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tv   The Bottom Line  Al Jazeera  September 30, 2022 11:00pm-11:31pm AST

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ah, how does the mr left? oh, now to do on counting, the cost will cutting taxes, kick stars, the u. k. economy always britain bracing up financial prices. central banks are hiking interest rates. we ask about the global impact. plus why movies from bali wouldn't normally would are fighting to stay in the spotlight. doing the cost all just talk to al jazeera, we are a, somehow abandoned by the international community. we listen, we have a huge price for the war against terrorism that's going on in some money. we meet with global news makers. i'm talk about the stories that matter on al jazeera. ah,
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hello, i'm marianna demising and then just a quick look at the main stories now and russia is used. it's vito power to block a un security council resolution condemning its annexation of 4 ukrainian regions. china, gabon, india, and brazil, abstained. washer is a permanent member of the body, so it's consistently wielded that privilege to block un resolutions on the conflict out diplomatic editor changed phases in new york. and he explains, it was as expected in that is not going to pass with a russian veto. the russians declared their no vote as a permanent member. their vote no vote trumps anyone else's vote. this resolution condemning russia is not going to pass and that that was to be expected. the russian ambassador said that they'd been provoked to use their veto. he said that that's the only thing that could happen if you had a resolution that directly or condemns russia,
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or the u. s. and albania were the ones who came up with the resolution that drafted the resolution. but other countries, like the u. k and france were strongly on board with this resolution. there'll be a little bit upset. i think that china, of course, abstained. we were expecting china to abstain, but there were 3 other members of the security council who abstained. this next goes to the general assembly. i think some of the supporters of ukraine, we worried that a similar thing might happen at the general assembly. they'll be more people abstaining. more people who are not positively on ukraine's side against russia. or earlier, president putin join thousands of people at moscow's right square for a public celebration after formerly claiming the ukrainian regions as follows, referendums denounced as sham vote by the international community. in response, ukraine has formerly submitted a fast track application to join nato. will russian missiles have hit a convoy of ukrainians trying to bring back family from occupy territories? at least 30 people were killed in the city of zap erasure. breaking news here now
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in a bikini faso army office has appeared on state t v, saying that the country's military leader, paul only damn uber has been ousted gunshots were heard at the main military camp in the city and near the presidential palace. the army is in the streets, they are blocking access to major buildings in a capital state t v as talk broadcasting and radio signals have also been at cart will do have that information that her qu has taken place there. hearken is now made landfall in south carolina. full cost of predicting a storm surge and flogs off to the mega storm cools catastrophic damage. in florida, the historic city of charleston is likely to feel a brunt of this storm vice president joe biden is approved. an emergency declaration for the state has already been haven't caused by this in florida. the harkin was one of the most powerful storms to hit the u. s. in recent
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years with at least 21 desk reported. so far florida's governor says that the damage cause will likely take years to repair the homes of more than $80000.00. residents in the town of fort myers been destroyed. christians luma reports now from fort myers. this is where hurricane ian came. a ground as a category for a storm with record serge. devastation is everywhere. you look behind me. you can see a boat that was in the water. now in the middle of the street, there are buildings toppled roofs tore it off. power lines down everywhere. in fact, 1900000 people are still without power in florida, and that is complicating ongoing search and rescue efforts. and some areas where flooding has prevented rescuers from getting in on a barrier island where the bridge to the island is out. it's impossible to reach people because of the lack of power and lack of cell phone service and the depth
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tool. now $21.00 known fatalities, but that could rise as those search efforts continue around here. people are taking stock of the damages and getting ready for a long rebuilding process. now and other important story to bring you from afghanistan, the death toll from a suicide attack on an education center in cobble has risen to 50. most of the victims a women, they were students who was sitting a practice university entrance exam and the mostly shia part of west in campbell. the bottom line with steve clements is next ah hi, i'm steve clemens and i have a question. as russia finds itself backed into a corner in ukraine, could this war go nuclear, let's get to the bottom line. ah,
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it started 7 months ago and there's no end in sight. the ukrainian military has made some major advances, but russia still controls 20 percent of the country. and there's nothing to suggest that this war is winding down. the ukrainian military is backed up by western weapons and western intelligence gathering, which tells them where the russian soldiers are and where ammunition is being stored. president joe biden has asked congress to provide a new package of about $12000000000.00 of aid to ukraine on top of the nearly $50000000000.00 sent there in the past year. and moscow is doubling down to hundreds of thousands of military reserves are being called up. now, referendums are being held in the ukranian territories that russia controlled asking folks whether they'd prefer to belong to ukraine, order. russia. and put recently said something really remarkable. he said he's not bluffing when he threatened the quote, make use of all weapon systems available and you know what that means. he is talking about nuclear weapons to. so are things taking a turn for the worse and could this war go nuclear?
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today we're talking with cory shockey director, a foreign and defense policy studies at the american enterprise institute, who served this director for defense strategy and the national security council under president george w bush. she's also author of america versus the west. can the liberal world order be preserved? and john will stall former adviser to president brock obama and now a senior advisor to the global 0 initiative, which works on the elimination of nuclear weapons. he blogs at the sub stack site. boom boom, boom, read it. it's very interesting, let me just ask you both, and i'm going to start with you, corey, where has the notion that we need to know about nuclear weapons and how to respond to them. gone structurally. in our defense analysis in our defense plants. well, there is certainly still a cod tray as people who care ad desperately and work carefully on the issue that james martin instituted in monterey that m i t political science to var read
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right stratcom. all sorts of people. but we have had the good fortune for the last 30 years to not have to care about this problem. and the return of nuclear menace as russia loses its war and ukraine and the germanic expansion at china's nuclear weapons program. the emergence of programs in iran and north korea. ah, our cause seeing a lot of people who study national security to focus their attention back on this field. well john, you have written a piece to this point called deterring, deterring pollutants. nuclear threats in your boom boom boom ah, sup, stack websites, fascinating piece. and you sort of reveal that there had been simulations in thinking about this when you served in the obama administration. so vladimir putin is out there right now. looks to a lot of folks like he's in a bit of a corner, taking some desperate actions inside ukraine, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of new forces to be deployed to ukraine,
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but also threatening potential use of nuclear weapons. what's your take on how serious latimer putin is? well, we don't, 1st of all, it is very dangerous. a disaster people have ukraine and as the people of europe who have been disrupted by it. but the reality is you can't put a percentage on risk. but we know the vladimir putin has nuclear weapons. we know that he's willing to use force to achieve his goals and he's fully capable of launching nuclear weapons. and so the risk is not 0. and therefore we have to take it seriously. fortunately, inside any administration, there are professionals who work these issues, both in the military and in the civilian side that think through. what are the threats? is the united states, if insecure, are our safe and secure? and more importantly, how do we deter enemies from doing things that we don't want them to do? we can deter them by denying them the benefits they might seek to achieve or by punishing them to such an extent that they never benefit from their attacks.
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obviously what we'd like to do is be so effective at determined that they never even think about using nuclear weapons, but putting already cross that threshold. and now we're very much in the business has been seen by president biden. and secretary state tony, blinking, making very clear publicly that they've communicated to russia, that any use of nuclear weapons would never succeed, that they would be punished to an extent that would never make the attack worthwhile. and they shouldn't even think about it. corey, i would ask you, what can the west do credibly, and do you feel like we're handling this defining moment for the solvency of american power for nato, for the western alliance? is, are we doing well at this moment? i think we're doing reasonably well. i agree with john. i know that it matters that though white house and other parts of the government have made clear that we are talking to the russians and making concrete consequences clear. should russia
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choose to use a nuclear weapon against the people of ukraine, where i think they could do better? is to be even more explicit about what the consequences of russia's actions would be. should they make that fateful policy choice? it sounded to me in the coverage of the, the biden, our administration's talks with the russians, that the, as the president said, you know, we're, we're talking about in general, we're not talking about specific concrete responses. i personally think, given how broad the gap is between this strategy of the biden administration and its willingness to an ability to carry out its strategy that we need to be more explicit. we should be telling the russians that our intelligence has been very good in this war. so far. we are dedicating intelligence assets to determining
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whether the russians are moving weapons into operational positions. and if they are, we will make that intelligence public. so russia has to bear consequences, not just with the united states and ukraine, but other countries. second thing we should be doing is telling the russians that if we see them moving to use a nuclear weapon in ukraine, we will interdicted. if we have the ability to do so, ah, to take that tool out of their hands. 3rd thing if we fail to interdict their use, that we will, sans american and other nato forces to ukraine, to help and mealy rate the consequences of it. so am so effects, consequence management, but we will also join the we're on the side of ukraine. and because we need to make sure the russians understand that the use of this weapon won't change the outcome
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of the war. it will simply change the cost of the war and it will dramatically raise the cost to them. and the 4th thing we should be telling them is that we will hunt down and bring to justice. every single ration involved in the policy decision or the execution of such an order. so you have just help define something. cory shockey that i was asking in a tweet when i heard a biden national security advisor, jake sullivan, say the results of any action i have to ask myself in when joe biden and jake sullivan are talking about their concern of nuclear and chemical weapons. there must be some intelligence, his forcing them to, you know, express those concerns. and i ask, please define catastrophic. so you've begun to do that, you know, begun to look at. but what i'm hearing you say is really something that sounds a lot like a next world war. am i am i wrong, john? but i don't think you're wrong and i like to take the point to or the opportunity to agree with almost everything. corey just said, what have you not agree with?
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so i agree with most of the points, but i don't agree about the idea that we should be ready to interject and preempt nuclear used by russia. and i think why not, because one human beings make mistakes and we misinterpret moves. that could be a prelude to an attack, which are actually something else. we have to acknowledge that our tolerance is not always perfect, and that's been demonstrated multiple times in the past. but i think that's very much on the minds of president biden and other leaders, which is we want to do everything we can to make vladimir putin life difficult without turning this into world war 3. we've put and chooses across the nuclear threshold. he could do so without moving troops or without moving missiles around. he has nuclear weapons deployed on submarines deployed on in silos that can be launch without any notice in any preparation. so we can't simply bomb our nuclear problem away with putin. well, we can say to him, and i agree with cory on us, that if he were to use a nuclear weapon, we should make it clear that he's now in a war with the united states and all of nato. and that we will hold everybody,
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including him directly and personally responsible. it would be the end, not only of russia as position of power in the world, but of his rule in russia, no matter how long it takes. and i think the united states is very credible on that, whether it is or some, a been lawton, or other people that have challenged the united states at a strategic level. but we have to be very careful and i think this goes in court. i may disagree on this in terms of what assistance we are prepared to provide ukraine . we should do everything we can to make sure you crane survives, that they can defeat russian aggression and they re, can reclaim ukrainian territory. and we have to do that without creating a dynamic where russia itself will feel directly threatened by ukraine or the united states. so that we can bring this war to a conclusion without russian troops on ukrainian territory. and that is a very, very small landing strip that the president and others are trying to get into. and we have to be cautious not to overreach in terms of our capabilities or the consequence. let me ask you both where you think this conflict is going. is there
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a negotiated end or both sides? kind of, are they kind of negotiating with each other? the russians are saying, hey, here's what we could do. the landscape out there saying we'll never give up an inch of land. we'll go forever. it's just sort of interesting that when you begin looking into the abyss of truly horrific global exchange that could expand far further. does the world have to acquiesce to some butchering up of ukraine as a way to get to this corey? you know, where i disagree with john just a minute ago and with you, steve? is that it is, it does not deter adversaries to project. all of our fears. am on to the public record. right? president bright and his right to worry about world war 3, he's right to as think we need to. i have policies that minimize the
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effects. but to tell your adversary repeatedly, all you are afraid of isn't deterrence, right? russia is losing a war to ukraine. it's losing a war with conventional forces to ukraine. it looks like the russians begin to try and make nuclear threats. and threats of, ah, you know, environmental terrorism attacking their own nord stream pipelines. um and so yes, this is scary. yes, it is dangerous. that is the nature of warfare. and yet we should not lose perspective that we are the strong ones in this equation, not the weak ones. and we should be projecting our strength into the conversation. not all of our anxieties of what we're afraid might happen,
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because to do that encourages russia to believe that they can set the conditions at the end of the war. they are losing, that they can use nuclear and other threats to affect american behavior. that's just not good deterrence strategy. i find your perspective really fascinating, corey, and i think a very important contribution here. nonetheless, the russians are working to annex these large portions of territory to sort of begs the question of, as you look at, i mean, this looks like a war that's not going to wind down anytime soon. and so maybe would be naive to even ask the question of how we get to that solution. but right now, clearly as a result of what core you see, you see the russians are losing this war, doing steps that are potentially very d, stabilizing inside moscow. with the mobilization of these men, we just saw pictures of a 10 mile long line of folks trying to get out of the country. so it is now come home to moscow,
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the consequences of this. and so i'm interested just just very quickly in as you begin looking at it and maybe we don't translate and transmit our fears. but when you come to the broader question of what this nato and the transit atlantic alliance need to achieve, percent, where does this go by way of russia? is it, is it the complete emasculation in defeat of russia? or is there some middle ground? so that's up to russia. i was in cave a couple of weeks ago, and president zelinski captured it perfectly. he said that there are people trying to persuade him to make concessions to russia, to bring the war to an end. what ukraine is instead, trying to do is set the conditions for bringing the war to an end. you know, it's popular to say military force can't solve this problem. military force is solving this problem, and russia can lose in a bunch of different ways. it can enter into negotiations now with the ukrainians.
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it can enter into negotiations once they lose crimea. there are lots of different off ramps, but we shouldn't be either ourselves or pushing ukraine to make concessions that russia's invasion of ukraine and the catastrophic performance of russian. the terry have imposed upon russia itself as the great i frank miller, he who works a lot on nuclear strategy is fond of saying that the line judge doesn't disqualify a swimmer. the swimmer disqualifies the swimmer. russia has set the conditions for the outcome of this war. by invading ukraine and by having a catastrophically bad military strategy that they can't even execute. john, i know you wanted to jump it. yeah. was i agree with cory. i mean, i don't think the united states should be pushing ukraine at all to make concessions. i think the bravery shown by the ukrainian people that creativity of
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their military, i think, does change the landscape in europe. and quite frankly, i think a lot of people are going to be asking when this war does. and why don't we bring ukraine into nato? because they know better than anybody how to hold risks and threats like russia at bay. i think the question is, what is the end goal for ukraine? are they going to be satisfied with repelling russia from the territory they've occupied since february? will they say now that we've liberated those areas, we now want to go and liberate the crimea, and recognize that even if that is a legitimate right of ukraine to do. and even if the united states wants to support that, that does create new challenges and risks of escalation for potent. i think court, i would agree we would like to be gone. we'd prefer an internal coup. we prefer to him to be defeated. we want to see ukraine victorious on the battlefield. and so far right now that's working. the united states, however, to make that possible, needs to deter from escalating this crisis. and that is
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a very difficult challenge. who can use nuclear weapons? he's clearly threatening it to try to influence it, influence us, and that's just a reality. nuclear weapons do influence foreign leaders. we'd be naive to suggest otherwise. but i don't think that means we're projecting weakness. i think the president has said very clearly the latimer potent don't even think about it. and by demonstrating our resolve as an alliance to support ukraine. and if necessary to respond to the use of nuclear weapons, i think we are projecting strength. i think the real question is, where does the line get drawn? and the reality is that neither bruton nor president biden, nor anybody on this interview really knows where that lines going to be drawn. we have to play it day by day, john, you put something in your article, which i had not thought about is that bladder, mere putin could decide as a, as a demonstration of resolve to deploy a nuclear weapon in the air. and not use it for by tactical battlefield use to just send a signal that he was willing to do that. and that would be historic that might create
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an electromagnetic pulse, it might have consequences. what kind of response does the world offer to that? and, and i guess the other thing i feel so strongly, and i've learned this from cory shockey from listening for so long. these are not siloed issues from others. the north koreans are watching. the iranians are watching lots of pakistan and india are watching lots of other worlds that are at nuclear threshold or nuclear capable nations are watching what transpires in these moments and a gets it just, it just haunts me. that the action while we may not want to escalate the horror, you could create a permission slip in the future. and i'm wondering how do you not do that and how do you respond to something like the scenario i sort of, i'll be honest, i thought that the way that folks thought about your response was rather weak. and if i were north koreans, i would take heart, frankly, in what you shared. so it looks like we had to be careful about not making decisions now based on what it might mean for precedence in the future,
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right. job number one is defeating vladimir putin in ukraine. my personal view is that if you let her put and where to use a demonstration strike over the black sea, it would be sign not of resolve but of desperation. and it would show, as korea said that he is losing the war conventionally, i think the least effective thing we could do would be to respond to a demonstration strike with a nuclear weapon demonstration of our own. because we are winning the war. ukraine is winning the war. we don't want to feel that he can expand to the nuclear battle space because quite frankly, when nuclear states go off against each other, nobody wins. i'd rather win the war and beat him conventionally. i would rather fight a nuclear chest, beating competition korea. i'd love to get your thoughts on that as well. but i also want to ask you as we get close to wrapping this conversation, which is so fascinating up is to what degree you worry about ukraine fatigue. and not only you treat ukraine critique at home here in the united states where the supplemental, so the $12000000000.00,
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which we're debating to get ukrainians. people began saying, hey, we need that for other purposes. but also there's that adage, winter is coming and a lot of european governments are going to be under pressure with the high price of oil and gas and the fact that some supplies are going to be cut off for them. yeah, so i think it's right to worry about western fatigue of her ukraine, but joyfully that is not where the american public or european publics are experiencing. there's a pew paul jess out a couple of days ago that shows support for ukraine increasing as time goes on in the west, not decreasing. and i think germany is an interesting example. and i, the overwhelming majority of even green party pacifists, and germany favor arming and supporting ukraine. and they are pushing the german government to a more assertive position. and i think you see the same dynamic in the united
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states over time. so that's great. the answer to your question about what is the right response to a nuclear threat. the right response is to diminish the value of nuclear possession and nuclear threats by telling an adversary that the kind of weapon they use will make no difference to the outcome of the war. that we remain committed to winning the war. irrespective of what kind of weapons they years and it, we, well hi, dana and bring to justice. anybody responsible for the decision or the execution of an order to use a nuclear weapon in any aspect, demonstrative or otherwise. corey, before i leave it you, you have said that now a couple of times very compellingly. and honestly and maybe i've missed this. i haven't heard jake sullivan said, say that i haven't heard our secretary of state tony blanket that have not heard the president united states say we're gonna hunt down and hold accountable. any one
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involved in that long line of decision makers to that were involved with the use of that in basically saying this would be a horrific crime against humanity and hold them to account. why do you think we haven't heard those words, or at least i haven't heard those words? well, i very much hope they are saying those words privately, and i very much hope they will soon say them publicly. john, what do you think about this challenge of fatigue? well, i worry about fatigue, not because the american public or the european public are going to get tired. i think corey is exactly right. that right now, particularly as the war is going well or better for ukraine support is very strong . i do worry about political instability and united states. i worry about political instability in europe. that's something that i think joe biden and the united states are very aware of. but i think that's why we need to keep making the case. this is not just about ukraine, is about protecting the international global security order that has benefited the united states and europe more than anybody else. but i do also agree with corey
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that the message needs to be clear about accountability. i'm very confident that message has been really privately up and down the military chain of command in russia. when i was in government, that was part of the plans that we had in place to signal and message. we can debate whether those are needed publicly or not. i think vladimir putin through minister showing through general grosse and all the way down through the 12 gm. you understand that very well. and i think they know the united states is prepared and capable of carrying it out. will fascinating discussion. both of you. i think this is, you know, thinking the unthinkable is what we sometimes need to do and national security issues. i want to thank corey shockey, director of foreign and defense policy studies at the american enterprise institute, and john wolf fall senior advisor at the global 0 initiative. thanks so much for being with us today. thank you. to pleasure. so what's the bottom line? the 1st and last time a nuclear bomb was used in war with 77 years ago by the united states against japan
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. since then, there have been instances when a nuclear exchange almost happened. but is this going to be one of them to find out, we have to take a closer look at russia's leadership. president vladimir putin sees himself as the one person who can make russia great. again, according to his world view, the soviet union and russia suffered from decades of humiliation. and now it's time for payback, and that makes him driven and dangerous. no one knows if he'll decide to use a tactical nuke in this war with ukraine, but the u. s. and his allies have to figure out how to react, by the way, there is no polite way to respond to the use of nuclear weapons. and there are consequences are not responding and kind. and that would be the day when we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. and that's the bottom line. ah, it's time for a memorable holiday with pegasus. it's time for jerky. set sail for new discoveries
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