Richard Haass: Biden Admin Has Been Reluctant for 2 1/2 Years To Have a Conversation on What Is Our Return on Ukraine Investment

HAASS: “Well, he is tapping into something Mika, and it’s one of the long traditions in America And it’s the tradition of American isolationism, that what happens over there doesn’t matter. It’s not worth it. It’s simply cost. It takes resources away from what should be spent here. So that’s — that’s essentially the tradition he’s tapping into. We saw it before World War II, we’ve seen it periodically at other times. It’s come back with — with surprising intensity there. Two things, you know one when he talks about Russia and he talks about Napoleon/Hitler, the difference, about a fundamental difference That’s when Russia was invaded. That’s when Russia was on the defense. Russia now is fighting an offensive war of aggression, rather minor detail, so it’s much harder for Putin to do what Stalin did an appeal to if you will Mother Russia. That said I will say Trump — and it’s not in his defense, but I’ll just say he makes one decent point. And it’s the question of what do we mean by winning, in Ukraine? It came up in the debate. It came up yesterday, came up in President Biden’s speech. It came up with what President Zelenskyy said. No one is putting on the table what is — what is an achievable goal in Ukraine if victory continues to be defined that is by many Mika that we have — that Ukraine has to totally rid its country of every Russian troop. And I understand the argument for doing it. The problem is it’s not achievable. No one is putting out there what is a realistic plan for victory. If we’re going to spend all this money what is our return on investment? And that’s the conversation that this administration has been reluctant to have now for two and a half years, and the danger of not having that conversation, not giving Americans an achievable policy strategy in Ukraine is it allows someone like Donald Trump to come into the conversation and say this can’t work, I’ll just end it, and so forth. So I think the administration and I think the Ukrainian government have to begin to fill the space and explain what is an achievable strategy in that country?”