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Hello and welcome to the world in

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30 minutes, the podcast on

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the events, policies and ideas

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that will shape the world

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from the European Council on

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Foreign Relations. My name is Mark

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Leonard, I'm Director of ECR,

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and this is another episode of

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our emergency room format. Today my

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guest is Jeremy Shapiro, head

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of ECR's office in Washington.

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who is here to talk us through

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the latest scandals and developments from

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the Trump world. Yesterday we learned

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that senior U.S. officials, including

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the Vice President, Secretary of

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Defense, Secretary of State, Director

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of the CIA, and several

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others, included Jeffrey Goldberg,

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the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic

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in a signal group chat.

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In addition to discussing sensitive

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military plans for strikes against

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the Houthis in Yemen, members

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of the group expressed

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contempt for Europe and

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planned ways to quote

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unquote extract economic gain

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from allies that benefited from

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the strikes. We've also just

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had a readout of the

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talks in Riyadh which have

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shown the outlines of a

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tentative agreement between Russia and

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America. So we'll talk about

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those two things. Welcome to

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podcast Jeremy. Can you. walk

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us through the two stories? Sure.

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Well, first, the Atlantic

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story, which is, like, really

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fun to walk through. I

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mean, it is absolutely bonkers.

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You know, as a former

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government official, this level

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of carelessness, disregard

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for the rules, and, frankly,

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recklessness in putting US

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lives at risk, is really

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like... mind-boggling. It's just like nothing

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that we could even imagine. Basically

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what happened was that they set up

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a signal group, which is already a

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violation of the rules and already something

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that they had. They criticized Hillary

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Clinton for doing the equivalent of,

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and she was Secretary of State

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and argued that she should be

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thrown in jail for it, to

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discuss an ongoing or about to

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start military operation, and then to

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sort of compound this recklessness with

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the incredible incompetence of including an

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actual reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg, a very

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well-known editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Monthly

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magazine, in this. in this without

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even noticing and then discussing for

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two days or a whole weekend

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the plan to bomb the Houthis

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and the disputes within the administration

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with it was so incredible that

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Goldberg in describing it was basically

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saying that he was assuming that

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it was a fake and he

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had to wait until they Mike

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Waltz National Security Advisor announced in

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the signal chat that the bombing

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would begin in two hours. And

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then he waited in his car

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to see if it actually did.

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And when it did, that was

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the only moment that he was

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convinced that it was real. So

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this is incredible. I think for

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national security geeks like us and

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probably like our listeners, it's like

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super fascinating. Frankly, in US politics,

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I'm not sure it makes any

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difference at all. The Congress is

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going to waive it by the

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Democrats have no investigative power. They'll

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say that it's terrible. Pete Hexeth

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will deny it even though it's

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like self-evidently true. And in a

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couple of days there'll be another

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outrage in the Washington normal. So

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apart from the fact that it

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as the National Security Council said

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that it's a demonstration of the

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deep and thoughtful policy coordination between

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senior officials, have we learned anything

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else about their kind of deeper

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motivations? What do you, were you

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surprised but the fact that they

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saw this as a... both the

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kind of major favor to Europeans

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and also that they thought they

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might be able to extract some

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kind of remuneration for it. I

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was a little bit surprised that

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they weren't discussing these strikes in

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the context of the Israel-Iran dispute,

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which was my assumption as to

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why this was, why this was

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happening, that it was intended to

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put pressure on Iran. And that

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didn't really come up in the

4:17

discussions that were documented. Of course,

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it could still have lurked in

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the background. I was less surprised

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by the fact that they think

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that everything they do benefits Europe

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and that Europe is, generally speaking,

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a free-loader. I think it's becoming

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really a light motif of this

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administration that where the place where

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all the factions are coming together

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is and disliking the Europeans. It's

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really I think it's something that

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brings them together in a sort

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of you know us versus them

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way and and you can really

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see this in the chat where

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they had a big dispute about

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whether to do this dance was

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against it and and Waltz was

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for it but Broadly speaking, they

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could agree that the Europeans were

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shit and they should pay for

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it, even though they hadn't requested

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it, they hadn't been consulted with

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it. And frankly, in my discussion

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with the Europeans, the Red Sea

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is kind of yesterday's problem and

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it's not actually something they would

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have asked the United States to

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take care of for. Okay, so

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let's pivot to the other story.

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So we've heard that there is

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a discussion about some sort of

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deal with various different elements in

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it. One is about the Black

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Sea where... The thing refers to

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restoring Russian access to agriculture and

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fertilizing markets, but not Ukrainian access.

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The former, the Russians, were impacted

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by sanctions. That's why they lost

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access. The Ukrainians lost access because

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Russia was attacking all their civilian

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navigation, which is still threatened to

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do. And this apparent agreement says

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nothing about Russia refraining from attacking

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Ukrainian. ports Ukraine doesn't have a

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navy so a maritime ceasefire seems

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to benefit Russia more than it

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does Ukraine and then the other

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kind of angle always talking about

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freezing attacks on energy infrastructure, which

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a lot of people say could

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also benefit Russia more than Ukraine

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because the heating season is over.

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Is this another instance of Russia

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only being given carrots and Ukraine

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only sticks? A little bit, but

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I would choose not to see

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it that way because broadly speaking

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what's going on is that there

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is a sort of confidence-building effort

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within the negotiations. And they're trying

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to come up with what's what

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they're terming a phased agreement where

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they can agree on various deconfliction

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methods and then move along where

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when those if those deconfliction methods

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are shown to work. So the

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first one was energy infrastructure. The

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second one is Black Sea maritime.

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The third one might be more

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broadly long-range strikes. You know, you

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could sort of sit around on

6:58

each of these phases and say,

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well, this benefits the Russians more

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than the Ukrainians, or vice versa.

7:05

If you wanted to play that

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game, it might be true. But

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the broader effort is to create

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an agreement that people will have

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some confidence can be observed, and

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that's what they're trying to build

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with this phased approach. I do

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think it's true to say that

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the Americans are very, very interesting

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coercing the Russians. And so there's

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some sticks directed toward the Ukrainians,

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but very few sticks directed toward

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the Russians, and that this does

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reflect, arguably, a broader American effort

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to sort of realign with Russia

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and to be and to get

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Ukraine out of the way so

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they can have broader geopolitical deals

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on things like Iran, the Arctic,

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nuclear non-nuclear arms control. with Russia

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and even in terms of maybe

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dealing with China, which is the

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sort of holy grail. So that

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is. That is the broader background,

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but I would think that it's

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not such a great idea to

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get wrapped up in saying that

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we don't want a peace agreement

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between Russia and Ukraine. It's wrapped

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up in the idea that if

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every step isn't exactly equal, that

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it must be a bad idea

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to take that step. Sure, no,

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that's obviously right, but what I

8:19

suppose I was trying to get

8:22

at or try and explore was

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the thinking about the revealed thinking

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about Ukraine in this and in

8:28

other kind of statements. And we've

8:30

both been spending quite a lot

8:33

of time in the last few

8:35

days with people who are very

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involved in the kind of wider

8:39

magga communities and have good links

8:41

into the different bits of the

8:44

government, particularly in the Pentagon and

8:46

the vice president's office. And you've

8:48

been sort of, I think, trying

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to draw... together some of the

8:52

different threads of American thinking what

8:55

the Trump administration wants from these

8:57

wider Ukraine negotiations. So beyond this

8:59

kind of the fact that they

9:01

care, it seems to care more

9:03

about Russia than about Ukraine and

9:06

see it as part of a

9:08

wider reset. What else do you

9:10

think Europeans need to know about

9:12

the mindset? I think that there's

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a few things to understand. First,

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the US isn't after victory. according

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to any of the various definitions

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that used to be put forward

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by the Biden administration or the

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Ukrainian government. It's broadly speaking uninterested

9:28

in preserving Ukrainian territorial integrity or

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establishing a precedent that aggression doesn't

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pay, and it frankly doesn't seem

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to believe, as Whitkov mentioned the

9:36

other day, that Russian gains in

9:39

Ukraine will embolden the Putin regime

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to threaten NATO. in Europe. I

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think the Trump administration has been

9:45

really clear about this and repeatedly

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disavowed any interest in these topics,

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no matter how many times they're

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raised by U.S. Congressman or Europeans

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or I think that if you

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want to understand their approach to

9:58

the negotiations, you have to look

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elsewhere. The first instance, the first

10:03

thing that that Trump people want

10:05

out of the negotiations is to

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bring an end to the war

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as part of his presidential, Trump's

10:12

presidential campaign promise to end the

10:14

war to reestablish people's sense of

10:16

security and calm in the world.

10:18

It's not really about ending the

10:20

war in Ukraine because the American

10:23

people don't care much about that

10:25

either way, but rather about demonstrating

10:27

that an American president can bring

10:29

peace and stability and can be

10:31

strong and people can listen to

10:34

him. And so I think that

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what you know the first thing

10:38

that you want to do is

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to create some sort of cease

10:42

fire through probably through this phased

10:45

approach that I mentioned. You know,

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he can declare victory. Trump can

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declare victory in US politics. He

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can drain the issue of Ukraine

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from the US domestic political agenda.

10:56

And at that point, no matter

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what happens in Ukraine, if the

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ceasefire only lasts a month, if

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it trundles along for several months,

11:04

or if Russia and Ukraine finds

11:07

some broader agreement, Trump can simply

11:09

take his toys and go home

11:11

and that will all be fine.

11:13

I think also more broadly what

11:15

they're trying to accomplish is this.

11:18

is this broader geopolitical shift that

11:20

we just talked about in which

11:22

they are realigning with Russia, getting

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out of the business of European

11:26

security and especially out of the

11:29

business of fighting the Ukraine war,

11:31

and finding some extra-European deals with

11:33

Russia on issues that still matter

11:35

to them geopolitically. A lot of

11:37

those are economic deals around Arctic

11:40

resources around natural gas, but but

11:42

also in terms of Iran and

11:44

North Korea and possibly even China.

11:46

part of the agenda is about

11:48

withdrawing troops and material from from

11:51

Europe and either sending it to

11:53

Asia or taking it back to

11:55

the US to deal with the

11:57

problems at the southern border. Yeah

11:59

I mean I think that this

12:02

this is sort of a happy

12:04

coincidence I guess call it that

12:06

between the Trump administration's interests and

12:08

the you know 25 year-long longstanding

12:10

goal of the Russians to get

12:13

the Americans out of Europe you

12:15

know it's It changes the nature

12:17

of the negotiations when both sides

12:19

want it. And in fact, the

12:21

Trump administration has been pretty clear

12:24

that they want to deploy, redeploy

12:26

these assets, particularly to Asia, but

12:28

I think a newer thing that

12:30

they seem to want to do

12:32

is to take a lot of

12:35

U.S. army assets and send them

12:37

back to the southern border. This

12:39

is a little bit nuts in

12:41

my view. I mean, it's nuts

12:43

as a single chat to describe

12:46

the Outhi's with the Atlantic report

12:48

of it's still nuts. And what

12:50

they want, and I think that

12:52

there is a growing fear, I

12:54

have it, in the US, that

12:57

they really do want to militarize

12:59

the dispute with Mexico and use

13:01

as a city they could deploy

13:03

to the southern border in the

13:05

first instance, ensure to seal the

13:08

border, but that's not really that

13:10

hard militarily, but in the second

13:12

instance to attack the cartels in

13:14

Mexico directly with or without Mexican

13:16

government cooperation. Well those have pretty

13:19

big implications for the future of

13:21

European security and we should we

13:23

should have another podcast on that

13:25

but I think that's all we

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got time for today. We'll be

13:30

back soon with another emergency room

13:32

episode but before that there'll be

13:34

a normal half hour episode on

13:36

your feeds on Friday. If you've

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enjoyed listening to this podcast please

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do let other people know about

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it by writing about it on

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subscribing to future episodes and above

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us giving us

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a positive review

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and a and rating

14:00

but for now

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from Jeremy and

14:05

myself and myself, Mark Leonard,

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it's goodbye. is on

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unsunder and the

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editor is and the

14:14

editor is Maria Faro Saratz.