>> there are a lot of places to get political. but only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. no matter where you are from or where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's network. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. if it happens here or here or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span. powered by cable. >> former ranking member of the house security committee and a washington expert on for policy. welcome to "washington journal." guest: it is nice to be back and i think what you do on c-span is so important because you do

longform and so much of our media is little blurbs. this is a good way for people to understand the issues and speak their minds. host: we have you on this morning to talk about the state of the russian invasion of ukraine as we enter the eighth week. if you look back two months, is this how you thought this war might go? guest: actually not. i did not think there would be an invasion. i was at the munich security conference before the 22nd time. it was an annual richer -- annual ritual of john mccain when he was in congress. a lot of us learn a lot about foreign policy him and the event. after he died and i left congress, i kept going. there i was and volodymyr

zelenskyy appeared in person and said please help us. we think we will be invaded by russians and don't be appeasers. my own family story is that my father's family lived in southeast poland and in 1942 he was rounded up and you know the rest of the story. there was a lot about the u.s. appeasing hitler's in the beginning. i sat there and thought, i understand why he is doing this but i don't think they will be invaded. i don't think russia will be that foolish. i was wrong. he has been amazingly impressive and great leader ever since. country has outperformed its classical capability because of its great and skill -- its

grit and skill and devotion to protecting sovereignty. host: are you getting a better sense of what you think vladimir putin's ultimate goal is in this. guest: he wrote his version of the long telegram talking about greater russia. he needs to handout red hat saying make russia great again. i don't agree with him but i understand why russians feel offended, since the end of the cold war. i just wrote a book called "insanity defense" about the u.s.'s failure to think about what the world would look like after the cold war ended. we thought it would be perfect and we were wrong. i can understand some of his reasons. i disagree because he has the

largest country on the planet and a lot of economic issues to deal with. the russia he is president of has a storied history. there was this interest in an western nation. he doesn't share that. he wants to attend to his own garden and make his country great again. i think he is missing the mark, thinking about aggrandizing ukraine and keeping crimea and maybe invading the baltics and moldova and georgia. it seems to be misguided and from our point of view, very dangerous. host: one of putin's goals was to prevent ukraine from joining

nato but he seems to have exacerbated the problem with the possibility of finland and sweden joining nato. finland went to within weeks whether to seek nato membership. this is backfiring on vladimir putin -- is this backfiring on the vladimir putin? guest: you would think. many scholars and tank types have talked about finland's neutrality and it has worked for finland. you can see russia from finland. i think after this experience, they don't want to feel they won't have nato troops in their countries and in their skies if russia invades.

they have been pushed into nato, the exact result putin did not want. sweden, another rich and wonderful country, it has not been in the same security vice finland has been in, but i can understand why it would go, too. i don't know where we are with george and moldova. it is a decision the countries should make and net to has to agree. it is not the u.s.'s decision. host: do you think nato is more united and it has ever been? guest: yes. how long it will be disunited is a question, but yes i do. i think the fact that germany step up for the first time since the end of world war ii and offered to not only pay more but

to provide more in the way of hardware is unprecedented. why you heard a little bit of caution is germany has a fairly new coalition government. they don't all agree perfectly. over time, there may be some pushback against this new commitment to hardware and nato. there was also not yet a pushback against cutting off purchasing gas from russia. and why that matters -- pardon me. host: i will let you get some water for a moment. a reminder to our viewers, you can call in with your questions. we welcome your calls at

202-748-8001 for republicans. democrats, 202-748-8000. for independents, 202-748-8002. a headline, "the u.n. has been awol on ukraine, let's have a do a peacekeeping mission." that seems a difficult prospect even russia is on the security council and they had vetoed some measures. how does that happen? guest: let me finish my last answer -- it is not you, my fault. putin is thing for time hoping the u.s. coalition will fray and france, led by macron, will have new leadership. that would be marine le pen. she is not favored to win the

election the election is a week and a half. russia will try to so disinformation and do cyber attacks. but back to the u.s., i have said on air that the you in has been -- in this endeavor. they published statistics about how many civilians are displaced in ukraine and how many kids are displaced. it's infrastructure is almost in ruins. yes, we do need a fact checker to get us that information. but the you in was formed after world war ii to protect the sovereignty of its members, the sovereignty of its members. hello, here is the sovereignty of ukraine being invaded. the you in was one of the signatories in 1994 to the agreement which caused the

ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. the other signatories were russia, u.s., and u.k. obviously russia has violated that. the you in tried -- the u.n. tried to -- it passed in the general assembly. ambassador jim jeffrey and i ate a point that the general assembly, which does not have vetoes, has enough authority to convene a peacekeeping force which could patrol humanitarian corridors in ukraine. this is what was done in 1950 in korea by general counsel resolution. there is not any talk of that. the only talk is, we pushed russia out of the human rights council. why don't we push russia out of the security council where it is obviously violating the security

of an independent sovereign country? host: let's get to calls. mary in potomac, maryland on the independent line. good morning. caller: my comment is mr. zelinski asked for the -- mr. volodymyr zelenskyy asked for the no-fly zone and we did not comply. putin only fears a strong force from the other side. when we backed down and did not give them the no-fly zone, it empowered him. i feel there was no risk of world war iii because putin was

not willing to take on a nuclear bomb falling on moscow or st. petersburg. we actually let them down. a no-fly zone would have definitely stopped all this massacre going on now. guest: thank you for the thought. many people shared it. the view of nato -- we are matched up with nato and the european union on this. that is a change from our last administration which pushed nato away. the elected view was that that was too risky. not just because of nuclear war, because of the fact that planes would have to take off from

airports inside nato countries. that would involve nato in the war. ukraine is not a nato member and there are better ways to do this. that view is being debated. yesterday we agreed to get helicopter to ukraine which can take off and land in ukraine. one thing putin did do was destroyed most of the airfields in ukraine. if there were plans -- if there were plans taking off from europe flying into ukraine, it would be hard to imagine where they would land and refuel. at any rate, hindsight is always better. should we have believed ukraine would be this effective, i would

say absolutely. host: let's go to john in plainfield, new jersey. caller: i know this war sounds more like the war of 1939 with the fins -- the finns and the russians. you have seen things about this war they go to the time of stalin. i know that is one of putin's heroes. he is like the one who used to be in charge of the earlier version of cia in russia. one of the things we are not dealing with is this guy is a monster and he wants to bring back the soviet system. one of the things we have not done with ukraine as there are other options we could have used. one option are the cobra

helicopters from vietnam times. that would have an an interesting thing. also, we could have had a tiger operation by using the f 20's and planes like that or take the stuff we had in the agreement with iran and see if we could use those equipment for the ukrainians. host: several things there, john. congresswoman jane harman? guest: he do -- he who does not understand history is doomed to repeat it. it is good to understand this. some of the surplus military assets that may be around, i have a feeling -- i don't know, i was not inside. i left congress in 2011 and now had a think tank in washington and am now president america --

resident america -- president emerita of that think tank. i don't know where that equipment is. we are urging the neighbors of ukraine to take what they have and push it into ukraine. we will back sale or advanced equipment. that is enticing to them, that is why slovenia is sending in the f-3 hundreds. it is a russian designed system. i agree with you, if it had been in earlier, it could have projected that missile from slamming into the train station in the donbas area. that was just about a week ago.

i don't know where that surplus is. i think we are inventorying what is there and pushing it in faster. hindsight is always better. one comment on putin, everybody is demonizing him. i am not saying it is not fair, but i don't know if calling him names is the most effective thing. it plays into his propaganda. teddy roosevelt said talk softly and carry a big stick. i think we would do well to carry a big stick and talk soft. host: you mentioned in your book that a failure to face security problems makes us less safe. have we failed to confront putin along the line?

did we let the silent war going on in ukraine without giving enough support to ukraine to win that wearer -- to win that war after 2014, for example? guest: my book is not just about putin and u.s.-russia, but if i can answer in the context of the book, when i left congress i wanted to write about my expenses in congress. people said right mmr about your wife. i wanted -- people said write a memo more about your life. i did not want to do that. it is about the years after the cold war and the fact that the united states never had a strategy for what the world would look like after the cold war. we thought we one, they lost. everybody wants to be us.

we missed the rise of china, the rise of terrorism, and russia's grievances. what we have is a lot of tactics. we're going to do this in afghanistan and that in ukraine. we were performing well in ukraine, not so much in afghanistan. we are too busy to put the other pieces together. what worries me is that the so-called liberal world order we fashioned after world war ii where we won but we were magnanimous to our enemies, especially germany and japan, and we worked on a marshall plan to rebuild those we had vanquish. we built a world to reflect our values, our life-support. not only do we need to pay

attention to europe -- i mentioned germany's new beliefs that they should be a full-fledged member of nato. there could be a population in youth -- in france that wants to -- other people say we are not so confident u.s. leadership will be there. what is during the about the putin area -- the putin era, what scares me is we do not have a day after strategy. even if we can push him back, and hopefully we can in ukraine. certainly push him out of the donbas region or end up in a place where he has to negotiate a deal from a point of weakness and that is favorable to us, even if we can do that, then what?

what does the rest of the world look like? what are we doing? we have to have a good china strategy, we don't want war with china. we want cooperation, competition, and calling china out where we disagree. we want to -- we could argue that china wants both sides to lose in this war. of course they want us to lose but they also want to rush her to lose so they can turn russia into a gas station for china. there are big issues that require more thought. the fact that the you in -- that the un is not a player right now is colossally disappointing. caller: just a quick comment, you set history repeats itself.

the u.s. went to iraq and wanted to create a country. that did not work out. ukraine also has a really big bad neighbor. finally, [indiscernible] or if india took over another country or any other nuclear country took over another country. the world won't go to nuclear war just because a nation took over another nation, especially smaller nations.

finally, i would like to say that we are talking softly in the u.s. but we don't have the big stick. host: i missed that last little bit. go ahead. guest: he said we don't have a stake. is that correct? host: he dropped off. guest: okay. that is an interesting set of comments. the last answer is that we are now in a world in which many countries, some responsible and some rogue countries have nukes. if we don't understand the new geopolitics like we did not in iraq, we end up creating vacuums and opportunities for prop rogue countries to increase their power which is what we are not

tried to accomplish. in my book, i talk about going to war with iraq and that it was based on fraud intelligence. i voted to go to war with iraq. i have a story about my own husband who, when i told him i was going to do this, said you are going to do what? i told him i read all of the intelligence, traveled to europe and the middle east. as far as i know, the intelligence is accurate. he said you will see, it is not. he was right. the point is, we went to war in iraq. a bad guy was leaving iraq. we knock him off, we did not have good strategy for how they would rebuild a strong country. that created a vacuum and iran has moved in. we still don't have a good strategy for iran. we are trying to resurrect the nuclear deal that i think at the

last administration wrongly pulled out of. the deadlines are short and some of the new demands like removing the -- from the list and letting russia trade with iran may be too hard to swallow. we are ending up in a world where, as i said, we have more nuclear powers where we have created vacuums. south korea and japan are talking about whether they should create a nuclear capacity after four years and under the nuclear umbrella. that is because i think our leadership is doubted. president biden was talking to the prime minister of india the other day about ukraine and russia and what biden said was please do not increase your oil imports from russia.

he did not say cut them off. it was more of an nuanced call because he is recognizing that not only is india a major power in the world, it is a nuclear power. we have to structure our relationships in this world carefully but we better get on with it. if we don't have a day after strategy in ukraine and we did not have a day after strategy after saddam hussein, we will have an unbelievably unstable world. it might be really bad for the u.s.. host: let's hear from richard, oceanside, california. good morning. caller: good morning. guest: you're from california, paradise. caller: i am in oceanside, san diego county. the weather is good. i used to live in orange county.

i have lived here all my life. i have not and around the world much that my wife has a lot. she went to high school in baghdad in the 1960's. i have a palestinian brother-in-law and i read a paper one of her friends wrote when she was going to university which described a period when the airliners were being hijacked. there was a big disaster. now they have big airport security. i'm going to purchase your book today. you are right, we are always a day late and a dollar short. i am tired of it. you know more than i, but i think putin is a chomp and a bully -- a chump and a bully. i don't think we have to use new weapons against him. i think it is getting close to the time when we are going to

have to get tough with these guys. if we don't get tough, we are going to have a mess when this party is over. this paper describes how there was no real airport security back in the day. nobody mentioned hijacking airplanes. look what happened in 9/11. host: richard, we will let you go there. would you like to respond? guest: you are from california so everything you say is right. on 911 since we have not talked about that -- of course, it is in my book. i was walking towards the dome of the capitol at 9:00 a.m. on 9/11 which was the target of one of the airplanes which failed because of the courage of the passengers. i was on a commission called the national commission on terrorism

formed by congress. a republican from virginia, retired now, insisted congress take a look at this. we predicted a major attack on u.s. soil. we testified before congress. on september 10, 2001, we were bemoaning the fact no one was listening. the sad thing is about history and about now is there are signs , there are ideas, there are better things to do. sometimes our political establishment just is not here and does not act. host: i wanted to ask you about president biden's comments about calling what is happening in ukraine genocide. a piece today from bill hunt

omar saying -- from the congresswoman saying equality under the law is one of the core tenets of our legal system. if we truly believe in prioritizing human rights and enforcing international law, how can we not be part of the court that upholds that law, the international criminal court which would be the body that would hear arguments on crimes -- on war crimes. guest: i don't know her. her and the other members of the squad came to congress after me and i don't agree with some of her views but i agree here. i think the international criminal court -- has prosecuted people for war crimes. for instance, in bosnia.

i think we need an international system to do that. another thing the u.s. has never done is join a -- convention. here we are protesting actions in the east and south china sea because they have violated international law. there has been resistance to these international conventions because it is somehow giving up our sovereignty. i think one of the tenants in the world order are to be that the u.s. is prepared to share power with like-minded countries around a set of interests and values, one of >> c-span's washington journal. we discussed policy issues that impact you. coming up friday morning, mark,

national urban league president and ceo discusses the findings of the organization's 22 state of black america work. and we will talk about the future of the republican party, the biden presidency and the 2022 midterm elections with syndicated columnist carol tollett. watch washington journal friday morning, on c-span now, our new mobile app. join the discussion with phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets. >> white house national security advisor jake sullivan talked about security concerns and russia's invasion of the ukraine in a conversation hosted by the economic club of washington. you can watch that tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span, online ad span.org or our free video app, span now. >> all this month watch the top 21 videos fromur