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Speaker 1: Let's discuss the situation ian Ukraine and in a greater sense,

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Speaker 1: the global diplomatic efforts to do something about it with

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Speaker 1: doctor Jeff mccauslan, CBS News, military consultant, founder and CEO

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Speaker 1: of Diamond six Leadership and Strategies, LLC, and Senior Fellow

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Speaker 1: at Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the Naval Academy. Jeff,

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Speaker 1: it's always a pleasure.

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Speaker 2: How are you, Joe, I'm doing very well. Pleasure to

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Speaker 2: be with you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. So it is absolutely self evident that this

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Speaker 1: is a marathon and not a sprint. Can do you

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Speaker 1: get any sense of what direction it's heading in? Is

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Speaker 1: there a momentum on either side?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's totally seems to me that right now, I

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Speaker 2: would rather talk about initiative in tempo, and I think

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Speaker 2: initiative in tempo is on the Ukrainian side. Is there

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Speaker 2: conducting a counter offensive, albeit one this movie more slowly

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Speaker 2: than they would like than we would like, but still

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Speaker 2: moving and at the same time the Russians are reacting

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Speaker 2: to them, and that's what you want to happen in warfare.

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Speaker 2: You want your opponent reaction to you, as opposed to

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Speaker 2: the other way around. However, worrying to me is the

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Speaker 2: war also. I think in many ways it's escalating. It's

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Speaker 2: escalating in terms of range and the locality of weapons,

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Speaker 2: it's escalating in terms of the geography. Now certainly the

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Speaker 2: Black Sea has become a war zone, and it's escalating

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Speaker 2: in many ways with the narrative, particularly on the Russian side,

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Speaker 2: and the Ukrainians as well have begun their counter offensive

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Speaker 2: not only against the land areas occupied by the Russians,

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Speaker 2: but their counter offensive now includes drone strikes on the

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Speaker 2: Russian capital Moscow, and they've done that several times over

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Speaker 2: the last couple of weeks. Now includes naval drones against

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Speaker 2: Russian ships and the Black Sea, and the drone strikes

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Speaker 2: against bridges connecting the territory Russian has occupied with Crimea.

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Speaker 2: So I think an effort by the Ukrainians to isolate that.

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Speaker 2: But that war in the Black Sea, which is now

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Speaker 2: unfolding after the Russians pulled out this big grain deal,

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Speaker 2: really will reverberate across the planet, probably in arising grain

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Speaker 2: prices which will affect a lot of poor countries, particularly

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Speaker 2: in Africa and the Middle East, and potentially rising oil

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Speaker 2: prices since oil is a major Russia is a major

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Speaker 2: exporter of oil if in fact it slows that export

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Speaker 2: coming out of those ports down there in the Black

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Speaker 2: Sea and Sea Ivazo.

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Speaker 1: I want to get back to those trade questions in

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Speaker 1: a minute, but before we do that, I think the

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Speaker 1: drone attacks on the ships and the bridges are absolutely

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Speaker 1: defensible and necessary in the rest of it. But I

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Speaker 1: found myself wondering about the attacks on Moscow in particular,

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Speaker 1: of the drone attacks, what effect do you think the

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Speaker 1: Ukrainians are hoping to have and do you think they'll

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Speaker 1: achieve their goals.

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Speaker 2: It's a little clearer though achieving their goal, But the

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Speaker 2: goal I think certainly is psychological and political, as the

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Speaker 2: Ukrainians many senior of Clanians think, including Zelenski, have said,

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Speaker 2: you know, we're going to show the Russians that the

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Speaker 2: war is coming to that they cannot be immune, they

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Speaker 2: can't sit in coffee shops in Moscow and still continues

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Speaker 2: to live their lives pretty quietly while this is happening

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Speaker 2: in a far distant place. And I think so it's

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Speaker 2: more psychological than military. They're they're not going to destroy Moscow,

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Speaker 2: They're not going to overwhelm Moscow. But it's bringing the

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Speaker 2: war to the Russian people, who in many ways have

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Speaker 2: largely been a meeting to the conflict, despite the fact

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Speaker 2: that we know over two hundred thousand Russian casualties have

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Speaker 2: been suffered in this conflict so far. And you know,

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Speaker 2: it's interesting Joe, as a senior officer admitted the other day,

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Speaker 2: was on a telegram I believe in it taken down

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Speaker 2: very quickly than in his division. About for every soldier

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Speaker 2: who was for every soldier killed in action, only three

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Speaker 2: were wounded, which is a pretty bad ratio. Doesn't say

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Speaker 2: much about Russian medical support. Well, that's true that two

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Speaker 2: hundred thousand casualies. Now the Russians have suffered seventy to

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Speaker 2: seventy five thousand dead.

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Speaker 1: Wow. So my concern about the attacks on Moscow and

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Speaker 1: trying to bring it home to the Russian people is

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Speaker 1: that Putin's narrative from the beginning, which is ridiculous and false,

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Speaker 1: is that this is a defensive war. We had to

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Speaker 1: we were threatened. You know, NATO is closing in and

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Speaker 1: we've got to denazify our neighbors, blah blah blah. I

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Speaker 1: would think that, you know, the occasional cafe getting bombed

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Speaker 1: in Moscow would actually reinforce that rhetoric that it's a

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Speaker 1: defensive war.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. In any ways, that's why I said, you know,

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Speaker 2: the rar is escalating in terms of the narrative, and

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Speaker 2: that's part of that narrative that Putin is continuing to intensify.

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Speaker 2: This is now an effort to destroy Russia. The very

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Speaker 2: existence of Russia's at stake. And so they do an

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Speaker 2: awful lot to tie what's going on in Ukraine to

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Speaker 2: the Great Patriotic War, which reverberates really too many Russians,

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Speaker 2: and that course was World War Two, thirty thirty five

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Speaker 2: thousand Soviet citizens dying in that particular conflict, in the

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Speaker 2: glory of the Soviet military in driving back Nazis. That's

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Speaker 2: why they paint the Ukrainians as being petically Nazis and fascist.

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Speaker 2: So more as this conflict goes on and on and

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Speaker 2: he's not successful, I think he does a couple of things. One,

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Speaker 2: more and more paint that narrative in those terms to

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Speaker 2: try to maintain support, and second of all, more and

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Speaker 2: more repression. You can't say too much in Russia about

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Speaker 2: anything without being arrested and being accused of being against

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Speaker 2: the Russian military, against the conflict, against the homeland, against

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Speaker 2: Mother Russia, and those are themes that he is more

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Speaker 2: and more employed.

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Speaker 1: Jeff mccauslin, CBS News, Military consultant on the line, Jeff,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you've been following the big diplomatic

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Speaker 1: conference over the weekend. I guess about forty countries met

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Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia to talk about the Ukrainian situation. Has

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Speaker 1: anything come of that, or given what we were discussing before,

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Speaker 1: the terrible food shortages in Africa that could well be

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Speaker 1: caused by Russia cracking down on the great exports the

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Speaker 1: energy markets around the world, is there any chance that

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Speaker 1: these dozens of nations are going to join forces and

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Speaker 1: put pressure on either or both sides to get to

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Speaker 1: the table.

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Speaker 2: Well, let me try to. I still think they're going

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Speaker 2: to be terribly successful. I think this demonstrates a couple

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Speaker 2: of things. One, I think it demonstrates the Saudi Arabians

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Speaker 2: once again trying to demonstrate that they are a global power,

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Speaker 2: as they did when they opened up negotiations and relations

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Speaker 2: with Iran, and so the Prince Prince Solomon trying to

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Speaker 2: demonstrate that he is actually a world player. Second of all,

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Speaker 2: I think it shows that escalation geographically in terms of

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Speaker 2: the reverberating or the widening effect of the war, particularly

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Speaker 2: on those African countries which some may say our right

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Speaker 2: famine if in fact those flu supplies are shut off

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Speaker 2: coming out of Russia and Ukraine. But I don't see

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Speaker 2: there having a dramatic effect on the war, except for

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Speaker 2: again to the narrative Krane was represented there them trying

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Speaker 2: to convince more and more the countries to get off

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Speaker 2: the fence and more and more isolate Russia as their

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Speaker 2: hopes that might bring an end to a conflict. But

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Speaker 2: again how they're going to do that is beyond me.

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Speaker 2: In that I think that we see mister Putin doubling

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Speaker 2: down the conflict, doing things to make it more and

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Speaker 2: more difficult for a soldier to avoid conscription. They've now

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Speaker 2: expanded the draft to people in Russia up to the

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Speaker 2: age of thirty. As a reservist you can be called

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Speaker 2: back until you're seventy. So they're doing a number of

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Speaker 2: things to expand the manpower, and based on just internal resources,

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Speaker 2: it was seen to me that is clear mister Putin

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Speaker 2: can carry this war on, probably for at least another

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Speaker 2: year or two. And then, don't forget, he's facing re

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Speaker 2: election in March next year, and so there's going to

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Speaker 2: be a constant drumbeat. I think of that narrative of

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Speaker 2: us being under siege, which will urge people to vote

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Speaker 2: for him, though the election will be fraudulent, and you

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Speaker 2: know it's a foregone conclusion even before it begins.

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Speaker 1: Jeff McCausland of CBS News, Jeff, so so grateful for

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Speaker 1: the insights, Thanks for the time, Thank you very much.

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Speaker 2: Bye,