskaya Street in downtown Kiev. Well, in one day, they can decapitate Ukraine. And they should do it, but it’s not happening.

Davis: 19:04
And what do you suppose it is? With the capacity to do so, why do you think Russia hasn’t done it?

Doctorow:
One is the indecisiveness of Putin and his unwillingness to take risks. But the risks in … striking against Kiev are much smaller than the risks of this ongoing conflict with the West, where the leaders in Europe have gotten to understand that Ukraine is losing badly, and they are moving from one provocation to another, ever steeper and ever more risky and dangerous, that can lead us into World War III. And Putin does not get it.

Davis: 19:49
–was looking for something here to see if we could pull this up. Gary, if you could possibly pull up the Ursula von der Leyen that we used earlier today, that would be great from her comments this morning. Because I want to kind of go down that path. You say that the delay, and I know I’ve had some conversations with a number of folks that have some contacts on the Russian side themselves, and they have in one hand voiced a lot of frustration because of Leyen. Same thing, because they see people like Emmanuel Macron, who continues to mock Russia as he did last month by saying they’ve only taken 1% in the last two years because that’s all they can, the implication being, the counterclaim being that Russia can take more than that, but they are not using their forces in that regard. One of the arguments is, well, they’re doing that because they perceive that there could be a war with NATO one of these days.

20:41
And so they are, with all of this industrial capacity, they are stockpiling all the key aspects that was necessary for war, training up additional men, so that in the event that that comes in the future, they’re ready for it later on, which apparently they aren’t right now. First of all, just on that aspect of it, what is your understanding of that argument?

Doctorow:
That was good. The war has evolved. The war has changed dramatically over the course of the first three years. When the war started, Russia had a ten-time advantage over Ukraine in artillery shells and artillery tubes. They were waging, from the beginning, an artillery war. That was their war of attrition. Today, the artillery advantage is less important. I don’t mean to say it’s not important, but it’s much less a factor in the way the war is proceeding.

It is now basically a drone war. My peers who appear on programs like yours, they assume because they never name their sources, but I assume that they’re speaking to people in the military or military experts in Russia and are delivering their information on air from that source. They never stop to think whether anybody in the military in Russia would ever dare to give them something confidential, because they’ll be taken to court and they’ll spend the rest of their lives in prison for betraying national secrets. But somehow this little detail doesn’t enter into the minds of my peers.

22:12
What I’m listening to is Russian television. “Oh yes,” people say, “yes, Doctorow only watches television.” But my goodness, the whole of Sovietology in the Cold War was based on that type of expertise. People read Provda and it’s Izvestia. And you might say, why are they reading that junk?

Because in that junk, they found clues as to what comes next. Now, Russian television is much more honest than anybody imagines. I don’t mean RT. RT isn’t Russian television. It’s a special product, devised for the American public, to hold up a mirror to America’s ills.

22:45
That is not Russian television. Russian television interviews– is war correspondents on the front. I watch them every day, and it is extremely interesting and informative. The Russians are now talking about the birdies. The birdies are the attack drones.

Now the Ukrainians are not stupid people. They are very much like Russians in their skills, strengths and weaknesses. They’re very good at computers. They’re very good at video games and they’re very good at operating drones. This is a very big threat.

And it means that the Russians are operating on the field completely differently from what you would expect when the war opened and they had such an advantage in heavy tanks and all of the hardware. No, that’s not what– the tanks are being used as artillery today, just movable artillery, that’s all they are. There are no tank battles in Ukraine. The real issue today is one where the Ukrainians have a much more balanced stand against Russia than they did when the war started and they were a 10-time disadvantage in artillery shells.

Davis; 23:53
And so what is the net-net for that? What does that result in on the battlefield, those dynamics?

Doctorow:
Small movements. However, I disagree with what Macron said. It’s not a 1% increase. That’s nonsense.

When the war started, Russia had– maybe 70% of Lugansk was under Russian control and perhaps 50% of Donetsk. Now it’s 99% of Lugansk under Russian control and 70% of Donetsk under Russian control. That isn’t 1%. So Mr. Macron doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Or he’s just giving propaganda. They’re moving. But if it could continue to move at this pace, it’ll be a 10-year war.

Davis:
So is Russia moving at this pace because that’s all they can do, or are they moving at this pace because they’re risk-averse and they’re not using all their capacity?

Doctorow: 24:45
That is true, but that is not the only factor. A bigger factor is how they conceive of this war. They conceive of it in a manner that the German classics of warfare would approve of. Warfare is about knocking out the military force of your opponent. They are killing Ukrainian soldiers at a ratio perhaps of 10 times their own losses. And it is known that when they advance in this place or that, instead of proceeding and marching on and pushing the Ukrainians back further, they are retreating slightly to draw the Ukrainians into a trap and murder still more Ukrainians.

The problem is that Ukraine is still, though it’s dropped from 40 million to maybe 25 million, and though it has several hundred thousand deserters, it still has a military. And my peers who are speaking as if Ukraine is going to roll over and die tomorrow are dreaming. That is wish, that is not fact. And the move that the Russians are taking will bring them maybe in a few months at this pace to the Dnieper, but that’s not the whole of Ukraine. And the Russians have no interest in crossing into really Ukrainian territory where they will be invading, occupying army.

26:08
So the war’s end on the battlefield is questionable. I’ve said for some time the war would end in a political collapse of Ukraine. But if Europe rushes in with a hundred and forty five billion euros of assistance, there will be no political collapse of Ukraine. And there’s the problem.

Davis: 26:30
Well, and in fact, that’s exactly what I wanted to discuss next, because with this delay, if Russia’s military is capable of going much faster pace and achieving a military victory by destroying the units and then taking the territory as well — by going in this slower pace, it may be whittling down slowly at the capacity of the Ukrainian armed forces, but as you say, it keeps alive the possibility that no, we can hold out for a lot longer than this.

That was reinforced by Ursula von der Leyen earlier today, when she seems to go down here continuing path that this is a war, that we are actually in a war with Russia and maybe one we can win.

von der Leyen: 27:10
Something new and dangerous is happening in our skies. In just the past two weeks MIG fighters have violated Estonia’s airspace and drones have flown over critical sites in Belgium, Poland, Romania, Denmark, and Germany.

Flights have been grounded, jets scrambled, and countermeasures deployed to ensure the safety of our citizens. Make no mistake, this is part of a worrisome pattern of growing threats. Across our Union, undersea cables have been cut, airports and logistic hubs paralyzed by cyber attacks, and elections targeted by malign influence campaign. These incidents are calculated to linger in the twilight of deniability. This is not random harassment.

It is a coherent and escalating campaign to unsettle our citizens, test our resolve, divide our union, and weaken our support for Ukraine. And it is time to call it by its name, this is hybrid warfare.

Davis:
And so what do you make of that? Is her characterization accurate, or is the Russian view that they’re not trying to escalate into Europe? What do you think is the case?

Doctorow: 28:37
I think it’s a pile of lies. Von der Leyen is a hawk. She is a warrior. She wants to grab– she’s also virtually a dictator. She has seized as much authority within the European institutions as she could, which was not so difficult, because she’s surrounded by 27 cowards who all have linked arms and are afraid to rein her in. She may be reined in. She may lose a confidence vote in the next few weeks. But the point is: everything that she’s saying is to make the point that Europe is threatened and it needs a strong leader who makes defense federalized under her watch. And it’s all self-serving.

Now these attacks, the incursion on Estonian airspace, I ask you to look at the map. When you look at the overlapping territories that are sovereign territories of the countries bordering the Baltic Sea, which are now all– with the exception of Kaliningrad of Russia, all of the bordering lands of the Baltic Sea are NATO countries. When you extend out into the sea, their territorial rights leave you with almost nil international waters. So this whole claim of Russian infringement is in fact not a Russian aggression, it is a European-NATO aggression against Russia, to create an air and sea blockade on Russia in the Baltic. As they said very nicely, when Finland and Sweden joined NATO, it turns the Baltic into a NATO lake.

Well my friends, if that’s how you feel, we will have World War Three, because the Russians will not be barred from using the Baltic Sea. That is a casus belli. And it takes more than a few cutters from Estonia to stop a Russian oil tanker or Mr. Macron’s little police boats stopping a suspected gray-fleet Russian tanker somewhere off the coast of France. They proceed with this and we have World War III. There’s nothing to talk about. They won’t proceed with it, because the Russians will not allow them to do it.

31:25
However, this “drone attacks” is even more preposterous. All over the place and in everybody’s back yard is a drone attack, all done by the Russians. This is as nonsensical, as absurd as all of the “Russia, Russia, Russia” stories to prevent Trump’s election in 2016 and to impeach him after his election.

This, I would be sure, is all launched and coordinated by MI6 in London who are the main practitioners of dirty tricks, and von der Layen finds this very convenient, a story to establish and justify her stranglehold on power in the European Union.

Davis:
Yeah, I’m not sure what good it is going to be to have power if you end up with, some of your actions end up spawning a global war. Hopefully that will just stay in the rhetoric realm. I mean, you mentioned something a second ago that potentially that Russia could go all the way up to the Dnieper River and that that might still might not end it. That kind of lines up with something that Putin did say a couple of days ago when he talked about what their objectives were right now in the SMO.

Putin: 32:37 [English voice over]
I address the soldiers and officers, the real heroes of our time, with a special feeling. I thank you for your loyalty to your motherland, for your military valor and courage, for every day of your hard combat work. I am sure that, thanks to you, the security of Russia will be reliably ensured, and the long-awaited and strong world will return to the heroic land of Donbas and Novorossia. We are together and this means that all our plans will be realized.

Davis:
So he says all of his plans will be realized, all of Novorossia, which is we talked about on this channel a lot, that’s four additional oblasts besides just the four that are allegedly on the table right now and you’re saying, suggesting though, that that still might not be enough.

Doctorow: 33:25
Well there’s one thing missing in that Novorossia story, and that is Odessa. The French and British interest in Ukraine focuses on Odessa. Odessa, if you look at the map closely, it is very, it is in an easy strike range to Crimea. It is Ukraine’s major port. It’s what prevents Ukraine from being landlocked and is essential to the Ukrainian economy. It is important militarily, for the reason I just mentioned, because it would be a wonderful naval port for the French and the British.

34:10
The Russians understand that. And Russian television– which again I explain I use fairly regularly as a source– they are now calling out Odessa as one more objective before they end their military activities in Ukraine.

Davis:
So where do you see this going, let’s just say by the first quarter, by the spring of next year, so within roughly six months from now? Will this war just keep going on for years, or do you think Russia will finally just put the gas genuinely on the floor and try to achieve a military victory. What is your assessment?

Doctorow: 34:52
As I said, the political victory would be done in one day if Mr. Putin finds the guts to do it. And that is to bomb the hell out of the administrative buildings and use Oreshnik to go down to whatever depth is needed to wipe out Mr. Zalensky and his team in their underground hideouts. They have the missiles to do it, and that would end the war.

Europe will stand and do nothing about it. The Americans, Mr. Trump, will express regrets. That’s what war is all about. And then he’ll go about doing business with Mr. Putin that he’d like to do but cannot do while the war is raging. [It’s] beside my understanding that Putin does not end the war.

Davis: 35:51
And so if he doesn’t do that version where you say it could be over really quickly, what does it look like six months from now, the first quarter of 2026?

Doctorow:
Nothing. It looks like, well, if you want to see what it looks like, you have to go out four years. This bridging loan, which the Europeans want to give to Ukraine, what is it all about? It’s to keep the Ukrainians in play for three years, or four years. Why three or four years? Look at the rest of the program. They are spending now hundreds of billions of euros to build up, to bulk up Europe’s military production.

Germany is a leader in this with a one trillion euro debt that’s taking out mostly for the purpose of building out its armed forces and for, as Mr Merz said openly, to make Germany the biggest defender he calls it, let’s call it by the real name, the biggest military force in Western Europe. That will be ready for when? For 2029. Merz has said that the Russians will attack in 2029.

37:07
Let’s speak not more Orwellian language, but real language. He means that he will attack Russia in 2029. And if he builds out the army as he plans, you know, Europe could just win. This is not my opinion, but again, experts on Russian state television are saying, not that the Germans will win, but they’re saying that German industry should not be disparaged. German industry is quite serious, and if money is put into it, you know, they can build good arms.

So the situation is not a six-month perspective. The situation that Europe is looking at is a four-year perspective. And you know something? It can work like that. And that is precisely why I’ve changed my mind about the wisdom of the “go slow, don’t rock the boat, don’t challenge the West too much” policy of Putin. It’s reached the end of its practical life.

Davis: 38:08
Well, it does seem that there’s going to be a decision to make on a number of different parties here, not the least of which is in Moscow. And I guess we’ll have to wait and see how that’s going to work out.

Because the capacity is there to just a matter of whether the political will is and what the West would do in response. And all of that is, you know, something that’s very, very bad for global stability and global security, because anything that expands this war is bad for everybody.

And I pray to God we never see it, but we appreciate you coming on today giving us this different perspective than what we get from a lot of other places, and we really appreciate it.

Doctorow:
Well, thanks for having me.

Davis:
And we appreciate you guys to be sure, and like and subscribe if you haven’t done that on your way out. And we’ll thank you very much for watching our show today.

38:51
We’ll see you tomorrow on the “Daniel Davis Deep Dive”.