ah ah we understand the differences and similarities have cultures across the world. semi matter, glad you call her al jazeera will bring you the news and current affairs that mattie out of there. ah!

your g i'll to 0 of me to hell robin in dough. hot reminder of our top use stories, bangladesh and indira both suffering from floods and land slides. after unprecedented heavy rains, at least 25 people have been killed in bangladesh. the storm has also stranded 4000000 people in submerged homes. the military is now to point troops to help with evacuations and rescue. tomba chandry has more from long la sit. grayson is very graeme and devastating spatial in the northeast and division of salad. a devil woods never experience a flood like this in 3 decades. maybe even longer, i've spoken to some of the people. i know i have friends and family members there and they said this is absolutely devastating. the entire sill at town is flooded or the city itself is flooded. the railways cut off the airport is cut off. 2 of the main powered grid stations are inundated, so there is no electricity. absolutely cut off from everything. are people in the

low lying airy option i'm going to and other areas are totally inundated. some people are taking shelter as a military is helping them in the high grounds or schools, or even breeders and growth because there's no place. the entire area is still edge with water coming from north east india. and the state a mega lion are some also in bangladesh, in the northern part of bangladesh, the history was bad connecting bang. this brought the indian side opened the gate and deluge from that part of the india water is gushing in. the bomber puts a basin and the font forecasting center, saying that this 14 district are in danger of getting flooded in next couple of days. and this in top of torrential rains, been going on in northern part of bangladesh. have in here just a few hours ago. there's torrential rain. so situation is very grim. our people need fresh water food. there's no electricity, emergency aid, the we'll do the military and other rescue operation is going on, but situation is quite green, particularly in ne bangladesh. right?

now, explosion to seek place of worship in the us can capital, has killed at least 2 people. dozens were tramped inside the complex and cobble where there was also gunfire. is the latest in a string of attacks targeting religious minority groups in the country. somali as government says, at least 70 eligible fighters, including 3 foreigners, have been killed after the army fall and attempt to terror attack. smalley, as information minister says, man who was intending to conduct the suicide attack, has been arrested israeli strikes of hit several locations in garza, the army says it targeted what it called military sites. the strikes come after israel said it shot down the projectile fired from the gaza strip toward the city of ash, cologne, unit, and said has more from garza city. several air strikes have been targeting different military posts here in the gaza strip in different areas, mainly in the central the gaza strip. and in the north of the gaza strip the rates

the time was the most intense in the past few months. these really army set the, these arrays have come here, response to missile that was lunch for me because the strip towards ask alone a very late last night. and these are the rates that happen early this morning. where in retaliation of that myth tile crowds in london gathering to protest that the rising cost of living, the rally has been cold by trade union leaders, that demanding government action to help coat with solving prices. the u. k. inflation rate is currently sitting at the 40 or high of 9 percent. britain is officially experiencing a heat wave to the met offices, temperatures of her record high 3 days in a row with some pulse passing 32 degrees. the rest of europe is also sweltering. spain battling with wildfires and frances counseling, outdoor events in some areas, place and brazil's a human remains sound in the amazon rain forest, all those of the missing british journalist on phillips,

the veteran and 5 other remains thought to belong to the indigenous expert, bruno perrera, investigator says suspecting custody has confessed to killing both men and protest as in australia running gates, armed policing in remote indigenous communities demonstrate to say please policies contribute to the high indigenous prison rights. a recent report showed that indigenous australians a 13 times more likely to be giles those where the headlines would be back with more news and a half. and here on al jazeera next at the bottom line to stay with us. i . hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. is there a way out of the ukraine war, or is it doomed to go on with no end in sight? and if it is no end in sight, what are the implications for the united states?

let's get to the bottom line. ah, in less than $100.00 days, the war in ukraine has really slipped from the headlines replaced in the united states, at least by shooting massacres in different cities and worries about the skyrocketing price of gas, a peanut butter baby formula among many other items of everyday life on the ground in ukraine though, russia has expanded the amount of territory controls. it's now about 20 percent of the country, according to ukraine's president valona lensky. ukrainians in the neighbourhood around the remain on edge, and the u. s. and its european allies continue to double down thus far, at least on sanctions against russia, and their supplying ukraine with increasingly powerful and sophisticated weapons. the ukraine war is now become a marathon and not a russian sprint. so with no signs of slowing down, where does this war go from here? can it come to an end? can it get far, far worse? what does a new forever proxy war mean for america and nato?

today we're talking with one of america's leading political sciences, john mearsheimer, who is a distinguished service professor at the university of chicago, and he's author of the great delusion, liberal dreams and international realities. dr. mir timer. it's great to be with you to discuss these issues. let me just ask you, what is your perspective on how america is doing in managing it? strategic priorities in the world and rushes invasion of ukraine? what think with regard to its strategic priorities of the world? it's not doing well at all. the fact is, the united states faces appeared competitor, and it's not russia, it's china. and the united states should be focusing laser, like on trying to contain china. but instead, what's happened is it's gotten into a major conflict with russia in eastern europe. and if anything were increasing air force levels in eastern europe. and given that we have limited bandwidth, we want to spend a lot of time focusing on china and dealing with our allies in east asia and not

focusing on eastern europe and dealing with the ukraine crisis. but of course that's we're doing what we're doing. so we're in a lot of trouble in the sense that we've taken our eye off the most important threat facing us, which is china. and instead we've helped create a threat in eastern europe that should not be a threat to the united states. or there are 2 elements of that of john that are very interesting to me. one is that when the bite administration came in, of course it was engineering, the so called pivot to asia, had sent it secretary of state national security advisor and our secretary of defense from united states to kind of wrestle with the chinese over things. and it sort of seems like vladimir putin, russia saying, hey, remember me, i matter to, ah, and, and we've seen the russian invasion of ukraine, the death of many tens of thousands of people, if not more. and, and i guess the question is, given that,

what would have been the responsible way to deal with russia and the aggressive steps it took in, in terms of going across the board of ukraine. now, killing so many people and invading a country that is a member of the u. n. and as a, you know, it apparently this is the greatest invasion of its kind since since world war 2. let me tell you what happened here. a president bud moved into the white house in january 2021. and for the rest of the year, that's 2021. he did a what i would call an excellent job dealing with the china threat. the $64000.00 question is what happened with regard to russia and with regard to ukraine. joe biden had handled the ukraine portfolio and the obama administration when he was vice president, and he was very hawkish. so after he came into the white house in january 2021 that hawkish nist on ukraine and on russia, reemerged and he pursued a very hard nosed policy towards russia for all of 2021.

and the end result is that relations between the united states and russia over ukraine got poisonous, and eventually that resulted in a war in february of this year. what the biden administration should have done was moved away from trying to include ukraine in nato, and instead tried to tried to create a neutral ukraine. but it didn't do that. it did exactly the opposite. and every time the russians tried to cut some sort of deal on ukraine, thing by the administration said no, and the end result is we have a war, we're deeply involved in that war now. and as i said earlier, it forces us to take our eye off the most important threat, which is china. you receive a lot of criticism for having blamed, you know, of being perceived to blame united states for some of what happened with ukraine.

but our own cia director bill burns when he was ambassador to russia in 2008, wrote an email that said i wrote a report and said that when it comes to ukraine, joining nato, that this would be a neurologic issue for russia. and that we had to be prepared. so when, think back to 13 years ago, 14 years ago, 2008, around the time that, that nato is expanding in its earliest phase and kind of going on and on. how, ah, what should we have done early on, not to end up back in an us versus them dynamic between nato and its allies and russia. there's no question, steve, that it was the april 2000 a decision by nato at luke arrest. to say that ukraine and ga would become a members of nato, at some point in the foreseeable future. this was when the die was cast. this was when we made a fatal mistake. and as you point out, bill burns,

who was then the american ambassador in moscow, he told condo, lisa rice, who of course, was secretary of state that ukraine and nato was the brightest of red lines for the russian foreign policy elite. he made it very clear that this is not just include vladimir putin, virtually everybody he talked to in the russian. a lee was adamantly opposed to ukraine, becoming a member of nato. nevertheless, we continue to push to include ukraine in nato, and that led to the message that we're in today. and this is why i say that the united states and nato more generally, is principally responsible for creating this crisis. had we not pushed to include ukraine in nato in april 2008. if that issue had been taken off the table, then we wouldn't have the trouble today. in fact,

ukraine would still be intact and i believe it would even include crimea. now you are a famous realist and realists are have an adage which is you've got to see the world as it is and not the world as you want it to be. and the world as it is today is millions of ukrainians have been displaced. millions of ukrainians are going across borders and there you have a heretic war underway. the united states and its allies are providing more and more equipment and supplies to the ukrainian forces. and by all accounts presence, the lensky and the ukrainian military forces have done a rather remarkable job of resisting russia's incursion and ways that i think no one expected, particularly after we saw what happened in afghanistan. so given the world as it is today, what do you, where do you, how, where do you think the us goes from here? how do you think? do you think we're doing the right thing? do you think it can get a lot worse?

well, the united states is so deeply committed at this point in time that there's no turning around in the foreseeable future. basically, what we have here is a situation where russia views what's happening in ukraine as an existential threat. so the russians cannot afford to lose in ukraine. we are deeply committed not only to win and ukraine, but we are committed to using sanctions to weakening russia to the point where we knock it out of the ranks of the great powers. so we and effect can't lose, they can't lose. there's no way that you can reach any kind of meaningful agreement in the foreseeable future. so the end result is that this war is going to go on and on. and we're going to continue to poor weapons into ukraine and do everything we can tell them at least hold the line. and we believe may be when the war in ukraine, the russians on the other hand, because they feel they're facing,

that existential threat. are going to do everything possible, maybe using nuclear weapons, to make sure that they don't lose also is a rather hopeless situation. well, along these lines, i'd like to play a clip for you and our audience. from secretary of defense, lloyd austin, we want to see russia weaken to a degree, going to do the kinds of things that it has done in brain brain. so there he said, you want to could create real quad costs on russia. i was with our nato ambassador to a, well, us ambassador, nato julianne smith recently, who said that we're actually seeking. so the strategic defeat of russia and ukraine went a step further than defense, secretary austin. and along those lines, those are not just fighting words. those are you saying stay in the game words and double down, double down, double down, very hard to back out of that i, what, john would the strategic defeat of, of russia look like if, if that were to happen?

well, i don't think we're talking about invading russia. i think what we're talking about here is making sure that the ukrainians decisively defeat the russian military inside of ukraine and we capture all their last last territory. that's point one and point to that. we used economic sanctions to an effect rec, the russian economy. ah, and the end result of that is that you knock russia out of the ranks of the great powers. this is something the russians are not going to allow to happen. and russia is a country that has thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at us. and the idea that you would be threatening to knock a great power out of the ranks of the great powers. when that great powers armed with nuclear weapons, seems to me to be the height of your responsibility. i keep asking myself as i

watch this crisis unfold. and as i listened to people like the ambassador and the secretary of defense talk, what are they thinking? where's john f kennedy? have these people thought about how john f kennedy behaved during the cuban missile crisis? he understood at the time that it was imperative that we do everything to end the crisis, to make sure there was no nuclear war. these folks are pushing the russians to the point where they're going to give them a very powerful incentive to at least think if not use nuclear weapons. in my opinion, this is just irresponsible. so on the, on the counterpoint to that, john, you know, some were praising president biden early on for showing restraint of not letting poland mig fighters to be transferred, of trying to send signals has he's done recently to president lensky, that the provision of missiles came only with the absolute sacred pledge never to attack russia, so that you could maintain this notion that america was sort of responsibly keeping

this conflagration contained within ukraine's borders. and not at our doing, you know, going over those borders. would you what, what grade would you give joe? biden on restraint. well, i think there's no question when the conflict started. he exercised significant restraint. but the problem that we face is that as the war goes on, incentives come about to increase the amount of aid that we give to the ukrainians. it's kind of like salami tactics and what's happened here is we've given more and more and more a to the ukrainians. we're getting deeper and deeper into the war. one could argue we've effectively declared war against russia and we're just letting the ukrainians do the fighting. ah, so it's very hard to say where the escalation stops in this war because as we

escalate the russians escalade as well. we've just promised that we the americans and the british would give them long range ah, multiple launching rockets systems. ah, that can go deep into ukraine and may be in to russia. putin has made it clear laugh. rob has made it clear that they will respond to that. so you have this real tit for tat, taking place, and where it all ends up is very hard to say. but restraint is slowly but steadily going out the window. well, i do believe that the majority of observers and media the to this are framing it in terms of a fight for democracy that we're watching and observing. what do you think of that framing? i think it doesn't make good sense. i think you want to think about this crisis is basically a geo political crisis involving the united states and russia. the fact is that we pushed nato right up to russia's doorstep and the russians said that this was

unacceptable. this is a good old fashion realist argument. and if you're in the business of thinking that you can spread democracy around the world, the way the united states tends to think it can do. and that other countries are not going to push back. because realism or re out poly teak doesn't matter any more . and all that really matters is the distinction between democracy in authoritarian states. you're going to get yourself into a whole heck of a lot of trouble and that's what's happened here. so i think it just doesn't make sense to look at, look at it in those terms. and again, i would emphasize that the principal threat, the united states faces in the world today is not russia. russia can barely handle the ukrainian military, it barely could handle the georgia military in 2008. this is not a country that looks anything like the soviet union did. after world war 2. we do have a peer competitor, it's called china, and we better be concentrating our efforts on content in china and not getting

involved in a messy war in eastern europe with russia. john, lot of policymakers around the world, secretly read your articles. they may not want to be seen doing that because you're a controversial character and you know, in some quarters in this, but, you know, people read you, they listen to you, they reach out to you folks from europe do. and i guess, given your level of awareness about these institutions or what going on, i'm really interested in the solvency of nato right now that i've just returned from a trip from europe. and there is this kind of 2 layers, you know, in japanese you'd call it poppy, my and jose, the top, the my, the surfaces nato, is reborn, repurposed revitalized because of the attack of ukraine. and now new purpose, the whole nay. the reality is, there's a lot of doubt in that relationship, they're not sherman, whether the nighted states is going to be with its allies in dark days or not. and as they look at january 6, they look at the toxicity in american politics. they look at, you know,

a few years of donald trump, who want to remove america from a number of these institutions. they're not sure how steady america is. what is your sense about the solvency of nato today? well, just to embellish your point done nato. you also want to remember that if we have a major crisis in east asia involving china, america's focus will shift from, ah, ukraine, and the russian problem to china very quickly. so there is that, in addition to all the factors that you pointed out, i would also note steve, that if you look inside nato, they're powerful centrifugal forces at play. if you listen to mic crone talk about how we should deal with putin, he is basically saying, we don't want to humiliate. what we want to do is want to give him an off ramp want to be able to negotiate with him the ukrainians. find this unacceptable, but more importantly, the east europeans find this unacceptable,

and i believe the by the administration funds it unacceptable. so you see cleavages within nato. they will only grow with time. and you see problems down the road between united states and its european allies. so this, i think over time will become a messier and messier situation. let's listen to president biden on his recent views on ukraine. their territory. i'm not going to tell them what they should and shouldn't do. but it appears to me that at some point along the lines of settlement and what that entails, i don't know. i don't think anybody know sometime in the meantime, we're going to continue to put the ukrainians in a position where they can defend themselves. john is president biden reading mearsheimer this the 1st time i've heard him talk about a negotiated off ramp, much like you spoke about. it's very hard to say whether he believes what he's

saying. i mean, obviously this war is going to end with some form of negotiated settlement. but what that negotiated settlement looks like is very hard to say at this point in time. i believe that the, by the administration wants to inflate a decisive defeat on russia inside of ukraine. and it wants to weaken, ah russia with sanctions. and i don't think the, by the administration at this point in time is interested in a negotiated settlement. and the reason is that and negotiated settlement would involve making major concessions to the russians. and the biden administration, given its rhetoric, is not in a position where it may major concessions to the russians. so the situation on the battlefield has got to change a lot more over time before and negotiated settlement is

a viable alternative. so my sense is that president biden is just saying this for public relations purposes. you know, china is that a topic you've mentioned many times, i am fascinated by what, what, you know, whether joe biden is, you know, engaging in something smart or not, in terms of taiwan. making the comment that should there be a military activity with taiwan that, that the united states would militarily come to their defense and thus ending on the strategic ambiguity over taiwan until the white house walk back president by the comments. so it's now created this question of what's real policy. what are your views about that step that the president took in responding to china? let me make 2 points. the 1st of all, i think that we have to defend taiwan. i think there's no question about that for strategic reasons. it would be disastrous for our alliance structure in east asia.

if we were not to defend taiwan and further, taiwan is important militarily. if you're interested in bottling up the chinese navy in the chinese air force inside the 1st island chain, and we are interested in doing that. so we're going to defend taiwan. i think would biden has done is actually quite smart. he's said that the policy has changed in effect by saying he would come to the defense of taiwan axiomatic. lee. and then of course, the white house walks that back and says that really policy hasn't changed. it's clear that we're inching towards a change in the policy, but not really changing the policy. we don't want to anger the chinese too much and i think that smart, but we do at the same time want to make it clear to them that we will defend taiwan . and i think biden has done a good job on that. so i would give him an a grade for his handling of the china threat on that dimension. let me just ask you finally,

i sort of look at power in the world as sort of like the stock market. that power is a function of future expectations. and if you measure power is a function of future expectations, which portfolio is doing better, right now? china's or america's why the different view of power, steve? i view power mainly in terms of material capabilities. and what i curve are 2 things. the size of your population and how much wealth you have. and what makes china so threatening today is it's incredibly dynamic economy. the fact that in terms of cutting edge technologies, it's right out there with the united states, and we fear that over time, they'll overtake us. they'll become the leading country in the world. in terms of developing new technologies, they'll become much wealthier than us. and as you know, they already have a much bigger population. so if the united states is up against a country with more people and more well,

it's in deep trouble. and this is why china is such a formidable adversary. we're doing everything we can to head that problem off at the pass by, you know, making changes in how we do business here in the united states. and hopefully the chinese will make a number of st. mistakes regarding their own economy. and they'll do things to weaken their economy and they'll hit the flat of the curve and we'll be in much better shape moving forward. but that's not for sure. well, dr. john mearsheimer, i really appreciate your willingness to provoke our thinking into bigger ways and a different angles of this. the set of challenges today. thanks so much for joining us. university of chicago professor of political science, john mearsheimer. thank you. my pleasure, steve. so what's the bottom line, buckle up folks, things are going to get a lot worse. according to my guest today, who is one of the world's leading thinkers in the real school of foreign policy. here's how things are going to go down. one,

america's going to invest deeply and trying to create strategic defeat for russia and ukraine and to this will distract from china, which actually is a troop here competitive united states. unlike russia, the result will be a dangerous and potentially crippling effect on america status in place in the world. it's alliances and its ability to get its way. we can take bets on whether john mearsheimer is right or wrong, but if he is right, we're talking about a big turning point in history. just like the war in suez, egypt in 1956 back then the power and procedure, the united kingdom came crashing down once. and for all it's happened before the powerful, over extended empires that lost their focus. and it can happen again. and that's the bottom line, ah, from the wells most populated region, in depth stories from across asia and the pacific with diverse cultures and

conflicting politics. one 0, one east. on al jazeera lou lou ah, wherever you go in the world, one airline goes to make it for you. exceptional katara always going places to go with me and then she investments ah.