The Intricacies of U.S. Involvement for Israel and Ukraine
TIME Senior Correspondent Simon Shuster and Editor-At-Large Karl Vick explain the intricacies within the two biggest geopolitical conflicts in 2023 and how the U.S. plays a role in the future of these wars.
Transcript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:07 I'm Simon Schuster.
00:08 I've been covering Ukraine and Russia for about 15 years,
00:12 roughly 10 of those years for Time magazine.
00:16 And that's just been my focus pretty much my entire career.
00:19 I'm Carl Vick, an editor at large at Time,
00:23 which I joined in 2010 in order to run the Jerusalem
00:28 Bureau for Time.
00:30 So I was there for four years and been
00:33 covering the Middle East.
00:34 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:40 I think the similarities in the two wars
00:43 are all fairly superficial.
00:45 I think what they have in common is the imagery
00:48 that people see on their screens observing these wars.
00:53 But historically, in terms of the nature of the conflict,
00:59 the goals of the belligerence, I don't see what--
01:03 that they have much in common.
01:04 What they have in common is US involvement,
01:07 President Biden being involved, wanting
01:11 to arm one side in both conflicts.
01:15 And in his Oval Office speech, I think
01:19 he linked them by saying each was an attack on a democracy.
01:26 Hamas and Putin represent different threats,
01:28 but they share this in common.
01:30 They both want to completely annihilate
01:32 a neighboring democracy, completely annihilate it.
01:35 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:41 The US has, in the last few generations,
01:46 become basically the primary ally and sponsor of Israel.
01:52 It's got, at the State Department level
01:54 and every administration, maintained something
01:57 guaranteeing military superiority
02:00 for the Israeli military.
02:01 It's called qualitative military edge, I think.
02:07 They're the first country that gets our best weapons,
02:14 most advanced fighters.
02:16 Intelligence cooperation is almost hand in glove.
02:19 Ukraine would like to be in a similar position
02:22 vis-a-vis the United States.
02:24 I mean, already, I think the United States,
02:26 its level of support, its role in supporting Ukraine
02:29 is decisive.
02:31 One line that stands out in my most recent interview
02:34 with President Zelensky is he was describing a meeting
02:37 with US senators where they asked him,
02:39 if we don't give you the aid, if we don't give you the money,
02:42 what happens?
02:43 And he said, what happens is we will lose.
02:46 So that just gives you an idea of how decisive
02:49 the role of US support.
02:50 The president himself said this in a closed door setting,
02:54 but then he recalled it in a public setting
02:56 with me in our interview.
02:58 I've talked to a lot of people in President Zelensky's circle
03:02 and in the military leadership in Ukraine who--
03:04 and this is before the October 7th terrorist attacks
03:08 and the beginning of this latest war--
03:11 they aspire to become a partner to the United States
03:15 and to the Europeans like Israel.
03:16 They talk often about the Israeli model of development.
03:20 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:23 As I say, the country is really shaken.
03:33 It's really-- it feels like--
03:37 there was a poll done by Tel Aviv University
03:41 in the last weeks of October, and they asked people,
03:44 do you think the level of force that the Israeli military is
03:47 using in Gaza is too little, the right amount, too much?
03:52 I don't know.
03:53 58% of Jewish Israelis said they're not
03:56 using enough force in Gaza.
03:59 So the whole world is watching this war
04:02 through the footage of what's happening in Gaza
04:06 and all the many dead--
04:07 10,000 dead now.
04:10 Israelis are-- one, they really believe
04:14 that they have to reestablish their defense doctrine, which
04:18 is deterrence, which is if you hit us,
04:21 you'll be hit so hard it won't occur to you to hit us again
04:25 or anyone else to hit us again.
04:28 But they also do not see this conflict
04:31 through the way the rest of the world sees it.
04:35 The effect of the October 7th massacre
04:38 was so profound to a Jewish population that
04:42 has the strongest military in the region and one
04:46 of the strongest in the world.
04:48 But they don't see themselves that way.
04:51 They see themselves as vulnerable Jews
04:54 who spent 2,000 years without a home,
04:58 being chased from country to country
04:59 and victims of pogroms and things like the Holocaust.
05:03 So all of that uncertainty and insecurity
05:06 got reawakened and made fresh by the Hamas
05:10 attack and the atrocities that Hamas carried out.
05:17 And that-- I talked with therapists
05:19 who were dealing with survivors.
05:23 And these are left-wing, empathetic people
05:28 who generally would like--
05:29 she said, I always try to save some thoughts
05:32 for the Palestinians and what they're experiencing.
05:35 And they just don't have it this time.
05:38 And it's not that they're angry and it's revenge.
05:41 They're just-- their capacity for empathy
05:43 is totally exhausted, totally full.
05:45 They're at-- they cannot lift their gaze
05:47 from what's happened in their country
05:49 to what's going on in Gaza.
05:52 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:55 At about 20 months into the full-scale invasion,
05:59 when the entire country is effectively
06:01 a war zone susceptible to Russian missile
06:04 strikes and mass attacks, no one felt safe in those 20 months.
06:11 And I think one thing that stood out to me this time was
06:15 people felt tired.
06:16 It's a long time to be at war.
06:19 And I should say the desire, the resilience to achieve victory
06:27 is still overwhelming.
06:30 This is clear in opinion polls, where
06:33 the vast majority of Ukrainians say they will not
06:36 countenance any peace negotiations with Russia
06:39 that even consider territorial concessions,
06:42 giving away land to the Russians in exchange for peace.
06:45 Ukrainians are not ready to even consider that,
06:49 according to the opinion polls and according
06:51 to my conversations, too.
06:53 But still, the fatigue shows.
06:57 The economy is in terrible shape,
07:00 as you can imagine, a country where
07:03 there are no civilian flights.
07:05 The only way to travel around the country
07:07 is by train or by car, because the airspace
07:10 is full of fighter jets, missiles,
07:13 and anti-aircraft fire.
07:15 People wanted victory.
07:17 They were determined to keep fighting and making sacrifices
07:20 for the sake of victory.
07:22 But the fatigue was there.
07:25 People had to start, at some point,
07:28 thinking about themselves, their families, their savings,
07:31 their material well-being, the future.
07:36 I think a lot of people who left at the beginning
07:40 of the invasion had to make a decision,
07:42 am I going to come back and try to help my country,
07:46 or will I stay abroad and try to build a future for myself?
07:53 They also depend on the news.
07:55 President Zelensky is very wise to this,
07:58 that if there isn't some success that he, the authorities,
08:03 the military can point to, the mood within society
08:07 slowly goes toward fatigue, depression, sadness.
08:14 Whereas if he can demonstrate some victory,
08:16 even if it's not a strategic breakthrough,
08:18 but some victory on the battlefield,
08:20 that he can point to and say, look, we're winning.
08:22 We're kicking their butts.
08:23 We're kicking them out.
08:26 That helps.
08:27 That helps lift up the spirits of society.
08:30 That's been consistent throughout the invasion.
08:33 It's just, it feels like it's been a long time
08:36 since a major victory has raised the spirits
08:39 of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian leadership.
08:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]