Vivek Ramaswamy: observation

Transcript context

…There might be some extremely painful things for Ukraine here. So Ukraine currently captured a small region in Russia, the Kursk region, but Russia has captured giant chunks, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson regions, so it seems given what you’re laying out, it’s very unlikely for Russia to give up any other regions that’s already captured. I actually think that that would come down to the specifics of the negotiation. But the core goals of the negotiation are peace in this war, weaken the Russia-China Alliance. And for Russia, what do they get out of it? Part of this is… Here’s something that’s not negative for Ukraine but that could be positive for Russia as part of that deal because it’s not a zero-sum game alone with Ukraine on the losing end of this. I think reopening economic relations with the West would be a big win for Russia, but also a carrot that gets them out of that military relationship with China. So I do think that the foreign policy establishment has historically been, at the very least, unimaginative about the levers that we’re able to use. Actually, I was a little bit critical of Nixon earlier in this discussion for his contribution to the overgrowth of the US entitlement state and regulatory state, but I’ll give Nixon credit here on a different point, which is that he was imaginative of being able to pull red China out from the clasp of the USSR. He broke the China-Russia alliance back then, which was an important step to bring us to the near end of the Cold War. So I think there’s an opportunity for similar unconventional maneuver now of using greater reopened economic relations with Russia to pull Russia out from the hands of China today. There’s no skin off Ukraine’s back for that, and I do think that’s a big carrot for Russia in this direction. I do think that will involve some level of territorial negotiation as well, that out of any good deal, not everyone’s going to like a hundred percent of what comes out of it, but that’s part of the cost of securing peace is that not everyone’s going to be happy about every attribute. But I could make a case that an immediate peace deal is also now in the best interest of Ukraine. Let’s just rewind the clock. We’re looking at now, let’s just say we’re early 2022, maybe June of 2022, Zelenskyy was ready to come to the table for a deal back then until Boris Johnson traveled when he had his own domestic political travails to convince Zelenskyy to continue to fight. And that goes to the point where when nations aren’t asked to pay for their own national security, they have what the problem is of moral hazard, of taking risks that really are suboptimal risks for them to take because they’re not bearing the consequences of taking those risks, not fully in the cost. y have what the problem is of moral hazard, of taking risks that really are suboptimal risks for them to take because they’re not bearing the consequences of taking those risks, not fully in the cost. If Ukraine had done a deal back then, I think it is unambiguous that they would’ve done a better deal for themselves than they’re doing now after having spent hundreds of billions of dollars and expended tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives. So the idea that Ukraine is somehow better off because it failed to do that deal before is a lie. And if we’re not willing to learn from those mistakes of the recent past, we’re doomed to repeat them again. So, this idea that it would be painful for Ukraine, you know what’s been painful, tens and tens and tens of thousands of people continuing to die without any increased leverage in actually getting the outcome that they want. So, I think there’s an opportunity for a win-win-win, a win for the United States and the West more broadly in weakening the Russia-China alliance, a win for Ukraine in having an agreement that is backstopped by the United States of America’s interests that provides a greater degree of long-run security to the future existence of Ukraine and its sovereignty and also stopping the bloodshed today. And I think a win for Russia which is to reopen economic relations with the West and have certain guarantees about what the mission-creep or scop-creep of NATO will be. There’s no rule that says that when one party, before full outright World War, starts at least, there’s an opportunity for there to actually be a win for everybody on the table rather than to assume that a win for us is a loss to Russia, or that anything positive that happens for Russia is a loss for the United States or Ukraine.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.