Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
In this episode of One Decision, former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove and former CIA Director Leon Panetta bring a level of insight into the Trump–Putin summit you won’t find anywhere else. With decades of intelligence briefings, Cold War strategy, and high-stakes negotiations behind them, they assess whether Alaska is a bold bid for peace or a dangerous gamble. They discuss the lack of diplomatic groundwork, the dangers of excluding Kyiv, and the historical warning from Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler — plus what this meeting could mean for NATO unity and Taiwan.
Listen & Subscribe
- Watch on YouTube
- Listen on Apple Podcasts
- Listen on Spotify
Transcript
COLD OPEN
Panetta: I think that Trump understands that if he, in fact, capitulates to Putin in this summit and agrees to whatever Putin wants to achieve there, that the world would look at Trump as having totally caved in to a tyrant.
INTRODUCTION
Dearlove: Welcome to One Decision. I'm Sir Richard Dearlove, former chief of Britain's MI6. And today, we're on the eve of a big moment in foreign policy. Trump has invited Putin for a summit in Alaska, but there's a lot at stake here as the world awaits to see if this could actually be the end of this lethal war. Today, I'm fortunate enough to be able to share some expert analysis about what may come from the meeting with my cohost Leon Panetta, who, of course, is the former secretary of defense and CIA director. Leon, great to be with you again. There's huge anxiety here in Europe about what Trump is now actually doing. So what on earth is Trump up to? What are his objectives in inviting him to this meeting in Alaska?
INTERVIEW
Panetta: One of the things we're learning from Trump is that it's very difficult to determine whether he has any strategy on anything from tariffs to meetings with Putin. You would think that he's aware of the consequences of doing something like this and the implications that are coming out of this that raise concerns in Europe and raise concerns around the world as to ultimately what will happen here. Trump is doing what I think he has done in the past, which is to go ahead and have a summit. He did that with the head of North Korea three times without producing any results. And the fact that he's having a summit with Putin, I think, is something that he probably feels because he's a wheeler dealer going back to his real estate days, I think he thinks that that personal interaction that he can convince Putin to do what he would like him to do. But obviously, the rest of the world is very nervous because, while Trump has recognized that Putin has resisted a ceasefire and continues the war and continues to kill innocent men, women, and children, and he did impose 25% tariffs on India because they were buying Russian oil. And he has provided additional weapons to Ukraine to defend themselves, although it does go through this process of dealing with NATO, that there was a sense that Trump finally was beginning to understand what Putin is all about. And then suddenly, you know, he's kind of decided to go ahead with this summit, which raises a lot of concerns about whether or not he will in fact really produce the right result. Now I think the best news I've heard so far is that Trump was willing to have a call with the chancellor of Germany along with European leaders who wanted to strongly set pressure, Trump into pushing for a ceasefire, first and foremost, and then pushing for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
Dearlove: But do we have any indication of what that meeting with the Europeans actually produced. I mean, it was Merz, I think, who was responsible for initiating it. And, you know, I think some of us were relieved. Okay. He's gonna talk to Merz, and the main European leaders are involved. So he's gonna hear what they think. And I think Zelenskyy actually was gonna be present on that conversation too. But did it actually produce anything? Because the thing I think that we all are most concerned about is the fact that, I mean, in Alaska, Zelenskyy is not at the table. So how can you do a deal on Ukraine?
Panetta: I think that's true. There's a lot of concern that any kind of summit that deals with Ukraine ought to have Ukraine at the table. I think there are press reports that the Europeans stressed that there had to be a truce first, that there had to be a ceasefire, and then that there had to be a negotiation directly between Russia and Ukraine, and that there should be some understanding with regards to security guarantees for Ukraine. There's an indication that Trump basically concurred with the feelings that were being expressed. But at the same time, there still is a great deal of nervousness about just exactly what Trump will produce as a result of this summit. So, look, I think the bottom line is that this is very unpredictable. We're not sure what may or may not come out of this summit. I think the best that could come out is that there's an agreement on a ceasefire and an agreement that Russia and Ukraine should have separate negotiations to work out a more long term solution, and that the issues of land, the issues of security would be decided in those negotiations. The worst thing that could happen is that if there is no agreement to a ceasefire and Trump basically takes Russia's position that they ought to swap land in order to proceed with any kind of negotiation, that will mean one thing and one thing only, which is that the war in Ukraine will continue.
Dearlove: Yeah. I mean, talking to some of my Ukrainian contacts, the comment they make to me is we don't need Trump's help to surrender, if you see what I mean. And I think in a way that, you know, is the sort of bottom line for the Ukrainians. There's no indication at all that the Ukrainians are prepared to yield territory de jure to the Russians. I mean, they may accept the fact that there are parts of the country that they're very unlikely to get back. But, I mean, basically, if that's the case, you would be heading for a sort of North Korea, South Korea demarcation, you know, where you have a truce in a war which has never ended. I think a lot of people don't understand that, you know, the line, the DMZ, the demilitarization between North and South Korea is the last cold war line in the world, which is an unresolved conflict. And, okay, I think we can all accept the logic of Ukraine ending up in a situation where some of their territory is occupied, but we don't recognize de jure the Russian occupation. But we sort of accept the practicality that they're not going to get the territory back. But it seems to me that we're a hell of a long way from actually that sort of agreement, because I think you and I understand in terms of sort of off the record negotiations that should precede these sorts of summits. There's no preliminary to this negotiation at all. I mean, Witkoff doesn't count. You and I, I think, understand that that doesn't count. You know, you're gonna have a team of Sherpas who go there, and this is like, you know, six weeks, eight weeks, two months of detailed negotiation, which then maybe is sort of rubber stamped at a summit, and we're miles away from that sort of situation.
Panetta: Well, you know, I think the problem that makes everyone nervous is that president Trump, although, you know, he's indicated that the war needs to come to an end and that the killing needs to stop, does not have a good grasp of the facts that are involved here. But there obviously is this desire to try to achieve some kind of ceasefire. I believe that that would be a good thing, particularly in light of all the killing that's going on. I think there ought to be a ceasefire. If there is a ceasefire without any other agreements with regards to the elements and conditions of a longer term solution, I think that would be a good thing to at least allow the parties to come together and try to determine whether or not there is a basis on which to resolve this war. That would be the best result. And I think the problem we all see is that Trump has been asking for a ceasefire. Zelenskyy has agreed to a ceasefire, but Putin has resisted a ceasefire and continued the war.
Dearlove: Yeah. Well, in the last few days, as I understand it, there's been a big Russian push down in the South.
Panetta: Yeah. In the Donetsk area, they are actually trying to push forward with an action to try to gain more territory in that area at the very time that there's going to be this meeting in Alaska, which tells you a lot about where Putin is coming from on this. Putin is not about to agree to any kind of negotiation because Putin right now thinks he's in the driver's seat, and that Trump is weak when it comes to dealing with Ukraine and that he ultimately can get his way with Trump. I think that's the concern. But Trump can also kinda play all sides of an issue. We've seen that with tariffs. He's gonna impose huge tariffs, and then he agrees to a ninety day extension. He's been off and on. He's very unpredictable when it comes to dealing with tariffs. And the fact is even with Ukraine, although, you know, he initially appeared to embrace Putin's arguments, he recognized that Putin is the individual who's preventing a ceasefire from happening. And I think that Trump understands that if he, in fact, capitulates to Putin in this summit and agrees to whatever Putin wants to achieve there, that the world would look at Trump as having totally caved in to a tyrant and would weaken his approach to dealing with others in the world. I think he prides himself on trying to achieve peace. He prides himself on trying to, you know, to be a player in the world. But if he basically caves into Putin and caves into this tyrant after this individual has invaded a sovereign democracy, I don't think there's any question that the world will view it as a total capitulation, and it will send a hell of a message to Xi in China with regards to Taiwan, whether or not Trump would really step in and try to prevent an invasion of Taiwan. So it would be disastrous for American foreign policy if that happened. And I do think that there are people that understand that it could damage his image as president.
Dearlove: Well, I think that's absolutely the case, and I agree with you. But I'm trying to imagine, you know, what the situation would be if you and I were still in office, if you see what I mean. There would be significant quantities, intelligence reports, indicating, you know, what the buildup was. And my feeling, and it is a feeling, and I'm not saying, you know, I've had official briefings or anything, is that on the Russian side, although they're hidden from us, there are significant weaknesses in the administration. Now, okay, on the battlefield, they're getting better at fighting. They've learned a lot of tough lessons, and they're making small tactical gains at massive cost. But, actually, if you project back to the Kremlin, I think that Putin is probably in a pretty tough place. He can't, as it were, have a happy relationship with the general staff of the Russian army. And, okay, maybe some of the cronies around him are supporting him. But within the Kremlin, given, you know, where this started three years ago, I think we can be confident in making the judgment that he's in a pretty tricky situation himself. But at the same time, he's not showing any sort of reverse gear or compromise on his original Ukrainian objectives. Now Zelenskyy has his own problems too. We've seen that with the corruption issue on which he quickly backed down sensibly. There are people within Zelenskyy's orbit who are not entirely happy with his leadership. So, you know, on both sides, there are areas of weakness, and, you know, we tend not to take that into account. And I just wonder who has got the less stable foundations underneath them politically.
Panetta: Well, you know, I think Richard, you and I operate by a different playbook.
Dearlove: Probably we do.
Panetta: I mean, you know, normally when I was chief of staff to Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton was going to sit down and negotiate with or meet with a foreign leader or a foreign adversary, there would be a tremendous amount of preparation, not only in the intelligence reports, but also as to what the objectives of the meeting ought to be and what the position of the president ought to be. There'd be a, you know, the secretary of state would play a role, secretary of defense would play a role, CIA director would play a role. There would be a lot of preparation. Trump is not that kind of president. He doesn't want strong advisers in the room. He always operates on the basis that his own instincts are better than anyone else's advice or experience. I agree with you. Putin enters this summit with a lot of weakness, not only in terms of the casualties and the deaths that have been suffered by the Russian military. I mean, it's atrocious, the number of people that have been sacrificed on the battlefield and continue to be sacrificed on the battlefield along with North Koreans as well, not just Russians, but North Koreans as well. Secondly, it's impacted on his economy. Thirdly, it's impacted on Russia's ability to try to convey any kind of leadership with regards to dealing with the rest of the world. He's been weakened. He's considered a war criminal because of the way he's conducted this war. So, Russia is not in a good place right now. And I think the real question is gonna be whether Trump senses that that's the case and that it's an opportunity to kind of force his hand at this point. If Trump walked into that room and was very tough with Putin and basically said, you're in a bad position. You're the aggressor here. You are not gonna succeed in Ukraine. United States is not gonna allow you to succeed. That would be the kind of language that Putin then understands, in terms of what his position would be. So whether or not the president is strong enough to make those kinds of direct statements, and feels comfortable doing it, I don't know. The other problem with this summit is, like past summits, when you have a summit with leaders, normally, there are people in the room that are taking notes and that then make clear to the rest of the world, and particularly, in this case, to America, just exactly what the president of the United States had to say to Putin. He doesn't allow that. And so whatever happens in that room in Alaska, not a lot of people are gonna know the particulars of it. And they'll both come out. They'll both kind of try to play whatever sound bites they wanna play, but no one will be very certain about just exactly what happened in that room. And that's not healthy for our foreign policy. It's not healthy, frankly, for the world, not to be able to know what these two leaders talked about.
Dearlove: You've probably met Putin, I certainly did, with Blair. And, you know, one has some sort of view of this character. But it's quite likely that Trump comes out of this meeting with nothing to deliver. If he does, what next? I mean, my playbook, and yours probably, is similar, that Putin understands one thing, which is coercion. The United States has the power to coerce, whether it's on the battlefield or whether it's secondary sanctions if China were to be pulled in in the way that India has been on secondary sanctions. So there are a lot of levers left that the US has to put pressure on Russia to come back to the negotiating table, but in a position which is a realistic one, which reflects the weakness, which you and I feel he probably has already. But Putin is not going to demonstrate that at this particular meeting, in my view. It's premature because there's been no buildup to it.
Panetta: I agree with that. I don't think he's gonna get tough in that meeting. And I think the reason that that's not gonna happen is because Trump has been delaying pulling the trigger on Putin for these last number of months when he's seen what Putin has done, when he's seen that Putin has ignored the ceasefire and that he continues this war. And it did appear that Trump himself recognized that economic sanctions ought to be placed on Russia and that Russia should be penalized. I really think Trump would have gained some stature in any kind of summit if he had taken a tough stance on sanctions a long time ago. Not now, but a long time ago if he had come down hard on sanctions on Russia. I don't know that there's gonna be anything that comes out of this summit that will be positive in terms of the future direction of what happens with the war in Ukraine. I think if anything, Trump will basically say the parties just don't agree. There will not be a ceasefire, and the war will continue.
Dearlove: If the war continues, which is my expectation as it seems to be yours, I mean, it's clear that the European support for Ukraine is gonna be a much bigger deal, particularly with Germany maybe stepping up its contributions under Merz. And of course, you know, we all know about Germany's defense build up, which is a big shift in German policy. But is Trump going to allow the Europeans to lead, or will Trump put in sort of new resources to support the Ukrainian effort? I mean, it's been suggested to me that there are a lot of things that the Americans could still do without great cost. I mean, you've got tons of aircraft sitting in the desert unused, which could have their avionics quickly updated. I mean, there are a lot of things that could be done to support the Ukrainians, which would, as it were, maybe bring Putin back to the negotiating table in a different frame of mind. I think the worry that underwrites your and our discussion is that nothing has been done that we can observe to sort of put real hard pressure on Putin to make concessions. I've seen no evidence whatsoever. There's no reverse gear on his policy. There's no indication he's compromised on any of his original objectives in invading Ukraine.
Panetta: You and I know from intelligence, from our dealings directly, that Putin cannot be trusted. If Trump wants to be able to get any kind of credit here and assuming that Putin does not agree to a ceasefire, then I think the best course of action for Trump is to make clear that we're gonna continue to provide weapons, that we're gonna provide additional weapons if necessary, and that we will do whatever is necessary to make clear that Russia will not succeed in Ukraine, and we'll encourage our NATO allies to basically continue to do what they're doing. I actually give credit to the European countries for having pulled together in light of Trump's very uncertain approach to dealing with Ukraine. They've pulled together. They've made clear they're gonna continue to support Ukraine. They continue to support Zelenskyy. I think they're doing the right thing. And I think the combination of NATO plus the United States is really the kind of message that ought to be sent to Putin because the only thing Putin understands is force.
Dearlove: I wish he did understand the language of diplomacy, but he doesn't. One final issue, which, I mean I'm equivocal about in my own mind, is would you, Leon, support Ukrainian membership of NATO, or do you think that it's a hinge and that full membership is not really on the cards, which seems to be the position of the Trump administration? I mean, I certainly have reservations about Ukraine actually being in NATO.
Panetta: The key is security guarantees for Ukraine, and that can take a lot of different forms. But if the United States makes clear that the United States will support Ukraine in terms of any kind of future moves by Russia to try to take control of Ukraine, and NATO joins that commitment and says we will continue to support Ukraine, will continue to provide security protections for Ukraine. I don't know that you have to proceed to a full membership with regards to NATO. I think the real key here are that any kind of recognition of areas that ought to go to Russia or areas that they already in the Donetsk area, that area there, plus the fact that they've already gone into Crimea, and we basically just would acknowledge that although Crimea is still Ukraine, that Russia can still use Crimea. It's that kind of negotiation combined with these security guarantees that I think could ultimately end this war. But we're not there yet. I don't think we'll be there on Friday, and I'm afraid that it's gonna take some additional months of lost lives on both sides in order to finally recognize that they have to find a ceasefire, and they have to find a way to continue to resolve the issues between Ukraine and Russia. I don't know that Trump can deliver that. He can't deliver peace in Gaza, and he's not been able to deliver peace in Ukraine, and I don't think it's going to happen on Friday.
LESSONS FROM HISTORY
Dearlove: I think I agree with you on that. But the one thing that still really surprises me, and given that my career was really shaped by the Cold War, is that, you know, we have this extreme and intense conflict in Central Europe and it's remained within the borders of Ukraine. I mean, that I do find incredibly surprising historically. I mean, you would ask me to sort of speculate and predict that the West would be backing part of the former Soviet Union, fighting against Moscow, and this would not escalate into a European or a global conflict. I would never have imagined it. So the reason I'm injecting that is that historically, for some of us, it's pretty extraordinary that this conflict, which is so intense it's like a civil war really has been contained and hasn't actually spread outside the boundaries of Ukraine. I still find that incredibly surprising.
Panetta: I was a child during World War II, and I never thought in my lifetime that I would see another invasion by a tyrant of a sovereign democracy in Europe. And yet that happened. You know, there are some clear lessons from history here that we need to pay attention to. And the reality is that there was an effort prior to World War II by Chamberlain to basically appease Hitler in Munich, and it failed. There was a great deal of concern, obviously, about whether or not what was happening with Hitler in Europe would lead to World War II and to war in Britain. And so the prime minister ultimately met with Hitler in Munich, and they agreed that Hitler could take control of Czechoslovakia, and that it would end there. And in exchange for that agreement to allow Hitler to proceed in Czechoslovakia,
Dearlove: that there would be peace. The prime minister returned to England and waved a piece of paper as he got off the aircraft and said, I have here Hitler's signature on this paper guaranteeing peace in Europe.
Panetta: And said that this represents peace in our time. And, obviously, it wasn't long after that that Hitler marched into Poland. And ultimately, World War II happened. If there's an effort in Alaska for Trump to try to appease Putin, that will be viewed as a very similar situation to what happened in Munich, and that will guarantee that the war will continue.
Dearlove: Leon, when you were head of CIA and also defense secretary with Obama, can you look back and give us some view of how the relationship with Putin developed and worked out? Because it clearly was a pretty difficult period.
Panetta: There's been a lot of past history here that keeps getting played out every time we deal with Putin. You know, one of the arguments goes back to the fall of the Soviet Union. The effort then to take countries that were part of the former Soviet Union and bring them into NATO, that, if there had been something worked out with Russia that would have either allowed Russia to be part of NATO, for goodness sakes, or they had worked out some agreement there that might have prevented the Putins of the world from going out and going after the Ukraines of the world. There have been negotiations. I mean, as chief of staff with Bill Clinton, Putin wasn't around, and the Soviet Union had collapsed. There was a tremendous opportunity to try to hopefully get a new Russia into a better situation in terms of dealing with Europe, and dealing generally with the rest of the world. That never happened. It collapsed. There's a lot of reasons for that. And there have been presidents that have also tried to develop new approaches to trying to deal. I mean, Obama had a pretty good relationship with Medvedev, but ultimately, Putin took his place, and we went back to literally a cold war. So there's been a lot of ups and downs in the situation. But the one thing every president has understood since World War II is that you do not give in to tyrants and that you maintain a strong alliance of nations to make clear that won't happen. We now have a president that hasn't really made that same kind of commitment, and that's why we have a lot of uncertainty as to what will happen in his meeting with Putin.
Dearlove: I think that's a good point on which maybe to end our discussion. Thank you.
Mccann: And that is it for this week's edition of One Decision. For more conversations like this one with leading experts in their field and world leaders too, you can check out onedecision.com and our YouTube page, of course, where you'll find additional videos, short stuff, commentaries, and explainers. I'm Kate McCann. Thanks for listening.
