what does admiral stavridis say, let's get out of the sea of porridge. what the president is trying to do steer a narrow passage in a tight sea. on the one side, significant escalation between two nuclear powers. on the other, what we all want to achieve is support to ukrainians in this brave fight. i think he's got the ship in the middle of the channel about right. >> admiral, thank you so much. we appreciate your expertise. >> thanks, michael. >> what are your thoughts? tweet me at smerconish. hit me up. from what we're seeing on the ground daily, michael, i would argue that the question of escalation has already been answered. glenn, i find it interesting and you heard the admiral's response that there's this potential recalibration taking place. we hope putin recognizes the follies of his ways, right and concentrating on russian-speaking eastern areas of ukraine, maybe not so much on kyiv as they have in the past. another one, kathryn, if we've got time. i know there is a rick but the president would have done well to have gone to ukraine. >> robert

joining me is retired navy admiral james stavridis, he's written a work of fiction called 2034, a novel of the next world war. admiral, good morning, you have a ph.d. in international law. you were the dean of a graduate school of international law diplomacy. you're the perfect person for me to ask, what exactly is provocation in this context? >> let's start with ground troops with putin is the one provoking, putin is the uninvading. putin is the one flagrantly invading national law. he's simply invaded. he's throwing gasoline or a bon fire of war crimes by parading syrian volunteers to the battlefield. now, michael, we got to start by saying the serial violator of international law here is vladimir putin. having said that, okay, let's go over to our side of the coin here with the democracy, what can we do? i think the false discussion here is it's kind of an on and off switch, in other words, we just keep the switch off, and we watch what happens in horror. or, we flip the switch on and we send troops in. and we put our jets os ukraine. neither of those answers are right. it's a rheost

thank you so much, ivo daalder, thank you so much, admiral stavridis. we really appreciate your special expertise on a day like this. and the helping hand, president biden for the first time meeting ukrainians who have fled from the war to an uncertain future. what the u.s. can do to help the millions of refugees, that's next. you're watching a special saturday edition of "andrea mitchell reports," we are live in warsaw, only on msnbc. are lie in warsaw,nl oy on msnbc (vo) right now, the big switch is happening across the country. small businesses are fed up with big bills and 5g maps that are mostly gaps— they're switching to t-mobile for business and getting more 5g bars in more places. save over $1,000 when you switch to our ultimate business plan... ...for the lowest price ever. plus, choose from the latest 5g smartphones— like a free samsung galaxy s22. so switch to the network that helps your business do more for less—join the big switch to t-mobile for business today. we hit the bike trails every weekend so switch to the network that hel shinges

james stavridis there, thank you, sir.we have to take risks, the message from the general this money. tom: i talked logistics with ken rogoff 20 years ago. the great harvest -- harvard economist. logistics here, jon, some form of ratio of six people needed to advance one person to the front line the workup i saw a couple of days ago by someone informed was 500,000 people of russia to make this work for russia. there are nowhere near that statistic. jonathan: admiral's tremendous has done a lot as well, did you read the new york times yesterday? the commerce secretary issued a stern warning tuesday to chinese companies that might defy u.s. restrictions against exports into russia, saying the united states would cut them off from american equipment and software that they need. i don't think we have seen is fully play out, tom. tom: oh, no. this is really important. media -- and we are guilty of this. i think we are working overtime trying to do this -- this is not a game show. day 11, date 12, stay tuned for day 15 of the wa

james stavridis is a retired admiral, and fiona hill has a new book out.mbassador haley about what she said about biden's records on putin's sanctions. how would describe his efforts when it comes to putin? >> certainly there was more bilateral administration by congress and by the united nations. one thing that sums it up that you touched on is that president trump, at a critical period, withheld military assistance that was desperate at that particular juncture, basically getting zelenskyy to do a personal favor. >> what's the message to zelenskyy? >> that nobody was really serious about protecting ukraine, and that was a sign of weakness. our policy was on infighting. putin is quite shocked now to think we have some collective action together. >> james, i want you to listen to kira rudik. >> the next step we need to see is a no fly zone over ukraine. i know people are saying, no, no, a third world war will start. i will be blunt with you. it has already started. >> we have the map up. logistically, why can't we do this? >> let me start on the back end.

admiral stavridis, we were just watching president biden walk in with japan's prime minister. throughout the hour this news that president zelenskyy is now accusing russia of using phosphorous weapons, not chemical weapons, but something that is outlawed under international law to use against civilians. phosphorous weapons could be seen as war crimes. what do you make of that? what should the u.s. do if those claims are, in fact, true? >> that will be a central topic of discussion at the nato summit. first, i simply want to register how good it feels to see the leaders of these democracies, these g-7 nations gathering together and to see that nato flag planted alongside the flags of those nations. it's a good moment for the west and a good moment for democracy. in terms of chemical weapon use, i think if we get into the kind of nerve agent types of things that vladimir putin has used both individually against individuals that he feels are going against his regime, notably alexander navalny, as keir knows well, or he has used nerve agents or countenanced their uses in syria. th

retired navy admiral james stavridis and former u.s.sador to ukraine, bill taylor, thank you, both, once again for coming on this morning. >>> coming up, the other big story this morning about donald trump. about burner phones and a big gap in the former president's call logs on a very important day. we're digging into the latest reporting on what trump was doing while his supporters stormed the capitol. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. it■s hard eating healthy. unless you happen to be a dog. ok, let's talk about those changes to your financial plan. bill, mary? hey... it's our former broker carl. carl, say hi to nina, our schwab financial consultant. hm... i know how difficult these calls can be. not with schwab. nina made it easier to set up our financial plan. we can check in on it anytime. it changes when

noah rothman and admiral james stavridis, thank you both.you concerned -- there's a lot of concern last night as the power plant was having fires around it and under attack in ukraine. there are four. how concerned are you that this will be used as a way to use nukes indirectly and there will be more attacks on power plants? >> well, we don't know why russia attacked the plant. i am skeptical that it was a deliberate attempt to create a nuclear meltdown. you know, i think russia is trying to conquer ukraine. you know, as we've heard from the other panelists this morning, i don't think russia has a viable plan for holding or occupying ukraine. i don't think it deliberately wants to start a nuclear meltdown. but as i said earlier, nuclear plants are not designed to be in war zones. and inadvertently or accidentally attacks against adjacent facilities, against a nation's power grid can deprive a nuclear powerplant of the electricity supplies and the other supplies it needs to function safely. it could interfere with workers coming into and out

admiral james stavridis, and michael allen. coming up, you just mentioned it, as americans are facing soaring gas prices, ukrainians are suffering to what they call the worst humanitarian crisis since world war ii. more on how war is impacting the world. the 11th hour is just getting underway on a monday night. this is an athlete. 20 reps deep, sprinting past every leak. in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected. her strength, respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us is you. her strength, respected. since i left for college, my dad has gotten back into some of his old hobbies. and now he's taking trulicity, and it looks like he's gotten into some new healthier habits, too. what changes are you making for your type 2 diabetes? maybe it's time to try trulicity. it's proven to help lower a1c. it can help you lose up to 10 pounds. and it's only taken once a week, so it can fit into your busy life. trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. it isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. it's not approved for use in ch

how did you interpret that, and do you agree with stavridis that the u.s. should figure out a way to get the jets to ukraine? >> i do agree with stavridis. look, there is always going to be an escalating threat from mr. putin. he believes he can scare us into not doing anything and he has the means to do some terrible things to the world. he's got chemical weapons, he's got biological weapons, he has nuclear weapons, he has weapons in space. all of these things are a concern to the united states, but they're not going to go away. if we duck the challenge in ukraine, those same pressures will be against us wherever we turn in foreign affairs. the time to face those pressures is now. this administration has to lean into the problem rather than ducking back from the problem. we've got to be proactive rather than reactive. being proactive means getting those additional fighter jets in, it means improving the arms shipments, it means putting in a humanitarian corridor and preventing the isolation of kyiv. if we letencircled, then we'll be in a much, much worse p

retired navy admiral james stavridis, analyst for nbc news and msnbc. also with us in just a moment, u.s. national editor of "financial times" ed luce. >> so, mr. ambassador, let's talk about the speech, the historic nature of the speech. and, yes, yes, the ad libbed lines which actually as far as psy ops goes the important. is it not nice for once vladimir putin defining the debate and keeping us guessing, but instead it is vladimir putin wondering whether he has to sleep with one eye open. >> first, joe, i thought it was a fantastic speech. it was a very important speech. it laid out the difference between democracy and dictatorship, between good and evil. he was clear as day where he stood and where the western world needed to stand. i hope it will be followed up with more action. that's what kyiv wants. that's what president zelenskyy wants. but i think it was a very historic speech and the right speech. the last part, i would say a couple of things. first of all, it is not the first time president biden has said this. i traveled with him in moscow

joining us now is the retired navy admiral james stavridis. commander of nato. admiral, it is good to see you again. thank you for being here. one thing you and another experts have said is that there is no calculus that permits for something that would lead to nuclear war between the united states and russia. but that should be clear to everybody involved, that vladimir putin is escalating, possibly based on the understanding that the west fears triggering nuclear war because he is dropping language of his nuclear arsenal. at some point, what more can we do, understanding that this is not going to lead to nuclear war? >> ali, i don't lay awake at night thinking, oh boy, here comes a nuclear weapon. and frankly, nor should anyone. having said that, i got a call over the weekend from family members saying, admiral, should we be stocking iodine pills, which help you in the case of radioactive release? the answer is, no. vladimir putin is not going to reach for the apocalypse handle. he has a family, he has children. he deeply, truly loves this c

joining us now, admiral james stavridis, former supreme allied commander of nato.is msnbc's chief international security and diplomacy analyst. he's also the author of "the accidental admiral." admiral, it is always great to see you. we're learning russian troops are now on the doorstep of drive. ukrainian forces are not backing down. what does the fight look like for the city in the next couple of days. >> we've seen this as a u.s. military, when we were in the fight for baghdad. urban warfare is ugly. and vladimir putin is about to find himself on the receiving end of tens of thousands of very angry, very well-armed, for that kind of combat, ukrainians. the pentagon has been flowing precisely the type of weapons necessary for that into the hands of ukrainians. i think vladimir putin's forces are in for the fight of a lifetime, right to take that massive city. and, oh, by the way, julio, at the opposite end of the technology spectrum, i think we're going to hear from john kirby this afternoon, the pentagon press secretary, that we are closing in and are very close

admiral james stavridis, michael mcfaul, former u.s.mbassador to russia, and also joining us is marie yovanovitch, former ambassador to ukraine. she is also author of the new book "lessons from the edge." welcome back to the two of you, and welcome. >> thank you. >> i want to start with something you wrote in your book. we have failed to call out russia's behavior in a way that russia finds persuasive or taken steps to stop it that russia finds compelling. if we stumble around it, maybe we will find ourselves in a conflict not of our choosing and not to our advantage. you wrote this sometime in the fall of 2021. >> the summer. >> here we are. >> here we are, and i think that's what the history shows. chechnya, syria, ukraine won in 2014, now ukraine in 2022. we say this fight is our fight, that this is a confrontation between freedom and tyranny, and so i think our -- we've done a lot, but i think our actions need to better match the rhetoric. >> i had a democratic congressman from chicago, mike quigley, say to me, you know, ukranians h

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admiral james stavridis is the former supreme allied co-mander at nato. melinda herring is deputy director to of the council. thank you on this incredibly important morning. admiral, you've been warning about this kind of thing since before the war began, the idea that things could go sideways in the blink of an eye. tell me your thoughts this morning. >> we've seen this playbook before again and again from vladimir putin. 2008, georgia. 2014, crimea. what did he do after that? he went to syria. and he is creating syria on the river. these are war crimes plain and simple. we need to call them out. we need to continue to broadcast and talk about it. the white house needs to talk about it. and above all, the white house has to continue to work to get this out of a u.s. versus russia channel and get it into what it is, which is russia as a rogue nation conducting war crimes indiscriminately attacking civilians, and most recently this near miss on a devastating event with the nuclear power plant. you know, ukraine has many nuclear power plants, i think about

admiral jame stavridis is nato's former allied commander. >> this is in every sense the seminal moment for this alliance in the 21st century. we need to be ready. >> reporter: the cornerstone of nato is article v, which says an attack on one nato ally is an attack on all. since nato was formed after world war ii, it's been invoked just once -- 9/11 now as nato leaders gather here in brussels for their emergency session, at the top of mind, the fear that putin could extend his invasion into a nato country. what kind of shape is nato in right now? >> lester, nato outmatches russia ten to one in spending, five to one in troops, four to one in combat aircraft nato remains formidable >> reporter: if, for example, poland were to be attacked today, how quickly could the rest of the nations answer the call to help defend poland >> very quickly. 60,000 u.s. troops, thousands of combat aircraft can be on scene immediately. >> reporter: so far, the 30 nato countries have remained largely united in providing military aid to ukraine. but many nato countries that depend on russian oil and gas have n

. >> admiral stavridis, we have been getting these updates, russia has lost hundreds of vehicles in the war, an estimated 15 to 20 fixed wing aircrafts, something like 25 helicopters, but they say that russian forces are still capable of surrounding kyiv in another week or two and that the battle for kyiv could take longer, potentially four to six weeks. what do you make of that assessment, and how much do you think that potentially differs from what pentagon war planners, what russian war planners were thinking this was all going to look like when it got started two weeks ago? >> let's start with the russian combat losses, you went through the equipment. that's important. the one to watch are how many killed in action. i think very reliably, there are a minimum of 4,000 killed in action and as you're showing on that graphic, it may be much much higher. let's say, for example, it's 5,000, let's give you a point of comparison. that's in two weeks of war. 5,000 killed in action. in 20 years in afghanistan, 20 years, the u.s. lost 2,000 killed in action, so these are staggering losses for

> kayla tausche live for us tonight, thank you >>> retired four-star naval officer admiral james stavridis now, former supreme allied commander at nato and senior nbc news international diplomacy contributor. admiral, president biden standing by these comments that putin cannot remain in power, does that actually risk escalating the situation or is all of that just talk and overblown? >> it would be the latter, shep. and let's face it, he's already called him a war criminal. he's called him a butcher. he's called him everything in the book, accurately so i think for president biden to sort of throw a tag line at the end of the speech and say he should not remain in power does not trip the meter as far as i'm concerned. hey, i will remember that speech, not about anything about regime change, which the administration has clearly knocked down but the speech about nato as a sacred obligation, a speech about don't even think about going after an inch of nato territory. that audience are our nato allies, the american public, and finally the russians themselves. i think it was a pretty good resp

retired admiral james stavridis.g on with your insight. >>> still ahead on "morning joe," the academy awards were once again the most watched entertainment program of the year, but audience levels have been on a steady downturn. we will talk about that and how will smith may have changed things this year. >>> plus, wall street's most elite investors are bracing for economic chaos as the war in ukraine drags on. we'll have new reporting on that. you are watching our continuing coverage right here on "morning joe." this is the new world of work. each day looks different than the last. but whatever work becomes, the servicenow platform will make it just, flow. whether it's finding new ways to help you serve your customers, orchestrating a safe return to the office... wait. an office? what's an office? ...or solving a workplace challenge that's yet to come. wherever the new world of work takes your business, the world works with servicenow. ♪ limu emu ♪ and doug. we gotta tell people that liberty mutual customizes car in

>> is well, look, admiral stavridis gave an excellent assessment of where we are.ing b russians have put over half their combat power into trying to subdue ukraine. they've ended up in a strategic disaster, both militarily, economically, politically. and on the ukraine side, it turned into a humanitarian disaster that will only get worse by the day. when we focus on the actual russian military operations, it is astonishing the incompetence with which it has been carried out. at an operational level of war they've got a couple hundred thousand troops, but they've been unable to achieve any of their major objectives. i think they probably had bad planning assumptions across the board. they thought this whole thing would crumble on them. it hasn't. ukrainian courage and u.s. and nato support across the border have caused them to back up in a massive target. the ukrainians, if they fight in kyiv, and i think they will, will have all the advantages. this will be a block-by-block battle that could go on for weeks. it would devour russian infantry trying to seize the city

when we begin our coverage with retired admiral james stavridis. these are times where we need people who know the facts and the experts and you would be chief among them given your knowledge of the region and nato and the tough tradeoffs. welcome back, sir. >> great to be with you. >> great to have you. let's just start with what it means from a military perspective when we hear this level of devastation, these numbers of people living under siege while ukraine says this some pockets they are punching back, they are getting a little bit of land back. >> let's begin with the pivot that vladimir putin has just conducted. as you well know, his original idea was to blitzkrieg across the country, decapitate probably literally president zelenskyy and install a puppet government in kyiv. that's over. that plan cratered. so his forces are now fighting on a whole string of fronts across the country and they are diluted. they don't have enough force to achieve real military mass and that's why we saw them yesterday, day before yesterday, talk about if you w

navy admiral james stavridis, msnbc chief international security and diplomacy analyst and co-author of "2034: a novel of the next world war," glad to have you, and i have to say, i hope your new book is not prophetic given the circumstances of which we're speaking. here we go. big developments today, first, what is president biden's number one job when he goes to brussels? >> first and foremost, it's to maintain the diplomatic unity of the alliance which has been quite remarkable. number two, it's to encourage and thank the nato nations that are increasing their defense spending, notably our german allies. germany has decided to add 100 billion euros to their defense budget. it's a huge amount of money, about $120 billion, to put it in perspective, russia's defense budget, alex, is only $70 billion. huge plus-up. so the president will want to encourage that. third and finally, he'll want to talk very tactically about what weapons can we put in the hands of ukrainians, recent discussions in particular about a fairly advanced antiair warfare system called the s-300, some of our allies

i quoted the former nato supreme allied commander james stavridis as saying that he was comparing the sort of last stand of mariupol to the battle of the alamo, which was a siege as well. it ended with all of the people, all the defenders in the alamo in the 1830s in killed, but it was a rallying point that rallied the texans to defeat the mexican army the next month. we are releasing this sort of pivotal battle being played out, and the very brave refusal of the ukrainians to submit to the russian demands. but this war has not gone anything like president vladimir putin had anticipated. the russians have had problems pretty much at every turn. they didn't think that nearly a month into the war this is where they would be. and it's really a race against time whether to see which side will be ablea to withstand the casualties and the losses, and in the case of russia, the crippling economic sanctions. it's a terrible sort of perversity of war that the more inept the invading force is, the more pain and suffering is suffered by the people of ukraine or being invaded by the russian force

. >>> retired four star navy officer admiral james stavridis, commander at nato, a senior nbc news nationald diplomacy contributor. the president is going to address the nation, much of his discussion will be about ukraine and he has to toe a line you want the people to under the gravity of the moment without freaking out the entirety of the country. what is the message that he needs to send to the people and more specifically to vladimir putin? >> i would start by saying, shep, thank you for wearing that sky blue ukrainian colored tie and gold pocket square, and i hope you'll note my tie is also blue and gold. we need to stand together. and i think that's really the message. that the president needs to convey let's go from the inside-out he has to convince the american people that this matters i think that's a winning case. polls show great support for ukraine in this. number two, he is sending a message to our allies in europe that the united states is committed for this we are not going to send combat troops into ukraine, nor should we, but we can do everything else reinforce the borders

joining me now, retired admiral, james stavridis, also david rode. welcome to you both. thanks for joining us on this. >> admiral, let me start with you on this one and talk first about kind of the words that the president used at the end of his speech. i was speaking with congressman moulton in the last hour, and he actually said that he felt as if one of the reasons the president should not have said this and it was important for the white house to walk these comments back it is could feasibly trigger vladimir putin to do something he would not have planned to do because there's now this possibility of regime change out there. do you agree with that? >> here are the words i focused on in the speech as a former supreme allied commander in nato, that the united states has a sacred obligation to protect every inch of the territory of nato. that's what i heard. at the end of the speech, i look at that as almost a personal creed decower, as the french would say, a cry of the heart, a kind of how can this man continue in this job? look, we have called -- the predhas called h

special correspondent for bbc news katty kay, former four-star admiral james stavridis, and editor of "the new yorker" david remnick. >> admiral, where are we going into week four of the war? >> russians are still grinding away, but all hope they had of a blitzkrieg simply sweeping across and toppling zelenskyy and putting a new government, that's all gone. remember that column that we saw for such a long time? it has kind of disbursed, joe. a lot of that is artillery that are being positioned around the city. so, ominously -- and this is not good news -- where vladimir putin is headed i think is going to be the serious strategy, simply to start pounding away at these cities. i think he falsely believes that the cities can be the center of gravity in this campaign. they are not. they are just physical structures. the center of gravity in this campaign are the hearts and the spirit of the ukrainian people led by president zelenskyy. he is not going to win that over by knocking down cities and committing war crimes. quite the opposite. so on the western side of the conflict, joe, i thin

and former nato supreme allied commander retired four-star navy admiral james stavridis. he is chief international security and diplomacy analyst for nbc news and msnbc. >> willie, a lot of horrid news coming out yesterday for the people of ukraine. another day of bad news for the russian military. just their complete ineptness on the battlefield. to put context on the bad news, you had a meeting between two foreign ministers this morning. it didn't end well but the question is what did they say behind closed doors during the meeting. you have the russians and zelenskyy now seeming to sort of circle each other, the broad outlines of a deal that could happen. ukraine declaring its neutrality, russia getting crimea and the two breakaway. we are starting to hear talks of that and we are having two foreign ministers getting together instead of the joke of a conference we saw last week and the first week of the war. >> yes, this is the highest level meeting between the two sides. the ukrainian delegation said not much came out of it though it was a start they met together, tho

james stavridis said the same thing, you don't have to look back to the soviet union. of the czars to understand how putin is thinking. >> right. he also in a conversation he had with condi rice, he said that russia has only been great when it has been under a strong leader. what was his definition of strong leaders? peter the great, catherine the great, ivan the terrible and joseph stalin. that's the tradition in which he, i think, sees himself as the great restorer of the russian empire. that's really what this is about. >> well -- >> and mika, of course, stalin killed 3 million to 4 million ukrainians from '32 to '33 with a forced famine which, of course, might help explain why the ukrainians are in no hurry to surrender to putin and russia. >> well, given the tradition he comes from, that you pointed out, he does appear to be moving the goalpost at every angle here, now on the fighter jets saying that would be us engaging, nato engaging. from your years of watching putin and his incursions in the past, is his behavior different this time around? are his reactions d

. >> admiral stavridis, thank you for your help. >> thanks, john. >>> president biden and the french president macron met on the sidelines of the nato summit to discuss deescalating the war of ukraine or russian invasion of ukraine. the french ambassador joins us to talk about the next steps. and a ukrainian teenager who spent weeks hide anything a basement and nearly got hit by a missile as she tried to escape mariupol. so you can “broooo” more. [impressed] broooooo. broooo!!!! broooo!!!!!! broooo!!!! [in unisison] brooooooooo!!!! [splash] [disappointed] broooooo... good thing you saved on the trip!p! priceline. evevery trip is a big deal. i've always focused on my careerer. but when we found out our son had autism, his future became my focus. lavender baths always calmed him. so we turned bath time into ausiness. ♪ and buding it with my son has been my dream job. ♪ at northweern mutual, our version of financial planning helps you live your dreams today. find a northwestern mutual advisor at nm.com is now a good time for a flare-up? enough, crohn's! for adults with moderate to sever

i'm joined by admiral stavridis.e is meant to promote unity among nato allies but looming over it now you have this rift after the d.o.d. rejected poland's offer to have the u.s. take custody of soviet air of fighter jets over ukraine. how can this get worked out? >> i think this makes a lot of sense the ukrainians know how to fly the jets. yes, there are some technical differences. hard to figure out where to fly from. i would consider putting them in lviv, put ukrainian markers on them and tell the russians don't even think about attacking nato. i think the deal makes a lot of sense. i hope the vice president can perhaps work toward a breakthrough. more than likely it will be my good friend secretary of defense lloyd austin figuring this out with his counterparts. i'm hoping for some movement here because it makes a lot of sense. >> to be clear, you do not believe these jets should be housed at a u.s. military facility. >> i do, i agree with that. i think we need to be extremely careful about anything that puts the

he's also co-author of general stavridis of the timely back "2034 the next world war." a strong military response which is easy to do when the military burden in this country is holdered by 4.5% of public. my question to you is should any topic of war being accompanied by a return to the draft? >> well, i think the reality is, you know, if we were to see the type of war emanating from this current war that's going on in ukraine to the united states, we associate the question that you asked, whether or not people would stay and fight or flee. that would be a situation where you have a naturalization or a draft to fight the war. when it comes to the war -- i am a proponent, i think we should have a draft. the draft is less in terms of creating numbers for the u.s. military, but it's how the draft changes society, its relationship with the military. right now with the all-volunteer force, since the 1970s, the military has become a subset of society, and when we go to wars, these are wars fought by other people and we pay for them through deficit spending. so it's very easy

joining me is former nato supreme allied commander and diplomacy analyst admiral james stavridis. zelenskyy says he's willing to discuss neutrality and to come to some kind of compromise on the donbas region. what's your reaction to that? how do you see the contours of this negotiation shaping up? >> i think both sides are going to be staking out pretty hardline positions. putin has already annexed crimea, voted on by the duma. in his view it's an inassailable portion. the donbas, he's created these two little faux republics, luhansk and donetsk. and so they're going to take out hard positions. that's what negotiation is. that's where it's beginning and better to be talking than to be fighting. >> these kind of disputed border regions are the root of every major conflict of the 20th century. it will be interesting to see if that's what the solution looks like here. i wonder what you make of russian officials saying they're refocusing on ukraine. first if we can put any real stock into those comments and if they are true, what it means. is it a recognition that the russian army is

i had admiral stavridis on saying if they applied on today, they should approve it by friday. fast do you think the process would work with finland? and, two, how walking that line of would putin view that as escalatory by the west even if we're doing it in response to a nation in distress? >> well, the question does start rightly with the finnish people. i understand the finnish parliament, considering this topic now, and that's appropriate. that's where all nato membership questions begin. it might start on a wednesday and ends on a friday, but i don't know that that wednesday and friday will be in the same week. >> right. >> so it may take a bit of time to deliberate. but what's quite clear, if you go into the washington treaty, the nato treaty from 1949, article x outlines what qualities a new member, an aspiring member must have. it's quite clear that finland meets those qualifications. so really the first step begins with the finnish people and then, interestingly, may well spill over and have a similar effect in sweden next door. >> yeah. one would assume if one comes t

. >>> joining the coverage helene cooper and michael mcfaul and ri tired navy admiral james stavridis. helene, nato thinks that putin may fail. is there a sense of what that might look like? >> hi, chris. thank you for having me. it is really strange how much in the past few days the tone has started to shift on the idea, something that nobody would contemplate a few weeks ago of a russian military failure in ukraine and seeing signs of that increasingly. just a couple hours ago we had a pentagon briefing in which a senior pentagon official talked through all of the went around the map of the country of ukraine looking at the places where the russian military is failing. to the point now that in the region under a kherson, the first city that the russian troops were able to take, it's now the pentagon is putting that back as a contested area saying the russians do not have full control and lost full control of that area. kyiv, the russian troops who were on the way in, have now backed off and have taken defensive positions according to the pentagon. when you talk about and ask about h

. >> i want to share with both of you something that admiral stavridis said on this program.n that they're completely outside the bounds of international norms on warfare. not even close to it. by the way, this is his fifth invasion. the other four, he did the same kinds of things in aleppo and grozny, so this is nothing new. the chairman of the -- their jcs equivalent was in syria as a younger senior officer. that's where he learned his business. so it's appalling what they're doing. this is back to the days of stalin, and it's going to get worse. and it's not just the big cities either. we can't forget that these smaller urban areas are being hammered all over ukraine. those cruise missiles they fired at the ukrainian military base near poland had 700-pound war heads. these are massive strikes that will indiscriminately hamper not just infrastructure but kill civilians. >> it's a horrific scene unfolding. i think in the earliest days, someone said this is the first war that's been waged really in a time of universal social media access, that moscow bureau chief for the "tim