Transcript: Can Europe Defend Itself Without America? Radek Sikorski on NATO & Ukraine

COLD OPEN:

Radosław Sikorski:

I don’t think Russia could prosecute the war and I don’t think she could survive as a state without trade with China. So this would be a credible threat. So China, unlike us, actually could force Russia to end the war. But my guess is that the war suits China just fine. Russia is selling them gold. Russia with every year becomes more dependent. And what’s not to like about that?

Jake Sullivan:

Welcome back to The Long Game. I’m Jake Sullivan.

Jon Finer:

And I’m Jon Finer. We’ve spent a lot of time on this podcast discussing the state of America’s relations with various countries around the world, especially our allies. But today we have our first opportunity to do that with someone who is sitting at the table managing those relationships from across the Atlantic. Radosław Sikorski, who goes by Radek, is Poland’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister. He’s been in and out of Polish politics for a long time with previous stints as foreign minister and his defense minister. He is also a longtime advocate for the transatlantic relationship, so much so in fact that he married into one. His wife is the acclaimed American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum. He’s the author of seven books on international affairs himself and of particular interest to me. He began his career as a war correspondent during the Soviet War in Afghanistan and later in Angola.

No one has a keener eye when it comes to NATO, to European security, to great power competition and the transatlantic relationship, and we’re very much looking forward to this conversation. So Radek Sikorski, welcome to The Long Game.

Radosław Sikorski:

Hello, and thank you for the generous introduction.

Jake Sullivan:

We really appreciate you taking the time today because I think our listeners getting your perspective will be really enriching. So let’s get right into it. Europe is simultaneously facing a Russian invasion that has produced the bloodiest conflict on the continent since the Second World War. Chinese industrial overcapacity that threatens to hollow out the manufacturing sector across Europe, and a US administration that seems to put it charitably less than fully interested in working with their European allies and sometimes downright hostile, though usually not to Poland. Since the end of the Cold War, Radek, has there been a more challenging time for Europe? How do you see the picture today?

Radosław Sikorski:

It is challenging, but give us credit for not starting wars of choice that we can’t win.

Jake Sullivan:

Credit given. We’re credit given.

Radosław Sikorski:

We do. And of course I was speaking about the Russians.

Jake Sullivan:

Right, right, of course.

Radosław Sikorski:

We are doing something about unfair Chinese practices. We’ve just introduced, partly inspired, I have to say, by the United States, a charge on small postal packages that we’re pouring in at the rate of 13 million per day. And since the 1st of July, the volume has decreased because of the EU charge at our customs barrier. Look, we in Central and Eastern Europe knew that the window of a history in which Russia was cooperative wouldn’t last forever. And we have been spending 2% of GDP on defense since 20 years ago at a time when 2% seemed like a lot. We’re now spending 4.8% on defense on hard defense and 7% if you count dual use stuff. And we are re-industrializing in the area of defense from our national budget and also from EU funds. The EU has passed safe mechanism, soft loans, 150 billion euros in total almost, of which Poland is getting about a third.

So yes, there are many challenges, but I wouldn’t count Europe out. We are still a very big single market. We are a confederation. We don’t have the unity of command that you have in the United States. We are slower. It takes time for us to synchronize, but it also means we can’t do anything rash. And that of course has its advantages too.

Jake Sullivan:

It surely does. So I am interested in the optimism, the tempered but real optimism in your answer, and wanted to just zoom out for a minute to something that you wrote last year. You wrote about being asked what keeps you up at night? And you said the answer, and this is a quote, is the fear that the post-war international order shaped by memories of World War II and the trauma of the Holocaust and built on the foundation of political compromise, respect for other countries, sovereignty, free markets, civil liberties, and the protection of minorities may collapse. How do you assess the state of the international order today? What’s your diagnosis? And then what’s your prescription for what collectively those of us who want to stand for the principles that you wrote about what we should be doing?

Radosław Sikorski:

I still have those fears both internationally and internally. Internationally because the wars in Eastern Europe, Russian aggression against Ukraine and in the Middle East seem to be widening. Russia is getting help from Iran, North Korea, and some significant support from China. And as you know, an Iranian ship was hit in the Caspian Sea for, I think, legitimate reasons. Iran was sending military support to Ukraine, but nevertheless, that’s a link between the two theaters. And we now have a problem not only in the Strait of Hormuz, but also with access to the Red Sea. So the international situation is not getting better. It is actually getting more concerning. And internally, it seems to me that with the passage of time, people are forgetting how fragile both peace and democracy are. And there is popularity on both sides of the Atlantic of purelist forces that are fueled by nostalgia and by a sense that nothing bad can happen.

We can have everything that we want without paying a price. And we want it now and we don’t have to compromise. And that worries me. It means that we have constitutional and political challenges inside our own countries.

Jon Finer:

Let’s talk a bit about the United States. You know us better than most for a range of reasons. We have a president who sometimes seems to prefer the company of authoritarians to that of democratic leaders. We may or may not be involved in our own war of choice that’s unwinnable, as I think you hinted at, even if you were really speaking about Russia. How do you rate the current health of the transatlantic relationship? This is the first US conflict in recent memory, if ever, that none of our transatlantic allies participated in a meaningful way. And then as an official from a country that is flirted with its own illiberal turn in recent years, what about the state of American democracy?

Radosław Sikorski:

Well, we don’t interfere in the internal affairs of our great allies. And of course we expect the same in return and we don’t always get it. But we have different institutions. So for example, when I speak to Americans and I was just on the West Coast, made a speech at the Reagan Library, visited Stanford and so on. In the United States, people no longer seem to realize how unique the role of big money in politics is in the United States. When I tell people in the US that I was elected to be a member of the European Parliament for five years and my electoral budget was $30,000, they don’t believe me.

Jake Sullivan:

Wow. What was your opponent? Was that standard?

Radosław Sikorski:

It’s the legal limit.

Jake Sullivan:

Legal limit. Wow.

Radosław Sikorski:

And you know what? It’s enough. You can do social media advertising and if it applies to everyone, it’s sufficient. So this is a big difference. And in Poland we say, well, if someone gives you $1,000, that means they like you. If they give you a million, they expect a return. Here we are different. But the larger picture is this, and I ended one of my speeches in the US on this. Ronald Reagan used to say, and I know how beloved he was of Democrats-

Jake Sullivan:

Well, he’s become better yet, in retrospect.

Radosław Sikorski:

He sure does. I know, I know, but it’s not what they said at the time, was it? He said that if someone agrees with you 80%, that means he’s an 80% friend, not a 20% traitor. And we sometimes have the impression that there is a fashion for doing down Europe. And I also think there is something wrong with the comparative statistics. You have these amazing companies in AI and tech and so on, but we also have our achievements. We live longer on average. We spend about half of our GDP on health on average on what you spend, and we cover all our people. And you don’t. That’s not nothing. In Poland, guess how many school shootings we’ve had over the last three decades? Zero. And so on. So what I’m saying is that we have things that we can learn from each other, and the tone of superiority either way is unjustified.

Jon Finer:

So let’s turn to the security partnership a bit. The US formally launched a strategic Europe posture review of its military presence on the continent. Wondering what you expect to come of that. And do you anticipate a significant drawdown of US forces during the course of the rest of this Trump administration?

Radosław Sikorski:

I think this was inevitable. Successive US presidents asked us to spend more. We have to give President Trump credit where credit is due. He got us to spend more. Of course, Putin helped too. And we should now be capable of deterring Putin mainly on our own with some over-the-hill help from the United States. So I think this is under US pressure, of course, but the US has global responsibilities and we are a rich continent. So we will provide most of the conventional capabilities with the US providing some strategic enablers, and that should be plenty to deter Putin by the end of the decade. Putin has proven incapable of conquering Donbas over 13 years. So let’s not be too panicky about him. His intent is worse than some people thought, but his capability, thank God, is less.

Jon Finer:

So let’s maybe drill down a little bit on that over-the-hill help as you described it. By the end of the decade, things may be in a better place. Right now, I think much more of an open question. And you’ve described Russia already waging-

Radosław Sikorski:

You know what? I think Putin would be nuts to attack a NATO even now.

Jon Finer:

So that’s what I was going to ask about. You’ve described Russia as waging what you call a hybrid war against the West for the last decade or so. You said we have arson, we have interference in politics, we have disinformation, espionage, but we also have some [inaudible 00:12:45] facts-

Radosław Sikorski:

Well, we have death squads and assassinations and we have state terrorism. They tried to blow up a moving train in Poland.

Jon Finer:

Exactly.

Radosław Sikorski:

No one was killed, only thanks to their incompetence.

Jon Finer:

And it sometimes feels like it’s only a matter of time before Russia, either intentionally or not, crosses a line that triggers a real conversation about NATO Article Five. The provision, as you well know, that is an attack.

Radosław Sikorski:

We will fight back. I mean, NATO or no NATO. In Poland, we’ve been resisting Russia for 500 years and we are not about to stop.

Jon Finer:

So you’ve claimed famously to be a loyal US ally, but also not a sucker, I think was the phrase that you used. How confident are you of the American commitment in the current moment to that Article 5 principle?

Radosław Sikorski:

Of course, it’ll be a political judgment in the light of events and in the light of what else is happening in the world. If the US is involved in a confrontation with China, then that’ll consume all of US bandwidth and capabilities. But if not, then it’s more likely. The main thing is that Putin doesn’t know what we will do or what the United States will do. But we have some prepositioning of equipment in Norway, in Poland, in Romania. We have one permanent US base in Poland already, the missile defense base, the agreement I signed with Condi Rice, which is now operational. We are negotiating a second base, a sort of heavy brigade type of presence. We have personnel on a rotational basis plus US Air Force personnel. And the US, we are paying for the war for Ukraine’s defense, but the US is still helping with targeting data and sells us Europeans the equipment, the PAC3 effectors that we supply to Ukraine. And I hope that the Lindsey Graham Bill passes and that the US imposes tougher sanctions on Russia.

Jake Sullivan:

The Lindsey Graham Bill, as you just mentioned, is a bill that actually received very wide bipartisan support in the Senate just in the last 24 hours to move forward, which gives the president the authority to impose very tough sanctions, but also tariffs on countries that potentially purchase Russian oil. So we will see what happens with that bill, especially in light of the tragic passing of Lindsey Graham. Radek, I’m struck by the comment that you made a minute ago that you think Putin would be crazy to attack NATO, to attack the West. You’ve at various points warned about the possibility of a Russian false flag operation, basically a staged attack by the Kremlin inside Russia that it would blame on someone else maybe to justify attacking a NATO country. That sounded to me to us like a concern driven not just by speculation, but maybe by something more informed.

Can you talk a little bit about that concern? And if you don’t think Russia will just frontally attack NATO, do you think they’re looking to escalate against NATO in some other way now, or they’re just going to keep doing this pattern of hybrid warfare that you and Jon were just talking about?

Radosław Sikorski:

Well, you were at the White House in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine. So you know that for Russia to do anything serious in Ukraine, she would need to concentrate forces. And we would immediately see that. You can’t attack NATO with a battalion. You would need many, many divisions. The gathering of forces against Ukraine took them six months, a year. I mean, they would do it the classic way on the pretext of an exercise and all that. But still, we would know well in advance. So he’s not really capable of a running start invasion of nature. What he’s capable is some kind of provocation that in their mind would show East Europeans that NATO is pathetic and would not react. Well, first of all, we would react. And secondly, we know they’re considering it. And here I’d like to give credit to the Biden administration.

As you remember, the Russians were trying to do provocations in the run-up to the war. And you were wise and brave in risking sources by telling the world that they are up to no good. And this deprived them of a credible Casas Bellai, and it was very important. So yes, we know a thing or two, and we are pre-warning Putin that he should drop his provocation plans because it will not be credible.

Jake Sullivan:

When you think about what they have in mind for potential types of provocation, are there scenarios you’re thinking of? Is this something in the Baltics? Is it more of these drones? Is it a wayward cruise missile that they say, “Oops, we didn’t mean to do that?” What do you have in mind for the kind of thing we want to do?

Radosław Sikorski:

We’ve had cruise missiles already. One landed 10K from my house. So in September last year, Poland fought an incursion of 21, I think, drones. Drones. Yeah. And if this was an accident, you would’ve expected a mix of armed drones and decoys. They were all decoys. So the Russians were provoking us without wanting to start a war. And one of the scenarios that’s discussed publicly, not all Ukrainian drones make it to the target, just like some Russian drones fall in Ukraine. So we have to assume that the Russians have got hold of some Ukrainian drones that have landed there. So they could repair them and send them from some border location against themselves to claim that Ukraine attacked them or against the NATO country. Who knows? But remember, strategic false flag and the deception is Russia’s standard operating procedure.

Jake Sullivan:

Absolutely. Now you’ve said, taking this to Ukraine, that we are at the end of the phase of Russian initiative in Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, that Ukraine now is seizing the initiative. Can you talk for a minute about how you see Ukraine turning that initiative into a victory? How you see the war ending in a way that produces a secure, resilient, democratic Ukraine that ends at least for the time the Russian threat? How does Ukraine get to victory here?

Radosław Sikorski:

Let’s take the long view. If we were having this conversation five years ago when the Russians started gathering forces for Ukraine, if we went through scenarios of Russian invasion, we would not have guessed, neither you nor I, that after more than four years of war, Ukraine would still be not only standing, but having the initiative in some fields. And this is the case. So it’s a draw in the Black Sea. It’s a draw in the air. Both countries can hit each other, but neither can operate over the territory of the other. And it’s a draw on land where the Russians have gained some territory, Ukrainians gain other bits of territory. And the Ukrainians are inflicting losses on the Russian army that are bigger than Putin’s ability to recruit. And all the while, Ukraine being supplied by Europe with financial resources and Russia seriously aching now.

They’re having to sell their gold reserves. They’ve raised taxes. They’re beginning to be quite desperate for funds. Putin still has a couple of cards to play. One is to do mobilization. As you know, he’s still fighting with contract soldiers, but that’s risky for him politically. He must be hoping that having destroyed 80% of Ukraine’s electricity and heat generating capacity, if there is another tough winter, and if we don’t supply Ukraine with the capacity to take down ballistic missiles, then Ukraine might be left with only the nuclear power plant, and that might not be enough to sustain the winter. He must be thinking that. But Ukraine has cards. Ukraine clearly has the advantage in drone war, and Ukraine is clearly more innovative in this war than the Russian side.

Jake Sullivan:

Just briefly, you’ve said recently something that struck me that Donald Trump likes winners and Ukraine and Zelenskyy are impressive in the way they’re taking the fight to the Russians right now. Do you think Trump could actually end up backing Ukraine in a more full-throated way, which would be a really significant shift in posture from him from when he had Zelenskyy in the Oval in 2025 saying, “You don’t have any cards?”

Radosław Sikorski:

Literally just yesterday I had a meeting at the White House, which I’m told went well. And it’s been choppy between President Trump and President Zelenskyy in the past. The relationship seems to be better. And there are rumors that President Trump’s invoice might for the first time visit Kiev. Some of MAGA people have now seen the light and are supporting Ukraine. And as you said, Republicans in both the House and the Senate are supporting tougher sanctions on Russia. So in those terms, maybe the worst is behind Ukraine.

Jon Finer:

Radek, you gave a speech to the Polish Parliament recently in which you described the European Union, not NATO, you were very positive about NATO as well, but the European Union as Poland’s strategic shield, which was notable since the EU is an economic and political organization more at least than it is a defensive one. I’m wondering why you chose to characterize it that way. Can you explain a bit more about how the EU provides this shield?

Radosław Sikorski:

Well, first of all, we now have a defense budget. And at the time when we were creating it, it was meant to pay for some police type election monitoring missions in Africa or Asia. It’s now used to support Ukraine, and it should be increased. I believe that EU and all opinion polls tell us that the peoples of Europe want the EU to be more active in the field of defense, that we shouldn’t beg for help from the United States at every emergency on our periphery. Libya or the Balkans, we should be able to sort the march ourselves. And it’s this financial power. We’ve spent well over 200 billion euros on helping Ukraine. Ukraine is provided for at least two years, and that includes paying for Ukraine’s own defense industry, which still has some spare capacities. So this has a direct strategic consequence.

And of course, Europe is also developing capabilities in space. We have our own surveillance system. We hope by the end of the decade to be able to have our own satellite system and portable internet provision, which I think will be welcomed in the United States because monopoly is never a good thing. Monopolists usually overcharge.

Jon Finer:

You also said there is no free, safe, or prosperous Poland without a strong European Union. I assume you feel the same about NATO in Poland’s prosperity and security. You’re supportive of Ukraine ultimately joining both of those institutions, though I think not yet. How long do you think it will take for Ukraine to join NATO and the EU? And what conditions do you believe they would have to meet for you to say now is the time?

Radosław Sikorski:

I was at the NATO Summit in Bucharest in 2008 when Ukraine’s NATO membership was discussed. And we gave them a sort of half promise that it might happen someday, but we denied them the actual membership action plan.

Jon Finer:

Alongside Georgia at that time.

Radosław Sikorski:

Right. And at the time of the Russian anschluss of Crimea, remember the green men that Putin said were not his? Ukraine was actually constitutionally a neutral country, which shows you how absurd are the Russian claims that they had to invade because Ukraine was joining NATO. So let’s put that aside. But as regards, the EU, Ukraine through its valor, has earned the right to become a candidate country. And we have now opened negotiations on two clusters. Fundamental issues, which is to do with democracy, rule of law, fighting corruption, proving that both the history and the future is democratic and foreign policy where Ukraine has already synchronized its foreign policy with that of the EU.

Joining the EU is much harder than joining NATO because it’s a single market. You have to adopt something like 80,000 pages of EU legislation. You’re becoming a member of the family. It’s not NAFTA. It’s a confederation with, for example, delegating all of your trade policy to the European Commission. And you have to prove in advance that you are going to be a clubbable, loyal member, that you won’t just take from the community, that you’re also prepared for compromises. And that’s not easy. And that you will live by the agreed rules rather than your own, which some countries proved incapable of doing. So it’ll take some time. And for us existing members, membership will be in the long run beneficial. Germany now trades with Poland as much as with France. A Polish GDP has troubled since our economic reforms, and it accelerated after joining the EU. And the old EU of course benefited, but we benefited even more. But there are always some sectoral challenges and everybody has politics.

Jon Finer:

I’ll turn it back to Jake, but I do want to register a bit of concern about this legislation that you mentioned, the Lindsey Graham bill, which I wonder whether you will come to see differently over time. The concern that I’ll just put on the table is that it authorizes a range of new tariffs for the president. It gives him a national security waiver, which would basically allow him to use those tariffs as he chooses, including against US allies, including against EU and NATO members, because of their purchases-

Radosław Sikorski:

I didn’t know about that.

Jon Finer:

... of Russian oil. So I would just take a closer look at it. There have been some concerns expressed. It’s gotten a lot of bipartisan support, but on sanctions authority for new authorities, it’s actually pretty limited. The executive has a lot of those already-

Radosław Sikorski:

Only sanctions on Russia, not on others, not on allies, for Christ’s sake.

Jon Finer:

Take a look at the tariff authorities authorized by the legislation, which could be more extensive than people realize. Anyway, I’ll turn it back to Jake.

Jake Sullivan:

I’ll just say, Radek, that was a good reflection of the difference between Jon and me. I sort of loosely referred to the tariffs and Jon went right to the heart of the matter. It is a matter of some concern because it gives the president pretty broad authority and discretion with respect to the application of tariffs, including potentially against the European Union. So worth looking at. I think a lot of senators haven’t exactly looked closely at that because they’re focused on the kind of underlying message of the bill, which is we have to squeeze Russia harder, we got to pressure them more, which is something that both Jon and I would strongly agree with. But the actual mechanics of this bill are quite interesting because it could present challenges in terms of health.

Radosław Sikorski:

On the other hand, we already have tariffs on allies.

Jake Sullivan:

That is true. That is true. And potentially more coming depending on how the president deals with some of these continuing trade investigations. Okay. So speaking of tariffs and economic coercion and all the rest of it, I’d like to come back to China. You started in this conversation talking about some of the steps that Europe is taking now to deal with the challenge of Chinese goods flooding into the European market. You personally have been one of the European leaders who’s been most clear-eyed about the China challenge writ large. We spent a lot of time during the Biden administration talking to our European allies about that challenge and how we could align on it. Can you just talk a little bit more about how Europe should think about China right now, how Europe is thinking about China right now, and whether we’re at the start of a different kind of policy than we have seen? I would be very interested in your perspective on this dynamic.

Radosław Sikorski:

So the relationship between Europe and China is not like the old Cold War, because with China, it’s far more complex. We are huge customers and trade partners for each other, and we have a one China policy, for example. But we are concerned, just like the United States, at the attempt to limit the access to magnets and to critical minerals. And here, Secretary Rubio did the traditional thing, which is to use America’s convening part. And we had a successful conference in Washington on critical minerals, and I hope this gets a follow-up. I regret that a useful institution devised in previous years between the EU and the United States is not being continued. It was actually inspired consciously by the Reagan administration, by the COCOM. And I’m talking about the US EU Trade and Technology Council, whereby we could at least exchange information and hopefully agree some minimum standards on trade, on ingoing and outgoing investments, and on research and production standards so as to preempt unfair competition. I thought this was mutually useful, and I hope the idea is rediscovered.

Jake Sullivan:

Do you think we can rediscover that idea in light of the degree to which there seems to be bad blood over Greenland, over tariffs, over other things?

Radosław Sikorski:

Well, it’s difficult to do when there are these other issues. And yes, it requires trust.

Jake Sullivan:

And just to keep pressing on that, do you think trust can be rebuilt or a sense of common purpose can be rebuilt? And I’m not just talking about in the next year or two in this administration, just projecting forward, whoever takes the oath of office on January 20th, 2029, can that president turn the page to a certain extent or are we just living in a little bit of a different world when it comes to the transatlantic relationship? How do you assess that?

Radosław Sikorski:

Some losses of trust are probably irreversible, but others can be. Remember a few years ago on your watch, China was doing its wolf warrior diplomacy. And now the United States is going through its phase of wolf warrior diplomacy.

Jake Sullivan:

I’ve not heard someone put it that way before. I like that.

Radosław Sikorski:

And I think the results will be similar. And then after a couple of years, memories fade.

Jake Sullivan:

One more thing about China before turning it back to Jon. You’ve said that China’s one of the few countries that could press Russia to end the war in Ukraine. Do you have any reason to believe they would do so? Is that a viable pathway to get Putin to change course in some way or is that China just [inaudible 00:35:28].

Radosław Sikorski:

So the reason I think they could is if you remember, because it was on your watch, in January ‘22, there was a brief Russian military foray into Kazakhstan to interfere in Kazakhstan’s succession. And I believe that the Chinese told the Russians, “Get out right now or we will sever trade with you.” And the Russians obeyed. I don’t think Russia could prosecute the war, and I don’t think she could survive as a state without trade with China. So this would be a credible threat. So China, unlike us, actually could force Russia to end the war. But my guess is that the war suits China just fine. Russia is selling them gold. Russia with every year becomes more dependent. And what’s not to like about that?

Jon Finer:

I want to ask you a few questions about the future. Russia has reportedly, although I suspect you’d confirm it, moved nuclear weapons into Belarus on Poland’s border. Is the US nuclear Umbrella-

Radosław Sikorski:

Actually quite close to the Russian border, if at all. But yes.

Jon Finer:

Okay. Is the US nuclear umbrella sufficient for European security, for Polish security? And what are the prospects of additional European countries, even Poland, deciding they need their own nuclear deterrent?

Radosław Sikorski:

No, we are a happy member of NPT and we are not thinking about it. But as you know, this is an ancient discussion. During the Cold War, Germans threatened over whether the US would sacrifice New York for Hamburg and so on. So these are similar worries. The main thing is to keep the adversary uncertain as to our intentions and to keep capabilities that they would find unbearable.

Jon Finer:

As you said earlier in this conversation, Poland has been building up militarily in response to the Russia threat even well before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Now Germany and others are more belatedly getting into the act, which probably feels like a strange thing for a Polish official to consider good news, but here we are. Is this happening just in time or are you concerned given the timeline you laid out, end of this decade, that it’s all coming too little and too late at this point?

Radosław Sikorski:

It would’ve been better to have started earlier because when you have to re-arm quickly, you find yourself abutting production schedules. And what’s actually happened is that there is a global shortage of ammunition of equipment and prices have risen. So if some countries had done it in a more measured way, it would’ve been cheaper to do. But look, if we spend what we have pledged to be spending, we meaning the European part of NATO, at the Hague, then by the end of the decade, our joint military budget will be about what the US military budget was last year. So around a billion. It’s a huge military budget. And of course we have to spend it more efficiently and all that, but still that’s a huge military budget.

And remember, all of our military budget is spent on the defense of Europe. Only a very small proportion of your military budget is spent on the defense of Europe. And also remember that for an adversary to attack us, the adversary would need a three to five advantage over us. They don’t have it even today, let alone by the end of the decade when we’ve retooled. So I actually, we should do what we have to do, but there is no reason to be panicky vis-a-vis Putin anymore. It’s Putin who’s in trouble.

Jake Sullivan:

Radek, you said earlier that we kind of collectively overestimated Russia’s capabilities. I would second that and say we got, as our intelligence community and military experts got one big thing very right, which was Putin was going to invade, was going to try to swallow Ukraine. And one big thing not so right, which was that he would take Kyiv in a matter of days or weeks. And to your -

Radosław Sikorski:

We weren’t sure, and we couldn’t be sure whether the Ukrainians would fight. They over-fulfilled expectations. Ukraine has over-fulfilled expectations. Europe has done much more than I would’ve expected five years ago. The US also, and Russia has done much more poorly.

Jake Sullivan:

So on that, one more prediction. You’ve said Putin is pushing Russia off an economic cliff, not unlike Brezhnev during the Cold War. How fragile is the Russian economy? And more fundamentally, how fragile is the Russian state in your view?

Radosław Sikorski:

So I don’t accept the dominant Western paradigm, which is kind of Marxist, but even though couched in market terms, because the fundamental narrative in democracies is that if you get the economy right, politics follows based the term in superstructure. Whereas in Russia, it’s the other way around. And it manifests itself, for example, in these myths in the West about how the oligarchs will come and sort out Putin, put pressure on him to end the war, which is how it would happen in the United States to some extent. In Russia, it’s the other way around and always has been. It’s the political authority who decides who is rich and who isn’t, who gets the business and who gets terminated with extreme prejudice or falls off a window. And Russia has always, under the Tzars, under the Bolsheviks, and now created huge military and diplomatic capacities from a very small economic base.

But of course, there are limits. And just as [inaudible 00:42:08] Germany eventually ran out of resources to continue the war, and Cyrus Russia ran out of resources to continue in World War I. So Putin is running out of resources. I think he probably has enough for another year or so.

Jake Sullivan:

We’ll end with a question that we ask a lot of our guests, which is tell us one unpopular opinion you hold on any subject. It doesn’t have to be related to your work, though of course it can be, but an unpopular Radek Sikorski opinion.

Radosław Sikorski:

All right. So it’s unpopular in some quarters, but quite popular in others. So I think that electorates everywhere in Europe and in the United States are telling us that we need to sort out mass migration and that unless democratic governments do it, they’re ready to hire populists and radicals to do it. So in Poland, we won the election and we are leading in the polls because we outflanked our populists on the right on migration. We have built a big and beautiful fence on our border with Belarus, 440 kilometers. The border is now totally secure. We have passed a law which denies people the right of asylum if they cross the border illegally. And we have sorted out our visa system to be much stricter towards people who come to work in the guise of students or others. And so I think this is the way that democracies fix their problems.

When the establishment neglects something that people feel strongly about, fringe parties take that issue and run with it. And a wise establishment has to fix the reasonable part of the demand, and then equilibrium is restored.

Jake Sullivan:

How do you pair that with things like hosting refugees, like fighting back against racism, xenophobia, what have you? So tough on border security, tough on an orderly process, but holding true to your small L liberal values at the same time. Can you just spend one second on that?

Radosław Sikorski:

So you will not like me after what I’m about to say. And I’m speaking as a former refugee myself. So I think the Biden administration made a major error in lifting some of the Trump won decrees on the southern border, because people understand and they are right that there are too many genuine refugees that countries cannot absorb. And the fault of the left in both the United States and Europe was to couch any discussion about migration as a possible racial issue. People feel that there is room for a civilized non-racist dialogue about the types of migration we want, the rate of migration that is acceptable, the sources of migration that we would prefer, and the control over migration that nation states have the right to exercise.

If you are going to tolerate open borders, then why do we have border guards? Why do we have visas? Why do we have passports and everything else? People understand more than we think, namely that you can have an open border policy in the 19th century in the United States or in Australia when you’re desperate for migrants when there are no social provisions. You come in and make your fortune in the Wild West, but you cannot have high social provisions and open borders at the same time. In Europe, we have the Mediterranean, Northern Africa plus the Middle East. That’s maybe up to a billion people who would rather live here in Europe than where they are. And you can’t blame them. And I’m speaking as a refugee myself. But we cannot have a billion people. Numbers matter.

Jake Sullivan:

Radek, where were you a refugee from?

Radosław Sikorski:

I was a refugee in Britain when-

Jake Sullivan:

You sought asylum [inaudible 00:47:17]-

Radosław Sikorski:

... [inaudible 00:47:18]. martial law. And I got practical asylum, but people act for mixed motives. I had some prospect of some persecution, but also Poland was very poor and people migrate for mixed reasons. Let me remind you what I can’t remember whether it was Mao Zedong or [inaudible 00:47:43] told another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter, who famously stood up for human rights, Helsinki presses, all that. And he is supposed to have told, let’s say Mao Zedong that he should ease up on dissidents and let them travel if need be, get asylum in the West. And Mao Zedong was supposed to have told him, “Mr. President, do you really want all my dissidents in your country? How many do you want? 50 million?”

Jon Finer:

So we should leave this here. I will say we probably disagree with you less than you might think about some of the moves that were made early in the Biden administration. And the project in our party right now is about how to preserve what I think Americans rightly want, which is a secure and orderly border and enforcement of our laws while staying true to the fact that Americans are also basically a pro-immigration country when it’s conducted in an orderly way. How do you do both? And I think that is the challenge.

Radosław Sikorski:

And by the way, the percentage of people born outside either the United States or the U in your case is 15%. A percentage of our population born outside the European Union is 10%. And we are being told that we face civilizational erasure.

Jon Finer:

Not by us.

Jake Sullivan:

A quote from the national security strategy of the United States. Right. Yeah, exactly. Correct. Well, on that, Radek, thank you for taking the time with us today. We really appreciate it.

Jon Finer:

All right. So Jake, what did you think?

Jake Sullivan:

Radek is high value, man. I wish we could have had him for longer because he can speak so fluently across geopolitics, economics, culture, politics, and history. It’s just refreshing to get to hear someone like that opine on a range of subjects with the kind of texture that he was able to do. I know that’s not the most sophisticated reaction, just like I’m impressed, but I was impressed.

Jon Finer:

Like all former journalists. No, but more seriously, I guess I was struck by a couple of things. One is on the question about Article five and NATO, I kind of expected him to give a, “Oh yes, of course the United States would be a credible participant in any Article five situation or some kind of yes, but we have concerns about some of the comments that have been made.” But he kind of just jumped straight to the butt. He didn’t say no, certainly, but he basically seemed to say to me, “We don’t need them that much anymore. Maybe as enablers, maybe with logistics, maybe in extremists. But for the most part, Europe has to take care of these problems increasingly on its own and may sooner than we think be ready to do that.” He almost sounded a bit, and this is a stretch probably that he would reject, but a bit like how we used to hear Emmanuel Macron back in the day talking about strategic autonomy in Europe.

That increasingly seems to be the case that even real strong proponents of the transatlantic relationship are making in light of some of the positions being taken by the Trump administration. I don’t know if you heard that differently.

Jake Sullivan:

I didn’t. And to your point about Macron, it used to be Poland on the other side of that debate, right? Exactly. That Poland saying, “We need the United States at the center of our security.” And France saying, “No, we need more strategic autonomy.” And there does seem to be a greater degree of convergence across Europe, including from great proponents of the transatlantic relationship like Radek Sikorski. I was struck that he basically did not want to go very deep on the question of the nature of the relationship right now. He was very expansive in answer to some questions, and I think very cautious in answer to a few different attempts by us to probat the health of the alliance, the health of the transatlantic relationship. But in how he talked about Europe standing up on its own two feet, he was in a sense giving a very deep substantive answer to the question that the relationship will change in quite fundamental ways and will involve Europe taking much more responsibility and reducing its overall reliance on and counting on the United States in an extreme situation.

The other thing that I though in his answer on the question, would the US come to Europe’s defense if Article five were triggered by some kind of Russian provocation? I thought part of it was a characterization of the US and Europe and their relationship, but part of it was the difficulty of actually discerning when Article five has been triggered. He talked about it’s going to have to be a fact-dependent circumstance because his conception of this is not Russian forces rolling across NATO frontier. His conception is some kind of gray zone activity that’s more upstream than what we’ve seen that leads to a loss of life, potentially a significant loss of life, and then NATO having to figure out what is the nature of our response. He said NATO would respond. He was quite forceful on that, but the nature of the response is complicated. And this is something we contended with when we sat in the job and thought about all these scenarios.

It’s very straightforward what happens if Russia invades the Baltics. Okay, we know how to respond to that. We have war plans for that. But errant missiles that kill some people and the Russians saying, “Oh, we didn’t mean to do it,” or one of these false flag operations that we don’t get ahead of the way we were able to get ahead of it in 2022. Much more unclear exactly what the option said is. And I think that was reflected a bit in the way that he talked about the nature of hybrid warfare.

Jon Finer:

It’s funny, the whole conversation in the back of my mind was a story we’ve told, I think, versions of before, but about the closest we came during our tenure to a real Article Five crisis, which is basically a phone call we got from the intelligence community in the middle of a day in Washington. I was in Washington, you were overseas-

Jake Sullivan:

Middle of the night.

Jon Finer:

In Bali, Indonesia, sound asleep as you should have been, that basically said a missile just landed in Poland and killed a couple people. Killed two people. And the assumption is this could be a Russian attack, the first one on NATO territory during the course of the Ukraine war. And thank God, the more we dug into this, the more it became clear it was actually a kind of errant Ukrainian missile. But there were a couple of hours in there where we had to wake you up, wake the president up, get the polls on the phone, and make sure we got all the facts before we reacted or said too much, God forbid, did anything. And this one turned out to be a sort of a dodged bullet other than the tragedy of the two people whose lives were lost, but the next one might not be.

Jake Sullivan:

Absolutely. Yeah. And not just get the polls on the phone, get the NATO Secretary General on the phone because of the possibility that we’d have to go for Article five in that moment. That was not a moment where we’re all like, “Oh no, this is no big deal.” It was like, “This could be it. This could be-

Jon Finer:

Arguably the most stressful hour or two we had during our time, although there’s other candidates for that.

Jake Sullivan:

There certainly are. Actually, sometime we should just do a top 10 ranking of most stressful moments because there are a lot of candidates for that. Yeah, I think otherwise, hearing his take on China and a view that basically Europe is going to have to figure out how to align its policy tools to deal with this massive economic threat, the potential hollowing out of their industrial base, that was striking to me in that he started off with moves Europe has made just quite recently on this and took a quite robust line on that. I think there’ll be a real debate in Europe about just how hard to push on this, but that is something for us to very much watch closely, even as we are obviously tuned into what exactly happens in the Russia-Ukraine dynamic. This larger strategic and economic question of China’s relationship with Europe, I think is just a massive priority and something that we should continue to return to as a topic here on the podcast.

Jon Finer:

Absolutely. Lot to digest, lot to think through. Hope you all enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed talking to him. He’s a good guest. Well, that’s all for today. We’ll be back next week with a new episode of The Long Game.

Jake Sullivan:

Subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow the audio feed so you never miss an episode.

Jon Finer:

For additional content, episode transcripts, and exclusive podcast segments, subscribe to The Long Game on Substack or join The Long Game Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Jake Sullivan:

This week we discuss the FCC ban on foreign-made humanoid robots.

Jon Finer:

Humanoid robots are a clear possible next step in terms of automated warfare that people have been flagging. So there’s also the potential for these technologies, not just the potential when it comes to drones, but certainly when it comes to humanoid robots to be dual use in a military sense too. And I think whether or not that’s part of the explicit rationale, that is certainly some of the subtext of what’s happening with the writing of this rule. Head to thelonggame.substack.com or subscribe to the Long Game Plus on Apple Podcasts. The links are in the show notes. That’s it for this episode of The Long Game.

Jake Sullivan:

If you like the show, please follow, share with friends, and leave a review. It really helps listeners find us. The Long Game is a Vox Media podcast network production.