Global Affairs Expert Webinar: Support or Step Back: The Stakes of U.S. Policy in Ukraine

Samuel Charap, distinguished chair in Russia and Eurasia policy and senior political scientist at RAND, and Kori Schake, senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, colead a conversation on the stakes of U.S. policy in Ukraine.

These webinars provide an opportunity for college and university educators and students to discuss global issues with CFR fellows, Foreign Affairs authors, and other leading experts. To register for future invitations, please complete this form or email [email protected] with your name, title, and academic affiliation. 

Speakers
Samuel Charap
Distinguished Chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy; Senior Political Scientist
RAND Corporation

Kori Schake
Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies
American Enterprise Institute

Presider
Irina A. Faskianos
Vice President, National Program and Outreach
Council on Foreign Relations

Transcript

FASKIANOS: Good afternoon. Welcome to the Fall 2026 Global Affairs Expert Webinar series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program of Outreach here at CFR. This webinar series provides a forum for students and educators to interact with CFR experts and other thought leaders and participate in foreign policy discussions.

Today’s discussion is on the record. The video and transcript will be available on CFR.org/Education, if you would like to share the information with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

We’re delighted to have Samuel Charap and Kori Schake with us today to discuss the stakes of U.S. policy in Ukraine.

Dr. Charap is distinguished chair in Russia and Eurasia policy and senior political scientist at RAND. His research includes the foreign policies of Russia and the former Soviet states, European and Eurasian regional security, and U.S.-Russian deterrence, strategic stability, and arms control. He served at the U.S. Department of State as senior advisor to the undersecretary for arms control and international security, and on the Secretary’s policy planning staff covering Russia and Eurasia during the Obama administration.

Dr. Kori Schake is senior fellow director of foreign and events policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Her research includes national security strategy, NATO alliances, and U.S.-led international order, and threats to the liberal international order. Dr. Schake is the author of multiple books, including her recent book published in 2025 entitled The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States. And both Kori and Samuel are members of CFR.

So, let’s begin. If you both could give us an overview of where U.S. policy toward Ukraine stands today, and what you see as the key factors shaping the debate about whether the United States should be supportive or scale back its involvement in this war. So, Samuel, I think we’ll go first to you, and then we’ll turn to Kori.

CHARAP: Great. Thanks, Irina. And thanks to the Council for the invitation today, and for you all for coming. I look forward to the discussion. It’s always lively with Kori.

So, I think perhaps this might be understandable for many of you in academia. As someone with academic training, I’m going to slightly quibble with the assignment we’ve been given. And particularly the idea of the binary between supporting or stepping back. I think for the U.S., really stepping away completely from this war is not a viable option. And even though the kinds of support have varied and, arguably, have lessened to a certain degree under the current administration, even they cannot fully step away. And that’s because there are a lot of U.S. interests at stake. Although we are not, you know, a combatant, this impinges on a lot of U.S. interests.

And therefore the question I think really is, what kind of support, what kind of involvement should the U.S. have? And I’d argue that, you know, the piece that right now could use some emphasis, and perhaps some evolution, is the diplomatic support to Ukraine. We’ve done a lot of military support since 2022. Really, unprecedented amounts. And, in the past, at least, coordinating with allies. And the U.S. in the past has, of course, also provided significant financial assistance, although that has come to an end. I think it’s clearly important to help Ukraine stay in the fight to continue that military support and for those states that are willing to continue the financial support. In this case, it’s mostly the European Union now. And so, I think that probably isn’t going to be a subject of dispute in this conversation.

What I would say is that there’s a diplomatic track of support to Ukraine that has been inconsistent when it has existed. The previous administration, I think, had a policy of support without an idea about how to get to a defined end game. And that left a vacuum, in a sense, on the diplomatic side. The current administration has put diplomacy at the center of its approach. And I think in general, that’s probably the right instinct. The question is whether the kind of process that has emerged from that instinct is adequate to the task. And, you know, there is a body of knowledge based on past negotiation about how wars end and what are the ways in which negotiators and mediators can structure a process to best enable that.

Of course, you know, caveats abound. All cases are unique. All wars are different. All antagonists are different. And the role of third parties is different. But I think it’s at least fair to say that there are some design features that are common to those negotiations that have been more successful than others. You have parties who have ownership over the process. You have all relevant actors at the table. You have agreement on process to give the talks structure and stability. And you have a sustained and continuous effort at driving towards an end game by those whose fulltime job it is to do that. So, I think it’s fair to say that the current effort lacks some of those features.

Talks have proceeded on different tracks—Washington with Kyiv, Washington with Moscow, Europe with Ukraine. But there have been, I think, very few, if any, meetings where Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and Europe were all in the same room. And I think that fragmentation sort of increases the risk of misunderstanding and makes it hard to identify potential trades across different issues that might enable an end game. So, I think, you know, it was a positive step that at the September 6 meeting, that the U.S. special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff had in Kyiv, that the Europeans—the E3; the French, British, and Germans—were at the table. But I think that needs to become the norm and not the exception.

What I would say is that, you know, at stake is not only the question of how the war ends. It’s what kind of Europe emerges from it and how the U.S. fits into that. The U.S. will face a very challenging relationship with Russia no matter how the war ends, really. And this is a Russia that is resentful, militarizing. And there’s an expectation that there’s going to be a sort of mutual build-up, because European states are massively increasing their own defense spending. And so, we’re in a situation where, in the post-war environment, we have no architecture from the prewar period that is really relevant to what is likely to be a quite tense situation. And therefore, that is going to be—have to be part of the puzzle as well.

But I would say that in the short term, there are process issues that need to be worked out, both in terms of getting all parties to the table and aiming at something concrete. I think, you know, it should be aimed in the short term, at both deescalation because we are right now in a period of dangerous escalation that has occurred since July. Just as one concrete element of that, you know, there had been essentially a de facto ceasefire in the Black Sea that had enabled Ukraine to export its agricultural products and other exports via the Black Sea. And that—which amounts to 60 percent of Ukraine’s exports that go via the Black Sea. And that has fallen apart since July, when both sides have begun attacking the other’s civilian shipping, and Russia has essentially imposed a de facto blockade on Ukraine. So, moving forward with some de-escalatory measures at the same time of pursuing a broader political negotiation process on getting to an end game, I think, is where efforts need to go now.

So, there’s another caveat I should add at the end here, which is that none of this is guaranteed to work. And, you know, it’s certainly possible, many believe, that Putin may have no interest in a settlement on terms that Ukraine can accept. But the argument I would make is that we have to test that proposition with a well-designed process and the full weight of the United States, and its considerable diplomatic capacity, and those of its allies behind it.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

Kori, over to you.

SCHAKE: So, thanks, Irina. And thanks, Sam, for those smart comments.

I think the stakes of the war in Ukraine are exactly as Sam said, which is what kind of Europe will the United States and the free societies of Europe allow to emerge from the Ukraine war? Wars aren’t natural disasters. They are political choices that countries made. And Russia made a choice to impose violence on the people of Ukraine in order to prevent Ukraine from becoming free and Western. And if we allow Russia to succeed at that task, it will unsettle the security not just of Western Europe, not just of Europe writ large, not just of the greater Euro-Atlantic space, but all of America’s alliance relationships. Because it’s not a secret that Europe is the region of the world in which the United States has the deepest political and military commitments. And so, I think the stakes are enormous in the war in Ukraine.

And if Russia stops fighting, the war ends. If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine’s independence ends. I’ve been to Ukraine several times. I’ve talked to Ukrainians a bunch. They would be willing to cede the territory that Russia currently holds if it would bring the war to an end. I’ve yet to meet a Ukrainian who thinks Russia would be satisfied, and that that would bring the war to an end. So, the problem with Sam’s excellent proposal, that we need to invest more in negotiations—and I agree with him, we need to invest more in negotiations—the problem is that negotiations serve to identify overlapping interests between the warring parties that can be drawn out and codified as a solution to the political problem that violence was chosen to address. And I don’t see any overlap.

I laughed a little bit when Sam was describing what the process should entail, not out of disrespect for what he was saying, but out of incredulity that a Trump administration would be capable of such a process. I think it is—the United States ceased military assistance to Ukraine in January of 2025. We ceased financial assistance to Ukraine in 2025. What money Congress authorized and appropriated for weapons and assistance to Ukraine, the Department of Defense is failing to carry out the will of the Congress. The only assistance the United States is currently giving to Ukraine is intelligence for targeting purposes. And that’s an on-and-off assistance, it looks to me. So, we’re not giving Ukraine a huge amount of help.

I actually think we should be dramatically increasing the assistance we’re giving Ukraine, not just on the diplomatic front—although I agree that free societies should always be willing to negotiate. We should always be willing to stand the test of our own population, saying: Isn’t there a more peaceful, productive way to solve this problem? I think the negotiations that have occurred since February of 2022 have simply demonstrated that Russia’s—despite Russia’s shortcomings on the battlefield, they are refusing to negotiate their political objectives. That is, that what they are trying to achieve hasn’t changed. And they’re quite public about what they want to achieve, which is the end of Ukraine’s political and economic autonomy. But they cannot achieve that on the battlefield.

If you had put a snail on the Russia-Ukraine border in February of 2022, it would have made more progress into Ukraine than the Russian military has made into Ukraine. And that is at an enormous cost of Russian casualties, which are clocking at about 35,000 a month. So, the Putin administration is willing to pay an enormous political price for what they were able to grab and smash in Ukraine. I think that suggests that they are unlikely to make compromises that will stabilize the situation. But I agree with Sam, we should be trying.

What else should we be doing? We should be arming the Ukrainians. We should be learning from the Ukrainians. We should be providing financial assistance so that their emergency responders and their public transportation systems can continue to function. We should take a side in this fight because these are incredibly brave people fighting for the simple freedom of living without Russia’s boot on their throat. And I’ll stop there, Irina.

FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you both. Really terrific presentations.

And now we’re going to go to all of you.

(Gives queuing instructions.)

So, I’m going to go first to a written question from Barbara Cardenas, who’s an undergraduate student at Lewis University: How has the Iranian conflict changed the United States’ willingness to put pressure on an aggressive Russian state that is looking to maximize its own geopolitical position? I don’t know who wants to take that, if you both want to?

SCHAKE: (Laughs.) I’ll take a shot at that.

FASKIANOS: Great.

SCHAKE: I think the Iranian—the U.S. and Israeli war in Iran complicates the case for support to Ukraine, because we have chosen to fight Iran, both in 2025 over its nuclear program and in 2026 over a broad and quite confusingly fluid set of political objectives. And that makes it harder for us to make the case that we want an international order where countries do not choose violence to solve problems. So, I think it’s complicated the case for support—for support to Ukraine in that way. It’s also complicated the case for support to Ukraine because it has revealed the depth of cooperation between China, Russia, and Iran. Russia is launching Iranian-made Shaheds—or, they’re actually now Russian-made, but Iranian-designed, Shahed drones—in the hundreds at Ukraine almost daily. And so, Chinese parts, Iranian design, and Russian production are fueling the Russian war effort. And that means we have an expanded potential conflict on our hands. And that makes it—that makes it riskier and more complicated to support Ukraine.

FASKIANOS: Samuel?

CHARAP: I can add maybe just two things in other ways it complicates things. I mean, concretely, the air defense interceptor problem is the most significant one that came out of this. In that, you know, the U.S. has consumed Patriot interceptors at an unbelievable rate since the war started. And those are the same interceptors that, at the moment, are the only thing that Ukraine could be using to protect itself against Russian ballistic missiles. So, that has a direct impact.

The other thing I would add to Kori’s list is the impact on energy markets, of course, which have obviously grown a lot tighter since the war started and Iran, you know, essentially shut down the Strait of Hormuz. Which has, you know, limited the U.S. freedom of maneuver on, you know, potentially imposing more sanctions on Russia. There was even a waiver issued for some of the preexisting sanctions for a period of time to relieve some of that pressure on the oil price.

And I would also add, just maybe on the negotiation side, it both distracted the main two negotiators with other—you know, with working on a different problem. And it seems to be that those are the two people who have this—both portfolios. And so, we have this sort of six-month hiatus in U.S. efforts on Russia Ukraine. And, you know, it didn’t help U.S. credibility, the way the negotiations with Iran fell apart, because it wasn’t—you know, at least what has been reported suggests that there was willingness to engage from the Iranian side that, you know, didn’t end up being sort of taken up at the time by the U.S. administration. And then we have another agreement that’s fallen apart. We can say that the Iranians were at fault, but it certainly, again, doesn’t increase confidence among those who might be sort of in a similar position to Iran, an adversary looking to have some sort of compromise, that the U.S. couldn’t follow through.

FASKIANOS: Fantastic.

Nathan Colvin.

Q: I am recently rereading Sarotte’s Not One Inch. And it’s striking that Eastern European countries were predicting even then the likelihood of Russia moving back into Eastern Europe, Ukraine, et cetera. I’m just curious what you think—how interests have changed from the mid-nineties to now in Russia? Is it a consistent set of events that drive that, or motivations? Or is it something different now versus then?

SCHAKE: Sam, why don’t you take the first shot at that?

CHARAP: (Laughs.) Well, it’s a great book, and among other great books that she wrote, and continues to write. But what I would say, that there has been a consistent Russian focus on the possibility of Ukraine’s NATO membership since, you know, the events that Mary documents in that book. And also at the time, in the nineties, an understanding that this was going to become an issue eventually from even those advocating for enlargement at the time. Now, I reject the idea that you can draw a straight line between, you know, NATO enlargement to the countries of—the former members of the Warsaw Pact in Central Europe and, you know, Russia’s either war in 2014 or in 2022. There’s a whole lot of other things going on there. And generally speaking, there was a lot of contingency that brought us to the full-scale invasion in 2022.

But the sort of Russian focus on Ukraine and on maintaining some—you know, at the low end, keeping some distance between Ukraine and the Western alliance, or on the high end controlling, essentially, Ukraine’s fate, has always been there. The question is how Russia acted on it, right? And I think not—even among the Russian elite in 2022, doing what—deciding to act on it in the way that Putin did was not—wouldn’t have been the decision that others might have made under those circumstances.

SCHAKE: So, I find Mary Sarotte’s argument unpersuasive that NATO expansion was the driver of Russian attitudes. I found it—having worked on those issues in the nineties and 2000s—I found NATO expansion more a response to Russian behavior than a driver of Russian behavior. And I think I see an enormous amount of continuity, especially in Vladimir Putin’s time in direct control of the Russian government, where what Russia wanted was the ability to dictate the terms of other countries’ engagement with the rest of the world. That is, the type of economy, the type of political structures, the type of international arrangements, and the United States and other free societies simply refusing to give Russia that privilege over other people’s sovereignty. And I think that’s the friction that produces a Russia increasingly isolated from Europe that it is, in many ways, a natural part of. It’s Russia’s choices, and a Western response to them, that feels to me like the dominant narrative of the last thirty years.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to take a written question from Dessie Zagorcheva, who’s an adjunct associate professor at CUNY-LaGuardia College: By restricting Ukraine’s strikes on Russian targets to manage global fuel prices, without a matching ability to curb Vladimir Putin’s demands, isn’t the U.S. inadvertently creating a lopsided diplomatic environment? How do you counter the—

SCHAKE: Absolutely!

FASKIANOS: (Laughs.) OK. Yes. The second part is: How do you counter the criticism that this approach allows Russia to escalate militarily while using peace talks exclusively to demand total Ukrainian capitulation?

SCHAKE: So, since I have already trampled in, I’ll take the first shot at this one. (Laughter.) I think that is exactly right. Because of our concerns about escalation to direct Western—that is non-Ukrainian—fighting against Russia, and the fact that Russia is unsuccessful with its conventional forces of achieving its political aims, it’s not crazy for escalation risk to be a major element in Western thinking. My own view is we are—we are too cautious about escalation, but reasonable people can disagree on that. I think there are two aspects of the restraints put on Ukraine. One is we’re worried about our own risk of direct involvement.

But the second is, we have restricted some Ukrainian activities because we want to win the political argument that Ukraine is different and better than Russia, and that even in the context of an existential war about Ukraine’s sovereignty that they will behave differently and better than Russians, that they will not target civilian homes and apartment buildings, that they will not conduct what the military call double taps, which is a Russian tactic of striking once, waiting until ambulances and firefighters get there, and then striking a second time. We want to make clear that Ukraine is different and better in its behavior, even in the conduct of war, than Russia is. So it’s not crazy. Allies typically impose restraints in return for their participation. I just think we’ve dialed it up too high.

FASKIANOS: Sam.

CHARAP: Well, I think, interestingly, right now Ukraine is using its own domestically produced weapons, having a pretty easy time—or, at least doing spectacularly well in striking incredibly deep into Russia. Now, I’m sure that could be enabled by a number of—any number of U.S. decisions. But the main munitions being used by Ukraine right now are not American-made ones when it comes to this deep strike campaign. And, you know, I think one of the big issues right now is whether, you know, Starlink will access—you know, will be provided to Ukraine so that its drones can have better targeting over Russia. And there’s reportedly some concern in the U.S. government about enabling that, or about at least pushing SpaceX to do that.

But, you know, so I would just say, generally speaking, though, if we have the kind of process that I was describing aimed also at the, you know, de-escalation measures—and I think there’s a good piece of—there’s a piece of good news here, in that the U.S. negotiators have said that prioritizing both the Black Sea issue and strikes on energy infrastructure are among their top priorities. In fact, President Trump announced on Monday—it’s unclear whether the Russians and the Ukrainians are fully bought into this—that there has already been agreed an energy infrastructure ceasefire.

But my point is just to say that, you know, you would want to use a process to reduce those kinds of threats to Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and potentially head off what now seems to be a very, very difficult winter for Ukraine ahead. There is not going to be—you know, even if we were to start enabling more deep strikes into Russia, that might create an incentive for Russia to agree, or more of an incentive for Russia to agree, to dial—to a mutual pullback, but there’s not a button we can push here that would necessarily—that would stop the Russians from doing what they’re doing. They’re going to have to want to stop doing what they’re doing. And that’s going to have to involve some sort of mutual agreement.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’ll take the next question from Chardonay Gilchrist, an undergrad student at Monroe University.

Q: Hello.

My question for the panel is, how have you guys seen—or, I guess, what is your take on the autonomous and semiautonomous systems that have been popping up recently in terms of warfare? And have you seen, you know, this affect the intensity of LSCO (large-scale combat operations) or the conventional warfare tactics that Kori was mentioning, in terms of Russia? And, as Sam mentioned, how Ukraine is using their own defense munitions and things like that.

SCHAKE: So, it’s a great question, Chardonay. I’m glad you asked it. Who wins wars depends fundamentally on two things: First, the grit to sustain injuries, losses, setbacks, and continue to be committed to your political objectives. And the second is, adapting to changes on the battlefield. And I haven’t seen a change imposed by autonomous systems in either side’s political commitment, but I have seen enormous innovation and adaptation, both offensively and defensively, as a result of unmanned systems. So, it is now the case that battlefields are becoming transparent. You don’t have intermittent surveillance ability. You have pervasive and sustained. And that makes mobility on a battlefield much more dangerous.

At AEI, we had a presentation yesterday from the Kyiv Institute scholars that the most dangerous time for the Ukrainian military is transiting to battlefield positions or from them, not being actually on the front itself. Eighty percent of the casualties happen in transit, because as soon as you can see something moving, and it’s not in an entrenched defense, you can target it with an unmanned system. And so, that has collapsed the ability to have mobility on the battlefield. And both sides are still struggling to figure out how to manage that.

In another sense, though, I mean, autonomous vehicles are delivering logistics. They are rescuing wounded soldiers. If a soldier can get himself or herself into an unmanned vehicle, they can be transported even while wounded. And so, that’s increasing the prospect of survival of casualties, and of reduced casualties in their recovery. So, lots of interesting and important innovation going on as a result of unmanned systems.

CHARAP: I agree with all that. I think part of the question was also about autonomous systems and the use of AI. And I think we’ve seen the first significant, at least publicly acknowledged, uses when, essentially for targeting purposes, we’ve seen fully autonomous UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) at the end of a strike campaign. And which has largely been a function of the fact that not only have these UAVs fundamentally transformed the battlefield, but the counters to them have transformed the way that both sides have had to employ them.

So, you know, given both sides’ significant electronic warfare capabilities, there was a lot of—there has been a lot of innovation. You know, it started with the Russians using fiber optic cables instead of wireless communication. And now, so as to avoid, essentially, electronic warfare preventing the final stages of a UAV attack from being disrupted, they’ve, you know, automated these things. Which is, you know, a potentially scary indication of where unmanned and automated systems might be going.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to take the next question from Shahakr Mehdi, who wrote his question and also raised hand. So, why don’t you ask it yourself. From the University of Antwerp.

Q: Yeah. I’m Shahakr Mehdi at University of Antwerp.

My question is, when we’re discussing about Russia-Ukraine, but now I want to see the behavior of USA. Actually now if we see USA in region doing a lot of activities. My core question is, to what extent does USA support for Ukraine strengthen international security? And to what extent does it risk escalating wider strategic competition between the United States, China, and Russia?

SCHAKE: So, I’ll take the first shot at that very good question. So, I think American assistance to Ukraine is incredibly important. I think that people fighting for their freedom deserve support from people living comfortably in freedom. And the Ukraine case is one of the easiest to make a judgment about because they were attacked by the Russians and are simply trying to defend themselves. That is all they are attempting to achieve. And so, I think it’s an easy case to adjudicate where the Ukrainians deserve American support, and it strengthens the United States to provide that support, because it puts us on the side of countries simply attempting to live in freedom, not attempting to achieve by force a change to the status of another country.

And to the second part of the question, the extent to which it’s driving a convergence between Russia, China, and Iran, I think that convergence was going to happen anyway because the three of them have a common interest, which is diminishing American power, changing the terms of international order to better advantage their interests, and to drive wedges between the U.S. and its allies. And it’s largely our choices that are helping them achieve those objectives, not their choices. (Laughs.)

FASKIANOS: Sam, do you want to add to that?

CHARAP: I’ll leave it at that. That sounds good.

FASKIANOS: OK, great.

I’ll take a written question from Damion Marks, undergraduate student at Santa Fe College: I’m wondering, with the Ukraine-Russia war spilling into the U.S.-Iran war, with weapon sharing and strikes like Ukraine on an Iranian tanker, do you believe the U.S. is or should be treating the two conflicts as one?

CHARAP: Sam, why don’t you start?

SCHAKE: OK. Yeah, I mean, clearly there are interlinkages. Both sides—both Russia and Iran, have been supportive of each other. And the Ukrainians, since the war started, have been trying to help the Gulf states with air defense and their knowledge of how to counter Iranian drones. Or—yeah. And, obviously, I mentioned the way that energy markets make these conflicts interlinked. I think though, you know, the objectives of the protagonists in both of these conflicts are not interlinked. And the processes by which they might become unwound are unlikely to be linked directly either. So, this is not like a conflict that has become—two conflicts that have become one. They are, in a lot of ways, distinctive. And their path is not going to be, you know, 100 percent directly dependent on the way the other goes. But as we’ve talked about, from the Patriot interceptors to energy markets, there are ways that one does influence the other.

SCHAKE: I think Sam’s got it exactly right. I can’t improve on that.

You’re muted, Irina.

FASKIANOS: Oh, there you go. I’m going next to John Francis. If you can unmute yourself and give us your—

Q: I did.

FASKIANOS: There we go. And your affiliation, John.

Q: OK. Oh, thank you. (Laughs.)

So, my question is: If the Democrats control Congress this November, would there be—and given there are large pockets of Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans throughout the United States—would there be an increased likelihood of Congress putting pressure on the administration to send resources to the Ukraine?

SCHAKE: I very much hope so. But there is no substitute for presidential and executive action. They set the agenda. They have to carry out Congress’ funding direction, but it’s very hard for Congress to actually drive foreign policy. Congress is more effective at objecting to policy. And what we see right now is the Trump administration refusing to execute funding that Congress has already authorized and appropriated. So, I think there are going to be lots of those kinds of fights because the Trump administration doesn’t want to carry out congressional intent. But I hope Congress will more forcefully exercise its Article One authorities to assist Ukraine, and more broadly, because I think the American political system has been destabilized by Congress not exercising its institutional authority.

FASKIANOS: Sam, shall we go on to the next question?

CHARAP: I mean, I guess the only thing I would add is I wouldn’t expect—I would agree, that we’re not going to see a, like, dramatic shift, no matter what the outcome of the midterms. That there might be something on the margins in terms of assistance, but, as Kori says, you know, the checks and balances have swayed so far in favor of the executive, both in recent decades and in the past year and a half, on foreign policy. That it’s hard to see that that would have a fundamentally transformative impact.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to take the next written question from Phoebe Lemon, who’s a research assistant at the Hoover Institution: Do you see a postwar future where Ukraine, if victorious, could potentially lead the UA—EU—excuse me—and/or NATO against Russian threats? And what kind of support would the U.S. need to provide to get them to this in the future?

SCHAKE: So, I absolutely see a future that, after Ukraine recovers its internationally recognized territory from Russian aggression, that they should be welcomed into the Western institutions, both the NATO alliance and the European Union, to help them root out corruption, stabilize their political system, and choose their own future. Because that’s clearly what Ukrainians want. Also, we would benefit enormously from having a military as good as Ukraine’s military committed to the common defense of the NATO allies. But it will require us taking the very serious and risky choice that we will defend Ukraine against future aggression. And future aggression from Russia, I think, is likelier than not against Ukraine.

And our European friends and allies will have to swallow hard and look at the economic consequences of bringing a country as poor and productive as Ukraine into its common market and potentially its common currency. It’s not going to be an easy decision for anyone, including for Ukrainians, because the amount of corruption that will need to be rooted out and the amount of intrusiveness that Western institutions will require of it will be very difficult for Ukraine as well.

FASKIANOS: Sam.

CHARAP: So, I think one point I would make is about the framing. I think, you know, if we think about how wars end, this war is highly unlikely to end in an absolute victory for either side. And here, I’m speaking purely analytically, not normatively. I think there’s no question that, you know, if I could snap my fingers and have Ukraine restore its territorial integrity and, you know, have Russia completely uninvolved in its future, I would do that. But that’s, you know, not up to me. And I think analytically, you know, therefore, if the absolute victory, which, you know, is defined in IR scholarship essentially as an end that deprives the other side of the ability to impose a threat to you in the future, that’s really out for both sides. So, we’re going to be in a situation where, you know, victorious is going to look a whole lot less than potentially, you know, outcomes like World War II, things like that. There is going to be some sort of negotiated end because the—most likely, I should say, because of the low likelihood of an absolute victory.

I would add two other things. One is that—or, maybe just one thing. Which is to say that I think Ukraine—I agree 100 percent with Kori that there’s a lot that the Western militaries can learn from the Ukrainian military experience. They’re the only ones fighting, you know, the Russian military, and have had the only direct combat experience among any, you know, European or NATO military. There’s no question about that. I think, though, in the likely postwar environment where, you know, there’s going to be a very tense situation between Russia and Ukraine no matter where the line is and no matter what the arrangements are, and Ukraine is going to have a set of quite acute security problems to deal with that are unlikely to be, you know, exactly the same as those now facing NATO allies.

And in part that has to do with the way the Russians think differently about war with, you know, a major power, particularly with the, you know. NATO alliance, and how they’ve executed it in the context of Ukraine, and how they’re likely to think about what renewed conflict might look like with Ukraine. So, I think Ukraine is going to have a very, you know, particular set of security requirements in that context that are unlikely to be the same as those that allies will face in the immediate aftermath.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

A written question that has gotten three upvotes from Debidatta Mahapatra, who is a professor at Florida State College in Jacksonville: How do you see the role of BRICS countries, particularly China and India, in mediating the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

CHARAP: In mediating it?

FASKIANOS: Mmm hmm.

CHARAP: Uh-huh. Shall I dive in, Kori? So, in short, not a big one. And I think that’s basically because neither—while, you know, India has maybe more publicly, and China in sort of largely Russia-supportive ways, have said that they want the war to end, neither of them are prepared to, you know, devote the kind of political capital that would be necessary to sort of put pressure on both sides, or even to take on the unprecedented kind of diplomatic responsibility of ending a major conflict like this. I just don’t see either the interest or, frankly, the capacity for either to displace, you know, the U.S. role, for example, right now. It just doesn’t—neither of them want to be in that place. And I think that has to do in part with their ongoing relations with Russia being quite important to both of them, for different reasons.

SCHAKE: I think that’s exactly right.

FASKIANOS: I’ll take the next question from Peter Swiers, College of William and Mary. Peter, if you can accept the unmute. There you go.

Q: OK, can you hear me now, Irina?

FASKIANOS: We can.

Q: Hi. Identification. I’m on the advisory board of the Harriman Fellowships at William and Mary. I’m also an old Soviet hand—I would say, a very old Soviet hand.

But what I hear mostly in this conversation, and all the time, is what we can and should do for Ukraine. I’m thinking of the Hill when the congressman stands up. You know, there’s the moral issue, the political issue. How do we help Ukraine? But I’d like to have—let’s say, you’re advising somebody on the Hill. What will Ukraine do for us and our allies, in terms of the natural resources that it will provide, the intellectual resources, the military skills? Why don’t you just—one of you, can you enumerate that as though you’re somebody on the Hill going one, two, three, four? Try that. I’d like to hear what you—how you would phrase that, in terms of trying to get a bill passed.

SCHAKE: So, the advice I would give to a member of Congress is Ukraine doesn’t have to do any of those things to deserve our assistance in preserving their sovereignty, because we have an overarching interest in an international order where a bad guy like Russia cannot be a predator to its neighbors. I think that’s the overriding American interest. And I don’t think we need to have mineral access, trade agreements, or anything else for Ukraine to deserve that support.

CHARAP: I agree.

FASKIANOS: We’ll go next to—trying to find the next written question from Alex Todd, College of DuPage undergrad: In the best-case scenario of Ukraine’s successful pushback and an effective ceasefire held, what lasting impacts might we immediately see as a consequence of the Russian destabilization that would coincide with it? Or, in other words, what are the best-case scenario effects of this war on world politics, especially on trade?

SCHAKE: I’m definitely going to punt that one to Sam. (Laughter.)

CHARAP: I’m not sure I understand the question. But I think, from what I did understand, the question was about the impact of a potential negotiated end to the war on Russian domestic stability? Is that right?

FASKIANOS: Yes. And what it means for, I would say, the region, and, you know, and maybe for the world. Yes.

CHARAP: Well, I mean, I think there are a lot of ways in which there have been a lot of negative consequences for the world on anything from, like, food security in terms of the impact of you know the Russian current blockade of Ukrainian ports and, generally speaking, the end to free civilian shipping from the Black Sea. But that’s just one piece of it, right? I mean the way in which this has percolated throughout the international system, both economically, politically, geopolitically, is a big—you know, is a major challenge. And it’s had, I think, sort of a lot of unseen or secondary effects that, you know, we only notice after time.

I think what I would hesitate to do is predict the course of—or, the impact of a potential settlement on the domestic politics of either side. I mean, I think there’s a lot of—I’ve heard predictions of, oh, the second there’s a ceasefire in Ukraine the whole country will fall apart, and therefore we can’t have a ceasefire in Ukraine, which seems a little bit backwards to me. But that that being said, I just think we we’re—confident predictions about how domestic politics, particularly in Ukraine where they’re much more unpredictable, and in Russia, where, you know, the main X factor of Putin’s longevity is something that, you know, like, I’m not going to hazard a guess at this point, I think is sort of a little bit of a parlor game.

And I would just add, on that score, that, you know, I think Putin’s ability to sell an outcome that is not everything that he might be saying Russia wants right now is going to be much greater than Zelenskyy’s, given the lack of political opposition in Russia, and, even during wartime, the quite vibrant domestic politics in Ukraine.

SCHAKE: Yeah, I agree with that judgment. I think the domestic political consequences depend on what the outcome is, obviously. If Russia wins, Putin can make the case that it was worth all of this trouble, historic Rus, whatever nonsense he wants. If Russia loses or is forced into a negotiated solution less than Russia’s political objectives, I do think that dramatically increases the risks of Vladimir Putin not dying a natural death, and not retaining control of whatever comes next in Russia.

But I love that question because I think we are thinking too little about Russian futures. You know, we’re very much focused on Ukraine’s future, the return of domestic politics in Ukraine. We can already see it happening as the war goes on. There are contenders for leadership. There are political dogfights. We don’t see any of that in Russia. It could be we just have less visibility into Russia. But it could also be there’s less of it going on in Russia. And so, I think it really depends on the outcome. But it mostly, the largest effect is likely to be, in Russian domestic politics, not Ukrainian domestic politics.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to take the next question from Susan King.

Q: Hi there. Former dean at UNC Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Media.

So, I wanted to follow up on domestic, and what I would call Ukraine fatigue. You two make a pretty good argument, or I would at least agree with it, of the need to bring some pressure on support of Ukraine in ways. But the public seems pretty tired. There used to be flags all over supporting, you know, the Ukraine people and the effort. Now there’s multiple war fronts. How do you think the sort of Ukraine fatigue will affect those who are making decisions about the future of this conflict?

SCHAKE: I think that’s a great question. And what I notice, so in 2014, Jim Mattis and I ran the largest survey of American public attitudes about military issues that had been done in about twenty years. And one of the biggest surprises to us was the extent to which public attitudes are directly responsive to whether the leadership is paying attention, making the case, expending political capital to advance the policy. I’m genuinely surprised that, given the Trump administration’s hostility to Ukraine, that there hasn’t been even more of a domestic political effect in the U.S. It’s actually delightfully heartening that so many Americans get the basic argument that Ukraine, fighting for its peace and freedom, deserves American support, when that is not what they are hearing out of the leader of American foreign policy, or most of his political party.

FASKIANOS: Sam.

CHARAP: Yeah. I mean, Kori’s observation about her own study, I think, is the one I would point to on issues of not direct importance to, you know, average Americans’ everyday lives as they experience them, such as terrorism, now the Iran war because of the link to the gas price, you know, trade, and to a certain extent migration/immigration. But it’s this kind of issue where presidents, leaders of parties can either, you know, drive the people who self-identify as members of the party in one direction or the other.

And, you know, therefore, I don’t know that, you know, the fatigue, in a way—which arguably has existed long before 2022; it’s a term that predates that actually—drove the administration’s decision making on this. I would sort of see it the other way around, that the decision making on Ukraine has sort of leveled—or, at least brought to a plateau, you know, Republican-identifying voters’ support for continued aid to Ukraine. It’s certainly not a wedge issue that would force reconsideration of support for a presidential candidate. You know, obviously there are exceptions to that in particular communities, but I think, you know, domestic politics here is ultimately more of a dependent variable than an independent one. (Laughs.)

FASKIANOS: Well, with that, I think I will bring this to a close. I know we have a hard stop at 2:00 p.m. (EDT). I am sorry that we could not get to all of the questions. There are a lot of questions, raised hands. But we will just have to have you both back. Kori Schake and Samuel Charap, we really appreciate your taking the time to be with us today and your research and analysis and leadership in this space. So, thank you both for being with us. Appreciate it.

Our next Global Affairs Expert Webinar will be on Wednesday, September 30, at 1:00 p.m. (EDT) Eastern Time with Nicholas Cull at the University of Southern California and Naima Green-Riley at Princeton University on the new landscape of U.S. public diplomacy. I encourage you all to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/career-opportunities and visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for best—for research and analysis on global issues. Of course, CFR.org/education for teaching and learning resources. And of course, resources from AEI, the American Enterprise Institute, and RAND.org. Those are both wonderful places to go as well for background and analysis. So, thank you both. And thank you all. And we look forward to your continued participation.

CHARAP: Thank you.

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