Ending the War in Ukraine: Leader Show with Guest COL Jeffrey McClausland

We're here now with Jeff McCausland. It is wonderful to have you here, Jeff. Thank you so much to be our advisor and special consultant today on the war in Ukraine. Thanks for joining us, Jeff.

Louis, great to be with you.

Thanks so much. I wanted to go in first and talk about the effects of this war on our economy and the spending itself, and what's been spent thus far and what we could potentially be spending and what— how that really affects inflation and, uh, and just what consumers and Americans need today. So what I love about what you wrote, um, in your article, uh, which really hit home to me, um, was that this really is, uh, ultimately the crisis we now face is not about Russia, Ukraine, or even China in the longer term. It is about us. So I want to talk about the "us," the spending, the relationships that we've forged, and, you know, what— how is it about us?

Well, ultimately, Lou, I think the conflict is about us because Mr. Putin's long-term strategy, Ukraine is only a small part of that. If you think back to 2005, where this all began, I think it's for the speech Vladimir Putin gives where he says, "The end of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe." the 20th century. Now, this is coming from a leader of a country that had 26 million people killed in World War II. I would have thought that would have been the worst catastrophe, but for Putin, it's the end of the Soviet Union. And since then, what did he do? Well, of course, in 2008, he would invade Georgia and take two provinces. Uh, then he began to interfere in elections in the West, including our own. He interfered in Brexit on the side of the Brexiteers, seeing it as dividing Europe. And then, of course, in 2014, he'll invade Ukraine, seize the Crimea, and foment a rebellion in the eastern portion of the country, which actually was going on since 2014 and killed 14,000 Ukrainians when the invasion occurred now in 2022. So his goals have been to reassert Russian control over what he calls Russkiy Mir, the Russian world, those areas where there are large Russian populations. What are we talking about? Well, we're talking about Belarus, portions of Georgia, portions of Moldova, obviously large portions of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Baltic Republic, etc. And in a recent speech, he revealed that once again because he compared himself to whom? Compared himself to Peter the Great. He didn't compare himself to Lenin or Stalin or any of the great communist leaders. This is all about imperial Russian history. So that strategy continues. Reassert control over those areas. In doing so, he wants to divide the United States from NATO and basically cause NATO to become a rather neutral organization and undermine the whole concept of liberal democracy. So this invasion of Ukraine, I would argue, is just the next, albeit perhaps largest step, uh, in that longer-term strategy that he has been continuing to pursue.

And in essence, it's part of that strategy was very timely for him, I would say. Tell me more about— would you agree with that, the timeliness of the strategy and the reasoning for when he did it? What would you say that— why was that the perfect storm and moment at that date?

Well, of course, he argues this is all about NATO and the expansion of NATO westward. He points out that in 2008, then-President George W. Bush convinces his NATO partners to offer Ukraine candidate membership.

NATO—

Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but put them on a path potentially to a membership. And as time went on, and very recently, he has argued that, oh, this was going to happen right away, which it wasn't. Oh, NATO is going to put missiles in Ukraine pointed at us, which they weren't, and use that to foment this particular effort inside Russia. I think secondly, he looked on the horizon. He said, okay, we've got a new president elected in the United States, but his focus in discussion of the 2020 campaign was what? The threat to the United States long-term posed by China, the threat of COVID economic recovery, domestic issues. And of course, January 6th, 2021 was probably the happiest day in Vladimir Putin's life because he saw the United States divided, which is what he wanted to achieve anyway. He looked across the European continent and he saw Boris Johnson, who seemed to be at best— my words— a clown, and now, by the way, has left the scene. Mr. Macron facing reelection, perhaps difficult reelection in the spring of 2022, and a new leader, of course, in Germany, Olaf Scholz, untested, sitting atop a rather fragile three-party coalition. So I think that's why the timing was right for Vladimir Putin. And secondly, though, as I suggest, I don't think Ukraine posed a national security threat directly to, to Russia, even though he described it in those terms, called it, you know, we've got to get rid of the Nazis that exist in Ukraine, which is almost silly when you think the president of Ukraine happens to be Jewish. But Ukraine was a threat to Russia. Why was it a threat? Because if Ukraine over time could become a prosperous, truly democratic state and a prosperous market economy as a large Slavic country, that was going to be an example that was not going to sit well with a Russian population that sees its economy basically stagnating over time, number one, realizes that the country is largely an autocracy and run by oligarchs.

Yeah, and, and, uh, what a time to make that move in February when you have weak leaders. Around you who, who are inexperienced and potentially will just go with what they're being told and what the— what the— what, what their constituents tell them to— tell them to do. And as a result, uh, spending, uh, and NATO have, uh, completely jumped into the war, spent, uh, to the effect of having, as we were saying here, there's over $50 billion that's being allowed to be spent now on this war from the United States, uh, over a billion on security, um, and Ukraine is now unveiling a plan for, have, for $750 billion for recovery, a Marshall Plan, um, as Russia is beginning to set sights on Donetsk. And, uh, so what I'm, what I'm concerned at, at this point is, you know, how do we bring this to an end when inflation is at an all-time high Consumer spending habits have changed. Oil prices are high. Nobody— perhaps we're at the lowest point in history for Joe Biden's acceptance and approval rating, and we don't want this war anymore, by and large. Very few people want this war. What do we do? What do we do with all this spending and this hole we've brought ourselves into? What's next?

I think we have to understand that this situation really is about us and whether or not we want to have a world that has some degree of international norms, or whether we want to live in a world in which the strong do whatever they want and the weak do whatever they can. And I think we have to go back to the beginning, and for Mr. Putin, and realize that he made a couple of assumptions, though, that were false. Uh, and this— those were, first of all, that Ukraine wouldn't fight, this would be over in a couple of days, number one. Number two, that NATO would fold, NATO would, you know, there'd be histrionics, NATO would complain, there would be some sanctions, but quickly he would get away with this. And you're quite right, Lou, to point out to the dramatic increase in assistance by the United States. I think it's also important to look at what happened in Europe. I mean, right now, if you're Poland, you are hosting 3 million Ukrainian refugees, which is a dramatic humanitarian burden there. Imagine you're the mayor of Warsaw. Your city had 1.3 million people in it on the 24th of February. Within a matter of couple of weeks, you had 300,000 new people join your city who have to be housed, fed, provided medical care, most of which are elderly women and children. So there's been that dramatic humanitarian assistance provided in Europe. In addition, of course, Europeans have stepped up, I think, in some ways in military terms in providing military assistance. Particularly the United Kingdom, also the French, but most importantly in many ways were the Germans, which everybody thought was a bellwether. And suddenly Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor of Germany, announced what he called the Zeitwende, a change in direction, announces a €100 billion immediate infusion into German defense spending and raising German defense spending over 2% of GDP, something they had not achieved since the 1990s. So rather than NATO falling apart, we see NATO coming together. If that wasn't bad enough for Mr. Putin, of course you have the application almost immediately of Finland and Sweden to join NATO. So in a matter of a couple of months, what has Putin achieved in Europe? Well, I would point out that he's undermined two centuries of Swedish neutrality and about five decades of German pacifism. But you're quite right, the economic burden on the United States has been significant. Certainly this war has contributed to the inflation we're seeing and higher energy costs. Russia was one of the largest oil producers on the planet, and Mr. Biden's recent trip to the Middle East was in part to talk about getting the Saudis and other Middle Eastern countries to expand oil production. Because if you look around the world, unfortunately there's only really 3 countries that have significant excess production capacity, and those 3 countries are Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran, all 3 of which have difficult political situations that make it hard for any president to expand relations with those particular countries. We have to also realize, I think, that part of that inflation is driven by other issues beyond simply the war. Part of it is limited refinement capacity. Even if you can expand production We have limited refinement capacity. Part of that still has to do with supply chains, the movement of goods by trucks, and shortages of things like truck drivers has an effect. But we're going to have to live with this for some period of time because certainly this war, I fear, is not going to go away anytime soon. And in the short term, being the next 6 months or so, I would say Mr. Putin is saying the willpower and determination of an autocracy is far superior to the patience and the ability to achieve a consensus in democracies. And that is the bet that he has placed. Now, you're quite— and that is translated, of course, into the aid the United States has, has provided, up to around $50 billion total, which calls for humanitarian assistance as well as military aid, as well as the cost for deploying other forces. The actual recovery of Ukraine longer term, that's a much more expensive proposition taking decades. And there have been estimates— we were talking off, off mic about this— that some have said that could reach $750 billion in recovery. And that just underscores how much wholesale destruction of infrastructure, transportation networks, housing, hospitals, railway networks, highways has occurred in this relentless aggression that Russia has perpetrated on the people of Ukraine.

To some degree, do you think he wanted this, this world of scripture, to show his potential independence and how he can remain independent in his own regime or government hegemony? That's what he wants, to show the independence of his, his, uh, of his structure.

He certainly wants to portray himself as a powerful figure. There's no two ways about that. But I don't think he wanted this for any— he wanted a quick victory that would allow him to get what he wanted at very low cost. So far, what has this cost him? Well, it's cost him, I think, grievously. I mentioned the unity that has occurred in the West, which is opposite to what his strategy was. What does it cost him? Well, we're running at about 8% to 9% inflation in the United States. Inflation in Russia hit 16% in June. The mayor of Moscow said Moscow alone will lose 200,000 jobs. 600 major corporations have left. Europeans and others are trying to find alternative energy sources, which over time they will find. And at the end of the day, long term, the Russian economy at the start of this war was fairly stagnant. It was not growing that significantly. And furthermore, As John McCain used to say, you know, the Russian Federation is a gas tank that happens to have nuclear weapons. What is its major part of its economy? Well, it's an export economy. It exports oil, natural gas, minerals first. Does anybody you know drive a Russian car or have a Russian computer or wear a pair of Russian shoes, use a Russian cell phone? I don't think so. So as a consequence, this was an economy that was stagnating. And if, in fact, they can be isolated over time, stagnation, a loss in— some in the White House say the GDP of Russia could be cut in half in a year or so. Now, those are pretty optimistic, I think, assessments. But I think the long-term— economic outlook for the Russians. It's pretty doggone gloomy. And if they are successful, whatever that looks like, in taking these regions that basically destroy them, as they're doing, well, then they've achieved an economic dependency, not necessarily an economic advantage, in what territory they've got.

You know, a lot of the— we're seeing on Twitter, uh, the Biden administration keeps sort of blaming Putin in the form of a hashtag Putin price hike. And so you think, you think he would have an interest more in ending the war and not prolonging it, you know. So is this an accurate hashtag, Putin price hike? Who is, in your opinion, really hiking the price?

Well, I think I suggested to you, and I'm not, you know, I'm not an economist, But everything I would suggest say it's certainly a large portion of the cost of inflation in the United States. There's no two ways about it. And that probably will continue. Think about the price of wheat. About 30% of the world's wheat production comes out of Ukraine and out of Russia. If that's circumscribed, you're going to see the price of wheat go up dramatically. That'll translate into grocery costs in the United States. So certainly inflation in the United States is is affected to a degree by the war, but there are other things that are cost of that. Certainly one thing is Americans have moved away from the pandemic. We see Americans traveling at a dramatically higher rate than they were a year ago. Once then, it's the law of supply and demand. More travel means more need for energy, means driving up the price. As I said before, there's questions of, of how much refining capacity the United States has got. There's questions whether or not in macroeconomic terms some of the COVID packages that the Biden administration announced in the early part of 2021 might have been more money than needed to be pushed into the economy. So you've got too much money chasing too few goods, which is the natural equation that leads to inflation. So I think looking for any one of those different things and saying, aha, that's, that's the issue. Is wrong-sided. It's a combination of all those things, but obviously for the administration, they would prefer to point to the problem being the war rather than admitting that perhaps they have provided too much aid to America. As far as Putin goes, in terms of ending the war, yeah, you might argue that, except, except unfortunately for a dictator, you know, he's kind of pushed all his chips to the center of the table. I've now lost 25,000 killed in action according to the British Ministry of Defense, which means I've had 50,000 wounded, captured, deserted, missing, or whatever. That's 75,000 casualties total. That's roughly 40% of his entire initial attack force. That's about 20% of the entire Russian active army. So how do you then go back to your people and say, well, we were just kidding, to him, we've been successful by the fact that we've now secured and denazified this one province that we controlled half of before the war even began. So I think for him, he'd like to end it, but he needs to end it with something tangible that he can take back to the Russian people and say, we won. You know, I always like to say there's no retirement home for old dictators. And people forget, in the entirety of the Soviet Union, for those roughly 90 years or so that the Soviet Union existed, in only 2 cases did a Soviet leader survive being Soviet leader. That was Gorbachev at the end of the Kyiv to Khrushchev. Every other Soviet leader left office in a box. And Mr. Putin certainly understands that. So if he's going to bring this to a close, he has to bring it to a close where he can say, we won. And all you need to do, I think, to underscore that point is listen once again or read his speech that he gives on the 9th of May, Victory Day, in Moscow, celebrating the end of World War II. And what does he do in that speech? He links this war with the Great Patriotic War, World War II, the death of 26 million members of the Soviet Union defending the motherland. And so what he says to young Russians is, what you're doing today is the same as what your grandparents did. In the 1940s. You are defending the motherland from aggression. Well, if that's the picture you've painted, how do you go back to them without something tangible and say we won?

Yeah, there's so much misinformation in that position. And the question I was going to go to you with, because obviously you're an expert in war, You're Colonel Jeff McCausland. You've brought in many troops successfully into Iraq, and you've seen and studied wars throughout history. So if we were to structure a talk with Putin and potentially US or others, considering his past talk on the way in which he believes he will bring this to an end and the platform he's speaking from, how can we work within his structure, if we can at all? What would the conversation go like and what should it go like?

Well, the first thing, the conversation has to be between Ukraine and Russia, not between the United States and Russia, because Ukrainians are still, I think, in the back of their minds worried that the great powers, including the United States, are going to negotiate either behind their back or over their heads. Administration has been very adamant about any discussion about ending the war has to begin with a conversation between Ukraine and Russia. Now, right now, I would say I don't see there being even a framework for a conversation because the Russians are determined to win, as I said, and Mr. Putin, I think, still politically back home needs something tangible to win. And the Ukrainians are very adamant that for them, they will insist on re-securing the entire territory that Russia has taken. And one has to keep in mind, that doesn't even— that includes not only the territory Russia has seized since the 24th of February. For many Ukrainians, that also includes the Crimea that Russia took in 2014 and that other portion of the Donbas that was seized in 2014. So right now, those two positions seem pretty doggone implacable, and I don't see any, any wiggle room where you could find a compromise between those two. That being said, ultimately there will be negotiations. There always are. And the United States and the West will be at least an active or a passive part of those negotiations, because ultimately, for Mr. Putin, the United States and the West are the only places that can deliver what he needs, which is relief from the economic sanctions, which I still firmly believe will bite more and more into the Russian economy and cause unity in Russia about this war to become more and more fragile as time goes on.

So it's safe to assume then what, what you've been saying is that the only way to bring this to an end or begin the discussions is for Ukraine and Russia to come together. We've been explicit about that. And the question is, because you said the probability of that is very low, of them coming together, thus, uh, to, uh, set up the table for this, uh, other nations perhaps need to begin giving chips, it sounds like, uh, to enable that to come together. Is that— am I getting that right, where, where we need to begin— U.S., other NATO nations need to begin their discussions to bring Russia and Ukraine together and stop the war, if, if in fact we're saying that— well, we are saying the war must end, and in past history, um, this is the way for it to end, um, in, in the nearer than later future.

Yeah, and so the dynamic has to have, I would argue, a military, political, and economic component. Militarily is and it could happen, one side or the other experiences some significant success on the battlefield, you know, a breakout, breakthrough, or one side or the other, which I think is what we're at right now, just suffers what I would call military exhaustion. You know, what we've really assumed is that we were now always in an era of short wars. You know, it's very interesting. We always assumed wars are gonna end by Christmas. Every war in history was gonna be short and few of them turned out that way. How many people would have predicted in 2003 we'd still be fighting in Iraq in 2011? How many people predicted in 2001 we'd still be fighting in Afghanistan in 2021? How many people in the Soviet Union would have predicted in 1979 that they would be fighting for a decade in Afghanistan either? So this sort of belief that this was going to be a short war, you know, if you look in history, you go, Not necessarily so. And this could go on for a long period of time in sort of a frozen conflict atmosphere. But both sides could become exhausted, either from a shortage of manpower. And the Russians right now, I would— I find fascinating, I think are scrambling for people in trying to recruit troops, extended the enlistment to 60 years of age. It bears to be basically levied on some of the provinces, particularly in the eastern part of Russia, a demand that they create battalions to be sent to the fight. And there are reports that new recruits in the Russian army get about 30 days of training before they're sent to the front, just underscoring, I think, how short the Russians are of manpower. Secondly, we're into industrial warfare. You know, we always thought wars were gonna be short. We talked about very sophisticated weapons. There weren't great constituencies, I think, in the military community in the defense community that said what we need to do is buy hundreds of thousands of 155 artillery shells and stack them up in bunkers for a long-term war. Well, guess what? That's where we're at right now. The Russians are, some people suggest, have expended up to 60,000 artillery rounds a day. Ukrainians are expending sometimes 6,000 artillery rounds a day. So that industrial capacity to keep that up is going to be part and parcel of this military part. We talk about the Javelin. Okay, well, the capacity for Lockheed Martin to produce Javelins, about 2,100 Javelins a year. Well, at one point in time, the Ukrainians expended 500 Javelins in a day. Can you then expand industrial capacity to meet that kind of a demand on either side, or do you hit some point of sort of exhaustion? In terms of your ability to prosecute the war. Second, of course, is politically. Can the Biden administration expand, keep together the allies right now, consensus in opposing the Russians in the West in particular, but expand on that? You know, it's interesting to look, Lou, if you line up the top 10 countries on the planet by population, the only country that's condemned Russia amongst those top 10 by population is the United States. Chinese haven't, Indonesians haven't, Pakistanis haven't, Indians haven't. And so the ability over time, as this goes on, perhaps for the administration to broaden the political opposition to the war as well as deepen it will be of importance. And then last but not least, of course, the economic piece. Can we more and more, you know, put economic pressure on Russia by isolating it Even yesterday, the European Union announced a new round of sanctions that barred the importing of gold from Russia, etc., just to try to put more and more economic pressure. The combination of those factors, I think, will bring— will eventually be what forces these two sides to come to the table in some kind of a negotiation.

In the event exhaustion is not a possibility for Russia,, and all of the political sanctions, political, uh, maneuvers and sanctions and, uh, ability to produce Javelins and other, uh, resources, um, it's no longer an option. What do we do? What has history shown that is possible, um, when no exhaustion exists?

Well, then you just grind on. I mean, World War I went on far beyond what anybody would imagine, and they had a similar problem in 2015, a shortage of artillery rounds, which actually brought down Prime Minister Asquith because of the industrial base of the British government could not keep up and brought in a whole new prime minister. And that's what happens. It just grinds on. Now, you may go into periods of pause, as we saw in World War I, while each side tries to refit. But that's what happens. It just continues on. And then you have, of course, in the 21st century, uh, as you've seen in warfare in past, sides trying to figure, is there a way that we can escalate that perhaps break us out of this stalemate that we're now in? And then you get into concerns of, might Mr. Putin consider escalating vertically, for example, to the use of nuclear weapons? There were some big concerns about his use of so-called tactical nuclear weapons earlier on this conflict. I frankly think that's a little bit less now, simply because I don't think he's got the, uh, the conventional forces that even if he was to use such weapons, he could exploit that militarily in trying to advance very quickly across the battlefield. But he still might think he could demonstrate his willingness to escalate, intimidate the Europeans, intimidate the Ukrainians by escalating to the use of a nuclear weapon and striking perhaps a major population center, uh, in Ukraine. I mean, he fired, I think was 24 missiles at Kharkiv the other day, which is the second largest city. Is there a great difference between doing that or dropping a nuclear weapon on Kharkiv? Though I certainly hope that doesn't happen. Second thing he could do is, of course, he could try to escalate horizontally. What would horizontal escalation look like? Well, you might see a major cyberattack against a Western country or the Western alliance more broadly. Uh, uh, there are other— he might think about trying to do something else in another area, perhaps provoke a war in the Balkans, perhaps provoke a war in Georgia, or using the forces he has in Moldova. So when you get stalemate, unfortunately, then there is some stimulus on one side or the other to escalate to try to break out of that kind of stalemate, and that could be worrisome in terms of bringing on a wholesale confrontation between the West and Mr. Putin.

Hmm. So there's a possibility of escalation and for World War I to become the gold standard for this particular war.

Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that has stunned me that more people don't think about is that I firmly believe that we are potentially in the most significant nuclear confrontation right now with the Soviet Union or Russian Federation since October 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. And, you know, and you could have something happen that could cause that escalation to happen pretty quickly. You know, Russian plane flies across a NATO border and gets shot down. The Russian missile actually goes astray and strikes NATO territory. Two ships in the Black Sea, one from the West, one from the Russian fleet, bump into each other, whatever. Those particular incidents could cause a flare-up and bring us into a more direct confrontation between the United States, NATO, and the Russian Federation.

So, in this event that the possible escalation may happen, let's go to your recommendations because we're assuming that we need Ukraine and Russia to get together and get to the table. And that's really the rules of the road according to NATO and for us all to bring this to conclusion. Let's get to— this is Colonel Jeff McCloslin's recommendations to the White House.

Well, the first thing, Lou, I think we ought to quit talking about what we won't do and talk more about what we will do. I think we've publicly limited ourselves and reacted to Mr. Putin's saber rattling with his nuclear arsenal. In terms of saying we're not going to escalate in a fashion that might bring direct, uh, confrontation between the United States and Russia. We're not going to send American or NATO aircraft over Ukrainian territory. We're not going to put American forces on the territory. We need to quit talking about what we won't do and talk about what we will do. Number 2, it's key and essential that we maintain the consensus and unity of our partners right now. That's NATO allies and others. I was on the NSC staff in the White House during Kosovo. I can tell you behind the scenes, maintaining that consensus, maintaining that unity, and getting everybody to agree on policy is critically important. And as a day-to-day process, is you got to keep everybody on the same page and coordinating, uh, your efforts. That's why the ongoing coordination efforts between NATO allies and others in terms of the type of military assistance and humanitarian assistance we provide is so critical. Thirdly, I think the administration needs to continue to talk about the fact that this is a contest between autocratic willpower and, and democratic patience and consensus, and make the American people understand that it's going to take time. But really, in many ways, the Ukrainians are fighting a fight for us, which is this world that has international norms and that we're not going to put up with a world in which the strong do what they wish and the weak do what they can. And because if this fails, then unfortunately, I think you could see the international system change dramatically, undermine NATO, this long-term partnership of about 80 years, encourage other autocrats around the world to pursue their own geographical desires, whether that's Taiwan or other places. And then finally, I think the one thing the administration needs to work on a great deal, uh, is to broaden, uh, our opposition to the Russians, particularly with other countries around the world— India, places in the Middle East, of course, Southeast Asia, etc.— to realize this is global opposition, uh, to, uh, the Russian Federation as we pursue an ultimate state where Ukrainians are able to make their own decisions and live in a democratic society.

And now we're going to go to Congress and Senate and then the NATO. So this is Colonel Jeffrey Coslin's recommendations to Senate and Congress.

Well, the Congress and the Senate, I mean, one thing is, of course, they've got to, they've got to provide the resources whereby we can do this. Uh, and certainly we saw in the most recent passage, an aid bill of about $40 billion pretty significant bipartisan support on both sides of the aisle.

This—

Mitch McConnell, uh, Republican leader in the Senate, was very outspoken about the importance of supporting Ukraine, Ukraine being successful in defending itself. That being said, we saw about 10 senators on the Republican side vote against this aid package, basically suggesting that this was something that was really not in U.S. interest. And several of them For example, Senator Rand Paul from the great state of Kentucky, or Josh Hawley from the state of Missouri, I think are very likely, uh, perhaps to be presidential candidates or attempt to do so in 2024. So I think for my colleagues and friends there on Capitol Hill, this is an issue that should be far more important than individual political aspirations and, and scoring political points, with the ongoing administration. At the same time, I think some of the arguments that have been raised on Capitol Hill are fair. Uh, there are suggestions that we need to, to establish, uh, more congressional oversight over how these particular monies that are being provided to the Ukraine, up to about a level of $40 to $50 billion, how are those spent? And we created Inspector General oversight for the expenditure of US taxpayer dollars. For both Iraq and Afghanistan. So over time, that would be very appropriate. Thirdly, I think what the United States Senate in particular should do is act very quickly and very loudly on the acceptance of Sweden and Finland into NATO. Those— the application of Sweden and Finland into NATO was accepted at the June summit of NATO leaders. Officially, Sweden and Finland do not enter NATO, until all 30 countries who are now members, their respective Congress or Parliament, pass that in the fashion their constitutions demand for a treaty ratification. So in the United States, this means a vote of 67 senators in the United States Senate. The sooner that can be done, the better. The more senators who vote for that, the better. If there's any type of major argument or division, Mr. Putin will take great satisfaction in that and suggest to him that in fact his strategy longer term will win, uh, in the conflict between Russia and the West.

And finally now, Colonel Jeff McClosland's recommendations to NATO.

Well, to NATO, what's key and essential is to maintain the unity of effort and the coordination of effort to ensure that not only do we provide military assistance and humanitarian assistance to the Ukrainians, but we do that in a fashion that makes max— takes max advantage of what we can, in fact, provide, number one. Number two, I think we need to very strongly come together and realize that we may need to significantly expand the amount of military assistance we're going to offer the Ukrainians because this war may go on for a longer period of time. That may mean revisiting very rapidly our own industrial capacity to produce military armaments at a dramatically accelerated rate from what we were doing prior to this particular war beginning. Our ability to turn out military equipment, 155 artillery shells, Stingers, Javelins, and all the sophisticated military equipment that are needed in a war like this has got to be ramped up and ramped up very quickly. And then finally, not unlike the United States Senate, I think that as quick as NATO members can move the passage within their own governments that allows Sweden and Finland to formally join NATO to better showing NATO unity and also showing Mr. Putin that we're not going to put up with this. To the best of my recollection right now, of the 30 members of NATO, about a third, 9 or 10, have already ratified Swedish and Finnish membership.

Well, you heard it from Colonel Jeff McCloslin, advisor to us all. Colonel Jeff McConville, thank you so much for joining us today and giving us all such sage wisdom and advice. Thank you.

Louis Carter, great pleasure.