Lawfare Daily: Conversations from Aspen, Part 2: Ali Nazary on the Future of Afghanistan and Sam Charap on the Ukraine Conflict

[Intro]

Ali Nazary: The Taliban, when, when it comes to international demand, regional demands, and even domestic demands, they are not in the mindset of bringing any change. In the past four years, with the policy of engagements by the international community, have they even given a small compromise on anything? No they haven't, they've actually become more extreme.

Scott Anderson: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson. Today I'm sharing some of the conversations I had with leading policy experts and practitioners on the margins of this year's Aspen Security Forum, which took place last week.

The first conversation you'll hear is with Ali Nazary, the head of foreign relations for the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan. We discussed the front's position nearly four years after the collapse of Kabul, and what Russia's recent recognition of the Taliban may mean for Afghanistan's future.

Sam Charap: Trump thinks he tried and failed, but the, the attempt doesn't look like anything that I would recognize as a real attempt at getting to a conflict resolution process, which is going to be necessary if you're gonna have a negotiated outcome of the war. And I think a negotiated our outcome of the war is inevitable because neither side can impose their will militarily.

Scott Anderson: You'll then hear me talk to Sam Charap, the distinguished chair in Russia and Eurasia policy at the Rand Corporation. We discussed Trump's recent pivot on support for Ukraine and where the conflict may be headed next.

[Main Podcast]

So I am sitting down with Ali Nazary, the head of foreign relations for the National Resistant Front of Afghanistan. A movement that for people who follow Afghanistan, is a significant actor, one that isn't as in the news as much as you, one might expect, but I think it's safe to say, is the premier the leading resistance movement in Afghanistan for the moment.

In many ways, many ties to the former Afghan government that was displaced a few years ago by the Taliban. Talk to us a little about the state of the national resistance front at this particular moment, a few years after the fall of Kabul. Where are you located? What activities are you facing on, what do you see your role in kinda the broader global picture of policy around Afghanistan?

Ali Nazary: Well, after four years of the collapse of Afghanistan's democratic republic and the takeover of Afghanistan, or handover of Afghanistan to a terrorist group, the Taliban terrorist organization and 21 other international regional terror networks that are aligned with them and have presence in Afghanistan, the NRF, the National Resistance front of Afghanistan is in a better position today.

When we started in 2021, we were only in one province in northeastern Afghanistan called Panjshir. Today we have presence in more than 20 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. In the last year we've had more, more than 400 operations throughout these 20 provinces, including urban areas like Kabul, Herat, Kunduz, Mazar-i-Sharif, and so forth.

And militarily, as every day passes, more people are joining us. The geographical scope of the resistance has expanded drastically. And basically our capabilities, our intelligence capabilities and our military capabilities have increased. The quality of our intel within the Taliban is much better than it was years ago. We have infiltrated within the different ranks of the Taliban. We have shown this, demonstrated this through many of our operations, targeting their intelligence officials, high ranking military officials.

We conducted a very complex attack inside the Interior Ministry just in in January of this year, the same in the Ministry of Justice of the Taliban and the military side of Kabul Airport a few times, right so far. Showing that not only quantity wise, but quality wise, our operations have, have improved. This is a state of being in a nutshell, inside Afghanistan when it comes to our military efforts.

Our political efforts have also increased globally, basically challenging the Taliban's narrative, spreading awareness about the truth and realities on the ground in Afghanistan, and basically advocating for our cause, advocating for our resistance, which is for a democratic Afghanistan where every single citizen will enjoy equal rights. And at the same time, to bring the awareness that Afghanistan isn't only a domestic matter within Afghanistan, the issue of Afghanistan, but it's a global matter because you have 21 global and regional terrorist groups and, and this coalition of terror groups is being led by Al-Qaeda.

As every year has passed in the past four years, their capabilities have increased and they are under the protection of the Taliban. We're seeing insecurities increasing in Pakistan, in Central Asia, and even in countries like Iran that's regional and even globally. Just last year here in the U.S., three terrorist cells were arrested—Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York—and they're in publishing news outlets here in the United States.

These terrorists who are of central Asian background. They entered the U.S. through the southern border and they came from Afghanistan, received their training from Afghanistan. So this shows that the threat isn't only isolated in Afghanistan, it's slowly infiltrating into Europe, into the Americas.

There's plenty of reports in Europe right now where, where there's terror cells receiving instructions from Afghanistan. And this is only one part of the problem. You have the rise of ISIS inside Afghanistan too. ISKP is growing in numbers, is growing in strength as every passes. And the only individuals on the ground fighting all of these terrorist groups, continuing the Global War on Terror four years after the United States and NATO abandoned Afghanistan is the National Resistance run of Afghanistan.

And this isn't just an empty claim made by the NRF, it has been verified by numerous UN Security Council reports in the past two years that the NRF is only fighting the Taliban who are facing Al-Qaeda, ISKP, TTP, and all the other terror groups inside Afghanistan.

Scott Anderson: So I think it's fair to say the main arc of global policy towards Afghanistan after, at least since a few months after the chaotic fall of Kabul in August 2021, has been an mixed campaign of isolation and engagement with the Taliban. Emphasizing withholding of recognition, formal recognition for the Taliban, something that the Secretary General of the United Nations has encouraged successfully up until last week the entire international community, more or less to abide by with some little exceptions here and there, but more or less abide by.

On the idea that withholding that form of for, the formal recognition, the meaningful engagement, the international status, and access to resource that comes with that is leveraged over the Taliban to encourage them to engage in domestic reforms that people wouldn't want before they could accept them as any sort of legitimate government. Human rights reforms, also inclusive governance reforms, including, you know, other ethnic religious minorities, other political communities in their governance structure. Not much progress made on any of those fronts.

How has National Resistance Front, integrated with that strategy? Is that strategy a problem? Is it something where the pursuit of a more open governance model is something that you all are willing to engage with and pursue? If there were some sort of reconciliation government, something that people talked about in the first few months after the fall, I don't think they've talked about it much recently. Or is it this policy always been a little misguided from your perspective?

Ali Nazary: Well, we're not against a political process. All wars are fought for political purposes, and at the end it has to be a political solution to end the war. In our perspective, in 2021, the war wasn't, didn't end through a political settlement, a political solution, it was just abandoned. We just entered a new phase of this war. But in the beginning, in August and September, even months after that, in 2021 and early 2022, we tried to pursue a political route.

Right after August 15th when we went to the north with the remnants of against on those very forces with many of the former government officials and the political opposition, we were part of the political opposition, not part of the government, and we formed the NRF, we didn't declare war on the Taliban. We actually started sending delegations and we're like, let's, okay, you guys are in power now, let's do something different now. We're willing to speak with you.

And we had informal talks throughout August 16 up to August 28. We sent a political delegation. We sent religious clerics who were able to engage with them with a different approach based on their own engagements with the Taliban and so forth. And of course, our leadership spoke with many of the Taliban leaders.

We saw that there is no will and intention within the Taliban terrorist group to change, and our demands were: abandon terrorism, the psychology, terrorism, we can't have Afghanistan serving as a haven for regional and international terrorism. We want Afghanistan to be a, an economic crossroads, we want Afghanistan to be a hub for when it comes to economics, when it comes to technology, when it comes to whatever. We want to be the symbol of cooperation in the region, not to destabilize the region.

And of course, having a legitimate government based on the will of the people, we’re unable to claim that we represent the people nor the Taliban cla, claim that until that and told them, let's allow the people to decide and even let them decide what type of government they want. If they want a theocracy, let them vote. If they want a democratic secular republic, let them vote for that. And whatever the majority, the vast majority want, we have to follow that decision.

But they, they weren't in this mindset and they attacked us at the end of August. And our military activities is purely defensive because we didn't attack, we didn't wage war. They waged war on us. We told them, let's not fight, let's continue the discussions. The Taliban, when, when it comes to international demands, regional demands, and even domestic demands, they are not in the mindset of bringing any change.

In the past four years, with the policy of engagements by the international community, have they even given a small compromise on anything? No, they haven't. They've actually become more extreme. The new fatwas and laws regarding women's rights, the increase of atrocities against Afghanistan's population, their support for terrorism, which is always highlighted in these UN Security Council reports every few months or so. And it shows that the Taliban are not willing to compromise or not willing to establish a functioning state that represents all of Afghanistan's people, a legitimate government.

They're only here in power to exploit the situation, exploit the people, exploit Afghanistan's wealth and resources, to exploit the goodwill of the international community and so forth, which international community is now waking up to this reality. For example, the American diplomat in the UN 10 days ago, he acknowledges our engagement with the Taliban haven't yielded any results, they haven't compromised on anything. So it has been a futile attempt. They've benefited from this policy, but we haven't. They haven't changed. They haven't shown any will to change.

Now, especially in the last six months that we have another example, which is serious. The HTS ideologically wasn't much different from the Taliban years ago, or even maybe a year ago. And everyone anticipated that the HTS taking over Syria will act like the talent. They should know there's another route, another approach that such groups can pursue.

Maybe they have a questionable past, maybe they were involved with terrorism and criminal activities, but they can basically prove that they've changed once they're in power and we don't know what's going to happen in Syria in the foreseeable future. But what the, the, the, the track record of the past six months can serve as an example that the Taliban were given this opportunity in 2021. They could have taken the same route as HTS and Ahmed al-Sharaa in Syrian, but they didn’t.

In Syria first, when, when the HTS took the masses, they didn't start slaughtering former government officials they even allowed many of the technocrats and bureaucrats to stay in power. There, there's a continuity between the former governments led by Assad and the current government in Syria. They didn't remove everyone. They didn't purge the government of everyone.

Two is they started a internal dialogue of how to create reconciliation, to bring reconciliation in Syria. The Taliban could have done the same thing. They didn't do that. And what happened in Syria is they sought internal legitimacy to an extent first, and then they went to the region and international community seeking legitimacy and recognition.

The Taliban haven't been able to show domestic legitimacy in the past four years, and they don't care to show that. They're not putting an effort to show, and they're still seeking legitimacy from the international community and the region and for this reason, the path that the Taliban are on, it's not a path where we can achieve a political settlement.

And as every day passes, it's going to exacerbate the situation in Afghanistan. It's leading the country towards a cliff, which is another round of high intensity warfare. There's more actors in, in this will, will be in this future conflict than it there has ever been in Afghanistan's history.

You have more malicious actors. For example, right now, ISKP is one of that. So we are in, in a very critical situation at the moment where unfortunately our optimism about the future is very much, it's less than what we expected.

Scott Anderson: Yeah, so in the last week or two weeks, we see a major shift in the kind of global posture towards the Taliban—not entirely unprecedented, it goes further. You know, we know a year and a half ago or so, I believe, maybe a little longer China exchanged ambassadors with the Taliban, but said expressly, we're not recognizing the Taliban. We are exchanging ambassador, something that usually means we recognize the government, but they expressly denied that.

Now Russia has gone one step further and said, in fact, we are very much openly recognizing the Taliban, establishing diplomatic relations, exchanging diplomats. So that's a historically very interesting move for Russia, a country that has very difficult history and relationship with Afghanistan and the Taliban, particular predecessors of the Taliban at least.

What does that tell us about a, the success or failure of the kind of global isolation effort that's been the focus of U.S., U.S. and global policy so far, and per, more importantly, the international dynamics around Afghanistan? You know, Afghanistan has always been perceived, I think, accurately most of the time as a, as a battleground for different regional and major powers, colonial powers, through most of its modern history. Is that something we're seeing kick up again now over the Taliban? How does it fit into the, the era of major power competition we're all operating in with between China, Russia, and the United States?

Ali Nazary: Well, the recent decision by Russia. It ended two types of consensus regarding Afghanistan, regional consensus and global consensus regarding the conflict in Afghanistan.

For the past four years, there was an unwritten consensus between global powers and regional powers involved in the conflict in Afghanistan that we are not going to challenge one another inside Afghanistan. Basically keep the conflict frozen. And we agree upon a, a number of principles and criteria to recognize the Taliban.

Regionally, the consensus was stronger. Basically the whole region, neighboring countries and beyond the, the neighborhood as well. They agreed that if we are going to recognize the Taliban, we’ll recognize them altogether, but they have to meet the criteria first. Building an inclusive governments. Their priorities were different, wasn’t a human rights, woman's rights or so forth. It was inclusivity in Afghanistan, inclusive governments.

But the Taliban have to prove that they're fighting against terrorism, that they've severed ties what terrorism and they're going to combat the threat that each country faces from the regional terror networks and Al-Qaeda, ISKP, and so forth. And third, when it came to drug traffic. The Taliban have to prove that they're against drug cultivation in Afghanistan and drug trafficking in the region and beyond.

And all of these countries agreed that once the Taliban meet these criteria, we will all recognize them at the same time. Russia broke this consensus and what's going to happen now regionally is it's going to intensify the dual political game inside Afghanistan. Instead of cooperation or collaboration regarding Afghanistan, the region is going to compete over influence and power in Afghanistan and globally too. The global powers, whether it was the U.S., European countries, China, Russia, and regional countries. Altogether, they agreed that we have to work through the UN to achieve a political settlement regarding Afghanistan.

Of course there wasn't a consensus over every issue, but at least they said, let's deal with this in a timely manner and we will have to address each one of these problems. So the level of competition over Afghanistan was, was very low in the past four years between global powers. They all agree that humanitarian aid has to be delivered. Let's keep the situation as is. Let's accept the current status quo.

We're not, and everyone agreed we're not going to strengthen the opposition to the Taliban. At the same time, we're not going to recognize the Taliban, so let's keep it at this state of being. It's going to change that, that as well, because Russia made that decision and announced it a day after the recent Doha meeting happened, which is moderated by the United Nations, by the Secretary General's office.

So this itself sends a message, a clear message to the international community is we're going to unilaterally make decisions on Afghanistan. We're not going to collaborate through the UN or through on any other platform with the United States or the European Union or so forth. And right after that, we saw the messaging change from the current administration here in the U.S.

The U.S. diplomat, a senior U.S. diplomat in the UN came out, they voted against the resolution regarding Afghanistan and the statements show that we're against engagement. The Taliban is a terrorist group. Engagement hasn't resulted in anything, and we're against continuing engagement. So it's the complete opposite of what the Russians did.

The State Department a few days after that came out condemning Russia's decision and saying, once again, we recognize the tolerant as a terror instead of a government or a state. So again, showing a clear side that it, Afghanistan is becoming polarized again between global powers in the East and the West as it happened during the Cold War and many other conflicts in that country.

And this is going to intensify the geopolitical situation inside Afghanistan, both regionally and globally. So it's a lose-lose situation for the Taliban and Russia. We don't see the Taliban gaining anything in the long run because they've just, by Russia recognizing them, those may be a, a PR achievement for a few days. But the implications for the Taliban is greater.

It's going to lose the degree of engagement in cooperation that had with many Western countries. It's going to lose the audience it had in, in, in platforms like the Doha Process and so forth. And it has to become more dependent on some of these regional countries, whether it's China or Russia, which of course we know these countries are also involved in other conflicts, which they can’t really invest much in Afghanistan. They can't fill that void.

So we don't see this being in the interest of the Taliban. It is an opportunity for us 'cause as I said, in the past four years, there was a consensus, neither should the resistance be supported nor the Taliban be recognized. This opens doors for us now. It's too early on for me to assess what kind of opportunities we will be having since it's only been what, 10, 12 days, but we do anticipate that this is an opportunity for us.

Scott Anderson: So tell me what that means for the NRF in this new reality, this return of competition, this divide in the international communities approach, kind of the end of the unified approach and a bigger split of opinion.  Where do you see your role for the next few years fitting in your activities?

How does it change what exactly you all do, and what do you angle for? You know, there's a reality where the NRF becomes the new government of Afghanistan, but that is a long road. What are the more immediate objectives to get from the international community and for, to get the international community to try and get out of the Taliban or the other powers that be, that have an interest in Afghanistan?

Ali Nazary: What our assessment is, and based on these, these assessments, we've basically crafted our strategy, whether it's outside of Afghanistan, inside. So our assessment is the Taliban as every, every year has passed, has become weaker. The Taliban is just an umbrella group of different factions today. It's not the same Taliban as the previous era between ‘94 and 2001, it was a monolithic group back then. Today it's a combination of different factions competing over power and resources.

Basically, Afghanistan has two capitals today, Kabul and Kandahar. Kandahar makes the real decisions. Kabul has been sidelined. And basically the whole country is divided between these factions and most of these factions see themselves sidelined and marginalized from power. And so they are weakening as this, as this competition increases and has been drastically increasing in the last year, especially in the last six months with the end of U.S. aid going into Afghanistan and there was a void when it comes to assistance and so forth, which it's, it's creating a, a sense of paranoia. Too is some of the messaging from the West and so forth regarding the Talibab, creating paranoia that one side is being supported by the west and other side by another country.

So they're thinking about their future too, and the assessment is we believe it is inevitable that in the next few years, maybe even less than that, will surprise us. An implosion within the Taliban will happen. In the past two months, there has been a major uprising. You don't hear this in a major uprising in Badakhshan province, which is in the northeast, ordering Pakistan and Tajikistan.

The people there, the Taliban, local Taliban there have basically risen up against the Taliban from the south, from Kandahar. And this conflict is intensifying as every day passes and they hold the key in the north. Basically, they can remove the foreign Taliban from that area and declare their own region independent from Kabul and Kandahar. That's the path we see. The Haqqani network, for example, has been completely disarmed, they’re marginalized. They're thinking about their future going around the region asking for support, not to fight against us or fight against any other, to prepare themselves against Kandahar. So what we see is the country is moving towards the Taliban or moving towards an implosion.

When this implosion happens, it's going to create a power vacuum. Taliban can't control the whole country. When such an implosion happens, they're going to lose territory. Now the actual opportunity and challenge lies after this implosion with this power vacuum and we're, when we're going around in the international, we say, look, this power vacuum is gone, we have to prepare ourselves for this.

If the NRF isn't prepared, we won't be able to fill that void in a timely fashion. And there's other groups. We're the only democratic group on the ground besides us, the other groups are terrorist groups. And if we're unable to prepare ourselves for this power vacuum, you'll definitely see a rise of ISKP.

Just how ISIS was able to exploit the situation in Iraq and Syria and back in 2014. It filled a vacuum. It's going to do the same and ISKP has the same assessment as us. This is why they're pursuing strategic silence at the moment. They're preparing themselves to recruiting, they're increasing their resources, their presence in many regions in Afghanistan, but they're not moving in 'cause they know that the Taliban are going to collapse.

And they want to exploit that situation instead of exploiting this situation. We know this as well. So our message, whether here, it's here in the United States, European countries, the region is: Support us, because if you don't have an ally when that power vacuum comes, it's going to be a catastrophe and you'll waste more resources than what you can spend today.

You know, because we can't do this all alone. And this isn't only our fight when we're fighting groups that are made up of foreign terrorist fighters. It's not a internal war inside Afghanistan. It's not an isolated conflict. And there's ample evidence, as I said, United Nations Security Council reports or our evidence through video and so forth, showing foreign fighters from the Middle East, north Africa, or South Asia, Central Asia, are fighting with the Taliban against us, support us so we can prevent a catastrophe from happening.

Cause if ISKP takes over and we're weak, we're unable to face them. And at the same or face the talent. What will this mean? It means another intervention. Does the international community have the will for another intervention? No, but it will be forced upon. There won't be any other decision, but if we act today, we can prevent that intervention.

Scott Anderson: That's fascinating. Well, we're at our end of our time today. Thank you for being so generous, but thank you for joining us and I'm sure I'll have opportunities to maybe revisit this for having me. We appreciate it.

Ali Nazary: Thank you.

Scott Anderson: Now let's go to my conversation with Sam Charap the distinguished chair in Russia and Eurasia policy at the RAND Corporation.

We've had a momentous couple of weeks when it comes to U.S. policy towards Ukraine. We came in not knowing which direction the Trump administration was going to go. We knew Trump had been critical of Ukraine and various perspectives has a strange relationship with Vladimir Putin, to say the least, from his first term in office. We saw a very, very chaotic White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky and President Putin, where it seemed clear, at least to my eyes, you had some people in the administration perhaps even trying to underscore some of the problems that they saw with the current U.S. posture towards Ukraine.

But the last few weeks we've seen a little bit of an about face or at least what might be an about face. President Trump restoring flow of arms, that was interrupted by some of his own senior advisors in the Defense Department. And now a new plan of European funding for American arms to Ukraine. A convenient triangle that ultimately does continue to provide arms to Ukraine with European support and funding.

Lemme start with this question for you. How big a switch is this actually? Like do you think this is actually a significant pivot? One that has some stability, that has some durability. Or is this just another mercurial pendulum swing from a president who by his own mission is mercurial sometimes, perhaps for strategic reasons?

Sam Charap: Well, yeah. I would start by noting that any assumptions of permanence in in Trump's approach to this, or really any other issue is probably foolhardy. But the shorter, longer answer is we don't really know because the details of the plan for basically letting the Europeans buy U.S. weapons for Ukraine have not been made clear.

It's not clear that the Europeans really understand what the mechanism is, or the Ukrainians or even officials in the U.S. government, frankly. So if that does actually become more concrete and either qualitatively or quantitatively increase the volume of, of munitions supplied to Ukraine, that would be important.

I don't think it demonstrates a fundamental shift in the U.S. approach to military assistance in any case because it's essentially maintains Trump's refusal to spend more directly on Ukraine than has already been appropriated. So there's not gonna be a new supplemental budget for Ukraine, that's clear.

So in this case, he sort of got around that by having the Europeans pay for, or at least that's in theory, the idea. The other piece of it, I think, is the 50-day deadline for Putin to agree to ceasefire and the threat of both primary and secondary sanctions if he doesn't. Now I do think that that is a, at least an attitudinal shift, whereby he no longer, Trump no longer sees well, he is gotten extremely frustrated with Putin's unwillingness to agree to a ceasefire upfront in the context of negotiations in the conflict.

Scott Anderson: So in my mind though, as I've been kind of following this, not the level of detail you do, but often enough that I have to get a sense of how the trajectory of, of people are approaching this. It seems like the Ukraine has really bought into, really, since even before the election, setting up a transactional model for President Trump.

We now have a mineral agreement related sub agreement where there is a financial incentive for the United States to keep providing assistance to Ukraine and to preserve Ukrainian independence. This European plan buys into that to some extent because of course you essentially the Europeans subsidizing or being good customers for American indus, military industrial base in a way that may be harder to shake.

Is that a strategy that you think has durability around this issue set in terms of keeping the incentives there for Trump to at least avoid, seriously undermining the U.S. support for Ukraine? And how does that relate to the U.S. relationship to Russia? We've heard Russia hint at in the past, oh, well maybe we can do joint projects in Eastern Ukraine or other areas of collaboration. You've heard President Trump mention that in the past before.

Sam Charap: Yeah.

Scott Anderson: Nothing's really come of it. I think people have very skeptical of it. Is this a real advantage if for Ukraine that they can offer these incentives and relationships in a way that Russia can't that they seem to be leaning into? 

Sam Charap: I would take the emergence of this transactional approach as just a realization following that catastrophic late February Oval Ofice meeting that it is in Ukraine's best interest to just stay on Trump's good side and more or less do whatever that he requests. And that has, you know, thus far I think served them better than the previous approach of trying to browbeat him into things that he wasn't otherwise willing to do because he just doesn't respond well to that. And so they've agreed to this, you know, minerals deal. They agreed to 30-day ceasefire where initially they weren't particularly excited about that.

They agreed, you know, basically they're like, tell us what to do and we'll do it. And I think that is a much better approach with, and the Trump administration seems to have noticed that they have shifted their tune on that, and I think that has helped shift Trump's own ire towards the Russians.

Now, this strikes me so far as more the a sort of virtual commercial relationship because it's not like there's any money to be made in the prospect of this presidential term from any of these arrangements really, and particularly the minerals deal. And you know, that is not a short term proposition, and I think it's unclear to me if it'll ever really come to pass as envisioned in the, in the agreement.

On the Russia side, as far as I understand the administration's approach, basically they were dangling economic cooperation as an incentive for Russia to engage on a Ukraine ceasefire, settlements, et cetera. There was a lot of conspiracy theorizing, or at least not quite conspiracy, theorizing, but fear, let's put it that way, that in fact their interest was in normalization with Russia and they didn't care, the war in Ukraine was kind of an inconvenience getting to that point rather than normalization with Russia being sort of dangled as a means to an end of ending the war.

I think they always maintained that it was the latter, not the former. And that has played out in the sense there haven't been any economic benefits, you know, with Russia from any of the sort of discussions that have taken place. I think a lot of it is without a ceasefire, I don't think they're willing to go there.

Now big picture, if you look commercially, putting aside the risk questions and all the liabilities that Western companies have incurred post 2022 in Russia, I mean, these are economies of a kind of different scale. So if you were to be judging based on commercial opportunities, again, putting aside the political risk questions and the legality and morality questions, I'm not sure that they'd exactly be comparable, but I think the important bit is that, that the Ukrainian attitude has shifted to, you know, make it clear to Trump that they are not the primary problem here.

Scott Anderson: So let's talk about the other big actor in the room in this issue: that's of course Russia. Russia has been engaged in a spring offensive, summer offensive, whatever season you wanna attach it to for the last few months.

It's involved, I think from the western media perspective, most high profile events have been these brutal waves of drone attacks on Kyiv and other population centers that we have very visible evidence are obviously meant to have a psychological message to the Ukrainians and to some extent to the west about the lengths to which Russia is willing to go.

But the real battle lines, the meaningful military efforts are happening on the front lines in Donetsk, Luhansk, where the stated objective of the Russians is to try and secure control of the entirety of the oblasts, if not, and push me a little bit beyond that and a few other corners of Ukraine, as I understand, although, correct me if I'm, I'm a little off on that.

What do we know about how effective this offensive has been? Is the 50-day period that Trump has laid out for the Russians to come to the table, an opportunity for them to complete more of this operation? Is it a period in which we're likely to see dramatic changes on the ground, if particularly if they increase their effort, they see a closing window, they mean to rush into?

Or do we already have a sense about what the results have been, how the facts in the grounds will change from this offensive at least for the foreseeable future?

Sam Charap: So if you, if you take a step back. The war has kind of looked relatively similar on the ground, particularly since the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive about two years ago, which sort of culminated about three years ago, with the exception of the Kursk incursion, and then the Russian expulsion of the Ukrainians from Kursk and subsequent incursion into Ukraine across the border into Sumy.

You know, we've seen a sort of slow grinding Russian advance that hasn't achieved, you know, significant strategic gains, but has nonetheless resulted in more and more territory. Although I would not measure success in this war necessarily through the territorial lens, I do think we're in an attritional conflict where the balance of attrition is really the key metric and which is incredibly hard to measure because we don't know how many resources one side or the other is willing to devote to this.

We know Russia has more resources as a general matter, both human and otherwise, but like how much are they willing to put on the line to achieve their objectives here? Same for Ukraine. You know, they have not mobilized Ukrainians 18 to 25.

So in theory they have more resources, just as one example. But the overall balance of attrition, you know, is a key question and you know, you hear arguments in both directions. I think generally speaking it's, it's in a war of attrition, the side with the fewer resources is generally gonna be the underdog.

So I think on the ground, you know, even though June, by the numbers, Russia achieved more territorial advances at any point since 2022, it's still pretty modest and they still have yet to capture any of the key remaining population centers in Donetsk and, you know, that they've been pushing for, for a while now, like the Battle of Pokrovsk is seemingly a never ending one. And even that is hardly a population center even if there's some important industrial assets around it. 50 days from now, I imagine it'll look pretty much the same.

Now, the air question, I, I have to imagine that a lot of it, you know, the quantity of drones is one thing, probably mostly meant as to, to suppress Ukrainian air defenses and to open the field for the ballistic missiles, which are then targeted, presumably mostly at industrial, economic and military targets.

And they miss often, you know, and then they're with tragic results. But and I'm, the psychological effect is, as you describe. How that fits in the overall balance of attrition is another important question. And you know, I think we can do some guesswork here and you know, some analysts have done important work on this subject, but it is pretty, it's pretty tough to get at that.

It's much easier to measure square kilometers than it is to measure, you know, potential manpower given that there's so many political variables like the actual decision about whether Ukraine mobilizes that group that we can't know at this stage, or whether Russia goes to another mobilization as opposed to continuing, its essentially recruitment drive by subsidization, if you wanna call it that.

But if your question centers around what does the 50-day deadline mean? It's not clear to me why that number was chosen. It's also not clear to me what the expectation is about a fundamental shift in Russian tactics. To that point, unless there is a breakthrough on the negotiations, the signs of which are non-existent at the moment.  

Scott Anderson: We have seen a shift is not just in the administration towards Ukraine to some extent, but to some extent in Congress as well. We have a sanctions bill currently put on the back burner by Senator Thune but nonetheless has support, I think co-sponsored from over 80 senators, very bipartisan representation being driven by Senator Lindsey Graham, that would impose substantial new sanctions on Russia.

And more than that, impose a variety of secondary sanctions on people doing business with Russia. Some draconian, some may be even unrealistic in scale, at least is currently written, but however it gets watered down the goal seems to be to do substantial economic work there. Again, back burner pending this current policy, but something that might still be brought to the fore by Congress.

At the same time, it's clear there are things that the president is gonna need Congress to go to, even under this ring with NATO. So the arms are coming from U.S. drawdown authority, which has been substantially depleted. I think they have a couple billion dollars left of the large, immense sum the Biden administration procured for the end of its time in office. He's gonna need a renewal of that.

And at some point you also have to replenish stocks. That was the concern that led his Defense Department to cut off the flow of arms to Ukraine in the first place. And to rebuild the stocks, you've gotta get more money. Current legislation does that to some extent, we see some in the appropriations bill, we see it in the NDAA, there's motion towards that sort of action. But the question of draw down authority, at least I haven't seen any other legislation yet. So I think this boils down to a question that we haven't had to face with this administration yet. Which is, so far we have been asking this administration to passively acquiesce to a continuation of U.S. policy.

But it seems to me that we are going to get to the point where it's going to have to make affirmative requests that come with political costs.

Sam Charap: Yep.

Scott Anderson: How important are those, whether it's expanding sanctions, continuing sanctions, getting the drawdown authority, how important are those? And then more importantly do you think that this Congress or this president will lay down to get that political capital from his Congress, or if he, there's enough support in Congress, including in his own party to drive that forward, that he'll play along with it?

And it, what are the, the factors of that sort of success? How do you bring about that political shift from a party that was the biggest hindrance to getting assistance to Ukraine at the end of the Biden administration?

Sam Charap: So on sanctions, you know, IEEPA is so elastic, as I'm sure you will know that the idea that you would need any new authorities is a little bit, from Congress that is, I think this is more a political question than a legal one, right.

Scott Anderson: Fair enough.

Sam Charap: So when, when the administration says they have all the authorities they need, I would probably, as a technical matter agree, you know, whether they'll exercise them as another story, and particularly on this question of secondary tariffs, whether the United States is willing to blow up its trade relations with India, Brazil, and China over the Ukraine issue is would surprise me—lemme put it that way, if that were the reason why we went down that road, but on drawdown authority, I think you're, you're absolutely right.

And I think it would be a political shift of significant proportions if Trump were to make a new request for a supplemental from Congress like that would I think, cause some pretty significant rips in his base. Surprisingly, you know, they haven't invoked the minerals deal as a reason why, you know, we'll get our money back. I thought that was sort of one of the political drivers behind it.

But putting that to the side, the, the good news here is that the Ukrainians are far less dependent on most U.S. weapon systems than they were a year or two years ago because of the nature of how the fighting has evolved. Now air defense is the big exception because basically every country that has received, you know, in in NATO and in in this case in Ukraine, is dependent on the U.S. for air defense.

There's no like alternative sources in this context, particularly for the most sophisticated interceptors that can take down ballistic missiles, the PAC-3s. But generally speaking, we're not talking about a collapse of the lines incurring because most of the sort of defensive fighting that the Ukrainians are engaged in is being conducted using domestically manufactured FPD drones.

Now this is not a perfect solution, but the nature of that, of the battlefield is such that, you know, you're not gonna have much utility for an Abrams tank in that context or even necessarily a, attack s long, long range strike, although obviously there are other places you might wanna use that. So I think, I do think politically there will be a moment. In fact, I, we are in the moment regardless of this new scheme for the Europeans to purchase things where the Ukrainians are running out of the last of the Biden era PDA.

You know, it said July or August is what I had heard. And so yes, I do think they would have to take an affirmative decision one way or the other and, you know, incur the political costs if that were to happen. It's hard for me to imagine that at this point, but maybe with this whole, the Europeans will pay for it thing, that slogan could get it passed.

Who knows. And by the way, as a footnote, of course, the, the concerns about the stockpile are not like a made up thing, right? They're very real. And a lot of this really isn't about the money, it's about the production capacity, which, you know, despite the U.S. government's best efforts, has not ramped up to the extent that people wanted it to in 2022 and 2023.

Scott Anderson: So an underlying possible assumption here, or shift in assumption is that the diplomatic path that Trump entered into office promising, saying initially a, bring the conflict to an end in 24 hours, some unrealistic number that kinda shifted over time. But nonetheless, the focus really being on, we're gonna get Russia and Ukraine in a room together and we're going to hash this out is not working.

Trump is turning back to a coercive slash defensive approach, right? We are gonna bolster and solidify Ukraine. We're gonna, you know, in this war of attrition, give it more ability to last longer. And then we are, you know, potentially helping the Ukrainians. Make the war more costly for the Russians, although more the former than the latter, I would say at this point.

Do you think that's right? Is this a sign that Trump doesn't think diplomacy is gonna work, that he has to turn these coercive tools? Or is there still a process happening that may yield fruit? Particularly after this 50-day period where, at a period where you might actually have an incentive by the Russian to come to the table, particularly if they get to the end of their offensive tt hasn't gotten them, everything they set out to get. Where does diplomacy still fit into this process and, and how does this fit into that bigger picture?

Sam Charap: So I, I think, you know, the framing of the shift that we saw this week as a pivot towards supporting Ukraine might have missed the, the, the, what Trump says was his real reason for this, which is his frustration with Putin and specifically with Putin's unwillingness to agree to a ceasefire. And basically his view that he, Trump, has been trying diplomacy with Russia and that it has not yielded results.

The problem is that resolving a conflict of this severity and complexity is not something that can be done with presidential level phone calls, or exchange of what they called term sheets as what happened back in April, and I'd make the case that we have yet to see a real diplomatic process emerge. There have been like the faintest beginnings, particularly with the bilateral Russia, Ukraine talks that have occurred in Istanbul starting in May.

There were two rounds of those. Unclear if there's gonna be a third anytime soon. But in terms of U.S. efforts, you know, we had these attempts at a partial ceasefire that were back in March with this in meetings in Saudi Arabia where they were going for this Black Sea arrangement and a critical infrastructure ceasefire that was abandoned.

And then there have been, you know, Steve Witkoff led efforts apparently to talk through some of these issues, but none of this resembles what you know we have known historically as a sort of attempt at mediation in a complex international conflict where you would need like either a dedicated shuttle diplomacy effort going between capitals and really trying to reconcile positions, bring them closer together, applying pressure and inducements in different ways.

Or like a conference where everyone's at the table and they have to be, they're locked in the room or in the city until they actually produce an outcome. And these things are hard, they take time, they're painstaking. You know, I could give you examples like the Korean armistice took. Two years and 575 meetings to work out, by the way, at a time when the U.S. was in, incurred 45% of overall casualties in the war. So it was not a, during a ceasefire.

The Good Friday agreement took 22 months. I, I just, I think that the expectation or maybe the story that is somewhat being overlooked is that Trump thinks he tried and failed, but the, the attempt doesn't look like anything that I would recognize as a real attempt at getting to a conflict resolution process, which is going to be necessary if you're gonna have a negotiated outcome of the war.

And I think a negotiated outcome of the war is inevitable because neither side can impose their will militarily. So the, the problem is that throwing up his hands and sort of walking away, which kind of disempowers the Turkish mediated effort that was producing these bilateral meanings. It just suggests that there's not gonna be much U.S. engagement on this or maybe like even somebody actively leading it anytime soon.

And that the U.S. demand is that Russia just agree to a ceasefire period or else face consequences. And Russians don’t tend to respond well to ultimatums. I think as a Russia specialist, I can make that as a confident claim. Now they might dance around this one to, to try to, keep Trump from doing something rash.

But as a general matter, I think the, the challenge is that it might be true that Putin is determined to fight on at all costs and doesn't care. But I don't think Putin himself even knows the answer to that question because a real negotiation process can lead to outcomes that the people going into it didn't expect when they entered it, and we haven't had one.

And so that's, I think, you know, one point that maybe I'd like to leave with your listeners, that until one of those processes does emerge, and I would argue that the U.S. is gonna have to take a leadership role in that because it has the most leverage over both parties. We're not really going to be moving towards an end to this war or a sustainable end to this war anytime soon.

Scott Anderson: I think that's a good note to end on. Sam, thanks for joining us.

Sam Charap: My pleasure.

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