Russia Violates NATO Airspace, With Liana Fix

LINDSAY:
It's the night of September 9th, the first of what may be as many as twenty-three Russian drones begin to cross into Polish airspace. Polish and allied forces immediately scramble to repel the attack. The drones turn out to be unarmed, but the incursion heightens tension between Russia and NATO.

Peter BAKER:
This is a huge thing, right? Because this is the first time in a very serious way that we have seen the war in Ukraine extend into NATO territory, because some of these drones were shot down by NATO planes.

Ursula VON DER LEYEN:
Europe stands in full solidarity with Poland.

LINDSAY:
European leaders fear that Russia's testing NATO's military defenses and its resolve to help Ukraine defend its sovereignty. Those fears deepened when, shortly after this episode was recorded, three Russian fighter jets penetrated Estonian airspace, once again forcing NATO to scramble to respond. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, has invoked Article Four of the NATO Charter and Poland's Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski calls for NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. In response, the Kremlin says that NATO was already at war with Russia.
From the Council on Foreign Relations, welcome to The President's Inbox. I'm your host, Jim Lindsay, and I'm joined today by Liana Fix, Senior Fellow for Europe here at the Council. Liana, welcome.

FIX:
Thank you so much, Jim.

LINDSAY:
Let's dive right into it. Help me understand what happened on the night of September 9th with this incursion of drones into Polish airspace.

FIX:
Yeah, absolutely, Jim. So this was a big event. This was probably the greatest incursion, the most serious incursion into NATO airspace since NATO's founding. We had nineteen drones that came from Russia and Belarus, who flew far into Polish airspace, which at the beginning raised concerns not only about a deliberate Russian incursion of Ukraine, but also what would these drones do? So it was really code red for NATO, right?
NATO at the beginning was cautious, saying, "If this is a deliberate attack, if those drones were just diverted from Ukraine..." But pretty quickly, it became established that all the evidence points to a deliberate Russian testing of NATO's borders, both of NATO's military willingness—

LINDSAY:
Before we get into that, I just got a few more specifics on the attack itself.

FIX:
Go ahead, yeah.

LINDSAY:
So the sort of warning comes in, the Poles scramble. They're joined by... I think the Dutch participated, German forces, several other forces—

FIX:
Not only them, German forces particularly. Yeah, yeah.

LINDSAY:
... did this. They did not know that these drones were unarmed.

FIX:
So they did not know. The Poles say they realized pretty quickly that some of those drones, especially those so-called Gerbera drones from Russia, are just decoy drones. And the Poles got information from Belarus, who was trying to maintain a white vest and said like, "Oh, look, there's something happening. There's some drones coming." But it was not a warning from Russia, saying like, "Oh, man, something went wrong. Watch out for these drones." Russia and Moscow was silent at the beginning. It was Ukraine who told Poland, "Look out, there's something coming from our airspace." And this has not only to do with jamming, that some drones went astray, this is something more serious.

LINDSAY:
So do we know where the drones were launched from? Because I've seen some conflicting reports as to whether the drones were launched from Ukraine, Russian-controlled portions of Ukraine, whether they were launched from Russian territory, Russia and Poland do not share a border, or they came from Belarus. Do we have any understanding about where the drones originated from?

FIX:
So there is some mixed reporting about that. What we can understand is where the flight paths from those drones came from, and the flight path of those drones partly came from Belarus and partly came from the Ukrainian territory. And it's very clear that the way how the drones have behaved in terms of their flight path, but also the way how they could not only have been sort of sent out by different Russian launch sites, and not just one launch site, suggests that how can this be an accident if you have drones coming from multiple flight paths and multiple directions? This cannot be just drones have gone astray.

LINDSAY:
Okay, so what has the Russian response been to the accusation that these were Russian drones that were deliberately targeted at Poland?

FIX:
So the Russians at the beginning were silent, which is a typical Russian response, but it was surprising because this was a pretty serious incident, right? I mean, NATO fighter jets shot down some of these drones, not all of them, but some of them.

LINDSAY:
That itself is a problem, because these drones are fairly inexpensive to build and launch.

FIX:
We have to get back to that topic, because it's a huge challenge for the future. If that happens again, it's one of the big questions that now comes up.

LINDSAY:
You're spending a lot of money to shoot down something quite small and inexpensive.

FIX:
Way too much money. You could shoot down those drones with rifles more effectively, and less expensive. But to come back to Moscow's reaction later, Moscow offered to talk to Poland between the Ministry of Defense in Russia and to the Polish Ministry of Defense. So it was kind of really downplaying the whole incident, pretending in a very casual way that this is not really something to talk about. And that in itself suggests that this is not just Russia having made a mistake, but this is something where Russia really tries to... Russia has also accused Poland or provocations and so on. But this is really something where Russia has tried to test NATO not only militarily, but also politically, which is actually the more important aspect of both.

LINDSAY:
Okay. When we talk about how Polish and allied forces responded to the news these drones are coming across the border, we talked about several countries. You mentioned Germany, Italy, the Dutch, the country you haven't mentioned is the United States. The United States has a lot of materiel, a lot of bases, a lot of people based in Europe. What am I to make of the fact that the NATO response did not include any action by U.S. forces, to the best of our knowledge?

FIX:
So the NATO response was coordinated by U.S. forces, because the U.S. has the command of NATO in Europe, right? So it's not that the U.S. stayed out entirely, but we do have a rotating system of patrols, of European air patrols across Poland, across the Baltic states, multiple countries contribute. So it's not immediately surprising that we didn't have a U.S. fighter jet being there, up in the air. What is however more concerning, now we come to the political consequences of that event, what is more concerning is that you would immediately expect from all countries, NATO countries, and especially the United States, because this was a message from Moscow to Washington, to test Washington, not the Europeans, you would expect a response that condemns this attack. And what we got so far from Washington is basically silence. Silence, some ambiguous statements by the U.S. President about who's responsible for that and what it actually means.
And that is the biggest message. So two takeaways from Russia, NATO's air defense works, but it only works for a small amount of drones, and it only works in a cost ratio that is very to the disadvantage of NATO. And the second takeaway for Russia is the United States will not necessarily jump to at least rhetorical condemnation of further political or military action. And those are pretty good takeaways for Moscow, because Ukraine was shooting down three-hundred-eighty drones that night. NATO would have been completely overwhelmed by that amount of drones, and that thought is pretty scary, to be honest.

LINDSAY:
Okay, I want to come to the U.S. reaction in a moment, but first I want to focus on the context in which this incursion took place. Everyone's familiar with the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. I think much less attention has been paid to so-called gray zone activities that Europeans have accused Russia of conducting since the outbreak of the war in 2022.
That is the Russians are believed to have been behind a number of efforts to disrupt operations, for example, of GPS operations in Europe, some bombing, some sabotage at military installations and at production points across Europe. Just give me a sense of, from the European point of view, how they are thinking or what they're seeing in terms of these so-called gray zone activities. I guess they're called gray zone because they don't rise to the level of war, but they're clearly not friendly.

FIX:
Yeah, I actually don't really like the term gray zone, and I know that it's being used a lot, because we have used gray zone activities from Russia for all kinds of activities for years now. So Facebook misinformation was called a gray zone activity. Now, we have reached an activity which is pretty much a black zone activity, right? I mean, it's pretty much black and white. If you deliberately sent over military drones on NATO's allied territory, gray zone activities, we thought about NATO's neighborhood, but I think it's a euphemism and it downplays what actually happened.
I think it would be more justified to talk here about an attack that has not led to conflict or war because the drones did not shoot at Warsaw, did not should at the Chopin Airport, but it is something much more serious than those gray zone activities. But you are, of course, absolutely right that Europeans have already been scared by those past Russian activities. I mean, like we remind us that the head of one of the biggest German defense companies, Rheinmetall, was on a Russian kill list. There was a plot to kill him, which leads to the thought that Russia might have plans to kill other leading business representatives.

LINDSAY:
Do we see any evidence that Europe has taking steps against that, besides just protests?

FIX:
Yes. It is protests, it is more intelligence corporations, or European intelligence are getting better. The question is how do you want or do you want to link this to a response in the war, right? I mean, you could link this in a way that you say, "Well, Russian gray zone activities or those drones," and this is what I'm actually looking for, I'm not seeing it right now, "This drone incursion, this drone attack by Russia or NATO will lead to a European response that, for example, allows Ukraine to target Russian drone factories inside Russia." You could also imagine other scenarios or other responses where Europeans make very clear to Russia that, "This is unacceptable and it has downsides for you," right? We are talking about European forces in Ukraine, but we don't even have to go that far, really.
It's really about giving Ukraine the possibility to attack Russia's drone production, would be for example one such pathway. And that's something that we do not see yet. We will continue to look out for that, but if we don't see some kind of military reaction from Europeans, it is likely that Russia will continue those provocations. And we've already seen another drone who went into Romania, right? So even if Donald Trump does not condemn this attack, if he doesn't take action, Europeans need to give some kind of European response that goes beyond just strengthening Poland's defenses, but that sends an offensive message to Moscow, "This is really a red line that has been crossed."

LINDSAY:
Well, let's talk about the response so far, as opposed to the response that you might hope to get from Europe. I will note that Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, his immediate reaction was to invoke Article Four, not Article Five of the NATO Charter. Article Five is the offer one, one for all defensive provision. Article Four is just a call for consultations. Help me understand what those consultations are like and whether they have yielded anything to this point.

FIX:
Yeah, Article Four has been used in the past, for example, by Turkey and Syria. It has also been used already by NATO members because of Russia's Russian publications. And it is an important consultation mechanism, primarily because of the message that it sends to Russia, which is, "We are taking this seriously. This is one step below Article Five, right?" Of course, the consultations could also take place in any other format. But the idea behind that is we need to say, "We are considering and we are thinking about a military response." But what we've seen so far is a strengthening again of Poland's air defense. France has said that it will send over three French fighter jets over to Poland. Germany has reacted with strengthening its presence in Poland. But we haven't really seen something which goes beyond strengthening Poland's air defense, which would be a more offensive message.
And then, of course, the big question is how can Europeans react in a technological way? And my colleague Erin Dumbacher and I have written about this, and you alluded to it at the beginning, Jim, what can you do to prevent such incursions in the future without spending so much money on the missiles? So how can you use sensors on the border between Poland and Ukraine? How can you integrate Ukraine more into NATO air defense? I mean, there's this joke that has been going around, "Well, actually not Ukraine will join NATO, but NATO should one day ask if it can join Ukraine," right? Now, we are the situation where we have to ask Ukraine to help us and send us over trainers, so that NATO can get up to speed with anti-drone defense.

LINDSAY:
What about the call from the Polish Prime Minister that NATO should establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine? Has there been any pickup of that idea in NATO?

FIX:
It's an old idea, it's an idea that has surfaced already at the beginning of the Ukraine war, and it is part of ongoing discussions about a European presence in Ukraine. But those discussions are taking place right now and have taken place in the last weeks, with the assumption that Europeans would only deploy to Ukraine, would only have a no-fly or would only try to establish an no-fly zone over some western part of Ukraine if there's a ceasefire in Ukraine. And that obviously is problematic, many have written about that, because it Russia gives Russia a veto right, right? Because Russia will not agree to a ceasefire, and it has said so very clearly, with European forces on the ground.

LINDSAY:
And my impression is Kremlin officials have said that if NATO were to try to establish a no-fly zone, it would treat that as an act of war?

FIX:
Exactly, which again, is Russian escalation tactics to scare Europeans. It doesn't mean that this will actually happen, but Russia has consistently had the escalation dominance towards NATO throughout this war. And we see with this instance, once again—

LINDSAY:
What do you mean by escalation dominance, since I'm not sure? It's a-

FIX:
Yeah, it's a little bit in the—

LINDSAY:
... term a lot of people use in everyday conversation.

FIX:
Yeah, absolutely right, Jim. It is an academic term, but it basically means that Russia has been on the threatening side, right? So Russia has threatened the use of nuclear weapons. Well, Russia has threatened that any European involvement will lead to the third World War and so on. And Europeans and the West have mostly been on the defensive side, to try to limit the possibility for escalation. That obviously encourages Russia when it sees, "Well, with those threats, we are actually successful to try it over and over again."

LINDSAY:
Okay. Let's dive into the question of how the Trump Administration and particularly President Trump has responded to these attacks. You've already noted that the United States did not lead with a full-throated denunciation of the attack. What do you make of the reasoning there?

FIX:
So one reasoning from the White House can be that this should not disrupt ongoing Russia-Ukraine negotiations, right? I mean, at least the President still seems to be pretty optimistic that he will manage to bring both sides to the table and to have an agreement where Russia also makes some concessions at least. He may be the only one who's optimistic about that, and we've also seen his frustration with Russia in recent weeks and months. So that may be one reason, "Let's not disturb negotiations about that issue."

LINDSAY:
Well, and the attack came about twenty-six days after the much-vaunted meeting between Putin and Trump in Alaska.

FIX:
Exactly, which gives many analysts reason to argue, "Well, actually, Putin came out of that Alaska meeting not with a thought of more concessions in mind, but with the thought of, 'Oh, we are winning this. We have the U.S. president on our side. He's convinced by our demand that we don't need a ceasefire anymore, we need prolonged negotiations'." So the Alaska meeting is seen from the Russian side as a success for Russia, and that also adds to... Well, apparently it gave Russia the confidence to try such a drone attack on Poland.

LINDSAY:
Now, I'll note that early on, President Trump said that perhaps the incursion was a mistake, and that drew an immediate rebuke from Polish officials. What is your sense of how European leaders are reading President Trump's reaction?

FIX:
Well, European leaders have really done nothing else apart from trying to keep Trump in NATO for months, literally since he has come into office. This has been the top priority, this has also been the top priority in trade talks with the United States. "Let's not escalate this, we need Trump in NATO and we need his reassurance." So they came out of the Hague Summit of NATO in June relatively reassured. They thought, "Okay, we got this. We have committed ourselves to more defense spending." And then, they were pretty much sobered by Donald Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, because that also explains why they suddenly showed up in Washington and tried to steer against those outcomes.
They were pretty much sobered, and they realize that NATO, even if Donald Trump committed to NATO, even if he's proud of more NATO defense spending, that doesn't mean that he will immediately condemn a Russian attack on NATO or even come to Europe's defense. And this is particularly brutal for a partner like Poland, right? I mean, Poland has always believed, also during the first Trump Administration, that actually, Trump has helped Poland, that all these fears of U.S. abandonment are overblown. "It's, you know, the French who finally want to take over leadership of Europe and so on."

LINDSAY:
Everybody blames the French.

FIX:
Yeah, well, who are actually doing a good job. Macron's actually doing a good job in managing Trump. But the Poles are very much hardcore Transatlanticists, right? They believe in the Transatlantic Alliance—

LINDSAY:
They offered to name a base after President Trump.

FIX:
Exactly, right? I mean, the newly-elected president who's even from a right-wing party, so he's closer to Trump than Prime Minister Donald Tusk is, he was just here in Washington. There was an overflow with huge noise. I even got out of my office, was like, "Oh, what's happening here?" Right? So all these signs that Poland thought it doesn't have to be afraid when it comes to Donald Trump, of course, by this drone attack, have led Poland to rethink some of those assumptions.

LINDSAY:
Will that change Polish behavior?

FIX:
The question is in which direction? I mean, Poland will always arm itself and will always defend itself, but the question is how much does it believe in U.S. protection, and how does this weigh from Polish perspective against German, or French, or UK and British protection, right? I mean, if the Poles believe that, actually, Brits, or French, or Germans would actually show up to their own defense, they would say, "Well, okay, then we trade the U.S. against the Europeans." If they don't believe that, if they think everyone is unreliable, discussions about nuclear sharing are already taking place in Poland, and it's not completely excluded that at some point in the future nuclear proliferation will be a topic that will come back to Europe.

LINDSAY:
Could I view what you've just said as actually painting a silver lining in this crisis? As you know, for years, Americans have complained that the Europeans don't do enough to protect themselves, and that in essence, President Trump, by not rushing and sort of following the standard playbook of denouncing the Russian attack, is actually giving Europeans good reason to provide for their own defense?

FIX:
I think that was actually a plausible argument for a while. But after the Hague summit, it just doesn't make sense. I mean, he already has the Europeans where he wants them, right? I mean, they committed to five percent defense spending, and only 3.5% of those are sort of real, hard defense spending, but that's huge. And even Democrats, Biden officials are saying, "Well, actually, that is to his credit, that is a remarkable achievement." So why question the integrity of NATO after that, if the reason is not that you're hoping to have some kind of deal with Russia in the future?

LINDSAY:
Well, if the reaction of the White House to the drone attacks was tepid, I would say the Congressional reaction to the drone attacks was bordering on strident. I'll note that Senator Lindsey Graham came out and talked about the insane violation of Polish airspace, and said that Congress stands ready to pass new legislation. Representative Joe Wilson, Republican, South Carolina called the incursion an act of war and said he introduced legislation to punish Russia by cutting off all trade with this "terrorist dictatorship", his words. And Representative Don Bacon, Republican, Nebraska signed up to a democratic initiative to impose sanctions on Russia. Do you think the Congressional reaction is likely to lead to a tougher U.S. response, or is this a lot of performance?

FIX:
I think Europeans are slowly losing trust in Congress as a driving force of U.S. politics. So looking at how long Congress has been sitting on this bill, the bill that Lindsey Graham initiated, how the White House tried to give Donald Trump more wiggle room in this bill, how he has threatened tougher sanctions on Russia, but apart from India, has not really pulled through with that, and Congress has not decided unilaterally without Trump's approval to go ahead with that bill, I think it's a good... Europe is actually right to not be reassured by the reaction from Congress, but to think about how they can bolster their own defenses, because that's what in the end it's going to be, right?
I mean, air defense is one of the weak points in Europe's defense. The German Chancellor, former German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has introduced the Sky Shield Initiative very early after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because again, NATO's air defense is not up to speed, how it should be. Ukraine actually has a much better, especially ground air defense right now, than NATO partners have also, because they have given many of those systems to Ukraine. I heard from a German military representative that, well, actually for Hamburg, for the defense of Hamburg, which is at the sea, the Baltic Sea, Germany would not have enough Patriots, but would have to send a ship over to defend Hamburg.

LINDSAY:
Well, that gets back to what we discussed earlier on. I mean, there's a real challenge for a defender in this situation. If the attacker can use a lot of low-cost drones, and sprinkle them with lots of decoys that are cheap to produce, and you're responding with Patriot missiles or Patriot batteries, you're going to exhaust your defenses very, very quickly at great cost to yourself, so that requires you to rethink air defenses. And the real problem is, as we've seen with the Ukrainians, the way they pulled off earlier this year that remarkable attack where they had rail cars smuggled into Russia that fired on Russian strategic bases, these attacks could come from anywhere. You could have a ship in the Baltic Sea or in the North Atlantic fire a drone salvo at the continent.

FIX:
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, there are multiple responses to that. One response is we need to develop cheaper technological options and so on to defend ourselves. The other option is also a political and a more offensive response, which is, well, if you don't want to defend yourself, you can also go into the offense, right? And you can also again try to draw, try to—

LINDSAY:
But that doesn't seem to be where Europe wants to go.

FIX:
It is not, but I wonder if at some point this reaction will be necessary. And I'm not saying that this is a reaction... Yeah, I'm not suggesting that Europeans should become more offensive themselves towards Russia, but they do have Ukraine, right? I mean, Ukraine has every reason to be offensive towards Russia. It can do it, it has the means. So why not help Ukraine to send a message to Russia, right? And that is something which I think is lacking at the moment.

LINDSAY:
Right, but the counter-Russian argument is, "If you go up the so-called escalation ladder, we will go up the escalation ladder too, and you will regret that occurrence." So I mean, this is part of the, in essence, trying to influence each other to prevent things.

FIX:
The problem is that Russia is going up the escalation ladder, regardless of what Europeans or Ukrainians do, right? So the claim that this is only a Russian response to European or Ukrainian provocation is just not true.

LINDSAY:
Yeah, I do think it's important to note that the Russian attacks on Ukraine have—

FIX:
Have escalated—

LINDSAY:
... escalated—

FIX:
... massively in the recent months, which again seems to suggest that the negotiation efforts by the U.S. President are not being taken as seriously by the Russian side, because just the attacks also on civilian infrastructure... And we have very clear signals that Russia wants to scare Europeans. It has been attacking the British house in Kyiv, it has been attacking the EU building in Kyiv, right?

LINDSAY:
You don't think those were accidents?

FIX:
Those were not accidents. Those were very clear signals towards Europe, "You do not dare thinking about sending European forces to Ukraine," right? So Russia is constantly escalating, and that's what I meant with escalation dominance, and I said before.

LINDSAY:
So I guess the question is, is that a bluff or a threat?

FIX:
And at least part of that is a bluff, and that bluff, you have to call out. You cannot assume that everything is a threat, otherwise you're always going to be on the back foot.

LINDSAY:
Okay, I want to go to one other aspect of the Trump Administration's response, which goes back to the point you made about President Trump having imposed sanctions on India, reportedly because or officially because India was buying oil from Russia, though much of it had been worked out in a deal with prior American administration, because countries in Europe do need the oil and what have you. President Trump, I wouldn't say tweeted, I guess he posted on Truth Social that he wants to, or he has sent the letter to the European leaders, demanding that they impose sanctions on China and India for oil. That seems to be an unlikely occurrence. And I'll note the biggest importers of Russian oil happen to be Turkey and Hungary, which are the two countries in Europe or NATO that are in many ways ideologically closest to President Trump. What do you make of this new sanctions policy? Is it a genuine policy initiative, or is it something basically designed to push back on the Europeans?

FIX:
So there are two parts of it. One demand is that Europeans stop buying Russian oil and gas, especially LNG gas, right? And I mean, that's actually a justified demand. And if you ask me as a European, I'm happy that the United States is finally pushing for that, right? Because it gives European—

LINDSAY:
Well, why hasn't the United States pushed forward to this point?

FIX:
So it gives you Europeans leverage over Hungary, which so far has been reluctant. It actually has concluded new gas deals with Russia. At the same time, LNG, Europe has weaned itself off pipeline gas, but it has still used Russian LNG gas. So that's actually a welcome development. But the question is, and of course, I mean when it comes to China, it's impossible for Europeans to sanction China for that reason. I mean, they're sanctioning China for its support for Russia in terms of they're sanctioning banks, they're sanctioning Chinese companies and so on. But the scale of threat and punishment would just hurt Europeans too much economically. But it would also hurt if the United States would go down that path. It would also hurt the United States too much, right? So the concern here is—

LINDSAY:
Well, the Trump Administration would say, "Well, we have not imposed the maximum tariffs and sanctions on China that President Trump has alluded to or threatened. They have put a fair amount of tariffs in place and have acted in terms of economic coercion quite strongly against the Chinese."

FIX:
Yeah, but I mean, this would add to the current negotiations with China. And I don't think that the administration really wants this to be complicated by the Russia factor, right? Because I mean, China is the one country in those negotiations with the United States that the United States cannot just bully you, right? Because it is a peer country in terms of economic might and also in terms of—

LINDSAY:
Well, and it also has choke points it can inflict on some of the critical minerals.

FIX:
Exactly, so we've seen that before very, very clearly. We actually see that there are some concessions that the United States is making towards China when it comes to chips, when it comes to TikTok and social media, where we do not yet see a return for those concessions. But the point is that the concern is not that Europeans should finally fully get rid of Russian oil and gas. The concern is that this is a distraction by the White House to sort of say, "Well, you go first, and then perhaps at some point we follow," because of course, any pressure from the European side is good, but it's completely unmatched in terms of leverage by U.S. pressure on Russia if the United States would really go ahead. So I think that's the greatest concerns. Europeans can make this work, but will the United States really follow suit or will we just see another announcement of a two-week deadline before Russia will see actual pressure from the United States?

LINDSAY:
We've had at least four two-week deadlines by—

FIX:
I lost count.

LINDSAY:
... by last count. I may be off on that. But that raises the question, Liana, why do you think President Trump is reluctant to impose costs on Russia? And I ask that against the backdrop of two things. Number one, in almost all negotiations, you need to have leverage, and you can't really concede your way to an agreement. And two, Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who is the U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine, before entering the Trump Administration, had written a paper which I thought laid out the logic of how you would get about any ceasefire in Ukraine. And that is you have to, in essence, provide the Ukrainians with more support to show the Russians they can't win. And if you don't show the Russians they can't win, if they believe they can win, they have no incentive to negotiate in good faith. And I think that Lieutenant General Kellogg's analysis has been borne out over the last seven or eight months.

FIX:
Yeah, so there are multiple explanations of that, right? So the administration itself argues that there's not so much left that the United States can actually exert in terms of leverage on Russia—

LINDSAY:
Well, but the President has talked about these killing sanctions and tariffs he's going to impose.

FIX:
So that's his perspective, and his administration is saying, "Well, there's actually not so much we still can do, because economic pressure on Russia doesn't seem to work the way we wished it would work." Then, there's another explanation, which basically goes that in Donald Trump's worldview, there are no allies or partners, there are just countries that you have to deal with, less powerful countries and more powerful countries. And from the President's perspective, the two most powerful countries that are sort of on par with him are Russia and China.
And he wants to get along with those countries, he wants to make deals with those countries. He doesn't see those countries as necessarily competitors, as rivals, as adversaries. He sees those countries as negotiation partners and deal makers that he has to get along with. And that also explains why he's willing to put pressure on less powerful countries but is reluctant to put pressure on the most powerful countries, because as I said, he wants to make deals with those countries.
I think the counter argument to that is if the administration says, "We don't have that leverage left if you want to get along with Vladimir Putin, there's an easy way out to all of these solutions, to all of these problems. The easy way out is Ukraine. If you don't want to impose further tariffs on Russia, on Russia's partners, arm Ukraine and help Ukraine to increase military pressure on Russia," because that's the only scenario we've seen so far in three years that Russia has reacted to. If there has been a military pushback by Ukraine on the battlefield, we have seen a Russian reaction to that. Nothing else, not to the economic sanctions and so on. And if for domestic reasons, the United States doesn't want to spend money to arm Ukraine, because it contradicts the narrative of JD Vance and others that they don't want the United States to be involved in war, still—

LINDSAY:
Most of that money is actually spent in the United States because it's for U.S. weapons.

FIX:
That's one argument. The other argument is Europeans actually willing to buy those weapons for Ukraine, especially Germany has unlimited defense spending by now. They can buy a lot for Ukraine, and even if defense production in the United States is slow, you can scale this up. If you have a long-term agreement with Europeans to say, "Well, look, we are going to sell all those weapons to Europeans and then can sell it to Ukraine," this can also send signals to the U.S. industrial base to scale up the production. That is where there are a lot of bottlenecks right now, especially when it comes to Patriot missiles, air defense missiles, for example. So if you don't want to spend your own money, sell it, right? And that is, I think, the most logical pathway, to increase pressure on Russia, to make a gain for U.S. economic industry, for U.S. economy and industry. And it's a path that just seems logical to me, but that this administration has not fully explored yet.

LINDSAY:
On that note, I'll close up this episode of The President's Inbox. My guest has been Liana Fix, Senior Fellow for Europe here at the Council. If you're interested in learning more from Liana, check out a recent article on CFR.org with her colleague—our colleague—Erin Dumbacher. The piece is titled "Russia Tests NATO With Poland Drone Breach." Liana, thank you very much for joining me.

FIX:
Thanks for inviting me, Jim.

LINDSAY:
Today's episode was produced by Justin Schuster, Molly McAnany, and Markus Zakaria, with Director of Video Jeremy Sherlick, and Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special assistance for this episode was provided by Oscar Berry, Zak Frederick, and Bryan Mendives.